/etcd-cpp-apiv3

The etcd-cpp-apiv3 is a C++ API for etcd's v3 client API, i.e., ETCDCTL_API=3.

Primary LanguageC++BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" LicenseBSD-3-Clause

etcd-cpp-apiv3

The etcd-cpp-apiv3 is a C++ API for etcd's v3 client API, i.e., ETCDCTL_API=3.

Build and Test

Supported OS environments

  • Linux
    • Ubuntu 18.04, requires upgrade gRPC libraries (has been tested with 1.27.x).
    • Ubuntu 20.04
  • MacOS
    • MacOS 10.15
    • MacOS 11.0
  • Windows

Supported etcd versions:

Requirements

  1. boost and openssl

    • On Ubuntu, above requirement could be installed as:

      apt-get install libboost-all-dev libssl-dev

    • On MacOS, above requirement could be installed as:

      brew install boost openssl

  2. protobuf

  3. gRPC

    • On Ubuntu, above requirements related to protobuf and gRPC can be installed as:

      apt-get install libgrpc-dev \
        libgrpc++-dev \
        libprotobuf-dev \
        protobuf-compiler-grpc

    • On MacOS, above requirements related to protobuf and gRPC can be installed as:

      brew install grpc protobuf

  4. cpprestsdk, the latest version of master branch on github should work, you can build and install this dependency using cmake with:

     git clone https://github.com/microsoft/cpprestsdk.git
 cd cpprestsdk
 mkdir build && cd build
 cmake .. -DCPPREST_EXCLUDE_WEBSOCKETS=ON
 make -j && make install

Build and install

The etcd-cpp-apiv3 library could be easily built and installed using cmake, after all above dependencies have been successfully installed:

git clone https://github.com/etcd-cpp-apiv3/etcd-cpp-apiv3.git
cd etcd-cpp-apiv3
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j && make install

Compatible etcd version

The etcd-cpp-apiv3 should work well with etcd > 3.0. Feel free to issue an issue to us on Github when you encounter problems when working with etcd 3.x releases.

Usage

  etcd::Client etcd("http://127.0.0.1:4001");
  etcd::Response response = etcd.get("/test/key1").get();
  std::cout << response.value().as_string();

Methods of the etcd client object are sending the corresponding gRPC requests and are returning immediately with a pplx::task object. The task object is responsible for handling the reception of the HTTP response as well as parsing the gRPC of the response. All of this is done asynchronously in a background thread so you can continue your code to do other operations while the current etcd operation is executing in the background or you can wait for the response with the wait() or get() methods if a synchronous behavior is enough for your needs. These methods are blocking until the HTTP response arrives or some error situation happens. get() method also returns the etcd::Response object.

  etcd::Client etcd("http://127.0.0.1:4001");
  pplx::task<etcd::Response> response_task = etcd.get("/test/key1");
  // ... do something else
  etcd::Response response = response_task.get();
  std::cout << response.value().as_string();

The pplx library allows to do even more. You can attach continuation objects to the task if you do not care about when the response is coming you only want to specify what to do then. This can be achieved by calling the then method of the task, giving a function object parameter to it that can be used as a callback when the response is arrived and processed. The parameter of this callback should be either a etcd::Response or a pplx::task<etcd:Response>. You should probably use a C++ lambda function here as a callback.

  etcd::Client etcd("http://127.0.0.1:4001");
  etcd.get("/test/key1").then([](etcd::Response response)
  {
    std::cout << response.value().as_string();
  });

  // ... your code can continue here without any delay

Your lambda function should have a parameter of type etcd::Response or pplx::task<etcd::Response>. In the latter case you can get the actual etcd::Response object with the get() function of the task. Calling get can raise exceptions so this is the way how you can catch the errors generated by the REST interface. The get() call will not block in this case since the response has been already arrived (we are inside the callback).

  etcd::Client etcd("http://127.0.0.1:4001");
  etcd.get("/test/key1").then([](pplx::task<etcd::Response> response_task)
  {
    try
    {
      etcd::Response response = response_task.get(); // can throw
      std::cout << response.value().as_string();
    }
    catch (std::exception const & ex)
    {
      std::cerr << ex.what();
    }
  });

  // ... your code can continue here without any delay

etcd operations

Multiple endpoints

Connecting to multiple endpoints is supported:

  // multiple endpoints are separated by comma
  etcd::Client etcd("http://a.com:2379,http://b.com:2379,http://c.com:2379");

  // or, separated semicolon
  etcd::Client etcd("http://a.com:2379;http://b.com:2379;http://c.com:2379");

Behind the screen, gRPC's load balancer is used and the round-robin strategy will be used by default.

Etcd authentication

v3 authentication

Etcd v3 authentication has been supported. The Client::Client could accept a username and password as arguments and handle the authentication properly.

  etcd::Client etcd("http://127.0.0.1:2379", "root", "root");

Or the etcd client can be constructed explicitly:

  etcd::Client *etcd = etcd::Client::WithUser(
                    "http://127.0.0.1:2379", "root", "root");

Enabling v3 authentication requires a bit more work for older versions etcd (etcd 3.2.x and etcd 3.3.x). First you need to set the ETCDCTL_API=3, then

  • add a user, and type the password:
printf 'root\nroot\n' | /usr/local/bin/etcdctl user add root
  • enabling authentication:
/usr/local/bin/etcdctl auth enable
  • disable authentication:
/usr/local/bin/etcdctl --user="root:root" auth disable

transport security

Etcd transport security and certificate based authentication have been supported as well. The Client::Client could accept arguments ca , cert and key for CA cert, cert and private key files for the SSL/TLS transport and authentication. Note that the later arguments cert and key could be empty strings or omitted if you just need secure transport and don't enable certificate-based client authentication (using the --client-cert-auth arguments when launching etcd server).

  etcd::Client etcd("https://127.0.0.1:2379",
                    "example.rootca.cert", "example.cert", "example.key",
                    "round_robin");

Or the etcd client can be constructed explicitly:

  etcd::Client *etcd = etcd::Client::WithSSL(
                    "https://127.0.0.1:2379",
                    "example.rootca.cert", "example.cert", "example.key");

Using secure transport but not certificated-based client authentication:

  etcd::Client *etcd = etcd::Client::WithSSL(
                    "https://127.0.0.1:2379", "example.rootca.cert");

For more details about setup about security communication between etcd server and client, please refer to transport security in etcd documentation and an example about setup etcd with transport security using openssl.

We also provide a tool setup-ca.sh as a helper for development and testing.

Reading a value

You can read a value with the get method of the client instance. The only parameter is the key to be read. If the read operation is successful then the value of the key can be acquired with the value() method of the response. Success of the operation can be checked with the is_ok() method of the response. In case of an error, the error_code() and error_message() methods can be called for some further detail.

Please note that there can be two kind of error situations. There can be some problem with the communication between the client and the etcd server. In this case the get() method of the response task will throw an exception as shown above. If the communication is ok but there is some problem with the content of the actual operation, like attempting to read a non-existing key then the response object will give you all the details. Let's see this in an example.

The Value object of the response also holds some extra information besides the string value of the key. You can also get the index number of the creation and the last modification of this key with the created_index() and the modified_index() methods.

  etcd::Client etcd("http://127.0.0.1:4001");
  pplx::task<etcd::Response> response_task = etcd.get("/test/key1");

  try
  {
    etcd::Response response = response_task.get(); // can throw
    if (response.is_ok())
      std::cout << "successful read, value=" << response.value().as_string();
    else
      std::cout << "operation failed, details: " << response.error_message();
  }
  catch (std::exception const & ex)
  {
    std::cerr << "communication problem, details: " << ex.what();
  }

Modifying a value

Setting the value of a key can be done with the set() method of the client. You simply pass the key and the value as string parameters and you are done. The newly set value object can be asked from the response object exactly the same way as in case of the reading (with the value() method). This way you can check for example the index value of your modification. You can also check what was the previous value that this operation was overwritten. You can do that with the prev_value() method of the response object.

  etcd::Client etcd("http://127.0.0.1:4001");
  pplx::task<etcd::Response> response_task = etcd.set("/test/key1", "42");

  try
  {
    etcd::Response response = response_task.get();
    if (response.is_ok())
      std::cout << "The new value is successfully set, previous value was "
                << response.prev_value().as_string();
    else
      std::cout << "operation failed, details: " << response.error_message();
  }
  catch (std::ecxeption const & ex)
  {
    std::cerr << "communication problem, details: " << ex.what();
  }

The set method creates a new leaf node if it weren't exists already or modifies an existing one. There are a couple of other modification methods that are executing the write operation only upon some specific conditions.

  • add(key, value) creates a new value if it's key does not exists and returns a "Key already exists" error otherwise (error code 105)
  • modify(key, value) modifies an already existing value or returns a "Key not found" error otherwise (error code 100)
  • modify_if(key, value, old_value) modifies an already existing value but only if the previous value equals with old_value. If the values does not match returns with "Compare failed" error (code 101)
  • modify_if(key, value, old_index) modifies an already existing value but only if the index of the previous value equals with old_index. If the indices does not match returns with "Compare failed" error (code 101)

Deleting a value

Values can be deleted with the rm method passing the key to be deleted as a parameter. The key should point to an existing value. There are conditional variations for deletion too.

  • rm_if(key, value, old_value) deletes an already existing value but only if the previous value equals with old_value. If the values does not match returns with "Compare failed" error (code 101)
  • rm_if(key, value, old_index) deletes an already existing value but only if the index of the previous value equals with old_index. If the indices does not match returns with "Compare failed" error (code 101)

Handling directory nodes

Directory nodes are not supported anymore in etcdv3. However, ls and rmdir will list/delete keys defined by the prefix. mkdir method is removed since etcdv3 treats everything as keys.

  1. Creating a directory:

    Creating a directory is not supported anymore in etcdv3 cpp client. Users should remove the API from their code.

  2. Listing a directory:

Listing directory in etcd3 cpp client will return all keys that matched the given prefix recursively.

  etcd.set("/test/key1", "value1").wait();
  etcd.set("/test/key2", "value2").wait();
  etcd.set("/test/key3", "value3").wait();
  etcd.set("/test/subdir/foo", "foo").wait();

  etcd::Response resp = etcd.ls("/test/new_dir").get();

resp.key() will have the following values:

/test/key1
/test/key2
/test/key3
/test/subdir/foo

Note: Regarding the returned keys when listing a directory:

  • In etcdv3 cpp client, resp.key(0) will return "/test/new_dir/key1" since everything is treated as keys in etcdv3.
  • While in etcdv2 cpp client it will return "key1" and "/test/new_dir" directory should be created first before you can set "key1".

When you list a directory the response object's keys() and values() methods gives you a vector of key names and values. The value() method with an integer parameter also returns with the i-th element of the values vector, so response.values()[i] == response.value(i).

  etcd::Client etcd("http://127.0.0.1:4001");
  etcd::Response resp = etcd.ls("/test/new_dir").get();
  for (int i = 0; i < resp.keys().size(); ++i)
  {
    std::cout << resp.keys(i);
    std::cout << " = " << resp.value(i).as_string() << std::endl;
  }
  1. Removing directory:

If you want the delete recursively then you have to pass a second true parameter to rmdir and supply a key. This key will be treated as a prefix. All keys that match the prefix will be deleted. All deleted keys will be placed in response.values() and response.keys(). This parameter defaults to false.

  etcd::Client etcd("http://127.0.0.1:4001");
  etcd.set("/test/key1", "foo");
  etcd.set("/test/key2", "bar");
  etcd.set("/test/key3", "foo_bar");
  etcd::Response resp = etcd.rmdir("/test", true).get();
  for (int i = 0; i < resp.keys().size(); ++i)
  {
    std::cout << resp.keys(i);
    std::cout << " = " << resp.value(i).as_string() << std::endl;
  }

However, if recursive parameter is false, functionality will be the same as just deleting a key. The key supplied will NOT be treated as a prefix and will be treated as a normal key name.

Lock

Etcd lock has been supported as follows:

  etcd::Client etcd("http://127.0.0.1:4001");
  etcd.lock("/test/lock");

It will create a lease and a keep-alive job behind the screen, the lease will be revoked until the lock is unlocked.

Users can also feed their own lease directory for lock:

  etcd::Client etcd("http://127.0.0.1:4001");
  etcd.lock_with_lease("/test/lock", lease_id);

Watching for changes

Watching for a change is possible with the watch() operation of the client. The watch method simply does not deliver a response object until the watched value changes in any way (modified or deleted). When a change happens the returned result object will be the same as the result object of the modification operation. So if the change is triggered by a value change, then response.action() will return "set", response.value() will hold the new value and response.prev_value() will contain the previous value. In case of a delete response.action() will return "delete", response.value() will be empty and should not be called at all and response.prev_value() will contain the deleted value.

As mentioned in the section "handling directory nodes", directory nodes are not supported anymore in etcdv3.

However it is still possible to watch a whole "directory subtree", or more specifically a set of keys that match the prefix, for changes with passing true to the second recursive parameter of watch (this parameter defaults to false if omitted). In this case the modified value object's key() method can be handy to determine what key is actually changed. Since this can be a long lasting operation you have to be prepared that is terminated by an exception and you have to restart the watch operation.

The watch also accepts an index parameter that specifies what is the first change we are interested about. Since etcd stores the last couple of modifications with this feature you can ensure that your client does not miss a single change.

Here is an example how you can watch continuously for changes of one specific key.

void watch_for_changes()
{
  etcd.watch("/nodes", index + 1, true).then([this](pplx::task<etcd::Response> resp_task)
  {
    try
    {
      etcd::Response resp = resp_task.get();
      index = resp.index();
      std::cout << resp.action() << " " << resp.value().as_string() << std::endl;
    }
    catch(...) {}
    watch_for_changes();
  });
}

At first glance it seems that watch_for_changes() calls itself on every value change but in fact it just sends the asynchronous request, sets up a callback for the response and then returns. The callback is executed by some thread from the pplx library's thread pool and the callback (in this case a small lambda function actually) will call watch_for_changes again from there.

Watcher Class

Users can watch a key indefinitely or until user cancels the watch. This can be done by instantiating a Watcher class. The supplied callback function in Watcher class will be called every time there is an event for the specified key. Watch stream will be cancelled either by user implicitly calling Cancel() or when watcher class is destroyed.

  etcd::Watcher watcher("http://127.0.0.1:2379", "/test", printResponse);
  etcd.set("/test/key", "42"); /* print response will be called */
  etcd.set("/test/key", "43"); /* print response will be called */
  watcher.Cancel();
  etcd.set("/test/key", "43"); /* print response will NOT be called,
                                  since watch is already cancelled */

Watcher re-connection

A watcher will be disconnected from etcd server in some cases, for some examples, the etcd server is restarted, or the network is temporarily unavailable. It is users' responsibility to decide if a watcher should re-connect to the etcd server.

Here is an example how users can make a watcher re-connect to server after disconnected.

void wait_for_connection(Client &client) {
  // wait until the client connects to etcd server 
  // `head` API is only available in version later than 0.2.1
  while (!client.head().get().is_ok()) {
    sleep(1);
  }
}

void initialize_watcher(const std::string &endpoints, 
  const std::string &prefix,
  std::function<void(Response)> callback, 
  std::shared_ptr<etcd::Watcher> &watcher) {
    Client client(endpoints);
    wait_for_connection(client); 
    watcher->reset(new etcd::Watcher(client, prefix, callback));
    watcher->Wait([endpoints, prefix, callback,
                   watcher_ref /* keep the shared_ptr alive */, &watcher](bool cancelled) {
        if (cancelled) {
            return;
        }
        initialize_watcher(endpoints, prefix, callback, watcher);
    });
}
std::string endpoints = "http://127.0.0.1:2379";  
std::function<void(Response)> callback = printResponse;
const std::string prefix = "/test/key"; 

// the watcher initialized in this way will auto re-connect to etcd
std::unique_ptr<etcd::Watcher> watcher;
initialize_watcher(endpoints, prefix, callback, watcher);

Requesting for lease

Users can request for lease which is governed by a time-to-live(TTL) value given by the user. Moreover, user can attached the lease to a key(s) by indicating the lease id in add(), set(), modify() and modify_if(). Also the ttl will that was granted by etcd server will be indicated in ttl().

  etcd::Client etcd("http://127.0.0.1:4001");
  etcd::Response resp = etcd.leasegrant(60).get();
  etcd.set("/test/key2", "bar", resp.value().lease());
  std::cout << "ttl" << resp.value().ttl();

The lease can be revoked by

  etcd.leaserevoke(resp.value().lease());

A lease can also be attached with a KeepAlive object at the creation time,

  std::shared_ptr<etcd::KeepAlive> keepalive = etcd.leasekeepalive(60).get();
  std::cout << "lease id: " << keepalive->Lease();

The remaining time-to-live of a lease can be inspected by

  etcd::Response resp2 = etcd.leasetimetolive(resp.value().lease()).get();
  std::cout << "ttl" << resp.value().ttl();

Keep alive

Keep alive for leases is implemented using a separate class KeepAlive, which can be used as:

  etcd::KeepAlive keepalive(etcd, ttl, lease_id);

It will perform a period keep-alive action before it is cancelled explicitly, or destructed implicitly.

KeepAlive may fails (e.g., when the etcd server stopped unexpectedly), the constructor of KeepAlive could accept a handler of type std::function<std::exception_ptr> and the handler will be invoked when exception occurs during keeping it alive.

Note that the handler will invoked in a separated thread, not the thread where the KeepAlive object is constructed.

  std::function<void (std::exception_ptr)> handler = [](std::exception_ptr eptr) {
    try {
        if (eptr) {
            std::rethrow_exception(eptr);
        }
    } catch(const std::runtime_error& e) {
        std::cerr << "Connection failure \"" << e.what() << "\"\n";
    } catch(const std::out_of_range& e) {
        std::cerr << "Lease expiry \"" << e.what() << "\"\n";
    }
  };
  etcd::KeepAlive keepalive(etcd, handler, ttl, lease_id);

Without handler, the internal state can be checked via KeepAlive::Check() and it will rethrow the async exception when there are errors during keeping the lease alive.

TODO

  1. Cancellation of asynchronous calls(except for watch)

License

This project is licensed under the BSD-3-Clause license - see the LICENSE.