my-chat-app

A simple TCP chat-server that accepts clients that connect to it over TCP. You can use netcat or ncat to connect to the server.

This chat server can do 5 things:

1. Broadcast messages from any client to all other connected clients (like how you would expect a chat room to work).
2. Upon connecting prompt the client for their nickname.

• This nickname is case-sensitive and must be unique on the server.
• If the nickname is already taken the server should tell the user to choose a new nickname.

3. Upon entering a valid nickname, the server should:

• send the last 10 lines of chat in the chat room,
• broadcast that the user has connected to the other clients
• send a list of users that are currently connected to the just-connected client.

4. Upon disconnecting, the server should:

• broadcast that the user has disconnected.

5. If the user is "@mentioned", meaning the message contains @theirnickname, a BEL ('\a') character should be sent to the client that is connected with that nickname.

Example Interaction:

< Welcome to my chat server! What is your nickname?
Peter
< You are connected with 3 other users: [Tammy, Betty, King]
< Retrieving lastest 3 messages in the chat server ...
< [03:36:08] <Tammy> Hi guys
< [03:36:13] <Tammy> How are you doing today
< [03:36:24] <King> Great!!
< [03:38:50] <Betty> Nice to meet you all
Nice to meet you too!
< [03:40:24] <Tammy> Glad to be here

Pre-requisite

1. You have Node and git installed
2. You have either netcat or ncat installed

Install dependencies

My-chat-app

1. Running the following to install necessary dependencies for my-chat-app

npm install

2. Done

Connection Client

Mac user

netcat or nc in pre-installed in Terminal.

Linux user

netcat or nc might have been pre-installed in Terminal. If not, run apt update && apt install -y netcat.

Windows user

It is recommended to install ncat from https://nmap.org/ncat/. After downloading the zip file, follow the steps below to complete the installation

1. Unzip the downloaded ncap zip file.
2. Go to directory with ncat.exe.
3. Open start menu and search for "Edit the System environment variables" -> Environment Variables.
4. For "System variables", scroll down to look for "Path".
5. Double click "Path", click "New" to add the directory where ncat.exe is placed or move ncat.exe to one of the path in "Path".

Run my-chat-app

1. Run the following to start my-chat-app

npm run prod

2. Done

Connect to my-chat-app

Using Netcat / nc as connection client

1. Connect to my-chat-app with host name "localhost" and port "3000"

netcat localhost 3000

Using ncat as connection client

1. Open Terminal, cd to the directory of ncat.exe if you haven't placed it to one of the environmental variables
2. Connect to my-chat-app

ncat localhost 3000

Docker

I created Dockerfile and added scripts in package.json to allow building docker image for my-chat-app and also run it in Docker container. If you have Docker installed, please try out this section!

Docker for my-chat-app server

Building Docker image

1. Build docker image with the Dockerfile

npm run docker-build

2. Done

Running my-chat-app in Docker container

For Mac/Linux,

npm run docker-start

For Windows,

npm run docker-start-win

Running my-chat-app in Docker container in the background

For Mac/Linux,

npm run docker-start-bkg

For Windows,

npm run docker-start-bkg-win

Stop and remove my-chat-app Docker container

1. This will remove the my-chat-app container completely

npm run docker-stop

2. Done

[BETA] Docker for connection client, netcat

Building Docker image

1. Build docker image for netcat client using Dockerfile-client

npm run docker-client-build

2. Done

Running netcat in Docker container

npm run docker-client-start
Cmd line: <local ip address or ip address of docker container of my-chat-app> 3000

To find out docker container ip address of my-chat-app, if you run npm run docker-start or npm run docker-start-win, the IP address will be shown like below

> my-chat-app@1.0.0 start
> nodemon server.js

[nodemon] 2.0.6
[nodemon] to restart at any time, enter `rs`
[nodemon] watching path(s): _._
[nodemon] watching extensions: js,mjs,json
[nodemon] starting `node server.js`
Server is up and can be connected through 172.17.0.2:3000

Logs

By default, logs are saved in log directory.

Test

1. Install dev dependencies

npm install --dev

2. Start testing using jest

npm run test

3. There should be 8 tests to be passed.
4. If all tests are passed, done

Development

1. if you haven't installed any dependencies

npm install

2. Install dev dependencies npm install --dev
3. Start development with nodemon

npm run start

Licence

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2020 gareth0712

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.