Ataraxia

Connect nodes, such as NodeJS-apps or browsers, together and send messages between them. Provides a mesh network with peer-to-peer messaging, allowing messages to be routed between nodes that are not directly connected with each other.

• Instances can send and receive messages from other instances
• Partially connected mesh network, messages will be routed to their target if needed
• Authentication support, anonymous and shared secret authentication available in core
• Encryption, most transports establish an encrypted connection by default
• RPC, register and consume services anywhere in the network, supports method call and events, via ataraxia-services
• Support for different transports
  • Machine-local transport, connect to NodeJS-instances on the local machine
  • TCP-based transport with customizable discovery of peers, mDNS included for discovery on the local network
  • Websockets, both server-side and client-side variants
  • Hyperswarm to find and connect to peers over the public Internet

Getting started

To setup your own network install the ataraxia package and at least one transport such as ataraxia-tcp:

$ npm install ataraxia ataraxia-tcp

A network can then be created and joined:

import { Network, AnonymousAuth } from 'ataraxia';
import { TCPTransport, TCPPeerMDNSDiscovery } from 'ataraxia-tcp';

const net = new Network({
  name: 'ataraxia-example',
  transports: [
    new TCPTransport({
      discovery: new TCPPeerMDNSDiscovery(),
      authentication: [
        new AnonymousAuth()
      ]
    })
  ]
});

net.onNodeAvailable(node => {
  console.log('A new node is available:', node.id);
  node.send('hello')
    .catch(err => console.log('Unable to send hello'));
});

net.onMessage(msg => {
  console.log('A message was received', msg.type, 'with data', msg.data, 'from', msg.source.id);
});

// Join the network
await net.join();