Broadcast without broadcast
 

Hi!

I have a problem :)
I have 12 devices (rs232 to ethernet converter), they have to talk each other. I mean everyone to everyone, like broadcast.
I have tried out the UDP broadcast, it is working fine, but our devices (probably) have a bug, and it work not correctly.

So, i have to make broadcast without broadcast :)
I belive it will be ok, if i place a server into this network. And every device sends they packet to the server, and the server forwards the packet to the other devices. Sequential (the timeout is not problem).

How can i do this on linux (Debian)? Maybe with route -tee, or with iptables?

Best wishes!

It'd be most elegant with a separate server software operating raw sockets (or just normal sockets if it's not a problem) reading the list of clients from a file etc.

Such thing is also possible with iptables, but AFAIK not with standard modules. They do not duplicate packets, so you'd need to write your own module for this task.

But I'd start with debugging to see why the broadcast doesn't work for your devices...