How to build Opera unite like functionality using .NET?
When we run opera browser and enable the opera unite then it shares our desktop on web and we can access it over internet without having a static IP, how does this works?
You need to map your dynamic IP to some static DNS name. One easy to use solution would be a DynDNS service. For these you get a small client program (or good routers already have a dyn dns client already implemented), that simply maps your current ip address to a specfic dns name.
After getting this done it depends on how variable you like it: - Do you have one master that should be able to look on various client PCs for help? - Do you like to connect two clients which are both have dynamic ips?
In the first case your master is the one how always ensure to map his current ip address to the dns name. On the router maybe some port forwarding is needed and your clients get a vnc client with reverse mode enabled. This allows everyone to built up a connection to your master and sharing the desktop without any changes on the client site. Only on the master site has something to be done (dynDns and port forwarding).
In the second case it is a little bit more complicated. Now you got two dynamic IPs that like to connect to each other. This is normally be done through some kind of mediator. Means both machine connect to some master (reachable through some DNS name). Now both machines have a bi-directional connection to the master and the master will simply take the data from the first client and forwards it to the second and vice versa. To take all the burden from the master it would be possible that the master in a first step sends the ip address of client A to B and vice versa. Then in a first step both trying to connect to each other directly. This method is known as UDP hole punching and does not always work, which then leads to a fallback to use the master instead.
Two examples that are using the second approach are Skype and join.me.
All these techniques don't have to do anything with .Net. It is pure knowledge about ethernet, TCP/IP, internet, etc. And due to the fact that you have to do a lot of work in this low-level area i would think that C# is not the ideal framework to accomplish this task. Maybe to put the GUI as last step over it all, but for the real work behind the scenes you need some decent network know-how which is mostly independent from the programming language you are using.
You should run your own DNS server. And whenever an user opens the browser and logs in, you should send the current IP address of the user to your server and update in your local DNS. Since you will have only a subdomain (desktop.operaunitecom), whenever someone hit your url it first goes to operaunite DNS server from where it will fetch your IP address. When the user's session closes you should remove the DNS entry. This could be a possible solution.
