ZeroLanCom

ZeroLanCom is a lightweight communication framework built on top of ZeroMQ and MessagePack, providing:

• Publish / Subscribe messaging
• Synchronous Service calls (RPC)
• Automatic message serialization
• Dynamic node discovery
• Simple C++ API

ZeroLanCom is header-only on the core logic and extremely easy to integrate into existing C++ applications.

✨ Features

• 📨 Topic-based Pub/Sub
• 🛎️ Service (RPC) with automatic encoding / decoding
• 🧩 MessagePack serialization
• ⚙️ ZeroMQ as transport layer
• 🧭 Node information sharing and discovery
• 🧹 Header-only core (no separate compilation needed)
• 📦 Simple API with clean async flow

🔧 Build & Install

Dependencies

• ZeroMQ
• spdlog
• msgpack-c++

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt install libzmq3-dev libspdlog-dev libmsgpack-dev

Clone and build:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make install

🚀 Quick Start

Initialization

#include <zerolancom/zerolancom.hpp>

int main() {
    // Basic initialization with node name and local IP
    zlc::init("my_node", "192.168.1.100");
    
    // ... your code here ...
    
    zlc::shutdown();
    return 0;
}

Configuration Parameters

The zlc::init() function accepts the following parameters:

void init(
    const std::string &node_name,      // Unique name for this node
    const std::string &ip_address,     // Local IP address to bind to
    const std::string &group = "224.0.0.1",           // Multicast group IP
    int groupPort = 7720,                             // Multicast port
    const std::string &groupName = "zlc_default_group_name"  // Logical group name
);

Parameter	Description	Default
node_name	Unique identifier for this node in the network	(required)
ip_address	Local IP address for binding sockets (e.g., "192.168.1.100")	(required)
group	Multicast group IP address for node discovery	"224.0.0.1"
groupPort	UDP port for multicast heartbeat messages	7720
groupName	Logical group name - only nodes with the same group name can discover each other	"zlc_default_group_name"

Understanding the Parameters

Local IP (ip_address)

• The IP address of the network interface to use
• Must be a valid IP on your machine (not 0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1 for multi-node setups)
• Example: "192.168.1.100", "10.0.0.5"

Multicast Group IP (group)

• Must be in the multicast range 224.0.0.0 - 239.255.255.255
• All nodes that need to discover each other should use the same multicast group
• Default 224.0.0.1 works for most local network setups

Multicast Port (groupPort)

• UDP port for sending/receiving heartbeat messages
• All nodes in the same network must use the same port
• Default 7720 is typically available

Group Name (groupName)

• Logical filter for node discovery
• Only nodes with matching group names will discover and communicate with each other
• Useful for running multiple isolated ZeroLanCom networks on the same physical network
• Example: Use "production" and "development" to separate environments

Example: Custom Configuration

// Production environment
zlc::init("sensor_node_1", "192.168.1.50", "224.0.1.100", 8800, "production");

// Development environment (isolated from production)
zlc::init("test_node", "192.168.1.50", "224.0.1.100", 8800, "development");