google-app-enginewebrtcchannelsignaling

Creating a channel for webRTC video chat


I've been following the HTML5rocks webRTC guide and I have the Javascript set up as described, however the guide is not clear on how to receive a channelToken, roomKey, and User ID. The guide says,

"Note that values used in the JavaScript, such as the room variable and the token used by openChannel(), are provided by the Google App Engine app itself: take a look at the index.html template in the repository to see what values are added."

Unfortunately the link provided is no good and I'm left with very little information regarding the most essential step in this process. The guide isn't clear about whether or not the Google App Engine is a necessary component and I don't see why it should be. I have searched the web in an attempt to find a more useful source, but I was unsuccessful. I also took a look at the webRTC Demo(https://apprtc.appspot[dot]com), that too was no help seeing that the channel information is generated server side. I feel like I should just be able to make a simple http request to some Google server and then run from there. Any information regarding my problem would be much appreciated.


Solution

  • Apologies: the code for this example has been moved to here.

    (Been meaning to update the article, but haven't had a chance...)

    The apprtc.appspot example uses the Channel API on App Engine for signaling, but there are lots of other ways to do this. Signaling mechanisms are not defined by the WebRTC spec. (Note that signaling, which is accomplished via a signaling service, is the exchange of network and media metadata in order to set up a WebRTC 'call': the actual data is communicated directly between peers.)

    We ran a codelab at Google I/O, which describes from start to finish how to build a video chat application that uses Socket.io on Node.js for signaling (it's very simple!) You might want to try that instead.