1-to-1 connections & possibly hidden nodes

[Roberto Ostinelli]

On a side note, both with the -hidden and the -connect_all false options
sets, if you try to send a message from the hidden / not meshed node to a
node not part of the known nodes, a connection will be established still
(i.e. the sending succeeds). I guess the sending operation first tries to
amend a connection if unset?

(*two*@dev.local)1> nodes().
['one@REDACTED']

*_Without_* doing a net_kernel:connect_node/1:

(*three*@dev.local)2> {shell, 'two@REDACTED'} ! hello.
hello

(*two*@dev.local)3> nodes().
['one@REDACTED','three@REDACTED']



On Tue, Jul 13, 2021 at 12:04 AM Roberto Ostinelli <ostinelli@REDACTED>
wrote:

> This is pretty interesting Fred, thank you for sharing. I didn't know
> about this possibility. Are you aware of any pitfalls of using this method?
> I will investigate it too.
>
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2021 at 10:35 PM Fred Hebert <mononcqc@REDACTED> wrote:
>
>> Another approach that I recall working is one that is cookie-based. Each
>> cookie you set represents cluster membership, so nodes that share a cookie
>> will connect to each other.
>>
>> If you create another node that has a distinct cookie, it won't connect
>> to anything else. If I recall properly, you can however call
>> erlang:set_cookie(OtherNode, Cookie) to make a single caller able to use a
>> distinct cookie to talk to OtherNode, meaning it will connect to it, but
>> won't be able to transitively forward the connection unless the peer also
>> shares that cookie.
>>
>> This lets you use non-hidden nodes that are parts of clusters but still
>> have them able to privately talk to special nodes by using one-off cookies
>> that act as a way to wall off connection propagation.
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 12, 2021 at 2:54 PM Stanislav Ledenev <s.ledenev@REDACTED>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> If I understand you correctly, erl -connect_all false is what you need.
>>>
>>> пн, 12 июл. 2021 г. в 21:27, Roberto Ostinelli <ostinelli@REDACTED>:
>>>
>>>> ...And of course the diagram would be (without the copy-pasta issues):
>>>>
>>>> <NODE A in cluster> --------- <NODE C in cluster>
>>>>         \                     /
>>>>          \                   /
>>>>           \                 /
>>>>           <NODE B in cluster>
>>>>            *       *       *
>>>>           *        *        *
>>>>          *         *         *
>>>>       <NODE B1> <NODE B2> <NODE B3>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jul 12, 2021 at 8:24 PM Roberto Ostinelli <ostinelli@REDACTED>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> All,
>>>>> Is it possible to have a 1-to-1 connection from a node in a cluster to
>>>>> a single Erlang node which does _not_ connect to the mesh, but only to a
>>>>> very specific Erlang node?
>>>>>
>>>>> I've go a very CPU-heavy application and am trying to find ways to
>>>>> offload the CPU computations to Erlang nodes (tha don't need to be in a
>>>>> cluster, except for a single box they refer to).
>>>>>
>>>>> Basically something like this:
>>>>>
>>>>> <NODE A in cluster> --------- <NODE B in cluster>
>>>>>         \                     /
>>>>>          \                   /
>>>>>           \                 /
>>>>>           <NODE B in cluster>
>>>>>            *       *       *
>>>>>           *        *        *
>>>>>          *         *         *
>>>>>       <NODE B1> <NODE B2> <NODE B>
>>>>>
>>>>> The distributed cluster is composed of nodes A, B and C, but nodes B1,
>>>>> B2 and B3 can communicate directly with node B and that node only. Node B
>>>>> can offload CPU computations to B1, B2, B3 by sending erlang messages to
>>>>> them and receive results back.
>>>>>
>>>>> Every node in the cluster needs ~50x the CPU power, therefore I'm
>>>>> trying to avoid having the standard cluster grow so big that it would be
>>>>> generating way too much noise in a full mesh network (especially since it
>>>>> really isn't needed).
>>>>>
>>>>> I can of course use a simple custom TCP binary channel, but was
>>>>> wandering if something already exists that I could leverage. I've seen that
>>>>> hidden nodes "Hidden nodes always establish hidden connections to all other
>>>>> nodes except for nodes in the same global group" [1] so if I understand
>>>>> this correctly nodes B1-3 would still connect to A and B, even though the
>>>>> cluster wouldn't know about them.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thank you for any considerations you might have,
>>>>> r.
>>>>>
>>>>>  [1] http://erlang.org/doc/man/erl.html
>>>>>
>>>>
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