Messaging App

Building the project

Execute build.bat or compile every .java file in the src directory

Running the Servers

The servers are persistent, meaning that any data created during the system's runtime will be saved and restored the next time the servers are run. All such data is stored in the broker_dir (passed as commandline argument when run), which may be different for each server, or the same.

The first server run shall be the "default" server. All subsequent servers shall connect to it. The connection information of all servers is printed to standard out when they are run.

Default Server; other server nodes will connect to this one:

Execute run_server.bat <broker_dir>, where:

broker_dir is the directory where all server data will be stored and retrieved from

Non-Default Server; connects to the default with the provided connection information:

Run run_server.bat <broker_dir> <ip> <broker_port>, where:

broker_dir is the directory where all server data will be stored and retrieved from
ip and broker_port is the connection information of the default server

Non-Default Server; connects to the default with connection information from file:

Run run_server.bat <broker_dir> -f <path>, where:

broker_dir is the directory where all server data will be stored and retrieved from
path is the file that contains the connection information of the default server. The file shall follow the .properties file format and shall contain the ip and port properties. All other properties are ignored.

Note: ideally, all servers should first be run, followed by any number of clients. Clients may be initialised and terminated at any point afterwards. Specifically, no servers shall be initialised after a topic has been created, as the system may misbehave. The servers are persistent, therefore terminating them and restarting them is not equivalent to a clean boot.

To perform a clean boot, it is necessary to delete all topics, preferably by having the clients issue such request, since manually deleting the broker_dir for all servers does not delete the local copies of the topics from the clients. Manually deleting the user_dir from all clients, in addition to deleting all broker_dir, results in a clean boot.

Running the Clients

The clients are persistent, meaning that any data created during the client's runtime will be saved and restored the next time the client is run. All such data is stored in the user_dir (passed as commandline argument when run) which may be either different or the same for each client. Since a client can run for many different profiles no conflicts will airse.

Client that connects to the default Server with the provided connection information:

Run run_client.bat [-c|-l] <name> <ip> <port> <user_dir>, where:

-c creates a new profile and -l loads an existing profile
name is the name of the profile
ip and broker_port is the connection information of the default server
user_dir is the directory where all client data will be stored and retrieved from

Client that connects to the default Server with connection information from a file:

Run run_client.bat [-c|-l] <name> -f <path> <user_dir>, where:

-c creates a new profile and -l loads an existing profile
name is the name of the profile
path is the file that contains the connection information of the default server. The file shall follow the .properties file format and shall contain the ip and port properties. All other properties are ignored.
user_dir is the directory where all client data will be stored and retrieved from

AAAlex-123/Yamca