Table of Contents

• Cluster
  • How It Works
  • Class: Worker
    • Event: 'disconnect'
    • Event: 'error'
    • Event: 'exit'
    • Event: 'listening'
    • Event: 'message'
    • Event: 'online'
    • worker.disconnect()
    • worker.exitedAfterDisconnect
    • worker.id
    • worker.isConnected()
    • worker.isDead()
    • worker.kill([signal='SIGTERM'])
    • worker.process
    • worker.send(message[, sendHandle][, callback])
    • worker.suicide
  • Event: 'disconnect'
  • Event: 'exit'
  • Event: 'fork'
  • Event: 'listening'
  • Event: 'message'
  • Event: 'online'
  • Event: 'setup'
  • cluster.disconnect([callback])
  • cluster.fork([env])
  • cluster.isMaster
  • cluster.isWorker
  • cluster.schedulingPolicy
  • cluster.settings
  • cluster.setupMaster([settings])
  • cluster.worker
  • cluster.workers

Cluster#

Stability: 2 - Stable

A single instance of Node.js runs in a single thread. To take advantage of multi-core systems the user will sometimes want to launch a cluster of Node.js processes to handle the load.

The cluster module allows you to easily create child processes that all share server ports.

const cluster = require('cluster');
const http = require('http');
const numCPUs = require('os').cpus().length;

if (cluster.isMaster) {
  console.log(`Master ${process.pid} is running`);

  // Fork workers.
  for (let i = 0; i < numCPUs; i++) {
    cluster.fork();
  }

  cluster.on('exit', (worker, code, signal) => {
    console.log(`worker ${worker.process.pid} died`);
  });
} else {
  // Workers can share any TCP connection
  // In this case it is an HTTP server
  http.createServer((req, res) => {
    res.writeHead(200);
    res.end('hello world\n');
  }).listen(8000);

  console.log(`Worker ${process.pid} started`);
}

Running Node.js will now share port 8000 between the workers:

$ node server.js
Master 3596 is running
Worker 4324 started
Worker 4520 started
Worker 6056 started
Worker 5644 started

Please note that on Windows, it is not yet possible to set up a named pipe server in a worker.

How It Works#

The worker processes are spawned using the child_process.fork() method, so that they can communicate with the parent via IPC and pass server handles back and forth.

The cluster module supports two methods of distributing incoming connections.

The first one (and the default one on all platforms except Windows), is the round-robin approach, where the master process listens on a port, accepts new connections and distributes them across the workers in a round-robin fashion, with some built-in smarts to avoid overloading a worker process.

The second approach is where the master process creates the listen socket and sends it to interested workers. The workers then accept incoming connections directly.

The second approach should, in theory, give the best performance. In practice however, distribution tends to be very unbalanced due to operating system scheduler vagaries. Loads have been observed where over 70% of all connections ended up in just two processes, out of a total of eight.

Because server.listen() hands off most of the work to the master process, there are three cases where the behavior between a normal Node.js process and a cluster worker differs:

1. server.listen({fd: 7}) Because the message is passed to the master, file descriptor 7 in the parent will be listened on, and the handle passed to the worker, rather than listening to the worker's idea of what the number 7 file descriptor references.
2. server.listen(handle) Listening on handles explicitly will cause the worker to use the supplied handle, rather than talk to the master process. If the worker already has the handle, then it's presumed that you know what you are doing.
3. server.listen(0) Normally, this will cause servers to listen on a random port. However, in a cluster, each worker will receive the same "random" port each time they do listen(0). In essence, the port is random the first time, but predictable thereafter. If you want to listen on a unique port, generate a port number based on the cluster worker ID.

There is no routing logic in Node.js, or in your program, and no shared state between the workers. Therefore, it is important to design your program such that it does not rely too heavily on in-memory data objects for things like sessions and login.

Because workers are all separate processes, they can be killed or re-spawned depending on your program's needs, without affecting other workers. As long as there are some workers still alive, the server will continue to accept connections. If no workers are alive, existing connections will be dropped and new connections will be refused. Node.js does not automatically manage the number of workers for you, however. It is your responsibility to manage the worker pool for your application's needs.

Class: Worker#

A Worker object contains all public information and method about a worker. In the master it can be obtained using cluster.workers. In a worker it can be obtained using cluster.worker.

Event: 'disconnect'#

Similar to the cluster.on('disconnect') event, but specific to this worker.

cluster.fork().on('disconnect', () => {
  // Worker has disconnected
});

Event: 'error'#

This event is the same as the one provided by child_process.fork().

In a worker you can also use process.on('error').

Event: 'exit'#

• code <number> the exit code, if it exited normally.
• signal <string> the name of the signal (e.g. 'SIGHUP') that caused the process to be killed.

Similar to the cluster.on('exit') event, but specific to this worker.

const worker = cluster.fork();
worker.on('exit', (code, signal) => {
  if (signal) {
    console.log(`worker was killed by signal: ${signal}`);
  } else if (code !== 0) {
    console.log(`worker exited with error code: ${code}`);
  } else {
    console.log('worker success!');
  }
});

Event: 'listening'#

• address <Object>

Similar to the cluster.on('listening') event, but specific to this worker.

cluster.fork().on('listening', (address) => {
  // Worker is listening
});

It is not emitted in the worker.

Event: 'message'#

• message <Object>
• handle <undefined> | <Object>

Similar to the cluster.on('message') event, but specific to this worker. In a worker you can also use process.on('message').

See process event: 'message'.

As an example, here is a cluster that keeps count of the number of requests in the master process using the message system:

const cluster = require('cluster');
const http = require('http');

if (cluster.isMaster) {

  // Keep track of http requests
  let numReqs = 0;
  setInterval(() => {
    console.log(`numReqs = ${numReqs}`);
  }, 1000);

  // Count requests
  function messageHandler(msg) {
    if (msg.cmd && msg.cmd === 'notifyRequest') {
      numReqs += 1;
    }
  }

  // Start workers and listen for messages containing notifyRequest
  const numCPUs = require('os').cpus().length;
  for (let i = 0; i < numCPUs; i++) {
    cluster.fork();
  }

  for (const id in cluster.workers) {
    cluster.workers[id].on('message', messageHandler);
  }

} else {

  // Worker processes have a http server.
  http.Server((req, res) => {
    res.writeHead(200);
    res.end('hello world\n');

    // notify master about the request
    process.send({ cmd: 'notifyRequest' });
  }).listen(8000);
}

Event: 'online'#

Similar to the cluster.on('online') event, but specific to this worker.

cluster.fork().on('online', () => {
  // Worker is online
});

It is not emitted in the worker.

worker.disconnect()#

• Returns: <Worker> A reference to worker.

In a worker, this function will close all servers, wait for the 'close' event on those servers, and then disconnect the IPC channel.

In the master, an internal message is sent to the worker causing it to call .disconnect() on itself.

Causes .exitedAfterDisconnect to be set.

Note that after a server is closed, it will no longer accept new connections, but connections may be accepted by any other listening worker. Existing connections will be allowed to close as usual. When no more connections exist, see server.close(), the IPC channel to the worker will close allowing it to die gracefully.

The above applies only to server connections, client connections are not automatically closed by workers, and disconnect does not wait for them to close before exiting.

Note that in a worker, process.disconnect exists, but it is not this function, it is disconnect.

Because long living server connections may block workers from disconnecting, it may be useful to send a message, so application specific actions may be taken to close them. It also may be useful to implement a timeout, killing a worker if the 'disconnect' event has not been emitted after some time.

if (cluster.isMaster) {
  const worker = cluster.fork();
  let timeout;

  worker.on('listening', (address) => {
    worker.send('shutdown');
    worker.disconnect();
    timeout = setTimeout(() => {
      worker.kill();
    }, 2000);
  });

  worker.on('disconnect', () => {
    clearTimeout(timeout);
  });

} else if (cluster.isWorker) {
  const net = require('net');
  const server = net.createServer((socket) => {
    // connections never end
  });

  server.listen(8000);

  process.on('message', (msg) => {
    if (msg === 'shutdown') {
      // initiate graceful close of any connections to server
    }
  });
}

worker.exitedAfterDisconnect#

• <boolean>

Set by calling .kill() or .disconnect(). Until then, it is undefined.

The boolean worker.exitedAfterDisconnect lets you distinguish between voluntary and accidental exit, the master may choose not to respawn a worker based on this value.

cluster.on('exit', (worker, code, signal) => {
  if (worker.exitedAfterDisconnect === true) {
    console.log('Oh, it was just voluntary – no need to worry');
  }
});

// kill worker
worker.kill();