AdvancedRpcLib 1.0.4

AdvancedRPC

AdvancedRPC is a remote procedure call library for .NET. It differs from common solutions like REST, GRPC or WebSockets in that it supports an object hierarchy similar to .NET Remoting. I wrote the library mainly as a replacement for .NET Remoting to make our corporate application ready for .NET Core. It relies heavily on the ability to make remote procedure calls on objects.

Features

• Communication via TCP and Named Pipes
• Support for impersonation with Named Pipes
• Deep object hierarchies
• Events and callbacks
• No need for serialization annotations, just publish an interface
• Support for multiple clients with notification on connection and disconnection
• .NET 4.8, .NET Standard 2.0 and .NET Standard 2.1
• Communication between .NET Framework, .NET Core and Unity apps (not tested on Xamarin yet, but should work there too)
• Very easy to setup: No need to start a web service or define proto files. Just define an interface that is shared between applications and you are ready.

Example

Common interface definition

public interface IRpcServer 
{
    IRpcObject CreateObject(string name);
}

public interface IRpcObject 
{
    string Name { get; }

    void ChangeName(string name);

    event NameChanged;
}

Server implementation

class RpcServer : IRpcServer 
{
    IRpcObject CreateObject(string name)
    {
        return RpcObjectImpl(name);
    }
}

class RpcObjectImpl : IRpcObject 
{
    public RpcObjectImpl(string name)
    {
        Name = name;
    }

    string Name { get; private set; }

    void ChangeName(string name)
    {
        Name = name;
        NameChanged?.Invoke(this, EventArgs.Empty);
    }

    event NameChanged;
}

class Program
{
    static async Task Main(string[] args)
    {
        var server = new NamedPipeRpcServerChannel(new BinaryRpcSerializer(), 
                            new RpcMessageFactory(), "myipcchannelname");
        server.ObjectRepository.RegisterSingleton<RpcServer>();
        await server.ListenAsync();

        Console.WriteLine("Press key to quit");
        Console.ReadKey();
    }
}

Client implementation

class Program
{
    static async Task Main(string[] args)
    {
        var client = new NamedPipeRpcClientChannel(new BinaryRpcSerializer(), 
                            new RpcMessageFactory(), "myipcchannelname");        
        await client.ConnectAsync(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5));

        var rpcServerObj = await client.GetServerObjectAsync<IRpcServer>();
        var nameObj = rpcServerObj.CreateObject("Jon Doe")
        nameObj.NameChanged += (sender, e) => Console.WriteLine(((IRpcObject)sender).Name);

        // This calls the method on the server and invokes
        // the event NameChanged on the client.
        nameObj.ChangeName("Jane Doe"); 

        Console.WriteLine("Press key to quit");
        Console.ReadKey();
    }
}

See unit tests for more advanced scenarios.

Ahead of time code generation

For platforms that do not support dynamic code generation (i.e. Unity, Xamarin iOS) it is necessary to generate the proxy code in advance. AdvancedRpcLib supports this by annotating RPC interface definitions with the AotRpcObjectAttribute and using the package AdvancedRpc.MSBuild. The package will then generate the proxy files and the class AotRpcObjects during build.

The generation of proxy objects is only supported for RPC clients. It might work in some scenarios for servers as well though, if you do not need events or delegates.

To use the generated proxies, use AotRpcObjectRepository instead of the default RpcObjectRepository. An examle would look like this:

[AdvancedRpcLib.AotRpcObject]
public interface IRpcServer 
{
    void DoSometing();
}

class Main 
{
    static async Task Main() 
    {
        IPAddress ip = ...
        int port = ...

        var rpcClientChannel = new TcpRpcClientChannel(
                        new BinaryRpcSerializer(),
                        new RpcMessageFactory(),
                        ip,
                        port,
                        new AotRpcObjectRepository(true, AotRpcObjects.GetImplementationTypes()),
                        () => new AotRpcObjectRepository(false, AotRpcObjects.GetImplementationTypes()));
        
        await rpcClientChannel.ConnectAsync();
        var rpcServer = await rpcClientChannel.GetServerObjectAsync<IRpcServer>();

        // rpcServer will be the pregenerated proxy type
        // from here everything is like normal...                        
    }
}

Some Notes

• If you return a plain static object that doesn't need to know about server changes, use the Serializable attribute on the implementation. In that case the object will be serialized and copied to the client or server without creating a proxy object. This can be more efficient for data objects if you have a lot of properties and deep hierarchies. This behaves like a REST call.
• Do not return or pass IEnumerable, as this will result in a remote call for every MoveNext when iterating over it. Instead, use an array in those cases.
• Watch out for memory leaks. AdvancedRPC handles a lot of scenarios for you but take care to remove your event listeners.
• CAREFUL! Every remote call can throw an exception if the server goes down. The same is true for events, if the clients disconnects.
• If you transfer large objects and use .NET Framework 4.7.2 or 4.8 please add an AppCompat switch in your App.config to improve performance

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <runtime>
    
      <AppContextSwitchOverrides value="Switch.System.Runtime.Serialization.UseNewMaxArraySize=true" />
  </runtime>
</configuration>

Restrictions

• Method overloads with same parameter count are not supported (yet). Overloads with different parameter count are possible though.
• Named Pipe impersonation limitations:
  • doesn't work with .NET Standard 2.0 (for now)
  • only works on Windows
• IEnumerable doesn't work for .NET Core (the interfaces use ByRef Values). There might be a workaround to support this.