Nossock

Nossock is a small lib for implementing lightweight protocols on top of TCP & TLS.

• Fast: serializes messages to JSON, but sends Buffer objects as it is with no overhead
• Lower memory consumption: one reusable buffer for parsing incoming messages
• TCP and TLS: easy configurable

Installation

$ npm install nossock

Adding req-res messages and validation

See losin lib that adds extra functionality to nossock.

TCP example

var nossock = require('nossock');

/* create server */

nossock.createServer('tcp', {}, function(socket) {

    socket.on('hello', function(body) {
        console.log('On server - hello', body);
        socket.send('bye', 'cruel world');
    });

}).listen(8797);


/* create client */

nossock.createClient('tcp', {port: 8797}, function(socket) {

    socket.on('bye', function(body) {
        console.log('On client - bye', body);
    });

    socket.send('hello', 'world');
});

TLS example

var fs = require('fs'),
    nossock = require('nossock');

/* create server */

var serverOpts = {
    cert: fs.readFileSync('/path/to/server.crt'),
    key: fs.readFileSync('/path/to/server.key'),
    ca: fs.readFileSync('/path/to/ca.crt'),
    passphrase: 'passphrase',
    requestCert: true,
    rejectUnauthorized: false
};

nossock.createServer('tls', serverOpts, function(socket) {

    console.log('Got connection from', socket.socket.remoteAddress);
    console.log('Certificate', socket.socket.getPeerCertificate());

    socket.on('hello', function(body) {
        console.log('On server - hello', body);
        socket.send('bye', 'cruel world');
    });

}).listen(8797);


/* create client */

var clientOpts = {
    host: 'localhost',
    port: 8797,
    cert: fs.readFileSync('/path/to/client.crt'),
    key: fs.readFileSync('/path/to/client.key'),
    ca: fs.readFileSync('/path/to/ca.crt'),
    passphrase: 'passphrase'
};

nossock.createClient('tls', clientOpts, function(socket) {

    socket.on('bye', function(body) {
        console.log('On client - bye', body);
    });

    socket.send('hello', 'world');
});

For more examples, see tests

Message Format

API

nossock.createServer( [type], [options], callback )

Returns:

• server : server instance

Arguments:

• type : 'tcp' (default) | 'tls'
• options : options object for underlying tcp or tls createServer function
• callback : connection listener

nossock.createClient( [type], [options], callback )

Returns:

• socket : Nossock instance

Arguments:

• type: 'tcp' (default) | 'tls'
• options : options object for underlying tcp or tls connect function
• callback : connection listener

Socket (passed to callback)

• socket.send(name, obj) - send message with name name and object obj. obj will be serialized in JSON. If obj is instance of Buffer, it won't be serialized and will be sent as it is, with no extra overhead.
• socket.on(name, callback) - subscribe on name event. Once got, callback will be called with received object as the only parameter. name could be anything except of the reserved ones (like error or end).
• socket.socket - underlying socket. Could be used to retreive some useful info such as socket.socket.remoteAddress' or socket.socket.getPeerCertificate() (for TLS connections).

Events forwarded from underlying socket

connect, end, timeout, error, close

Tests

$ sudo npm install nodeunit -g
$ npm test

Restrictions

Due to message structure, message body size is limited to 4096 Mb. No idea why you'll want to send such a big message, in any case it worth to split it to lots of smaller parts.

Author

• Yaroslav Pogrebnyak

Thanks

• Igor Sosyura (help & bugfix)
• Evgeniy Agafonov (original idea)

License

MIT