Client Implementation Guidance

This documentation provides guidance on implementing a client library for the Liftbridge server. If information is missing or inaccurate, feel free to make a PR fixing it.

Generating gRPC API

Liftbridge relies on gRPC and Protocol Buffers (protobufs) for its API. These definitions are stored in the liftbridge-api repository. Refer to the gRPC documentation for guidance on generating the gRPC code from the protobuf definitions for your particular programming language. The liftbridge-api repository also contains generated code for some languages which you can use in your client library (for example, the official Go client relies on the generated Go code in liftbridge-api). If there is no generated code for your language, feel free to make a PR adding it. Otherwise, you can simply vendor the generated code alongside your client library.

Generating the gRPC API results in a low-level client that can be used to talk to Liftbridge. However, it's useful to implement a higher-level client that provides a more user-friendly abstraction. The remainder of this guide relates to implementing a high-level client.

Client Interface

A high-level client has the following operations:

Operation	Description
CreateStream	Creates a new stream attached to a NATS subject (or group of related NATS subjects if partitioned)
DeleteStream	Deletes a stream and all of its partitions
PauseStream	Pauses some or all of a stream's partitions until they are published to
SetStreamReadonly	Sets some or all of a stream's partitions as readonly or readwrite
Subscribe	Creates an ephemeral subscription for a given stream that messages are received on
Publish	Publishes a new message to a Liftbridge stream
PublishAsync	Publishes a new message to a Liftbridge stream asynchronously
PublishToSubject	Publishes a new message to a NATS subject
FetchMetadata	Retrieves metadata from the cluster
FetchPartitionMetadata	Retrieves partition metadata from the partition leader
SetCursor	Persists a cursor position for a particular stream partition.
FetchCursor	Retrieves a cursor position for a particular stream partition.
Close	Closes any client connections to Liftbridge

Below is the interface definition of the Go Liftbridge client. We'll walk through each of these operations in more detail below.

// Client is the main API used to communicate with a Liftbridge cluster. Call
// Connect to get a Client instance.
type Client interface {
    // Close the client connection.
    Close() error

    // CreateStream creates a new stream attached to a NATS subject. Subject is
    // the NATS subject the stream is attached to, and name is the stream
    // identifier, unique per subject. It returns ErrStreamExists if a stream
    // with the given subject and name already exists.
    CreateStream(ctx context.Context, subject, name string, opts ...StreamOption) error

    // DeleteStream deletes a stream and all of its partitions. Name is the
    // stream identifier, globally unique.
    DeleteStream(ctx context.Context, name string) error

    // PauseStream pauses a stream and some or all of its partitions. Name is
    // the stream identifier, globally unique. It returns an ErrNoSuchPartition
    // if the given stream or partition does not exist. By default, this will
    // pause all partitions. A partition is resumed when it is published to via
    // the Liftbridge Publish API or ResumeAll is enabled and another partition
    // in the stream is published to.
    PauseStream(ctx context.Context, name string, opts ...PauseOption) error

    // SetStreamReadonly sets the readonly flag on a stream and some or all of
    // its partitions. Name is the stream identifier, globally unique. It
    // returns an ErrNoSuchPartition if the given stream or partition does not
    // exist. By default, this will set the readonly flag on all partitions.
    // Subscribers to a readonly partition will see their subscription ended
    // with a ErrReadonlyPartition error once all messages currently in the
    // partition have been read.
    SetStreamReadonly(ctx context.Context, name string, opts ...ReadonlyOption) error

    // Subscribe creates an ephemeral subscription for the given stream. It
    // begins receiving messages starting at the configured position and waits
    // for new messages when it reaches the end of the stream. The default
    // start position is the end of the stream. It returns an
    // ErrNoSuchPartition if the given stream or partition does not exist. Use
    // a cancelable Context to close a subscription.
    Subscribe(ctx context.Context, stream string, handler Handler, opts ...SubscriptionOption) error

    // Publish publishes a new message to the Liftbridge stream. The partition
    // that gets published to is determined by the provided partition or
    // Partitioner passed through MessageOptions, if any. If a partition or
    // Partitioner is not provided, this defaults to the base partition. This
    // partition determines the underlying NATS subject that gets published to.
    // To publish directly to a specific NATS subject, use the low-level
    // PublishToSubject API.
    //
    // If the AckPolicy is not NONE, this will synchronously block until the
    // ack is received. If the ack is not received in time, ErrAckTimeout is
    // returned. If AckPolicy is NONE, this returns nil on success.
    Publish(ctx context.Context, stream string, value []byte, opts ...MessageOption) (*Ack, error)

    // PublishAsync publishes a new message to the Liftbridge stream and
    // asynchronously processes the ack or error for the message.
    PublishAsync(ctx context.Context, stream string, value []byte, ackHandler AckHandler, opts ...MessageOption) error

    // PublishToSubject publishes a new message to the NATS subject. Note that
    // because this publishes directly to a subject, there may be multiple (or
    // no) streams that receive the message. As a result, MessageOptions
    // related to partitioning will be ignored. To publish at the
    // stream/partition level, use the high-level Publish API.
    //
    // If the AckPolicy is not NONE and a deadline is provided, this will
    // synchronously block until the first ack is received. If an ack is not
    // received in time, ErrAckTimeout is returned. If an AckPolicy and
    // deadline are configured, this returns the first Ack on success,
    // otherwise it returns nil.
    PublishToSubject(ctx context.Context, subject string, value []byte, opts ...MessageOption) (*Ack, error)

    // FetchMetadata returns cluster metadata including broker and stream
    // information.
    FetchMetadata(ctx context.Context) (*Metadata, error)

    // SetCursor persists a cursor position for a particular stream partition.
    // This can be used to checkpoint a consumer's position in a stream to
    // resume processing later.
    SetCursor(ctx context.Context, id, stream string, partition int32, offset int64) error

    // FetchCursor retrieves a cursor position for a particular stream
    // partition. It returns -1 if the cursor does not exist.
    FetchCursor(ctx context.Context, id, stream string, partition int32) (int64, error)
}

CreateStream

// CreateStream creates a new stream attached to a NATS subject. Subject is
// the NATS subject the stream is attached to, and name is the stream
// identifier, unique per subject. It returns ErrStreamExists if a stream
// with the given subject and name already exists.
func CreateStream(ctx context.Context, subject, name string, opts ...StreamOption) error

CreateStream creates a new stream attached to a NATS subject or set of NATS subjects. Every stream is uniquely identified by a name.

Streams are partitioned for increased parallelism. Each partition maps to a separate NATS subject. For example, a stream created for the subject foo with three partitions has partitions that map to the NATS subjects foo, foo.1, and foo.2, respectively. By default, streams consist of just a single partition.

Each stream partition has a server in the cluster that acts as the leader and some set of followers which replicate the partition depending on the stream's replication factor. Liftbridge handles the cases where leaders and followers fail to maximize availability.

In the Go client example above, CreateStream takes four arguments:

Argument	Type	Description	Required
context	context	A context which is a Go idiom for passing things like a timeout, cancellation signal, and other values across API boundaries. For Liftbridge, this is primarily used for two things: request timeouts and cancellation. In other languages, this might be replaced by explicit arguments, optional named arguments, or other language-specific idioms.	language-dependent
subject	string	A subject string which is the NATS subject to attach the stream to. If the stream has more than one partition, this is used as the base subject for each partition.	yes
name	string	A name string which uniquely identifies the stream in the Liftbridge cluster. Attempting to create another stream with the same name will result in an error.	yes
options	stream options	Zero or more stream options. These are used to pass in optional settings for the stream. This is a common Go pattern for implementing extensible APIs. In other languages, this might be replaced with a builder pattern or optional named arguments. These `CreateStream` options are described below.	language-dependent

The stream options are the equivalent of optional named arguments used to configure a stream. Supported options are:

Option	Type	Description	Default
Group	string	The name of a load-balance group for the stream to join. When there are multiple streams in the same group, messages on the subject will be distributed randomly among them.
MaxReplication	bool	Sets the stream replication factor equal to the current number of servers in the cluster. This means all partitions for the stream will be fully replicated within the cluster.	false
ReplicationFactor	int	Sets the replication factor for the stream. The replication factor controls the number of servers a stream's partitions should be replicated to. For example, a value of 1 would mean only 1 server would have the data, and a value of 3 would mean 3 servers would have it. A value of -1 will signal to the server to set the replication factor equal to the current number of servers in the cluster (i.e. MaxReplication).	1
Partitions	int	Sets the number of partitions for the stream.	1
RetentionMaxBytes	int64	The maximum size a stream's log can grow to, in bytes, before we will discard old log segments to free up space. A value of 0 indicates no limit. If this is not set, it takes the server default.
RetentionMaxMessages	int64	The maximum size a stream's log can grow to, in number of messages, before we will discard old log segments to free up space. A value of 0 indicates no limit. If this is not set, it takes the server default.
RetentionMaxAge	time duration	The TTL for stream log segment files, after which they are deleted. A value of 0 indicates no TTL. If this is not set, it takes the server default.
CleanerInterval	time duration	The frequency to check if a new stream log segment file should be rolled and whether any segments are eligible for deletion based on the retention policy or compaction if enabled. If this is not set, it takes the server default.
SegmentMaxBytes	int64	The maximum size of a single stream log segment file in bytes. Retention is always done a file at a time, so a larger segment size means fewer files but less granular control over retention. If this is not set, it takes the server default.
SegmentMaxAge	time duration	The maximum time before a new stream log segment is rolled out. A value of 0 means new segments will only be rolled when segment.max.bytes is reached. Retention is always done a file at a time, so a larger value means fewer files but less granular control over retention. If this is not set, it takes the server default.
CompactMaxGoroutines	int32	The maximum number of concurrent goroutines to use for compaction on a stream log (only applicable if compact.enabled is true). If this is not set, it takes the server default.
CompactEnabled	bool	Enable message compaction by key on the server for this stream. If this is not set, it takes the server default.

CreateStream returns/throws an error if the operation fails, specifically ErrStreamExists if a stream with the given name already exists.

Implementation Guidance

DeleteStream

// DeleteStream deletes a stream and all of its partitions. Name is the stream
// identifier, globally unique.
func (c *client) DeleteStream(ctx context.Context, name string) error

DeleteStream deletes a stream and all of its partitions. This will remove any data stored on disk for the stream and all of its partitions.

In the Go client example above, DeleteStream takes two arguments:

Argument	Type	Description	Required
context	context	A context which is a Go idiom for passing things like a timeout, cancellation signal, and other values across API boundaries. For Liftbridge, this is primarily used for two things: request timeouts and cancellation. In other languages, this might be replaced by explicit arguments, optional named arguments, or other language-specific idioms.	language-dependent
name	string	The name of the stream to delete.	yes

DeleteStream returns/throws an error if the operation fails, specifically ErrNoSuchStream if the stream doesn't exist.

Implementation Guidance

PauseStream

// PauseStream pauses a stream and some or all of its partitions. Name is the
// stream identifier, globally unique. It returns an ErrNoSuchPartition if the
// given stream or partition does not exist. By default, this will pause all
// partitions. A partition is resumed when it is published to via the
// Liftbridge Publish API or ResumeAll is enabled and another partition in the
// stream is published to.
func (c *client) PauseStream(ctx context.Context, name string, options ...PauseOption)

PauseStream pauses some or all of a stream's partitions. In effect, thie means closing NATS subscriptions, stopping replication, closing any associated file handles, and generally releasing any resources used in maintaining a partition. This can be done selectively on partitions or the entirety of a stream.

A partition is paused until it is published to via the Liftbridge Publish API or ResumeAll is enabled and another partition in the stream is published to.

Different sets of partitions can be paused independently with subsequent PauseStream requests to the same stream, and pausing partitions is an idempotent operation. However, note that the stream will be updated with the latest ResumeAll value specified on the request.

In the Go client example above, PauseStream takes three arguments:

Argument	Type	Description	Required
context	context	A context which is a Go idiom for passing things like a timeout, cancellation signal, and other values across API boundaries. For Liftbridge, this is primarily used for two things: request timeouts and cancellation. In other languages, this might be replaced by explicit arguments, optional named arguments, or other language-specific idioms.	language-dependent
name	string	The name of the stream to pause partitions for.	yes
options	pause options	Zero or more pause options. These are used to pass in optional settings for pausing the stream. This is a common Go pattern for implementing extensible APIs. In other languages, this might be replaced with a builder pattern or optional named arguments. These `PauseStream` options are described below.	language-dependent

The pause options are the equivalent of optional named arguments used to configure stream pausing. Supported options are:

Option	Type	Description	Default
PausePartitions	list of ints	Specifies the stream partitions to pause. If not set, all partitions will be paused.
ResumeAll	bool	Resume all partitions in the stream if any are published to instead of resuming only the partition published to.	false

PauseStream returns/throws an error if the operation fails, specifically ErrNoSuchPartition if the stream or partition(s) do not exist.

Implementation Guidance

SetStreamReadonly

// SetStreamReadonly sets the readonly flag on a stream and some or all of
// its partitions. Name is the stream identifier, globally unique. It
// returns an ErrNoSuchPartition if the given stream or partition does not
// exist. By default, this will set the readonly flag on all partitions.
// Subscribers to a readonly partition will see their subscription ended
// with a ErrReadonlyPartition error once all messages currently in the
// partition have been read.
func (c *client) SetStreamReadonly(ctx context.Context, name string, options ...ReadonlyOption) error

SetStreamReadonly sets some or all of a stream's partitions as readonly or readwrite. Attempting to publish to a readonly partition will result in an ErrReadonlyPartition error/exception. Subscribers consuming a readonly partition will read up to the end of the partition and then receive an ErrReadonlyPartition error.

In the Go client example above, SetStreamReadonly takes three arguments:

Argument	Type	Description	Required
context	context	A context which is a Go idiom for passing things like a timeout, cancellation signal, and other values across API boundaries. For Liftbridge, this is primarily used for two things: request timeouts and cancellation. In other languages, this might be replaced by explicit arguments, optional named arguments, or other language-specific idioms.	language-dependent
name	string	The name of the stream whose partitions to set the readonly flag for.	yes
options	readonly options	Zero or more readonly options. These are used to pass in optional settings for setting the readonly flag. This is a common Go pattern for implementing extensible APIs. In other languages, this might be replaced with a builder pattern or optional named arguments. These `SetStreamReadonly` options are described below.	language-dependent

The readonly options are the equivalent of optional named arguments used to configure readonly requests. Supported options are:

Option	Type	Description	Default
ReadonlyPartitions	list of ints	Specifies the stream partitions to set the readonly flag for. If not set, all partitions will be changed.
Readonly	bool	Defines if the partitions should be set to readonly or readwrite.	false

SetStreamReadonly returns/throws an error if the operation fails, specifically ErrNoSuchPartition if the stream or partition(s) do not exist.

Implementation Guidance

// Subscribe creates an ephemeral subscription for the given stream. It
// begins receiving messages starting at the configured position and waits
// for new messages when it reaches the end of the stream. The default
// start position is the end of the stream. It returns an ErrNoSuchStream
// if the given stream does not exist. Use a cancelable Context to close a
// subscription.
func Subscribe(ctx context.Context, stream string, handler Handler, opts ...SubscriptionOption) error

Subscribe is used to consume streams. By default, it begins reading messages from the end of the stream and blocks for new messages.

By default, the client automatically binds to the partition's leader for a subscribe request. However, it is also possible to bind a subscribe request to a random ISR replica, including partition followers, with an additional opt-in flag. Like the leader, an ISR follower will only expose committed messages. However, there may be some lag behind what is committed on the leader before it's committed on a follower.

In the Go client example above, Subscribe takes four arguments:

Argument	Type	Description	Required
context	context	A context which is a Go idiom for passing things like a timeout, cancellation signal, and other values across API boundaries. For Liftbridge, this is primarily used for two things: request timeouts and cancellation. Cancellation is particularly important for `Subscribe` because it's how subscriptions are closed. Messages will continue to received on a subscription until it is closed. In Go, this is done using a cancellable context. In other languages, this might be replaced by an explicit argument or other language-specific idiom (e.g. returning an object with a `Cancel` API). Timeouts might be implemented using an explicit argument, an optional named argument, or some other idiom.	language-dependent
stream	string	A stream name string which is the stream to read messages from.	yes
handler	callback	A handler callback used to receive messages from the stream, described below.	yes
options	subscription options	Zero or more subscription options. These are used to pass in optional settings for the subscription. This is a common Go pattern for implementing extensible APIs. In other languages, this might be replaced with a builder pattern or optional named arguments. These `Subscribe` options are described below.	language-dependent

The subscribe handler is a callback function that takes a message and an error. If the error is not null, the subscription will be terminated and no more messages will be received. The Go signature of the handler callback is detailed below. In other languages, this might be a stream mechanism instead of a callback. See below for guidance on implementing messages.

// Handler is the callback invoked by Subscribe when a message is received on
// the specified stream. If err is not nil, the subscription will be terminated
// and no more messages will be received.
type Handler func(msg *Message, err error)

The subscription options are the equivalent of optional named arguments used to configure a subscription. Supported options are:

Option	Type	Description	Default
Partition	int	Specifies the stream partition to consume.	0
StartAtEarliestReceived	bool	Sets the subscription start position to the earliest message received in the stream.	false
StartAtLatestReceived	bool	Sets the subscription start position to the last message received in the stream.	false
StartAtOffset	int	Sets the subscription start position to the first message with an offset greater than or equal to the given offset.
StartAtTime	timestamp	Sets the subscription start position to the first message with a timestamp greater than or equal to the given time.
StartAtTimeDelta	time duration	Sets the subscription start position to the first message with a timestamp greater than or equal to `now - delta`.
ReadISRReplica	bool	Sets the subscription to one of a random ISR replica instead of subscribing to the partition's leader.	false
Resume	bool	Specifies whether a paused partition should be resumed before subscribing.	false

Currently, Subscribe can only subscribe to a single partition. In the future, there will be functionality for consuming all partitions.

Subscribe returns/throws an error if the operation fails, specifically ErrNoSuchPartition if the specified stream or partition does not exist.

Implementation Guidance

Publish

// Publish publishes a new message to the Liftbridge stream. The partition
// that gets published to is determined by the provided partition or
// Partitioner passed through MessageOptions, if any. If a partition or
// Partitioner is not provided, this defaults to the base partition. This
// partition determines the underlying NATS subject that gets published to.
// To publish directly to a specific NATS subject, use the low-level
// PublishToSubject API.
//
// If the AckPolicy is not NONE, this will synchronously block until the
// ack is received. If the ack is not received in time, ErrAckTimeout is
// returned. If AckPolicy is NONE, this returns nil on success.
Publish(ctx context.Context, stream string, value []byte, opts ...MessageOption) (*Ack, error)

Publish sends a message to a Liftbridge stream. Since Liftbridge streams attach to normal NATS subjects, it's also possible to publish messages directly to NATS using a NATS client. Liftbridge works fine with plain, opaque NATS messages, but it also extends NATS with a protobuf-based envelope protocol. This allows publishers to add metadata to messages like a key, headers, and acking information. Liftbridge client libraries may provide helper methods to make it easy to create envelopes and deal with acks yourself using a NATS client directly (described below). However, the Publish API is intended to abstract this work away from you.

Publish is a synchronous operation, meaning when it returns, the message has been successfully published. Publish can also be configured to block until a message acknowledgement (ack) is returned from the cluster. This is useful for ensuring a message has been stored and replicated, guaranteeing at-least-once delivery. The default ack policy is LEADER, meaning the ack is sent once the partition leader has stored the message. See below for guidance on implementing acks.

If the ack policy is not NONE, Publish will synchronously block until the ack is received. If the ack is not received in time, an ErrAckTimeout error/exception is thrown. If the ack policy is NONE, this returns immediately.

Publish can send messages to particular stream partitions using a Partitioner or an explicitly provided partition. By default, it publishes to the base partition. The partition determines the underlying NATS subject that gets published to. To publish directly to a specific NATS subject, use the low-level PublishToSubject API.

In the Go client example above, Publish takes four arguments:

Argument	Type	Description	Required
context	context	A context which is a Go idiom for passing things like a timeout, cancellation signal, and other values across API boundaries. For Liftbridge, this is primarily used for two things: request timeouts and cancellation. In other languages, this might be replaced by explicit arguments, optional named arguments, or other language-specific idioms. With `Publish`, the timeout is particularly important as it relates to acking. If an ack policy is set (see below) and a timeout is provided, `Publish` will block until the first ack is received. If the ack is not received in time, a timeout error is returned. If the ack policy is `NONE` or a timeout is not set, `Publish` returns as soon as the message has been published.	language-dependent
stream	string	The stream to publish to.	yes
value	bytes	The message value to publish consisting of opaque bytes.	yes
options	message options	Zero or more message options. These are used to pass in optional settings for the message. This is a common Go pattern for implementing extensible APIs. In other languages, this might be replaced with a builder pattern or optional named arguments. These `Publish` options are described below.	language-dependent

The publish message options are the equivalent of optional named arguments used to configure a message. Supported options are:

Option	Type	Description	Default
AckInbox	string	Sets the NATS subject Liftbridge should publish the message ack to. If this is not set, the server will generate a random inbox. This generally does not need to be configured when using the `Publish` API since the server will handle acks for you. Instead, it's used if, for some reason, you wish to handle the ack yourself.
CorrelationID	string	Sets the identifier used to correlate an ack with the published message. If it's not set, the ack will not have a correlation ID. This generally does not need to be configured when using the `Publish` API since the server will handle acks for you. Instead, it's used if, for some reason, you wish to handle the ack yourself.
AckPolicyAll	bool	Sets the ack policy of the message to `ALL`. This means the ack will be sent when the message has been stored by all partition replicas.	false
AckPolicyLeader	bool	Sets the ack policy of the message to `LEADER`. This means the ack will be sent when the partition leader has stored the message. This is the default ack policy if not otherwise set.	true
AckPolicyNone	bool	Sets the ack policy of the message to `NONE`. This means no ack will be sent.	false
Header	string and bytes	String and opaque bytes representing a key-value pair to set as a header on the message. This may overwrite previously set headers. Client libraries may choose to forgo this option in favor of the bulk `Headers` option below. This is a convenience for setting a single header.
Headers	map of strings to bytes	Map of strings to opaque bytes representing key-value pairs to set as headers on the message. This may overwrite previously set headers.
Key	bytes	Opaque bytes used for the message key. If Liftbridge has stream compaction enabled, the stream will retain only the last message for each key (if not set, the message is always retained).
PartitionByKey	bool	Flag which maps the message to a stream partition based on a hash of the message key. This computes the partition number for the message by hashing the key and modding by the number of partitions for the first stream found with the subject of the published message. This does not work with streams containing wildcards in their subjects, e.g. `foo.*`, since this matches on the subject literal of the published message. This also has undefined behavior if there are multiple streams for the given subject. This is used to derive the actual NATS subject the message is published to, e.g. `foo`, `foo.1`, `foo.2`, etc. By default, it's published to the subject provided.	false
PartitionByRoundRobin	bool	Flag which maps the message to stream partitions in a round-robin fashion. This computes the partition number for the message by atomically incrementing a counter for the message subject and modding it by the number of partitions for the first stream found with the subject. This does not work with streams containing wildcards in their subjects, e.g. `foo.*`, since this matches on the subject literal of the published message. This also has undefined behavior if there are multiple streams for the given subject. This is used to derive the actual NATS subject the message is published to, e.g. `foo`, `foo.1`, `foo.2`, etc. By default, it's published to the subject provided.	false
PartitionBy	partitioner	`Partitioner` (detailed below) which sets the strategy used to map the message to a stream partition. This is used to derive the actual NATS subject the message is published to, e.g. `foo`, `foo.1`, `foo.2`, etc. By default, it's published to the subject provided.
ToPartition	int	Sets the partition to publish the message to. If this is set, any specified `Partitioner` will not be used. This is used to derive the actual NATS subject the message is published to, e.g. `foo`, `foo.1`, `foo.2`, etc. By default, it's published to the subject provided.

Partitioner is an interface which implements logic for mapping a message to a stream partition. It passes a Metadata object into Partition, which is described later. The Go interface definition is shown below.

// Partitioner is used to map a message to a stream partition.
type Partitioner interface {
    // Partition computes the partition number for a given message.
    Partition(stream string, key, value []byte, metadata *Metadata) int32
}

Implementation Guidance

PublishAsync

// PublishAsync publishes a new message to the Liftbridge stream and
// asynchronously processes the ack or error for the message.
PublishAsync(ctx context.Context, stream string, value []byte, ackHandler AckHandler, opts ...MessageOption) error

PublishAsync sends a message to a Liftbridge stream asynchronously. This is similar to Publish, but rather than waiting for the ack, it dispatches the ack with an ack handler callback.

If the ack policy is not NONE, PublishAsync will asynchronously dispatch the ack when it is received. If the ack is not received in time, an ErrAckTimeout error/exception is dispatched. If the ack policy is NONE, the callback will not be invoked. If no ack handler is provided, any ack will be ignored.

In the Go client example above, PublishAsync takes five arguments:

Argument	Type	Description	Required
context	context	A context which is a Go idiom for passing things like a timeout, cancellation signal, and other values across API boundaries. For Liftbridge, this is primarily used for two things: request timeouts and cancellation. In other languages, this might be replaced by explicit arguments, optional named arguments, or other language-specific idioms. With `PublishAsync`, the timeout is particularly important as it relates to acking. If an ack policy is set (see below) and a timeout is provided, `PublishAsync` will allow up to this much time to pass until the ack is received. If the ack is not received in time, a timeout error is returned.	language-dependent
stream	string	The stream to publish to.	yes
value	bytes	The message value to publish consisting of opaque bytes.	yes
ackHandler	callback	A handler callback used to receive the ack for the published message, described below.	yes
options	message options	Zero or more message options. These are used to pass in optional settings for the message. This is a common Go pattern for implementing extensible APIs. In other languages, this might be replaced with a builder pattern or optional named arguments. These `PublishAsync` options are described below.	language-dependent

The ack handler is a callback function that takes an ack and an error. If the error is not null, this indicates the message was not successfully acked and the corresponding ack argument will be null. The Go signature of the ack handler callback is detailed below. In other languages, this might be a stream mechanism instead of a callback. See below for guidance on implementing acks.

// AckHandler is used to handle the results of asynchronous publishes to a
// stream. If the AckPolicy on the published message is not NONE, the handler
// will receive the ack once it's received from the cluster or an error if the
// message was not received successfully.
type AckHandler func(ack *Ack, err error)

The PublishAsync message options are the equivalent of optional named arguments used to configure a message. Supported options are the same as those supported by Publish.

Implementation Guidance

PublishToSubject

// PublishToSubject publishes a new message to the NATS subject. Note that
// because this publishes directly to a subject, there may be multiple (or
// no) streams that receive the message. As a result, MessageOptions
// related to partitioning will be ignored. To publish at the
// stream/partition level, use the high-level Publish API.
//
// If the AckPolicy is not NONE and a deadline is provided, this will
// synchronously block until the first ack is received. If an ack is not
// received in time, ErrAckTimeout is returned. If an AckPolicy and
// deadline are configured, this returns the first Ack on success,
// otherwise it returns nil.
PublishToSubject(ctx context.Context, subject string, value []byte, opts ...MessageOption) (*Ack, error)

PublishToSubject sends a message to a NATS subject (and, in turn, any streams that match the subject). Since Liftbridge streams attach to normal NATS subjects, it's also possible to publish messages directly to NATS using a NATS client. Liftbridge works fine with plain, opaque NATS messages, but it also extends NATS with a protobuf-based envelope protocol. This allows publishers to add metadata to messages like a key, headers, and acking information. Liftbridge client libraries may provide helper methods to make it easy to create envelopes and deal with acks yourself using a NATS client directly (described below). However, the PublishToSubject API is intended to abstract this work away from you.

PublishToSubject is a synchronous operation, meaning when it returns, the message has been successfully published. PublishToSubject can also be configured to block until a message acknowledgement (ack) is returned from the cluster. This is useful for ensuring a message has been stored and replicated, guaranteeing at-least-once delivery. The default ack policy is LEADER, meaning the ack is sent once the partition leader has stored the message. PublishToSubject only waits on the first ack received. This is important to be aware of since there may be multiple streams attached to a subject. See below for guidance on implementing acks.

In the Go client example above, PublishToSubject takes four arguments:

Argument	Type	Description	Required
context	context	A context which is a Go idiom for passing things like a timeout, cancellation signal, and other values across API boundaries. For Liftbridge, this is primarily used for two things: request timeouts and cancellation. In other languages, this might be replaced by explicit arguments, optional named arguments, or other language-specific idioms. With `PublishToSubject`, the timeout is particularly important as it relates to acking. If an ack policy is set (see below) and a timeout is provided, `PublishToSubject` will block until the first ack is received. If the ack is not received in time, a timeout error is returned. If the ack policy is `NONE` or a timeout is not set, `PublishToSubject` returns as soon as the message has been published.	language-dependent
subject	string	The NATS subject to publish to.	yes
value	bytes	The message value to publish consisting of opaque bytes.	yes
options	message options	Zero or more message options. These are used to pass in optional settings for the message. This is a common Go pattern for implementing extensible APIs. In other languages, this might be replaced with a builder pattern or optional named arguments. These `PublishToSubject` options are described below.	language-dependent

The publish message options are the equivalent of optional named arguments used to configure a message. Unlike Publish, PublishToSubject does not support message options relating to partitioning since it operates at a lower level. Supported options are:

Option	Type	Description	Default
AckInbox	string	Sets the NATS subject Liftbridge should publish the message ack to. If this is not set, the server will generate a random inbox. This generally does not need to be configured when using the `PublishToSubject` API since the server will handle acks for you. Instead, it's used if, for some reason, you wish to handle the ack yourself.
CorrelationID	string	Sets the identifier used to correlate an ack with the published message. If it's not set, the ack will not have a correlation ID. This generally does not need to be configured when using the `PublishToSubject` API since the server will handle acks for you. Instead, it's used if, for some reason, you wish to handle the ack yourself.
AckPolicyAll	bool	Sets the ack policy of the message to `ALL`. This means the ack will be sent when the message has been stored by all partition replicas.	false
AckPolicyLeader	bool	Sets the ack policy of the message to `LEADER`. This means the ack will be sent when the partition leader has stored the message. This is the default ack policy if not otherwise set.	true
AckPolicyNone	bool	Sets the ack policy of the message to `NONE`. This means no ack will be sent.	false
Header	string and bytes	String and opaque bytes representing a key-value pair to set as a header on the message. This may overwrite previously set headers. Client libraries may choose to forgo this option in favor of the bulk `Headers` option below. This is a convenience for setting a single header.
Headers	map of strings to bytes	Map of strings to opaque bytes representing key-value pairs to set as headers on the message. This may overwrite previously set headers.
Key	bytes	Opaque bytes used for the message key. If Liftbridge has stream compaction enabled, the stream will retain only the last message for each key (if not set, the message is always retained).

Implementation Guidance

Low-Level Publish Helpers

Because Liftbridge is simply a consumer of NATS, it's also possible to publish messages directly to NATS rather than using Liftbridge's Publish and PublishToSubject APIs. This can be useful for extending the capabilities of NATS in existing systems. This means we can publish NATS messages as normal, as shown in the example Go code below, and Liftbridge streams will be able to receive them.

package main

import "github.com/nats-io/nats.go"

func main() {
    // Connect to NATS.
    nc, _ := nats.Connect(nats.DefaultURL)

    // Publish a message.
    nc.Publish("foo.bar", []byte("Hello, world!"))
    nc.Flush()
}

However, these low-level publishes lose out on some of the additional capabilities of Liftbridge provided by message envelopes, such as message headers, keys, etc. As a result, client libraries may provide helper methods to facilitate publishing message envelopes directly to NATS as well as handling acks. These include NewMessage, UnmarshalAck, and UnmarshalMessage described below.

NewMessage

// NewMessage returns a serialized message for the given payload and options.
func NewMessage(value []byte, options ...MessageOption) []byte

NewMessage creates a Liftbridge message envelope serialized to bytes ready for publishing to NATS. This consists of an envelope header followed by the serialized message protobuf. It takes the same arguments as Publish (see above) with the exception of the context and subject.

Note that the envelope protocol does not need to be implemented in the Publish API since the envelope serialization is handled by the server.

UnmarshalMessage

// UnmarshalMessage deserializes a message from the given byte slice. It
// returns an error if the given data is not actually a Message.
func UnmarshalMessage(data []byte) (Message, error)

UnmarshalMessage is a helper method which effectively does the reverse of NewMessage, taking a serialized message envelope and returning a deserialized message object or indication the data is not actually a message.

UnmarshalAck

// UnmarshalAck deserializes an Ack from the given byte slice. It returns an
// error if the given data is not actually an Ack.
func UnmarshalAck(data []byte) (*Ack, error)

UnmarshalAck is used to deserialize a message ack received on a NATS subscription. It takes a single argument consisting of the ack bytes as received from NATS and throws an error/exception if the bytes are not actually a serialized ack envelope.

This is useful for handling acks for messages published with a set ack inbox (i.e. the NATS subject Liftbridge will publish message acks to). For example:

// Connect to NATS.
nc, _ := nats.Connect(nats.DefaultURL)

// Subscribe to ack inbox.
nc.Subscribe("my.ack.inbox", func(msg *nats.Msg) {
    ack, _ := lift.UnmarshalAck(msg.Data)
    // CorrelationId can be used to correlate an ack with a particular message.
    if ack.CorrelationID() == "123" {
        println("message acked!")
    }
})

// Publish a message envelope.
nc.Publish("foo.bar", lift.NewMessage(
    []byte("hello"),
    lift.AckInbox("my.ack.inbox"),
    lift.CorrelationID("123"),
))

FetchMetadata

// FetchMetadata returns cluster metadata including broker and stream
// information.
func FetchMetadata(ctx context.Context) (*Metadata, error)

Liftbridge provides a metadata API which clients can use to retrieve cluster metadata including server (broker) and stream information. There are a few key use cases for this metadata:

The client can connect to a single seed server, fetch the cluster metadata, and then populate a local cache of known servers in order to allow for failover of subsequent RPCs. This should be handled internally by client libraries.
Subscribe requests must be sent to the leader of the requested stream partition, so the client can fetch metadata from the cluster to determine which server to send particular requests to. This should be handled internally by client libraries.
Stream partitioning requires knowing how many partitions exist for a stream, so the client can fetch metadata from the cluster to determine partitions. This should be handled internally by client libraries for things such as PartitionByKey and PartitionByRoundRobin but may be handled by users for more advanced use cases.

FetchMetadata retrieves an immutable object containing this cluster metadata. As noted in the above use cases, most uses of this metadata is handled internally by client libraries. Generally, FetchMetadata is only needed by users in cases where the number of stream partitions is required.

In the Go client example above, FetchMetadata takes one argument:

Argument	Type	Description	Required
context	context	A context which is a Go idiom for passing things like a timeout, cancellation signal, and other values across API boundaries. For Liftbridge, this is primarily used for two things: request timeouts and cancellation. In other languages, this might be replaced by explicit arguments, optional named arguments, or other language-specific idioms.	language-dependent

Implementation Guidance

FetchPartitionMetadata

// FetchPartitionMetadata retrieves the latest partition metadata from partition leader
// The main interest is to retrieve Highest Watermark and Newest Offset
FetchPartitionMetadata(ctx context.Context, stream string, partition int32) (*PartitionMetadataResponse, error)

Liftbridge provides a partition metadata API which can be used to retrieve information for a partition. Most importantly, there are use cases where it is useful to retrieve the high watermark and newest offset of the partition for tighter control over subscriptions and published messages. A few key points to take into account:

The client must connect to the partition leader to fetch partition metadata. Only the partition leader maintains the most up-to-date version of the high watermark and newest offset. Thus, the request must be sent to the partition leader.
The client should maintain an internal version of the metadata to know, for a given partition of a stream, which broker is currently the leader. It should be noted that the partition leader is different from the cluster's metadata leader.

In the Go client example above, FetchPartitionMetadata takes three arguments:

Argument	Type	Description	Required
context	context	A context which is a Go idiom for passing things like a timeout, cancellation signal, and other values across API boundaries. For Liftbridge, this is primarily used for two things: request timeouts and cancellation. In other languages, this might be replaced by explicit arguments, optional named arguments, or other language-specific idioms.	language-dependent
stream	string	Stream name	yes
partition	int	ID of the partition	yes

Implementation Guidance

SetCursor

// SetCursor persists a cursor position for a particular stream partition.
// This can be used to checkpoint a consumer's position in a stream to
// resume processing later.
SetCursor(ctx context.Context, id, stream string, partition int32, offset int64) error

SetCursor is used to checkpoint a consumer's position in a stream partition. This is useful to allow consumer's to resume processing a stream while remaining stateless by using FetchCursor.

Because cursors are stored in an internal stream that is partitioned, clients need to send this request to the appropriate partition leader. The internal cursors stream is partitioned by cursor key. A cursor key consists of <cursorID>,<stream>,<partition>. To map this key to a partition, hash it with an IEEE CRC32 and then mod by the number of partitions in the __cursors stream. This request mapping should be handled by the client implementation.

SetCursor throws an error/exception if the cursors stream does not exist, the particular cursors partition does not exist, the server is not the leader for the cursors partition, or the server failed to durably store the cursor.

In the Go client example above, SetCursor takes five arguments:

Argument	Type	Description	Required
context	context	A context which is a Go idiom for passing things like a timeout, cancellation signal, and other values across API boundaries. For Liftbridge, this is primarily used for two things: request timeouts and cancellation. In other languages, this might be replaced by explicit arguments, optional named arguments, or other language-specific idioms.	language-dependent
id	string	Unique cursor identifier	yes
stream	string	Name of stream cursor belongs to	yes
partition	int	ID of the stream partition cursor belongs to	yes
offset	int	Cursor offset position	yes

Implementation Guidance

FetchCursor

// FetchCursor retrieves a cursor position for a particular stream
// partition. It returns -1 if the cursor does not exist.
FetchCursor(ctx context.Context, id, stream string, partition int32) (int64, error)

FetchCursor is used to retrieve a consumer's position in a stream partition stored by SetCursor. This is useful to allow consumer's to resume processing a stream while remaining stateless.

FetchCursor throws an error/exception if the cursors stream does not exist, the particular cursors partition does not exist, the server is not the leader for the cursors partition, or the server failed to load the cursor.

In the Go client example above, FetchCursor takes four arguments:

Argument	Type	Description	Required
context	context	A context which is a Go idiom for passing things like a timeout, cancellation signal, and other values across API boundaries. For Liftbridge, this is primarily used for two things: request timeouts and cancellation. In other languages, this might be replaced by explicit arguments, optional named arguments, or other language-specific idioms.	language-dependent
id	string	Unique cursor identifier	yes
stream	string	Name of stream cursor belongs to	yes
partition	int	ID of the stream partition cursor belongs to	yes

Implementation Guidance

Close

// Close the client connection.
func Close() error

Close simply releases all resources associated with the client, namely all gRPC connections to the server. There might be multiple connections since a client might have connections to multiple servers in a cluster and/or connection pooling. Close takes no arguments and returns/throws an error if the operation fails.

Implementation Guidance

Client Implementation

Below is implementation guidance for the client interface described above. Like the interface, specific implementation details may differ depending on the programming language.

Messages and Acks

It's recommended to not expose transport and protocol details to users in client library implementations. Currently, Liftbridge relies on gRPC and Protocol Buffers, but it's possible that this could change in the future. These should be considered implementation details. Thus, it's recommended to provide wrapping types around Message, Ack, AckPolicy, and any other API objects. Implementations should handle converting protobufs into these wrappers. The Go implementation of these is shown below to demonstrate:

// Message received from a Liftbridge stream.
type Message struct {
    offset       int64
    key          []byte
    value        []byte
    partition    int32
    timestamp    time.Time
    stream       string
    subject      string
    replySubject string
    headers      map[string][]byte
}

func messageFromProto(wireMsg *proto.Message) *Message {
    if wireMsg == nil {
        return nil
    }
    msg := &Message{
        offset:       wireMsg.GetOffset(),
        key:          wireMsg.GetKey(),
        value:        wireMsg.GetValue(),
        partition:    wireMsg.GetPartition(),
        timestamp:    time.Unix(0, wireMsg.GetTimestamp()),
        stream:       wireMsg.GetStream(),
        subject:      wireMsg.GetSubject(),
        replySubject: wireMsg.GetReplySubject(),
        headers:      wireMsg.GetHeaders(),
    }
    return msg
}

// Offset is a monotonic message sequence in the stream partition.
func (m *Message) Offset() int64 {
    return m.offset
}

// Key is an optional label set on a Message, useful for partitioning and
// stream compaction.
func (m *Message) Key() []byte {
    return m.key
}

// Value is the Message payload.
func (m *Message) Value() []byte {
    return m.value
}

// Timestamp is the time the Message was received by the server.
func (m *Message) Timestamp() time.Time {
    return m.timestamp
}

// Subject is the NATS subject the Message was received on.
func (m *Message) Subject() string {
    return m.subject
}

// ReplySubject is the NATS reply subject on the Message, if any.
func (m *Message) ReplySubject() string {
    return m.replySubject
}

// Headers is a set of key-value pairs.
func (m *Message) Headers() map[string][]byte {
    headers := make(map[string][]byte, len(m.headers))
    for key, value := range m.headers {
        headers[key] = value
    }
    return headers
}

// Stream the Message was received on.
func (m *Message) Stream() string {
    return m.stream
}

// Partition the Message was received on.
func (m *Message) Partition() int32 {
    return m.partition
}

// AckPolicy controls the behavior of message acknowledgements.
type AckPolicy int32

func (a AckPolicy) toProto() proto.AckPolicy {
    return proto.AckPolicy(a)
}

// Ack represents an acknowledgement that a message was committed to a stream
// partition.
type Ack struct {
    stream             string
    partitionSubject   string
    messageSubject     string
    offset             int64
    ackInbox           string
    correlationID      string
    ackPolicy          AckPolicy
    receptionTimestamp time.Time
    commitTimestamp    time.Time
}

func ackFromProto(wireAck *proto.Ack) *Ack {
    if wireAck == nil {
        return nil
    }
    ack := &Ack{
        stream:             wireAck.GetStream(),
        partitionSubject:   wireAck.GetPartitionSubject(),
        messageSubject:     wireAck.GetMsgSubject(),
        offset:             wireAck.GetOffset(),
        ackInbox:           wireAck.GetAckInbox(),
        correlationID:      wireAck.GetCorrelationId(),
        ackPolicy:          AckPolicy(wireAck.GetAckPolicy()),
        receptionTimestamp: time.Unix(0, wireAck.GetReceptionTimestamp()),
        commitTimestamp:    time.Unix(0, wireAck.GetCommitTimestamp()),
    }
    return ack
}

// Stream the Message was received on.
func (a *Ack) Stream() string {
    return a.stream
}

// PartitionSubject is the NATS subject the partition is attached to.
func (a *Ack) PartitionSubject() string {
    return a.partitionSubject
}

// MessageSubject is the NATS subject the message was received on.
func (a *Ack) MessageSubject() string {
    return a.messageSubject
}

// Offset is the partition offset the message was committed to.
func (a *Ack) Offset() int64 {
    return a.offset
}

// AckInbox is the NATS subject the ack was published to.
func (a *Ack) AckInbox() string {
    return a.ackInbox
}

// CorrelationID is the user-supplied value from the message.
func (a *Ack) CorrelationID() string {
    return a.correlationID
}

// AckPolicy sent on the message.
func (a *Ack) AckPolicy() AckPolicy {
    return a.ackPolicy
}

// ReceptionTimestamp is the timestamp the message was received by the server.
func (a *Ack) ReceptionTimestamp() time.Time {
    return a.receptionTimestamp
}

// CommitTimestamp is the timestamp the message was committed.
func (a *Ack) CommitTimestamp() time.Time {
    return a.commitTimestamp
}

With PublishAsync, the server can also send back PublishResponse messages containing a PublishAsyncError in the event of a failed publish. Similar to Ack, client implementations should wrap this error object before exposing it to the user. An example of this is shown in the Go implementation asyncErrorFromProto below.

func asyncErrorFromProto(asyncError *proto.PublishAsyncError) error {
    if asyncError == nil {
        return nil
    }
    switch asyncError.Code {
    case proto.PublishAsyncError_NOT_FOUND:
        return ErrNoSuchPartition
    case proto.PublishAsyncError_READONLY:
        return ErrReadonlyPartition
    default:
        return errors.New(asyncError.Message)
    }
}

RPCs

While Liftbridge has a concept of a metadata leader, or controller, which is responsible for handling updates to cluster metadata, most RPCs can be made to any server in the cluster. The only exception to this is Subscribe, which requires the RPC to be made to the leader of the partition being subscribed to. Metadata RPCs will be automatically forwarded to the metadata leader in the cluster.

With this in mind, we recommend implementing a reusable method for making resilient RPCs by retrying requests on certain failures and cycling through known servers. It's important to be mindful of which errors are retried for idempotency reasons. This resilient RPC method can be used for RPCs such as:

CreateStream
DeleteStream
PauseStream
SetStreamReadonly
PublishToSubject
FetchMetadata

The Go implementation of this, called doResilientRPC, is shown below along with the dialBroker helper. It takes an RPC closure and retries on gRPC Unavailable errors while trying different servers in the cluster. dialBroker relies on the internally managed metadata object to track server addresses in the cluster.

// doResilientRPC executes the given RPC and performs retries if it fails due
// to the broker being unavailable, cycling through the known broker list.
func (c *client) doResilientRPC(rpc func(client proto.APIClient) error) (err error) {
    c.mu.RLock()
    client := c.apiClient
    c.mu.RUnlock()

    for i := 0; i < 10; i++ {
        err = rpc(client)
        if status.Code(err) == codes.Unavailable {
            conn, err := c.dialBroker()
            if err != nil {
                return err
            }
            client = proto.NewAPIClient(conn)
            c.mu.Lock()
            c.apiClient = client
            c.conn.Close()
            c.conn = conn
            c.mu.Unlock()
        } else {
            break
        }
    }
    return
}

// dialBroker dials each broker in the cluster, in random order, returning a
// gRPC ClientConn to the first one that is successful.
func (c *client) dialBroker() (*grpc.ClientConn, error) {
    var (
        conn  *grpc.ClientConn
        err   error
        addrs = c.metadata.getAddrs()
        perm  = rand.Perm(len(addrs))
    )
    for _, i := range perm {
        conn, err = grpc.Dial(addrs[i], c.dialOpts...)
        if err == nil {
            break
        }
    }
    if conn == nil {
        return nil, err
    }
    return conn, nil
}

Additionally, RPCs such as SetCursor, FetchCursor, and FetchPartitionMetadata cannot be sent to any random server but, rather, need to be sent to leaders of particular partitions. Thus, it's also useful to implement a variant of doResilientRPC for sending RPCs to partition leaders in a fault-tolerant fashion. The Go implementation of this is called doResilientLeaderRPC and is shown below.

// doResilientLeaderRPC sends the given RPC to the partition leader and
// performs retries if it fails due to the broker being unavailable.
func (c *client) doResilientLeaderRPC(ctx context.Context, rpc func(client proto.APIClient) error,
    stream string, partition int32) (err error) {

    var (
        pool *connPool
        addr string
        conn *conn
    )
    for i := 0; i < 5; i++ {
        pool, addr, err = c.getPoolAndAddr(stream, partition, false)
        if err != nil {
            time.Sleep(50 * time.Millisecond)
            c.metadata.update(ctx)
            continue
        }
        conn, err = pool.get(c.connFactory(addr))
        if err != nil {
            time.Sleep(50 * time.Millisecond)
            c.metadata.update(ctx)
            continue
        }
        err = rpc(conn)
        pool.put(conn)
        if err != nil {
            if status.Code(err) == codes.Unavailable {
                time.Sleep(50 * time.Millisecond)
                c.metadata.update(ctx)
                continue
            }
        }
        break
    }
    return err
}

getPoolAndAddr is a helper which returns a connection pool and the address for the leader of the given partition.

Connection Pooling

A single client might have multiple connections to different servers in a Liftbridge cluster or even multiple connections to the same server. For efficiency purposes, it's recommended client libraries implement connection pooling to reuse and limit gRPC connections. For simplicity, we recommend having a dedicated connection for all RPCs with the exception of Subscribe and using connection pooling for Subscribe RPCs which are long-lived and asynchronous.

There are two important client options that control pooling behavior: KeepAliveTime and MaxConnsPerBroker. KeepAliveTime is the amount of time a pooled connection can be idle (unused) before it is closed and removed from the pool. A suggested default for this is 30 seconds. MaxConnsPerBroker is the maximum number of connections to pool for a given server in the cluster. A suggested default for this is 2.

Since a connection pool is generally scoped to a server, a client will typically have a map of server addresses to connection pools.

A connection pool generally has three key operations:

get: return a gRPC connection from the pool, if available, or create one using a provided connection factory. If the connection was taken from a pool, an expiration timer should be canceled on it to prevent it from being closed.
put: return a gRPC connection to the pool if there is capacity or close it if not. If the connection is added to the pool, a timer should be set to close the connection if it's unused for KeepAliveTime.
close: clean up the connection pool by closing all active gRPC connections and stopping all timers.

CreateStream Implementation

The CreateStream implementation simply constructs a gRPC request and executes it using the resilient RPC method described above. If the AlreadyExists gRPC error is returned, an ErrStreamExists error/exception is thrown. Otherwise, any other error/exception is thrown if the operation failed.

Also, clients can set custom configurations for the stream to be created. The exhaustive list of supported stream configurations are:

RetentionMaxBytes
RetentionMaxMessages
RetentionMaxAge
CleanerInterval
SegmentMaxBytes
SegmentMaxAge
CompactEnabled
CompactMaxGoroutines
OptimisticConcurrencyControl

Refer to Stream Configuration for more details. Note that these settings are optional. If not provided, the default configurations of the broker will be used instead.

In order to differentiate between custom configuration specified by the user and the server's default configuration, we use 3 custom NullableType wrappers in setting options for the CreateStreamRequest. These custom types are:

message NullableInt64 {
    int64 value = 1; 
}

message NullableInt32 {
    int32 value = 1; 
}

message NullableBool {
    bool value = 1; 
}

Note: if CompactMaxGoroutines is configured, you have to make sure manually that CompactEnabled is also set. The reason is that if this is not enabled explicitly, the servier will use the default configuration and that may be to disable compaction on the service side, which renders CompactMaxGoroutines to be unused.

Note: if OptimisticConcurrencyControl is configured, you should to make sure that at least one AckPolicy is set. A PublishRequest with AckPolicy is set to AckPolicy_NONE will be rejected explicity by the server.

// CreateStream creates a new stream attached to a NATS subject. Subject is the
// NATS subject the stream is attached to, and name is the stream identifier,
// unique per subject. It returns ErrStreamExists if a stream with the given
// subject and name already exists.
func (c *client) CreateStream(ctx context.Context, subject, name string, options ...StreamOption) error {
    opts := &StreamOptions{}
    for _, opt := range options {
        if err := opt(opts); err != nil {
            return err
        }
    }

    req := opts.newRequest(subject, name)
    err := c.doResilientRPC(func(client proto.APIClient) error {
        _, err := client.CreateStream(ctx, req)
        return err
    })
    if status.Code(err) == codes.AlreadyExists {
        return ErrStreamExists
    }
    return err
}

StreamOptions.newRequest creates a CreateStreamRequest protobuf and applies the specified options to it.

DeleteStream Implementation

The DeleteStream implementation simply constructs a gRPC request and executes it using the resilient RPC method described above. If the NotFound gRPC error is returned, an ErrNoSuchStream error/exception is thrown. Otherwise, any other error/exception is thrown if the operation failed.

// DeleteStream deletes a stream and all of its partitions. Name is the stream
// identifier, globally unique.
func (c *client) DeleteStream(ctx context.Context, name string) error {
    req := &proto.DeleteStreamRequest{Name: name}
    err := c.doResilientRPC(func(client proto.APIClient) error {
        _, err := client.DeleteStream(ctx, req)
        return err
    })
    if status.Code(err) == codes.NotFound {
        return ErrNoSuchStream
    }
    return err
}

PauseStream Implementation

The PauseStream implementation simply constructs a gRPC request and executes it using the resilient RPC method described above. If the NotFound gRPC error is returned, an ErrNoSuchPartition error/exception is thrown. Otherwise, any other error/exception is thrown if the operation failed.

// PauseStream pauses a stream and some or all of its partitions. Name is the
// stream identifier, globally unique. It returns an ErrNoSuchPartition if the
// given stream or partition does not exist. By default, this will pause all
// partitions. A partition is resumed when it is published to via the
// Liftbridge Publish API or ResumeAll is enabled and another partition in the
// stream is published to.
func (c *client) PauseStream(ctx context.Context, name string, options ...PauseOption) error {
    opts := &PauseOptions{}
    for _, opt := range options {
        if err := opt(opts); err != nil {
            return err
        }
    }

    req := &proto.PauseStreamRequest{
        Name:       name,
        Partitions: opts.Partitions,
        ResumeAll:  opts.ResumeAll,
    }
    err := c.doResilientRPC(func(client proto.APIClient) error {
        _, err := client.PauseStream(ctx, req)
        return err
    })
    if status.Code(err) == codes.NotFound {
        return ErrNoSuchPartition
    }
    return err
}

SetStreamReadonly Implementation

The SetStreamReadonly implementation simply constructs a gRPC request and executes it using the resilient RPC method described above. If the NotFound gRPC error is returned, an ErrNoSuchPartition error/exception is thrown. Otherwise, any other error/exception is thrown if the operation failed.

// SetStreamReadonly sets the readonly flag on a stream and some or all of
// its partitions. Name is the stream identifier, globally unique. It
// returns an ErrNoSuchPartition if the given stream or partition does not
// exist. By default, this will set the readonly flag on all partitions.
// Subscribers to a readonly partition will see their subscription ended
// with a ErrReadonlyPartition error once all messages currently in the
// partition have been read.
func (c *client) SetStreamReadonly(ctx context.Context, name string, options ...ReadonlyOption) error {
    opts := &ReadonlyOptions{}
    for _, opt := range options {
        if err := opt(opts); err != nil {
            return err
        }
    }

    req := &proto.SetStreamReadonlyRequest{
        Name:       name,
        Partitions: opts.Partitions,
        Readonly:   !opts.Readwrite,
    }
    err := c.doResilientRPC(func(client proto.APIClient) error {
        _, err := client.SetStreamReadonly(ctx, req)
        return err
    })
    if status.Code(err) == codes.NotFound {
        return ErrNoSuchPartition
    }
    return err
}

Subscribe Implementation

Subscribe works by making a gRPC request which returns a stream that sends back messages on a partition. As such, there are essentially two main implementation components: making the subscribe request and starting a dispatcher which asynchronously sends messages received on the gRPC stream to the user, either using a callback or some other message-passing mechanism. The Go implementation of this is shown below:

// Subscribe creates an ephemeral subscription for the given stream. It begins
// receiving messages starting at the configured position and waits for new
// messages when it reaches the end of the stream. The default start position
// is the end of the stream. It returns an ErrNoSuchPartition if the given
// stream or partition does not exist. Use a cancelable Context to close a
// subscription.
func (c *client) Subscribe(ctx context.Context, streamName string, handler Handler,
    options ...SubscriptionOption) (err error) {

    opts := &SubscriptionOptions{}
    for _, opt := range options {
        if err := opt(opts); err != nil {
            return err
        }
    }

    stream, releaseConn, err := c.subscribe(ctx, streamName, opts)
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }

    go c.dispatchStream(ctx, streamName, stream, releaseConn, handler)
    return nil
}

The Subscribe RPC can be sent to either the leader or a random ISR replica of the partition the client wants to subscribe to. By default, it should subscribe to the leader. A ReadISRReplica option must be enabled on the subscribe request in order to subscribe to an ISR replica.

Whether subscribing to the leader (by default) or a random ISR replica, the address should be determined by fetching the metadata from the cluster. This metadata can (and should) be cached in the client. It's recommended Subscribe use connection pooling since each Subscribe call will involve a long-lived gRPC connection to a different server.

When the subscription stream is created, the server sends an empty message to indicate the subscription was successfully created. Otherwise, an error is sent on the stream if the subscribe failed. This handshake message must be handled and should not be exposed to the user. A gRPC FailedPrecondition error indicates the server is not the partition leader, perhaps because the leader has since changed. In this case, the client should refresh the metadata and retry. It's recommended retries also wait a bit, e.g. between 10 and 500 ms, ideally with some jitter. A gRPC NotFound error is returned if the requested partition does not exist.

After the subscription is created and the server has returned a gRPC stream for the client to receive messages on, Subscribe should start an asynchronous thread, coroutine, or equivalent to send messages to the user. For example, this might invoke a callback or place messages in a buffer. Alternatively, Subscribe may be blocking, in which case it simply yields a stream of messages to the user in a synchronous manner. There are a few important pieces of behavior to point out with the dispatching component:

If an error is received on the gRPC stream, it should be propagated to the user. This should signal that the subscription is terminated and no more messages are to be received.
If an error indicating a transient network issue occurs, e.g. a gRPC Unavailable error, the client may opt to resubscribe to the partition starting at the last received offset. It's recommended to provide a configuration, ResubscribeWaitTime, which is the amount of time to attempt to re-establish a subscription after being disconnected. A suggested default for this is 30 seconds. It's recommended to have some wait time with jitter between resubscribe attempts. This resubscribe logic implies Subscribe is tracking the last received offset from the partition in order to know where to start a resubscribe from. Note that the internal resubscribe logic is purely best effort and, at the moment, it's up to users to track their position in the stream if needed.
When a subscription is closed, either explicitly or due to an error, its connection should be returned to the connection pool.

Publish Implementation

Publish originally used the Publish RPC endpoint. This endpoint will be deprecated in a future version of Liftbridge. Instead, Publish should rely on the PublishAsync streaming endpoint and wrap it with synchronous logic. Refer to the PublishAsync implementation for guidance on implementing the asynchronous component. The remainder of this builds on that implementation.

Publish relies on a private publishAsync helper function by synchronously waiting for the dispatched ack. If the ack policy is NONE, the message is published while ignoring the ack. Otherwise, Publish waits for the ack or error dispatched by publishAsync. The Go implementation of this is shown below. Refer to the PublishAsync implementation for the implementation of publishAsync.

// Publish publishes a new message to the Liftbridge stream. The partition that
// gets published to is determined by the provided partition or Partitioner
// passed through MessageOptions, if any. If a partition or Partitioner is not
// provided, this defaults to the base partition. This partition determines the
// underlying NATS subject that gets published to.  To publish directly to a
// spedcific NATS subject, use the low-level PublishToSubject API.
//
// If the AckPolicy is not NONE, this will synchronously block until the ack is
// received. If the ack is not received in time, ErrAckTimeout is returned. If
// AckPolicy is NONE, this returns nil on success.
func (c *client) Publish(ctx context.Context, stream string, value []byte,
    options ...MessageOption) (*Ack, error) {

    opts := &MessageOptions{Headers: make(map[string][]byte)}
    for _, opt := range options {
        opt(opts)
    }

    if opts.AckPolicy == AckPolicy(proto.AckPolicy_NONE) {
        // Fire and forget.
        err := c.publishAsync(ctx, stream, value, nil, opts)
        return nil, err
    }

    // Publish and wait for ack.
    var (
        ackCh   = make(chan *Ack, 1)
        errorCh = make(chan error, 1)
    )
    err := c.publishAsync(ctx, stream, value, func(ack *Ack, err error) {
        if err != nil {
            errorCh <- err
            return
        }
        ackCh <- ack
    }, opts)
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }

    select {
    case ack := <-ackCh:
        return ack, nil
    case err := <-errorCh:
        return nil, err
    }
}

PublishAsync Implementation

The PublishAsync RPC endpoint is a bidirectional streaming API. This means both the client can continually send new messages to the server and the server can continually send acks back to the client. This requires the client to have a background connection to a server in the cluster for handling asynchronous publishes. This also requires a long-running process for dispatching acks received from the server. We recommend initializing a dedicated gRPC connection for PublishAsync and starting a background thread for dispatching acks when the client is initialized. In the Go implementation, we start a dispatchAcks goroutine, shown below, which receives acks from the server and dispatches the appropriate callback. PublishResponse, the message sent by the server, also includes a PublishAsyncError. This is set if an async publish failed, e.g. because the partition published to does not exist.

Since the PublishAsync RPC is a long-lived streaming endpoint, it's possible for the connection to be disrupted, such as in the case of a server failure. Therefore, it's important that this connection be re-established in the event of a disconnection. Note that there are two different threads of execution which use the PublishAsync connection concurrently, one for publishing messages and one for receiving acks. To simplify the reconnect logic, we recommend handling the reconnect only on the ack dispatch side. This also has the added benefit of avoiding duplicate deliveries in the event of a disconnect during publish. Thus, it's up to end users to implement retries around publish in order to handle these types of transient failures. The Go implementation of dispatchAcks along with a helper function for re-establishing the PublishAsync connection called newAsyncStream is shown below.

func (c *client) dispatchAcks() {
    c.mu.RLock()
    asyncStream := c.asyncStream
    c.mu.RUnlock()
    for {
        resp, err := asyncStream.Recv()
        if err == io.EOF {
            return
        }
        if err != nil {
            stream, ok := c.newAsyncStream()
            if !ok {
                return
            }
            asyncStream = stream
            c.mu.Lock()
            c.asyncStream = stream
            c.mu.Unlock()
            continue
        }

        var correlationID string
        if resp.AsyncError != nil {
            correlationID = resp.CorrelationId
        } else if resp.Ack != nil {
            // TODO: Use resp.CorrelationId once Ack.CorrelationId is removed.
            correlationID = resp.Ack.CorrelationId
        }
        ctx := c.removeAckContext(correlationID)
        if ctx != nil && ctx.handler != nil {
            ctx.handler(ackFromProto(resp.Ack), asyncErrorFromProto(resp.AsyncError))
        }
    }
}

func (c *client) newAsyncStream() (stream proto.API_PublishAsyncClient, ok bool) {
    for {
        err := c.doResilientRPC(func(client proto.APIClient) error {
            resp, err := client.PublishAsync(context.Background())
            if err != nil {
                return err
            }
            stream = resp
            return nil
        })
        if err == nil {
            return stream, true
        }
        if c.isClosed() {
            return nil, false
        }
        time.Sleep(50 * time.Millisecond)
    }
}

Recall that dispatchAcks is invoked as a long-running goroutine on client initialization. The client also maintains a mapping of correlation ID to ackContext, which is a struct used to store a timer and ack handler for a given message. When an ack is received from the server, its ackContext is removed from the map and the handler callback is invoked. The timer is used to implement an ack timeout, which similarly invokes the handler callback but with an error instead of the ack.

// ackContext tracks state for an in-flight message expecting an ack.
type ackContext struct {
    handler AckHandler
    timer   *time.Timer
}

func (c *client) removeAckContext(cid string) *ackContext {
    var timer *time.Timer
    c.mu.Lock()
    ctx := c.ackContexts[cid]
    if ctx != nil {
        timer = ctx.timer
        delete(c.ackContexts, cid)
    }
    c.mu.Unlock()
    // Cancel ack timeout if any.
    if timer != nil {
        timer.Stop()
    }
    return ctx
}

So far, we have covered how the PublishAsync streaming connection is managed and how acks are dispatched. Now we will look at the actual publish implementation. Both Publish and PublishAsync rely on a private publishAsync helper function.

// PublishAsync publishes a new message to the Liftbridge stream and
// asynchronously processes the ack or error for the message.
func (c *client) PublishAsync(ctx context.Context, stream string, value []byte,
    ackHandler AckHandler, options ...MessageOption) error {

    opts := &MessageOptions{Headers: make(map[string][]byte)}
    for _, opt := range options {
        opt(opts)
    }
    return c.publishAsync(ctx, stream, value, ackHandler, opts)
}

This publishAsync helper function handles assigning a correlation ID to the message options (if one is not specified) and constructs a PublishRequest for sending to the server. It then sets up the ackContext and sends the PublishRequest to the server using the PublishAsync gRPC stream. There is a client option for configuring a global ack timeout for publishes called AckWaitTime. This can be overridden on individual publishes. In the Go implementation, shown below, this is done via the Context deadline.

func (c *client) publishAsync(ctx context.Context, stream string, value []byte,
    ackHandler AckHandler, opts *MessageOptions) error {

    if opts.CorrelationID == "" {
        opts.CorrelationID = nuid.Next()
    }

    req, err := c.newPublishRequest(ctx, stream, value, opts)
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }

    c.mu.Lock()
    asyncStream := c.asyncStream
    if ackHandler != nil {
        // Setup ack timeout.
        var (
            timeout      = c.opts.AckWaitTime
            deadline, ok = ctx.Deadline()
        )
        if ok {
            timeout = time.Until(deadline)
        }
        ack := &ackContext{
            handler: ackHandler,
            timer: time.AfterFunc(timeout, func() {
                ackCtx := c.removeAckContext(req.CorrelationId)
                // Ack was processed before timeout finished.
                if ackCtx == nil {
                    return
                }
                if ackCtx.handler != nil {
                    ackCtx.handler(nil, ErrAckTimeout)
                }
            }),
        }
        c.ackContexts[req.CorrelationId] = ack
    }
    c.mu.Unlock()

    if err := asyncStream.Send(req); err != nil {
        c.removeAckContext(req.CorrelationId)
        return err
    }

    return nil
}

newPublishRequest determines which stream partition to publish to using the partition helper and then constructs the PublishRequest.

func (c *client) newPublishRequest(ctx context.Context, stream string, value []byte,
    opts *MessageOptions) (*proto.PublishRequest, error) {

    // Determine which partition to publish to.
    partition, err := c.partition(ctx, stream, opts.Key, value, opts)
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }

    return &proto.PublishRequest{
        Stream:        stream,
        Partition:     partition,
        Key:           opts.Key,
        Value:         value,
        AckInbox:      opts.AckInbox,
        CorrelationId: opts.CorrelationID,
        AckPolicy:     opts.AckPolicy.toProto(),
    }, nil
}

// partition determines the partition ID to publish the message to. If a
// partition was explicitly provided, it will be returned. If a Partitioner was
// provided, it will be used to compute the partition. Otherwise, 0 will be
// returned.
func (c *client) partition(ctx context.Context, stream string, key, value []byte,
    opts *MessageOptions) (int32, error) {

    var partition int32
    // If a partition is explicitly provided, use it.
    if opts.Partition != nil {
        partition = *opts.Partition
    } else if opts.Partitioner != nil {
        // Make sure we have metadata for the stream and, if not, update it.
        metadata, err := c.waitForStreamMetadata(ctx, stream)
        if err != nil {
            return 0, err
        }
        partition = opts.Partitioner.Partition(stream, key, value, metadata)
    }
    return partition, nil
}

The partition to publish to is determined in the following way:

If a partition is explicitly provided using the ToPartition message option, use it.
If a Partitioner is provided, use it to compute the partition.
If neither of the above apply, use partition 0 (the default partition).

Partitioner Implementation

Clients should provide at least two Partitioner implementations as described above: PartitionByKey and PartitionByRoundRobin. PartitionByKey should partition messages based on a hash of the message key. PartitionByRoundRobin should partition messages in a round-robin fashion, i.e. cycling through the partitions. The Go implementations of these are shown below:

var hasher = crc32.ChecksumIEEE

// keyPartitioner is an implementation of Partitioner which partitions messages
// based on a hash of the key.
type keyPartitioner struct{}

// Partition computes the partition number for a given message by hashing the
// key and modding by the number of stream partitions.
func (k *keyPartitioner) Partition(stream string, key, value []byte, metadata *Metadata) int32 {
    if key == nil {
        key = []byte("")
    }

    partitions := metadata.PartitionCountForStream(stream)
    if partitions == 0 {
        return 0
    }

    return int32(hasher(key)) % partitions
}

type subjectCounter struct {
    sync.Mutex
    count int32
}

// roundRobinPartitioner is an implementation of Partitioner which partitions
// messages in a round-robin fashion.
type roundRobinPartitioner struct {
    sync.Mutex
    subjectCounterMap map[string]*subjectCounter
}

// Partition computes the partition number for a given message in a round-robin
// fashion by atomically incrementing a counter for the message stream and
// modding by the number of stream partitions.
func (r *roundRobinPartitioner) Partition(stream string, key, value []byte, metadata *Metadata) int32 {
    partitions := metadata.PartitionCountForStream(stream)
    if partitions == 0 {
        return 0
    }
    r.Lock()
    counter, ok := r.streamCounterMap[stream]
    if !ok {
        counter = new(streamCounter)
        r.streamCounterMap[stream] = counter
    }
    r.Unlock()
    counter.Lock()
    count := counter.count
    counter.count++
    counter.Unlock()
    return count % partitions
}

PublishToSubject Implementation

PublishToSubject sends a PublishToSubjectRequest to the PublishToSubject endpoint using the using the resilient RPC method described above. Unlike Publish and PublishAsync, this sets the publish subject directly rather than computing a partition for a stream. The Go implementation of this is shown below:

// PublishToSubject publishes a new message to the NATS subject. Note that
// because this publishes directly to a subject, there may be multiple (or no)
// streams that receive the message. As a result, MessageOptions related to
// partitioning will be ignored. To publish at the stream/partition level, use
// the high-level Publish API.
//
// If the AckPolicy is not NONE and a deadline is provided, this will
// synchronously block until the first ack is received. If an ack is not
// received in time, ErrAckTimeout is returned. If an AckPolicy and deadline
// are configured, this returns the first Ack on success, otherwise it returns
// nil.
func (c *client) PublishToSubject(ctx context.Context, subject string, value []byte,
    options ...MessageOption) (*Ack, error) {

    opts := &MessageOptions{Headers: make(map[string][]byte)}
    for _, opt := range options {
        opt(opts)
    }

    req := &proto.PublishToSubjectRequest{
        Subject:       subject,
        Key:           opts.Key,
        Value:         value,
        AckInbox:      opts.AckInbox,
        CorrelationId: opts.CorrelationID,
        AckPolicy:     opts.AckPolicy.toProto(),
    }

    // Setup ack timeout.
    var (
        cancel func()
        _, ok  = ctx.Deadline()
    )
    if !ok {
        ctx, cancel = context.WithTimeout(ctx, c.opts.AckWaitTime)
        defer cancel()
    }

    var ack *proto.Ack
    err := c.doResilientRPC(func(client proto.APIClient) error {
        resp, err := client.PublishToSubject(ctx, req)
        if err == nil {
            ack = resp.Ack
        }
        return err
    })
    if status.Code(err) == codes.DeadlineExceeded {
        err = ErrAckTimeout
    }
    return ackFromProto(ack), err
}

FetchMetadata Implementation

FetchMetadata should return an immutable object which exposes cluster metadata. This object is passed in to Partitioner implementations, but users can also use it to retrieve stream and server information. Below are the function signatures for the Go implementation of this object. This may vary between language implementations.

// LastUpdated returns the time when this metadata was last updated from the
// server.
func (m *Metadata) LastUpdated() time.Time {}

// Brokers returns a list of the cluster nodes.
func (m *Metadata) Brokers() []*BrokerInfo {}

// Addrs returns the list of known broker addresses.
func (m *Metadata) Addrs() []string {}

// GetStream returns the given stream or nil if unknown.
func (m *Metadata) GetStream(name string) *StreamInfo {}

// PartitionCountForStream returns the number of partitions for the given
// stream.
func (m *Metadata) PartitionCountForStream(stream string) int32 {}

BrokerInfo is an immutable object containing server information like ID, host, and port. StreamInfo is an immutable object containing stream information like subject, name, and partitions.

To simplify client logic, we recommend building an internal abstraction for dealing with metadata. This internal API should include logic for fetching metadata from the cluster using the resilient RPC method described above, converting it into the immutable metadata object, and caching it. It should also provide helper methods for retrieving server addresses (all addresses, which helps simplify logic for resilient RPCs, and the address for the leader of a given stream partition, which helps simplify logic for Subscribe).

With this internal metadata abstraction, the implementation of FetchMetadata is should be trivial, as shown in the Go implementation below. In this case, the logic of making the metadata RPC, converting it into an immutable metadata object, and caching it is handled by the update function.

// FetchMetadata returns cluster metadata including broker and stream
// information.
func (c *client) FetchMetadata(ctx context.Context) (*Metadata, error) {
    return c.metadata.update(ctx)
}

While metadata should be cached internally to minimize RPCs, the public FetchMetadata should always force a refresh by going to the server. Implementations may choose to provide an option for using the cached metadata. Internally, calls such as Subscribe should attempt to use the cached metadata and refresh it if it appears to be stale, e.g. because the server is no longer the partition leader. It may also be prudent for clients to periodically refresh metadata irrespective of these types of errors, perhaps with a configurable interval. However, the Go client does not currently implement this.

FetchPartitionMetadata Implementation

FetchPartitionMetadata should return an immutable object which exposes partition metadata.

NOTE: It is important to keep in mind that the FetchPartitionMetadataRequest should be sent only to the partition leader. It is the job of the client to figure out which broker is currently the partition leader. Metadata can be used to figure out which broker is currently the leader of the requested partition. In Go, this is implemented using a variant of the resilient RPC method described above.

The object contains information of the partition, notably the high watermark and newest offset, which is necessary in case the client wants tighter control over the subscription/publication of messages.

SetCursor Implementation

The SetCursor implementation simply constructs a gRPC request and executes it using the resilient leader RPC method described above. This requires mapping the cursor to a partition in the internal __cursors stream. A cursor is mapped to a partition using its key. The cursor key consists of <cursorID>.<stream>.<partition>. This key is then hashed using IEEE CRC32 and modded by the number of partitions in the __cursors stream. The Go implementation of this is shown below.

// SetCursor persists a cursor position for a particular stream partition.
// This can be used to checkpoint a consumer's position in a stream to resume
// processing later.
func (c *client) SetCursor(ctx context.Context, id, stream string, partition int32, offset int64) error {
    req := &proto.SetCursorRequest{
        Stream:    stream,
        Partition: partition,
        CursorId:  id,
        Offset:    offset,
    }
    cursorsPartition, err := c.getCursorsPartition(ctx, c.getCursorKey(id, stream, partition))
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }
    return c.doResilientLeaderRPC(ctx, func(client proto.APIClient) error {
        _, err := client.SetCursor(ctx, req)
        return err
    }, cursorsStream, cursorsPartition)
}

func (c *client) getCursorKey(cursorID, streamName string, partitionID int32) []byte {
    return []byte(fmt.Sprintf("%s,%s,%d", cursorID, streamName, partitionID))
}

func (c *client) getCursorsPartition(ctx context.Context, cursorKey []byte) (int32, error) {
    // Make sure we have metadata for the cursors stream and, if not, update it.
    metadata, err := c.waitForStreamMetadata(ctx, cursorsStream)
    if err != nil {
        return 0, err
    }

    stream := metadata.GetStream(cursorsStream)
    if stream == nil {
        return 0, errors.New("cursors stream does not exist")
    }

    return int32(hasher(cursorKey) % uint32(len(stream.Partitions()))), nil
}

FetchCursor Implementation

The FetchCursor implementation simply constructs a gRPC request and executes it using the resilient leader RPC method described above. This requires mapping the cursor to a partition in the internal __cursors stream. A cursor is mapped to a partition using its key. The cursor key consists of <cursorID>.<stream>.<partition>. This key is then hashed using IEEE CRC32 and modded by the number of partitions in the __cursors stream. The Go implementation of this is shown below.

// FetchCursor retrieves a cursor position for a particular stream partition.
// It returns -1 if the cursor does not exist.
func (c *client) FetchCursor(ctx context.Context, id, stream string, partition int32) (int64, error) {
    var (
        req = &proto.FetchCursorRequest{
            Stream:    stream,
            Partition: partition,
            CursorId:  id,
        }
        offset int64
    )
    cursorsPartition, err := c.getCursorsPartition(ctx, c.getCursorKey(id, stream, partition))
    if err != nil {
        return 0, err
    }
    err = c.doResilientLeaderRPC(ctx, func(client proto.APIClient) error {
        resp, err := client.FetchCursor(ctx, req)
        if err != nil {
            return err
        }
        offset = resp.Offset
        return nil
    }, cursorsStream, cursorsPartition)
    return offset, err
}

The getCursorKey and getCursorsPartition helper implementations are shown above.

Close Implementation

Close should be an idempotent operation which closes any gRPC connections and connection pools associated with the client. The Go implementation of this is shown below:

// Close the client connection.
func (c *client) Close() error {
    c.mu.Lock()
    defer c.mu.Unlock()
    if c.closed {
        return nil
    }
    for _, pool := range c.pools {
        if err := pool.close(); err != nil {
            return err
        }
    }
    if err := c.conn.Close(); err != nil {
        return err
    }
    c.closed = true
    return nil
}

LIFTBRIDGE

v1.5.1

Client Implementation Guidance

Generating gRPC API

Client Interface

CreateStream

DeleteStream

PauseStream

SetStreamReadonly

Subscribe

Publish

PublishAsync

PublishToSubject

Low-Level Publish Helpers

NewMessage

UnmarshalMessage

UnmarshalAck

FetchMetadata

FetchPartitionMetadata

SetCursor

FetchCursor

Close

Client Implementation

Messages and Acks

RPCs

Connection Pooling

CreateStream Implementation

DeleteStream Implementation

PauseStream Implementation

SetStreamReadonly Implementation

Subscribe Implementation

Publish Implementation

PublishAsync Implementation

Partitioner Implementation

PublishToSubject Implementation

FetchMetadata Implementation

FetchPartitionMetadata Implementation

SetCursor Implementation

FetchCursor Implementation

Close Implementation