xpipe/beacon

XPipe Beacon

The XPipe beacon component is responsible for handling all communications between the XPipe daemon and the various programming language APIs and the CLI. It provides an API that supports all kinds of different operations.

Inner Workings

• The underlying inter-process communication is realized through TCP sockets on port 21721 on Windows and 21723 on Linux/macOS.

• The data structures and exchange protocols are specified in the io.xpipe.beacon.exchange package.

• Every exchange is initiated from the outside by sending a request message to the XPipe daemon. The daemon then always sends a response message.

• The header information of a message is formatted in the json format. As a result, all data structures exchanged must be serializable/deserializable with jackson.

• Both the requests and responses can optionally include content in a body. A body is initiated with two new lines (\n).

• The body is split into segments of max length 65536. Each segment is preceded by four bytes that specify the length of the next segment. In case the next segment has a length of less than 65536 bytes, we know that the end of the body has been reached. This way the socket communication can handle payloads of unknown length.

Configuration

Custom port

The default port can be changed by passing the property io.xpipe.beacon.port=<port> to both the daemon and APIs. Note that if both sides do not have the same port setting, they won't be able to reach each other.

Custom launch command

The beacon API also supports launching the daemon automatically in case it is not started yet. By default, it launches the daemon of the local XPipe installation. It is possible to pass a custom launch command with the property io.xpipe.beacon.customDaemonCommand=<cmd> and pass arguments to it using the property io.xpipe.beacon.daemonArgs=<args>. This allows for a custom launch behaviour in a testing/development environment. Note that the <cmd> value has to be a single property string, which can be prone to formatting errors

Verbose output

By passing the property io.xpipe.beacon.printMessages=true, it is possible to print debug information about the underlying communications. In case the io.xpipe.beacon.printDaemonOutput property is set, the output of the daemon can also be printed by passing the property io.xpipe.beacon.debugExecOutput=true.

Daemon debug mode

In case the daemon is started by the beacon, it is possible to customize in which mode the daemon will start up. By passing the property io.xpipe.beacon.launchDebugDaemon=true, the daemon is started in debug mode, i.e. will log more information and enable a few other options. By passing the property io.xpipe.beacon.attachDebuggerToDaemon=true, it is possible to launch a daemon in a mode where it is waiting to attach to a debugger first prior to starting up.