Connecting nodes¶
Connect nodes through Receptor backends.
TCP, UDP, and websockets are currently supported.
For example, you can connect one Receptor node to another using the tcp-peers
and tcp-listeners
configuration options.
Similarly you can connect Receptor nodes using the ws-peers
and ws-listeners
configuration options.

foo.yml
---
version: 2
node:
id: foo
log-level:
level: Debug
tcp-listeners:
- port: 2222
bar.yml
---
version: 2
node:
id: bar
log-level:
level: Debug
tcp-peers:
- address: localhost:2222
fish.yml
---
version: 2
node:
id: fish
log-level:
level: Debug
tcp-peers:
- address: localhost:2222
If we start the backends for each of these configurations, this will form a three-node mesh. Notice bar and fish are not directly connected to each other. However, the mesh allows traffic from bar to pass through foo to reach fish, as if bar and fish were directly connected.
From three terminals we can start this example by using the container we provide on quay.io
podman run -it --rm --network host --name foo -v${PWD}/foo.yml:/etc/receptor/receptor.conf quay.io/ansible/receptor
podman run -it --rm --network host --name bar -v${PWD}/bar.yml:/etc/receptor/receptor.conf quay.io/ansible/receptor
podman run -it --rm --network host --name fish -v${PWD}/fish.yml:/etc/receptor/receptor.conf quay.io/ansible/receptor
Logs from fish shows a successful connection to bar via foo.
INFO 2021/07/22 23:04:31 Known Connections:
INFO 2021/07/22 23:04:31 fish: foo(1.00)
INFO 2021/07/22 23:04:31 foo: bar(1.00) fish(1.00)
INFO 2021/07/22 23:04:31 bar: foo(1.00)
INFO 2021/07/22 23:04:31 Routing Table:
INFO 2021/07/22 23:04:31 foo via foo
INFO 2021/07/22 23:04:31 bar via foo
Configuring backends¶
redial
If set to true, receptor will automatically attempt to redial and restore connections that are lost.
cost
User-defined metric that will be used by the mesh routing algorithm. If the mesh were represented by a graph node, then cost would be the length or weight of the edges between nodes. When the routing algorithm determines how to pass network packets from one node to another, it will use this cost to determine an efficient path.
nodecost
Cost to a particular node on the mesh, and overrides whatever is set in cost
.
in foo.yml
tcp-listeners:
- port: 2222
cost: 1.0
nodecost:
bar: 1.6
fish: 2.0
This means packets sent to fish have a cost of 2.0, whereas packets sent to bar have a cost of 1.6. If haz joined the mesh, it would get a cost of 1.0 since it’s not in the nodecost map.
The costs on both ends of the connection must match.
For example, the tcp-peers
configuration on fish
must have a cost of 2.0
, otherwise the connection will be refused.
in fish.yml
tcp-peers:
- address: localhost:2222
cost: 2.0