RPCZ: Protocol Buffer RPC transport

NOTE: rpcz is no longer being maintained. Consider using grpc.

RPC implementation for Protocol Buffers over ZeroMQ

Introduction

• RPCZ is a library for writing fast and robust RPC clients and servers that speak Protocol Buffers.

• RPCZ currently supports writing clients and servers in C++ and Python. More languages may be added in the future.

• The API offers both asynchronous (callbacks) and synchronous (blocking) style functionality. Both styles allow specifying deadlines in millisecond resolution.

• RPCZ is built on top of ZeroMQ for handling the low-level I/O details in a lock-free manner.

• The Python module is a Cython wrapper around the C++ API.

• RPCZ has been tested on Ubuntu 11.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Mac OS X Lion and Microsoft Visual Studio 2012.

Quick Examples (API show off)

Let's write a C++ server and a Python client for a search service defined as follows:

message SearchRequest {
  required string query = 1;
  optional int32 page_number = 2 [default = 1];
}

message SearchResponse {
  repeated string results = 1;
}

service SearchService {
  rpc Search(SearchRequest) returns(SearchResponse);
}

Example: Python Client

Source code

app = rpcz.Application()

stub = search_rpcz.SearchService_Stub(
        app.create_rpc_channel("tcp://127.0.0.1:5555"))

request = search_pb2.SearchRequest()
request.query = 'gold'
print stub.Search(request, deadline_ms=1000)

Example: C++ Server

Source code

class SearchServiceImpl : public SearchService {
  virtual void Search(
      const SearchRequest& request,
      rpcz::reply<SearchResponse> reply) {
    cout << "Got request for '" << request.query() << "'" << endl;
    SearchResponse response;
    response.add_results("result1 for " + request.query());
    response.add_results("this is result2");
    reply.send(response);
  }
};

int main() {
  rpcz::application application;
  rpcz::server server(application);
  SearchServiceImpl search_service;
  server.register_service(&search_service);
  cout << "Serving requests on port 5555." << endl;
  server.bind("tcp://*:5555");
  application.run();
}

Getting Started: Installing on Linux

• Make sure you have RPCZ's dependencies installed: Protocol Buffers (duh!), ZeroMQ, Boost (threads and program_options), and CMake. If you are on Ubuntu:

apt-get install libprotobuf-dev libprotoc-dev protobuf-compiler libzmq-dev \
    libboost-thread-dev libboost-program-options-dev cmake

• Download, build and install:

git clone git@github.com:thesamet/rpcz.git
cd rpcz
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -Drpcz_build_examples=1
make
sudo make install

You don't really have to make install if you don't want to. Just make sure that when you compile your code, your compiler is aware of RPCZ's include and library directories.

• Build Debian package:

Instead of using make install, you can install RPCZ with the debian package. Once your build is completed, you can generate the debian package using:

make package

The package runtime dependencies have be tuned for Ubuntu 14.04 so YMMV. You can adapt these dependencies for your distribution by changing the CPACK_DEBIAN_PACKAGE_DEPENDS variable in the top-level CMakeLists.txt file.

• Python support (optional):

cd ../python
python setup.py build
pip install -e .

If you are on Linux and Python complains that it can not find librpcz.so, then you may have to run sudo ldconfig. If you have not installed the library to a standard location, you can build the Python module with --rpath to hard-code librpcz.so's path in the Python module:

python setup.py build_ext -f --rpath=/path/to/build/src/rpcz
pip install -e .

Getting Started: Installing on OS/X with Homebrew

These instructions assume a "default" Homebrew environment, installed by the current logged on user, under /usr/local, and owned by the user (e.g. no sudo used). YMMV.

• Make sure you have RPCZ's dependencies installed: Protocol Buffers (duh!), ZeroMQ, Boost, and CMake.

brew install protobuf zeromq boost cmake
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zeromq/cppzmq/master/zmq.hpp -O /usr/local/include/zmq.hpp

• Download, build and install:

git clone git@github.com:thesamet/rpcz.git
cd rpcz
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -Drpcz_build_examples=0
make
make install

Currently, building the examples on OS/X is not supported.

You don't really have to make install if you don't want to. Just make sure that when you compile your code, your compiler is aware of RPCZ's include and library directories.

• Python support (optional):

cd ../python
python setup.py install

Just make sure to use the "brewed Python"! Otherwise the install will fail.

Getting Started: Installing on Windows

First of all, on Windows it is recommended to build both release and debug configurations in order to avoid mixing runtime libraries. You will have to use the CMake GUI tool to generate the Microsoft Visual Studio project. There's many way to setup dependencies but here is a recipe that worked for me.

• Boost installation
  1. Download and install Boost binaries from the sourceforge web page. On windows, you will need date_time in addition to threads and program_options.
  2. Set the BOOST_ROOT environment variable to the installation path used above.
  3. Add the boost DLL directory to your PATH (e.g. %BOOST_ROOT%\lib32-msvc-11.0).
• Google Protobuf installation
  1. Download and extract the protobuf source package protobuf-2.6.1.zip in the final installation directory.
  2. Open the Visual Studio solution in the vsprojects subdirectory and build both debug and release configurations.
  3. Set the PROTOBUF_SRC_ROOT_FOLDER environment variable to the protobuf directory used above.
• ZeroMQ installation
  1. Download and install the ZeroMQ binaries.
  2. Download the ZeroMQ C++ bindings and copy the zmq.hpp header file in the include directory of ZeroMQ.
  3. Set the ZEROMQ_ROOTenvironment variable to the installation path used above.
  4. Add the ZeroMQ DLL directory to your PATH (e.g. %ZEROMQ_ROOT%\bin).

Then, you are ready to configure and generate the Microsoft Visual Studio project using CMake.

Generating Client and Server classes

RPCZ comes with a protoc plugins that generate client and server code in C++ and Python. They are used only to generate the service code. The message serialization and parsing is still done by the original Protocol Buffer implementation.

To generate C++ RPCZ classes:

protoc -I=$SRC_DIR --cpp_rpcz_out=$DST_DIR $SRC_DIR/search.proto

Similarly, to generate Python RPCZ classes:

protoc -I=$SRC_DIR --python_rpcz_out=$DST_DIR $SRC_DIR/search.proto

If protoc can not find the plugin, you can help it by appending --protoc-gen-cpp_rpcz=/path/to/bin/protoc-gen-cpp_rpcz to the above command (change cpp above to python if you are generating Python code)