[zeromq-dev] Subports

[Pieter Hintjens]

On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 5:17 PM, Martin Sustrik <sustrik at 250bpm.com> wrote:

> The only systematic solution would be to have a special daemon process
> that would listen on a specific port and pass new connection (via IPC)
> to the libzmq instance that have registered for the relevant subport...

It would be good to start by defining the problem we're aiming to
solve with this.

In my experience the main issue is complex devices that today have to
open multiple ports. This creates real complexity for addressing, i.e.
clients have to remember several ports rather than one.

So restricting it to one process seems to cover this use case.
Ideally, it would work by binding several sockets to the same address,
and using a service name to distinguish the message flow.

If the only reason for subports is to "use fewer TCP ports on this
system", that seems pointless and IMO if people are opening thousands
of ports, it's a design fault.

-Pieter