Discover Web Service in local private network with javascript

user_8267332 0
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I searched for a few options on my issue but couldn't find any useful information unfortunately.

Here is my issue:

Suppose I have 1x computer that runs a rest service on a specific port lets say 5555, running in a private network.

Now I have a frontend/browser application (javascript) that could be opened with a mobile phone or computer. When a device is connected to the same network (suppose wireless) and opens the frontend application it should discover in any way the rest service of the other computer, but I can't find a solution to that challenge.

So I can't find the sevices' ipv4 in the network since the webRTC workaround got smashed. I would have to traverse all possible private ip ranges to find that running service, which seems like an overkill.

Anyone got any idea how to solve this challenge?

service-discovery rest web-services networking javascript
2 Answers

Most web apps actually use the port-scan approach, which you are trying to avoid. I could think of some other approaches:

  • Have the service also publish an mDNS service under a specific name, e.g. foo.local. Your web app can simply have a static configuration using that hostname. This will, hovewer, require you to be able to control the service and your network/host need to be capable of using mDNS.
  • Require the admin of the service to register the local IP adress in a public DNS server. This will require manual config of the URL in the web app, but you can at least avoid dealing with discovering the address.
user_61526060

What you are talking about is sort of network scan, which is a security issue if you can do it, though it is usually possible in home networks. I would add a DNS server for that local network and use a local domain name to access the service. I don't know any other standard way to propagate where the service is.

user_6070330
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