Bidirectional Chat Server using gRPC in Go

Tech stack:

• gRPC server (protobuf to go file)
• Go

General workflow:

Following build steps are just for initial setup and not needed to execute as the steps have been executed and application can be executed directly using Go.

1. Generate go.mod via go mod init grpcChatServer
2. Create chat.proto file and chat_server folder
3. Install following dependencies based on OS:
   • protobuf
   • protoc-gen-go
   • protoc-gen-go-grpc
4. Generate following in chat_server folder from chat.proto file via protoc --go-grpc_out=require_unimplemented_servers=false:./chat_server/ --go_out=./chat_server/ chat.proto:
   • chat_grpc.pb.go
   • chat.pb.go
5. Install google.golang.org/grpc using go get command.
6. Create chat_server.go as main server function to forward and route client message.
7. Create server.go as gRPC server.
8. Create client.go as client that connected to gRPC server and send and receive message.
9. Application at client and server side will terminate once connection is disconnected.

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Installation

1. Before start, hosting machine should be installed with Go

2. Data Structure - chat.proto

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Execution

1. Git clone this repository to local and open with your preferred IDE.
2. Open a terminal and execute go run server.go. Alternatively, execute env PORT=9000 go run server.go to change port number to 9000. Default port is 8080.
3. Open another terminal and execute go run client.go
4. Key in host address [localhost] with corresponding port stated in Step 2.
5. Key in username and start sending message.
6. Repeat step 3 and 5 for another clients or more.
7. All clients should received the message sent by other clients which simulated the chat server.