How easy is it to integrate a custom protocol?

[mudkipdev]

I want to debug packets for Minecraft Beta 1.7.3 with ImGui, and also benefit from the hex dump view in this app and etc.

We already have packet code written in C++ here:
https://github.com/OfficialPixelBrush/BetrockPlusPlus/blob/main/src/bpp_shared/networking/packets.h

But I would like to know how to integrate it, or if its too different and it should be a separate app instead.

[adepierre]

Hello,

As you already have an implementation of the protocol I'd say it's doable.

You'd have to change the LogItem struct to store a pointer to your base packet instead of the protocolcraft one. Then the Logger should also be tweaked to use your packet class instead of the current one (you'll probably have to drop the json serialization but if you just need hex it should be ok).

And lastly there is the MinecraftProxy that will also need to be refactored. I don't know how different the protocol was for 1.7.3 (packet id/data structure, compression, encryption etc...) so it may be a bit of work or not that much if it's similar to 1.12.2. Main thing that will be broken is the dispatch call: currently each packet calls the corresponding Handle function. With your custom packet struct you'll have to manually call the Handle function for each packet if it changes the state of the connection/needs to be overridden by the proxy.

Feel free to ask here or on the discord if you have more questions/need details on something.

[OfficialPixelBrush]

Heyo! I'm one of the guys who helped write that protocol implementation. I've actually spent most of this and last year documenting exactly that, via the Technical Beta Wiki.

It's basically just raw TCP over the wire. Unsure how much authentication affects that, but as far as I can tell it only checks stuff on login, and just assumes nothing is being tampered with after that. No compression, besides zlib-compressed chunks, either.