ascii-chat

A terminal-based peer-to-peer (P2P) end-to-end-encrypted (E2EE) video chat application with text messaging and audio support.

Installation

Note: ascii-chat is tested to work on Ubuntu 16.04 and macOS 10.12

Note: ascii-chat will NOT work on the CS 3110 Course VM, because it does not have the requisite webcam drivers!

The provided install script can be used to install the necessary OPAM packages for building ascii-chat.

Usage: ./install.sh

OpenCV

OpenCV is required as a dependency in order to obtain images from the user's webcam. Scripts are provided for automated building and installation on Mac and Linux.

To build OpenCV manually, use ./install-opencv-unix.sh.
To build OpenCV on Mac using Homebrew, use ./install-opencv-osx.sh.

Usage

As Host

To run ascii-chat as a participant for the chat, enter the command:

./ascii-chat <encryption_key>

where encryption_key is the same key as that used by all other participants.

As Participant

To run ascii-chat as the host user for the chat, enter the command:

./ascii-chat <encryption_key> -host <host_ip:host_port>

where encryption_key is a pre-shared key between all participants, and host_ip:host_port is the network address of the host user.