Out-of-proc Server

Launch the gRPC server (or other type of server) on demand from the application.

Out-of-proc-server (+ gRPC) provides interoperability between Node.js JavaScript and .NET framework (and other languages you additionally implement the "out-of-proc-server" sequence).

It helps you to create the desktop applications based on distributed architecture.

Install

Node.js

Prerequirements

• Node >= 10

$ npm install out-of-proc-server --save

.NET framework

Note: We have not published this to NuGet yet.

Prerequirements

• .NET Core SDK >= 2.1

Install

1. Download the source archive from https://github.com/shellyln/out-of-proc-server/archive/master.zip and extract it.
2. Add src/dotnet/OutOfProcServer/OutOfProcServer.csproj to your solution.

Usage

See examples.

APIs

Node.js

launchServer

[Call from gRPC Client (Pipe Server)]
Launch the out-of-proc server process.

interface ServerContext {
    serverPipe: Server;
    conn: Socket;
    childProc: ChildProcess;
    shutdown: () => Promise<void>;
}

function launchServer(pipeName: string, command: string, args: string[], spawnOpts?: SpawnOptions): Promise<ServerContext>

• returns : launched server process info.
  • promise will resolved when the server process connect to the pipe.
• pipeName : name of the named pipe.
• command : executable path.
• args : command line arguments.
• spawnOpts : options of child_process.spawn().

ServerContext#shutdown

[Call from gRPC Client (Pipe Server)]
Close the server pipe and end listening.

function shutdown(): Promise<void>

• returns : none.
  • promise will resolved when the pipe is closed.

notifyReadyToClient

[Call from gRPC Server (Pipe Client)]
Notify to the client process that the out-of-proc server is ready to accept the requests.

function notifyReadyToClient(pipeName: string, handler: (event: string, eventArg?: any) => void): Socket;

• returns : Socket of client pipe.
• pipeName : name of the named pipe.
• handler : event handler that called if 'close' or 'error' event is occured to the client pipe.

.NET framework

Launcher.LaunchServer

[Call from gRPC Client (Pipe Server)]
Launch the out-of-proc server process.

public static ServerContext LaunchServer(string pipeName, string command, string[] args);

• returns : launched server process info.
• pipeName : name of the named pipe.
• command : executable path.
• args : command line arguments.

ServerContext#Shutdown

[Call from gRPC Client (Pipe Server)]
Close the server pipe and end listening.

public ServerContext Shutdown();

• returns : this object.

Notifier.NotifyReadyToClient

[Call from gRPC Server (Pipe Client)]
Notify to the client process that the out-of-proc server is ready to accept the requests.

public static Notifier NotifyReadyToClient(string pipeName);

• returns : client pipe info.
• pipeName : name of the named pipe.

Notifier#Wait

[Call from gRPC Server (Pipe Client)]
Wait forever until the client pipe is closed or broken.

public Notifier Wait();

• returns : this object.

Notifier#Shutdown

[Call from gRPC Server (Pipe Client)]
Close the client pipe.

public Notifier Shutdown();

• returns : this object.

Sequence diagram

Note: *nix environments use UNIX domain sockets instead of named pipes.

Graceful shutdown

Unexpected shutdown

License

Apache-2.0

Copyright (c) 2019, Shellyl_N and Authors.

License of examples (./examples)

Apache-2.0

Copyright 2015 gRPC authors.
Copyright (c) 2019, Shellyl_N and Authors.