Search for running ICE-servers on the LAN

renzo

Hi,
I need to develop an application that must display hosts' IP (in the given range) on which the ICE-server is running.
For example, previously the SNMP protocol used for this purpose. All hosts were pinged by SNMP-agent and if the responce is recieved then SNMP is running. Now I want to replace SNMP by ICE.
Is there a correct way to implement search for hosts with running ICE-server?

benoit

Hi,

You'll need to implement the discovery yourself. If your network support it, you could use Ice multicast support (demo/Ice/multicast from your Ice demo distribution as an example). Another strategy would be to scan a range of IP addresses by trying to connect to each IP individually on a pre-defined port. You can use AMI and timeouts to ensure the discovery doesn't take too long.

Cheers,
Benoit.

renzo

Thanks for your answer, Benoit

Now, I use the following simple code for it:

// ...
# define ICESERVER             "IceServer"
# define ICESERVER_PORT        9871
// ...
bool isAvailable( const QHostAddress &addr, const QSet <int>& openports ) const
{
        Q_UNUSED(openports);
        Ice::CommunicatorPtr communicator = Ice::initialize();
        Ice::ObjectPrx proxy;
        QString proxy_str;
        proxy_str = QString(ICESERVER).append(":tcp -h ").append(addr.toString()).append(" -p ").append(ICESERVER_PORT);
        try
        {
            proxy = communicator->stringToProxy(proxy_str.toStdString());
            proxy = proxy->ice_timeout(1000);
            proxy->ice_ping();
        }
        catch(const Ice::Exception& ex)
        {
            communicator->destroy();
            return false;
        }
        communicator->destroy();
        return true;
}

I try to ping the server and if the exception throws then server isn't running

benoit

Hi,

Creating a communicator for a single ice_ping call is a bit costly. I recommend to create a single communicator for the lifetime of your application and re-use it instead.

Cheers,
benoit.

renzo

Thanks for the tip! I'll consider it!