[Bro-Dev] Broker::publish API

[Robin Sommer]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 13:55 -0500, Jonathan Siwek wrote:

> associating node IDs with subscription state and also message state
> (push node IDs into messages upon receipt before forwarding),

Yeah, that sounds like the right direction. Some reading might be
worthwile doing here, there are quite a few papers out there on
routing in overlay networks.

> (1) Remove relay(...) functions
> (2) Reduce unique topic names (use pre-existing cluster topics where possible)
> (3) Add Broker::forward(topic_prefix) function + enable Broker forwarding

Yes, that sounds good to me, plus whatever that means for "publish()"
itself. I like what we have arrived at here.

One more question: what about raising published events locally as well
if the sending node is subscribed to the topic? I'm kind of torn on
that. I don't think we want that as a default, but perhaps as an
option, either with the publish() call or, likely better, with the
subscribe() call? I can see that being helpful in cases like unifying
standalone vs cluster operation; and more generally, for running
multiple node types inside the same Bro instance.

> An alternative to (3) would be implementing "real" routing in Broker
> right from the start.

In an ideal world, yes, that would certainly be nice to have. But it's
a larger task that I don't think we would be able to finish for 2.6
anymore. So, I'd put that on the list for later.

Robin

-- 
Robin Sommer * Corelight, Inc. * robin at corelight.com * www.corelight.com