TURN server

For most WebRTC applications to function a server is required for relaying the traffic between peers, since a direct socket is often not possible between the clients (unless they reside on the same local network). The common way to solve this is by using a TURN server. The term stands for Traversal Using Relays around NAT, and it is a protocol for relaying network traffic.

There are currently several options for TURN servers available online, both as self-hosted applications (like the open-source COTURN project) and as cloud provided services.

Once you have a TURN server available online, all you need is the correct RTCConfiguration for your client application to use it. The following code snippet illustrates a sample configuration for a RTCPeerConnection where the TURN server has the hostname my-turn-server.mycompany.com and is running on port 19403. The configuration object also support the username and credential properties for securing the access to the server. These are required when connecting to a TURN server.

const iceConfiguration = {
    iceServers: [
        {
            urls: 'turn:my-turn-server.mycompany.com:19403',
            username: 'optional-username',
            credential: 'auth-token'
        }
    ]
}

const peerConnection = new RTCPeerConnection(iceConfiguration);