Rust abstraction for Valve GameNetworkingSockets

Simple, high-level and (somehow) type-safe wrapper for Valve GameNetworkingSockets.

Have a quick look at the reliable chat client/server implementation

The library does not require your application to be running with Steam and this wrapper is intended to wrap the open-source version only.

Some features might be missing, if you are interested to introduce more abstraction, feel free to open a PR/Issue.

Libraries:

gns-sys is the C++ library from Valve compiled with bindings generated (the library is directly compiled by cargo so you don't need to have it already installed).
gns is the high level, type-safe Rust wrapper.

Building

A few system libraries/tools are required in order to compile the C++ library as part of gns-sys.

System libraries required:

clang
protobuf
openssl
abseil (if using a recent version of protobuf)

Tools required to be in $PATH:

git
protobuf-compiler

Windows

Building on Windows uses vcpkg in manifest mode to gather and build dependencies. As such, the only requirement on Windows is to have clang installed and git available in $PATH.

macOS

Apple Silicon

Install these dependencies:

brew install openssl@3 protobuf@21

Verify you’re using Protobuf 21.x:

protoc --version   # should print 3.21.x

If you see errors like “no member named ‘c_str’ in ‘std::string_view’”, you’re likely picking up a newer Protobuf. Either unlink the newer one or point CMake to 21.x:

# Only if needed
brew unlink protobuf
brew link --overwrite protobuf@21   # add --force if keg-only warns

Intel