hashring

What is hashring?

The hashring npm package is a consistent hashing library that allows for the distribution of keys across a set of nodes. It is useful for load balancing, distributed caching, and sharding data across multiple servers.

What are hashring's main functionalities?

Creating a Hash Ring

This feature allows you to create a hash ring with a set of nodes. The nodes can be any identifier, such as server names or IP addresses.

const HashRing = require('hashring');
const ring = new HashRing(['node1', 'node2', 'node3']);

Adding and Removing Nodes

This feature allows you to dynamically add or remove nodes from the hash ring. This is useful for scaling up or down the number of nodes in your system.

ring.add('node4');
ring.remove('node2');

Getting the Node for a Key

This feature allows you to get the node responsible for a given key. This is useful for determining which node should handle a particular piece of data.

const node = ring.get('myKey');

Weighting Nodes

This feature allows you to assign weights to nodes, so some nodes can handle more keys than others. This is useful for load balancing when some nodes have more capacity than others.

const weightedRing = new HashRing({'node1': 1, 'node2': 2, 'node3': 1});

Other packages similar to hashring

consistent-hashing

The consistent-hashing package provides similar functionality for consistent hashing. It allows for the distribution of keys across a set of nodes and supports adding and removing nodes dynamically. Compared to hashring, it is simpler and may have fewer features, but it is still effective for basic consistent hashing needs.

README

HashRing

The HashRing module provides consistent hashing that is compatible with the original libketama library that was developed at last.fm. In addition to beeing compatible with libketama it's also compatible with the hash_ring module for Python. See the compatiblity section of the API for more details on this.

Build status

Installation

The advised installation of module is done through the Node package manager (npm).

npm install hashring --save

The --save parameter tells npm that it should automatically add the module to the dependencies field in your package.json.

Usage

var HashRing = require('hashring');

The HashRing constructor is designed to handle different argument types as a consistent hash ring can be use for different use cases. You can supply the constructor with:

String

A single server, possible, but pointless in most cases if you only use one server, then done use the HashRing at all, it only adds overhead.

var ring = new HashRing('127.0.0.1:11211');

Array

Multiple servers for the HashRing.

var ring = new HashRing(['127.0.0.1:11211', '127.0.0.2:11211']);

Object

An Object where the keys of the Object are the servers and the value can be a Number and it will be seen as weight for server. The value can also be an Object. Where the key can be a weight or a vnode.

Weights or vnodes are used to give servers a bigger distribution in the HashRing. For example you have 3 servers where you want to distribute your keys over but not all servers are equal in capacity as 2 of those machines have 200mb of memory and the other has 3.2 gig of memory. The last server is substantially bigger and there for should receive a greater distrubtion in the ring.

For a rule of thumb use the amount of memory as weight:

var HashRing = require('hashring');

var ring = new HashRing({
  '127.0.0.1:11211': 200,
  '127.0.0.2:11211': { weight: 200 }, // same as above
  '127.0.0.3:11211': 3200
});

If you want create a server with multiple vnodes (virtual nodes):

var HashRing = require('hashring');

var ring = new HashRing({
  '127.0.0.1:11211': { vnodes: 50 },
  '127.0.0.2:11211': { vnodes: 200 },
  '127.0.0.3:11211': { vnodes: 100 }
});

Algorithm

With the second argument you can configure the algorithm that is used to hash the keys. It defaults to md5 and can only contain values that are accepted in Node's crypto API. Alternatively you can supply it with a function for a custom hasher. But do note that the hashValue will be calculated on the result.

Options

• vnode count The amount of virtual nodes per server, defaults to 40 as this generates 160 points per server as used by ketama hashing.
• compatiblity Allows you to force a compatiblity mode of the HashRing. It default to ketama hash rings but if you are coming from a python world you might want compatiblity with the hash_ring module. There's a small diff between hash_ring and ketama and that's the amount of replica's of a server. Ketama uses 4 and hash_ring uses 3. Set this to hash_ring if you want to use 3.
• replicas The amount of replicas per server. Defaults to 4.
• max cache size We use a simple LRU cache inside the module to speed up frequent key lookups, you can customize the amount of keys that need to be cached. It defaults to 5000.

'use strict';

// require the module, it returns a HashRing constructor
var HashRing = require('hashring');

// Setup hash rings with your servers, in this example I just assume that all
// servers are equal, and we want to bump the cache size to 10.000 items.
var ring = new HashRing([
    '127.0.0.1',
    '127.0.0.2',
    '127.0.0.3', 
    '127.0.0.4'
  ], 'md5', {
    'max cache size': 10000
  });

// Now we are going to get some a server for a key
ring.get('foo bar banana'); // returns 127.0.0.x

// Or if you might want to do some replication scheme and store/fetch data from
// multiple servers
ring.range('foo bar banana', 2).forEach(function forEach(server) {
  console.log(server); // do stuff with your server
});

// Add or remove a new a server to the ring, they accept the same arguments as
// the constructor
ring.add('127.0.0.7').remove('127.0.0.1');

API's Table of Contents

• HashRing.continuum()
• HashRing.get()
• HashRing.range()
• HashRing.swap()
• HashRing.add()
• HashRing.remove()
• HashRing.reset()
• HashRing.end()

HashRing.continuum()

Generates the continuum of server a.k.a the Hash Ring based on their weights and virtual nodes assigned.

---

HashRing.get(key)

Find the correct node for the key which is closest to the point after what the given key hashes to.

• key String, Random key that needs to be searched in the hash ring

returns: The matching server address.

---

HashRing.range(key, size, unique)

Returns a range of servers. Could be useful for replication.

• key String, Random key that needs to be searched in the hash ring
• size Number, Amount items to be returned (maximum). Defaults to the amount of servers that are in the hashring.
• unique Boolean, Don't return duplicate servers. Defaults to true.

returns: The array of servers that we found.

---

HashRing.swap(*from, to)

Hotswap identical servers with each other. This doesn't require the cache to be completely nuked and the hash ring distribution to be re-calculated.

Please note that removing the server and a new adding server could potentially create a different distribution.

• from String, The server that needs to be replaced
• to String. The server that replaces the server

---

HashRing.add(server)

Add a new server to ring without having to re-initialize the hashring. It accepts the same arguments as you can use in the constructor.

• server Server that need to be added to the ring.

---

HashRing.remove(server)

Remove a server from the hash ring.

• server Server that need to be removed from the ring.

---

HashRing.reset()

Reset the HashRing and clean up it's references.

---

HashRing.end()

Reset's the HashRing and closes the ring.

---

HashRing.find(hashValue) (private)

Finds the correct position of the given hashValue in the hashring.

• hashValue Number, The hashValue from the HashRing#hashValue method.

returns: Index of the value in the ring.

---

HashRing.hash(key) (private)

Generates the hash for the key.

• key String, Random key that needs to be hashed.

returns: The hashed valued.

---

HashRing.digest(key) (private)

Digest hash so we can make a numeric representation from the hash. So it can be fed in to our hashValue.

• key String, Random key that needs to be hashed.

returns: An array of charCodeAt(0) converted chars.

---

HashRing.hashValue(key) (private)

Get the hashed value of the given key, it does the digesting, hashing yo.

• key String, Random key that needs to be hashed.

returns: The hash value of the key.

---

HashRing.points(servers)

Returns the points per server.

• servers Optional server that you want to filter for

returns: A Object with server -> Array of points mapping

Upgrading from 0.0.x to 1.x.x

The 0.0.x releases had some seriouse flaws that causes it to be incompatible with the 1.0.0 release. These flaws are the reason that 1.0.0 got released. they are not backwards compatible as they change the way that keys are hashed. The following incompatible changes have been made for the sake of consistency:

• Only accepts hashers that are build in to node (for now). As it can only guarentee proper hashing of values.
• The replace function was actually doing swaps of keys, so it's original functionality has been renamed to swap. The replace API is now removing the given server and adds it again. As this causes the servers to be propperly re-hashed.
• The module now requires a C++ compiler to be installed on your server as hashing the value requires support for 64bit bitshifting and JavaScript as a language only supports 32bit bitshifting.
• It adds 4 replica's instead 3 for the servers. This is how libketama originally did it, if you want to have 3 replica's in the hash ring you can set the compatiblity option to hash_ring.
• The API's have be renamed, deprication notices are added in to place and they will be removed in the next minor version bump (1.1.0)
• Added human readable configuration options instead of camelcase. This increases readablity of the module
• CRC32 was removed as crypto engine because it was to unstable.