Question

The client connects to the server using GenuineChannels (we are considering switching to DotNetRemoting). What I mean by find is obtain the IP and port number of a server to connect to.

It seems like a brute-force approach would be try every IP on the network try the active ports (not even sure if that’s possible) but there must be a better way.

Answer 1

Consider broadcasting a specific UDP packet. When the server or servers see the broadcasted UDP packet they send a reply. The client can collect the replies from all the servers and start connecting to them or based on an election algorithm.

See example for client (untested code):

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using System.Net; using System.Net.Sockets;  [STAThread] static void Main(string[] args) {     Socket socket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork,     SocketType.Dgram, ProtocolType.Udp);     socket.Bind(new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 8002));     socket.Connect(new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Broadcast, 8001));     socket.Send(System.Text.ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes('hello'));      int availableBytes = socket.Available;     if (availableBytes > 0)     {         byte[] buffer = new byte[availableBytes];         socket.Receive(buffer, 0, availableBytes, SocketFlags.None);         // buffer has the information on how to connect to the server     } }