Writing a Custom Transport

naia’s protocol logic talks to transport traits rather than directly to OS sockets. A custom transport can be built by implementing the server-side and client-side socket traits exposed from:

• naia_server::transport::Socket
• naia_client::transport::Socket

The built-in UDP, WebRTC, and local transports are the practical templates.

What a Transport Must Provide

The server-side socket is consumed by server.listen(socket) and produces four handles:

• auth sender
• auth receiver
• packet sender
• packet receiver

The client-side socket is consumed by client.connect(socket) and produces:

• identity receiver
• packet sender
• packet receiver

That split is important. naia has an authentication/identity phase before normal packet exchange, so a transport is more than a single send(bytes) function.

Best References

Start with the smallest built-ins:

• server/src/transport/local/
• client/src/transport/local/

Then compare the production transports:

• server/src/transport/webrtc.rs
• client/src/transport/webrtc.rs
• server/src/transport/udp.rs
• client/src/transport/udp/

Those implementations show how to adapt an underlying network backend into naia’s auth, identity, sender, and receiver handles.

When to Write One

Custom transports are advanced. Reach for them when you need a network layer naia does not ship, such as a platform service, a managed relay, or a proprietary transport required by a console or storefront.

For most games, prefer transport_webrtc first.