Swarm is a framework for the creation of asynchronous, distributed client/server systems. Swarm is built on top of ocean.
The code in swarm is currently in transition. There exist two parallel client/ server architectures in the repo: a new architecture (dubbed "neo") -- located in the src/swarm/neo package -- and a legacy architecture -- located in the other packages of src/swarm. The neo protocol is being introduced in stages, progressively adding features to the core client and server code over a series of releases.
When the legacy protocol is no longer in active use, it will be deprecated and eventually removed.
An overview of the features of the legacy and neo client architecture can be found here:
The neo client functionality is implemented in such a way that it can be added to existing legacy clients. Thus, the functionality of _both protocols can be accessed through a single client instance. (Likewise, the servers are able to handle requests of both types, handling the two protocols on different ports.)
While the neo architecture is being developed, the legacy protocol and the associated client features remain unchanged -- indeed, there is no interaction between the neo functionality and the legacy functionality of the client, except at the system level (e.g. the allocation of file descriptors, etc).
Architectural overviews of the neo client/protocol/server:
A simple example of how to construct a client and node using the neo protocol can be found here.
| Dependency | Version |
|---|---|
| ocean | v4.0.x |
| makd | v2.1.x |
| turtle | v9.0.1 |
The following libraries are required (for an absolutely up to date list you can take a look at the Build.mak file, in the $O/%unittests target):
-lglib-2.0-lebtree-llzo2-lgcrypt-lgpg-error-lrt
Please note that ebtree is not the vanilla upstream version. We created our own fork of it to be able to write D bindings more easily. You can find the needed ebtree library in https://github.com/sociomantic-tsunami/ebtree/releases (look only for the v6.0.socioX releases, some pre-built Ubuntu packages are provided).
If you plan to use the provided Makefile (you need it to run the tests), you need to also checkout the submodules with git submodule update --init. This will fetch the Makd project in submodules/makd.
swarm's versioning follows Neptune.
This means that the major version is increased for breaking changes, the minor version is increased for feature releases, and the patch version is increased for bug fixes that don't cause breaking changes.
- Major branch development period: 6 months
- Maintained minor versions: 2 most recent
| Major | Initial release date | Supported until |
|---|---|---|
| v6.x.x | v6.0.0: 04/06/2019 | TBD |
See the guide for contributing to Neptune-versioned libraries.