## # Custom protocol in libp2p ## ## In the [previous tutorial](tutorial_1_connect.md), we've looked at how to create a simple ping program using the `nim-libp2p`. ## ## We'll now look at how to create a custom protocol inside the libp2p ## ## Let's create a `part2.nim`, and import our dependencies: import chronos import stew/byteutils import libp2p ## This is similar to the first tutorial, except we don't need to import the `Ping` protocol. ## ## Next, we'll declare our custom protocol const TestCodec = "/test/proto/1.0.0" type TestProto = ref object of LPProtocol ## We've set a [protocol ID](https://docs.libp2p.io/concepts/protocols/#protocol-ids), and created a custom `LPProtocol`. In a more complex protocol, we could use this structure to store interesting variables. ## ## A protocol generally has two parts: a handling/server part, and a dialing/client part. ## These two parts can be identical, but in our trivial protocol, the server will wait for a message from the client, and the client will send a message, so we have to handle the two cases separately. ## ## Let's start with the server part: proc new(T: typedesc[TestProto]): T = # every incoming connections will in be handled in this closure proc handle(conn: Connection, proto: string) {.async.} = # Read up to 1024 bytes from this connection, and transform them into # a string echo "Got from remote - ", string.fromBytes(await conn.readLp(1024)) # We must close the connections ourselves when we're done with it await conn.close() return T.new(codecs = @[TestCodec], handler = handle) ## This is a constructor for our `TestProto`, that will specify our `codecs` and a `handler`, which will be called for each incoming peer asking for this protocol. ## In our handle, we simply read a message from the connection and `echo` it. ## ## We can now create our client part: proc hello(p: TestProto, conn: Connection) {.async.} = await conn.writeLp("Hello p2p!") ## Again, pretty straightforward, we just send a message on the connection. ## ## We can now create our main procedure: proc main() {.async.} = let rng = newRng() testProto = TestProto.new() switch1 = newStandardSwitch(rng = rng) switch2 = newStandardSwitch(rng = rng) switch1.mount(testProto) await switch1.start() await switch2.start() let conn = await switch2.dial(switch1.peerInfo.peerId, switch1.peerInfo.addrs, TestCodec) await testProto.hello(conn) # We must close the connection ourselves when we're done with it await conn.close() await allFutures(switch1.stop(), switch2.stop()) # close connections and shutdown all transports ## This is very similar to the first tutorial's `main`, the only noteworthy difference is that we use `newStandardSwitch`, which is similar to the `createSwitch` of the first tutorial, but is bundled directly in libp2p ## ## We can now wrap our program by calling our main proc: waitFor(main()) ## And that's it! ## In the [next tutorial](tutorial_3_protobuf.md), we'll create a more complex protocol using Protobuf.