[erlang-questions] Idea for deprecating EPMD

[Benoit Chesneau]

On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 11:36 AM Vlad Dumitrescu <vladdu55@REDACTED> wrote:

> Hi Geoff,
>
> How would you know which port where each erlang node listens on? With
> epmd, the node publishes the port to the daemon and the peers need not know
> it. It feels to me that a central registry is still needed, or each node
> would have to run its own copy somehow. The latter might work relatively
> easy for regular nodes, but we also have C and Java nodes...
>
> regards,
> Vlad
>
>
Exposing the rpc port could be done using any GOSSIP method, TCP/UDP
multicast or broadcast, mdns, ...

Imo making EPMD optional is a good idea. It would also allows to improve
out-of-band messaging using tools like gen_rpc.

- benoit


>
> On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 12:57 AM, Geoff Cant <nem@REDACTED> wrote:
>
>> Hi all, I find EPMD to be a regular frustration when deploying and
>> operating Erlang systems. EPMD is a separate service that needs to be
>> running for Erlang distribution to work properly, and usually (in systems
>> that don’t use distribution for their main function) it's not set up right,
>> and you only notice in production because the only time you use for
>> distribution is to get a remote shell (over localhost). (Maybe I’m just bad
>> at doing this, but I do it a lot)
>>
>> Erlang node names already encode host information —
>> ‘descriptive_name@REDACTED’. If we include the erlang distribution
>> listen port too, that would remove the need for EPMD. For example:
>> ‘descriptive_name@REDACTED:distribution_port’. Node names using this
>> scheme would skip the EPMD step, otherwise erlang distribution would fall
>> back to the current system.
>>
>>
>> My questions for the list are:
>> * Are you annoyed by epmd too?
>> * Do you think this idea is worth me writing up into an EEP or writing a
>> pull request?
>> * Do you think this idea is unworkable for some reason I’m overlooking?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> -Geoff
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>
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