FedChat

End-to-End chat federation prototype

Federation refers to different machines agreeing upon a set of standards to operate in a collective fashion. In the context of communication, chat applications can be federated for decentralization, thereby allowing a large number of users to communicate with each other while being connected to different servers, which themselves interact with each other for universal connectivity. Kind of like how email works with SMTP.

Architecture

Registration of newly-joined homeserver

	 _____________		   ________________
	|	      |    ip	  |		   | emit to all connected home servers
	|  Homeserver | --------> | Central Server |----------------------------------->
	|_____________|		  |________________|

Messaging

   		 ________          ____________		 ____________	       ________
		|        |        |            |        |	     |	      |	       |
   		| Client | <----> | Homeserver | <----> | Homeserver | <----> | Client |
   		|________|        |____________|        |____________|	      |________|

Whenever a homeserver is created, it emits its IP address to the central server. The job of the central server is to simply relay this information to all connected homeservers.

Setup

Install the package using go get.

 go get github.com/c0dzilla/FedChat/src

To run a homeserver and connect to the broader federation network:
```
 cd $GOPATH/bin
 ./src -address=<IP address of central server>
```
If the IP of central server is not supplied to the homeserver, it works as a standalone chat. Hence, to run as a simple chat application:
```
 cd $GOPATH/bin
 ./chat
```
Homeservers run at port 8080 by default.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Feel free to open an issue or file a pull request.