cluster-master

A module for taking advantage of the built-in cluster module in node v0.8 and above.

Your main server.js file uses this module to fire up a cluster of workers. Those workers then do the actual server stuff (using socket.io, express, tako, raw node, whatever; any TCP/TLS/HTTP/HTTPS server would work.)

This module provides some basic functionality to keep a server running. As the name implies, it should only be run in the master module, not in any cluster workers.

var clusterMaster = require("cluster-master")

// most basic usage: just specify the worker
// Spins up as many workers as you have CPUs
//
// Note that this is VERY WRONG for a lot of multi-tenanted
// VPS environments where you may have 32 CPUs but only a
// 256MB RSS cap or something.
clusterMaster("worker.js")

// more advanced usage.  Specify configs.
// in real life, you can only actually call clusterMaster() once.
clusterMaster({ exec: "worker.js" // script to run
              , size: 5 // number of workers
              , env: { SOME: "environment_vars" }
              , args: [ "--deep", "doop" ]
              , silent: true
              , signals: false
              , onMessage: function (msg) {
                  console.error("Message from %s %j"
                               , this.uniqueID
                               , msg)
                }
              })

// methods
clusterMaster.resize(10)

// graceful rolling restart
clusterMaster.restart()

// graceful shutdown
clusterMaster.quit()

// not so graceful shutdown
clusterMaster.quitHard()

Methods

clusterMaster.resize(n)

Set the cluster size to n. This will disconnect extra nodes and/or spin up new nodes, as needed. Done by default on restarts.

clusterMaster.restart(cb)

One by one, shut down nodes and spin up new ones. Callback is called when finished.

clusterMaster.quit()

Gracefully shut down the worker nodes and then process.exit(0).

clusterMaster.quitHard()

Forcibly shut down the worker nodes and then process.exit(1).

Configs

The exec, env, argv, and silent configs are passed to the cluster.fork() call directly, and have the same meaning.

exec - The worker script to run
env - Envs to provide to workers
argv - Additional args to pass to workers.
silent - Boolean, default=false. Do not share stdout/stderr
size - Starting cluster size. Default = CPU count
signals - Boolean, default=true. Set up listeners to:
- SIGHUP - restart
- SIGINT - quit
- SIGKILL - quitHard. This signal cannot be caught by Node.
onMessage - Method that gets called when workers send a message to the parent. Called in the context of the worker, so you can reply by looking at this.