ref: 0ec1cfd78b495e9be40e4aa24e35b2aa5d5e5704
dir: /man/4/registry/
.TH REGISTRY 4
.SH NAME
registry, regquery \- registration of services dynamically
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B ndb/registry
[
.BI -f " dbfile"
]
.PP
.B ndb/regquery
[
.BI -m " mntpt"
]
[
.B -n
]
[
.I "attr value"
] ...
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Registry
is a file server that
provides registration and location of services by their attributes
where services come and go.
It was originally intended to register Grid resources
but has much wider use.
.I Registry
serves 9P on its standard input.
That can be mounted in the local name space (see below for an example),
or served over a connection
(eg, via
.IR listen (1)).
The conventional local mount point is
.BR /mnt/registry ,
which is where
.IR registries (2)
expects to find the local registry by default.
There can, however, be any number of registries active,
each supporting a different group of users and services,
in different authentication domains.
.PP
.I Registry
serves a one-level directory containing a few control files
and one file per registered service.
All the files are text files with similar format:
zero or more lines of one or more words, separated by white space (blank or tab).
A word can be quoted, using single quotes in the style of
.IR sh (1),
allowing it to contain white space
or represent the empty string
.BR \&'' .
Within a quoted word, a single quote character is represented by two adjacent ones.
(In programs, use
.B String->quoted
from
.IR string (2),
or more simply the
.B %q
string format of
.IR sys-print (2)
to quote strings appropriately.)
.PP
The control files are:
.TF index
.PD
.TP
.B new
A text file that is opened and written to register a new service.
Opening
.B new
returns a file descriptor to a new but anonymous service file.
It must be written to set its name and initial description.
The first write contains one or more words:
.RS
.IP
.IR svcname " [" " attr value " ] ..."
.PP
The first word,
.IR svcname ,
is the proposed service name.
The write returns an error if the name duplicates any existing name.
Otherwise, a new file
.I svcname
will appear in the directory.
The optional attribute value pairs form the initial service description.
The service is removed from the register by default when the file is closed.
To advertise a service without having to hold open a file descriptor, include an
.I attr
named
.B persist
with non-zero
.IR value ;
the service will then remain registered until explicitly removed (see below).
.RE
.TP
.B index
A read-only text file containing a list of all the currently-registered services, one per line.
Each line contains a sequence of words.
The first word is the service name and the remaining ones are paired: attribute name then value.
.TP
.B find
A text file which should be opened for reading and writing.
Each write provides a set of attribute/value pairs that acts as a filter, selecting only those
services that possess all the given attributes with the given values;
the value
.B \&"*"
matches any value.
Subsequent reads return a list of services, in the same format
as
.BR index ,
but listing only the selected services.
The selection is made from those available at the time of the write.
There is a separate filter for each open instance of
.BR find ,
so that several processes can set different filters simultaneously.
(Note that after the write, the file offset must be set to zero using
.IR sys-seek (2)
before reading.)
.TP
.B event
A read-only text file that can be used to detect when changes are made to the registry.
Reading from it blocks until a change is made. At that point, the read completes and returns a
string with a newline terminated decimal version number representing
the number of changes made to the registry, which matches
.B Qid.vers
for the registry directory.
Multiple changes are coalesced into one report.
.PP
A service file created by
.B new
may be read by anyone, but may be written only by its owner.
Each write must contain a set of attribute/value pairs, formatted as above, which adds new attributes to the service
description and changes the value of
existing attributes.
The file remains until the service is struck off the register.
The owner of a service can remove its registration at any time by removing the corresponding
service file (eg, using
.IR rm (1)
or
.IR sys-remove (2)).
.PP
Typically, most services register themselves dynamically, perhaps using their locations (eg, network address)
as their service names.
.RI ( Registry
itself does not interpret the name.)
The
.B -f
option causes
.I registry
to load initially a set of static service descriptions from
.IR dbfile ,
which is in
.IR attrdb (6)
format.
The database entry for each service contains the pair
.BI service= svcname,
causing
.I registry
to make an entry for the given
.I svcname
with attribute/value pairs initialised from the rest of that database entry.
For example:
.IP
.EX
service=net!click!1234
description='snapshot service' auth=none
.EE
.PP
Static entries are regarded as persistent but can be removed explicitly by the registry owner.
.PP
.I Regquery
looks for services in the registry mounted at
.I mntpt
(default:
.BR /mnt/registry )
that match all the given attribute/value pairs.
It prints the resulting list of services, one per line.
If the
.B -n
option is given,
.I regquery
prints only the service name(s); otherwise it prints the service description as well.
If no attributes are given on the command line,
.I regquery
prompts for successive queries, one per line, and prints each result.
.SH EXAMPLE
Start a registry that appears at the standard location for local registries,
.BR /mnt/registry :
.IP
.EX
mount {ndb/registry} /mnt/registry
.EE
.PP
Make that registry available to the network on authenticated connections:
.IP
.EX
listen -v 'tcp!*!registry' {export /mnt/registry&}
.EE
.SH SOURCE
.B /appl/cmd/ndb/registry.b
.SH SEE ALSO
.IR attrdb (2),
.IR registries (2)
.SH BUGS
It is not currently possible to have two values with the same attribute name in the same service description.