Add more examples

[dadepo]

Description

I'll like to start contributing to rust-libp2p. A way I think I could use to get my feet wet is to add more examples of how to use rust-libp2p.

I am thinking of porting some of the examples in js-libp2p that are not present here and which I think are interesting enough.

Before I go ahead, I'll like to ask if this is a welcome contribution.

Specifically I am thinking of adding these examples:

• auto-relay
• echo
• peer-and-content-routing
  • Bootstrap list of Peers when booting a node
  • Pubsub based Peer Discovery
• discovery mechanisms

And those that is not in the js-libp2p examples but I think might be interesting

• Identify protocol

Motivation

The examples helps makes onboarding to rust-libp2p easier.

Are you planning to do it yourself in a pull request?

Yes

[dadepo]

Looked into how the Bootstrap list of Peers when booting a node would look like in rust-libp2p as this seems to be the simplest: connect to a provided list of peers.

I have not been able to find a direct way to have discovery via bootstrap peers. Looking through the existing examples, the only place where I see bootnodes used is in ipfs-kad.rs but this involves using a DHT and from what I understand from that example, it is adding the bootnodes into the kademlia DHT.

The js-libp2p example was able to just make use of the bootnodes, without kademlia. Any pointers on how to go about doing same in rust-libp2p?

I alsp checked the protocols here and I do not see any mention of bootnodes.

[thomaseizinger]

I'll like to start contributing to rust-libp2p. [...] Before I go ahead, I'll like to ask if this is a welcome contribution.

Thank you and yes, definitely!

Some of the current examples also use slightly different styles. Aligning those is also something we've been meaning to do. I think @elenaf9 has some thoughts on this.

The js-libp2p example was able to just make use of the bootnodes, without kademlia. Any pointers on how to go about doing same in rust-libp2p?

I've had limited exposure to the other implementations but from what I know, rust-libp2p is structured fairly different. rust-libp2p itself does not differentiate between built-in p2p functionality like bootnodes and user-defined protocols like Kademlia. Everything uses the same abstraction: NetworkBehaviour.

At the moment, I don't think we support bootnodes as such but it would be fairly trivial to create a NetworkBehaviour whose only job it is to maintain connections to a specified set of nodes.

[mxinden]

At the moment, I don't think we support bootnodes as such but it would be fairly trivial to create a NetworkBehaviour whose only job it is to maintain connections to a specified set of nodes.

As an aside, I would guess that most larger networks don't want all nodes to stay connected to the defined bootnodes. That doesn't scale. E.g. in IPFS nodes use the bootnodes for bootstrapping only.

[thomaseizinger]

Let me know if you still want to contribute some new examples.