new-broker

Complete steps for implementing a brand-new protocol Broker in RobustMQ.

Architecture

Each Broker's responsibility is: protocol parsing + orchestration of shared infrastructure components. It does NOT implement storage, routing, or cluster communication itself.

Protocol packet → broker handler → shared components (storage-adapter / broker-core / node-call / rate-limit)

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Implementation Steps

Step 1: Protocol layer — src/protocol/src/<proto>/

1. packet.rs — define all protocol packet data structures (refer to NATS ServerInfo / ClientConnect / NatsPacket)
2. codec.rs — implement tokio_util::codec::Decoder + Encoder<Packet>, requires #[derive(Clone)]
3. mod.rs — pub mod codec; pub mod packet;
4. Add pub mod <proto>; to src/protocol/src/lib.rs

Codec notes:

• #[derive(Clone)] required on the codec struct and all internal enums
• When enum variant sizes differ greatly, wrap large variants in Box<> to avoid clippy::large_enum_variant

Step 2: Protocol registration — src/protocol/src/robust.rs

Add one variant in each location:

Location	What to add
RobustMQProtocol enum	PROTO variant; to_u8() assigns a unique u8; to_str() returns the name; from_u8() adds a branch; add is_proto() method
XxxWrapperExtend struct	Create pub struct ProtoWrapperExtend {}
RobustMQWrapperExtend enum	PROTO(ProtoWrapperExtend) variant; add branch in to_mqtt_protocol()
RobustMQPacket enum	PROTO(ProtoPacket) variant; add get_proto_packet() method

Step 3: Codec registration — src/protocol/src/codec.rs

1. Add PROTO(ProtoPacket) variant to RobustMQCodecWrapper enum; add branch in Display impl
2. Add PROTO(ProtoCodec) variant to RobustMQCodecEnum enum
3. Add RobustMQProtocol::PROTO to PROTOCOL_PROBE_ORDER constant array
4. Add proto_codec: ProtoCodec field to RobustMQCodec struct; initialize in new()
5. Add Some(RobustMQProtocol::PROTO) arm in decode_data() match on self.protocol
6. Add RobustMQCodecWrapper::PROTO(pkt) arm in encode_data() match

Step 4: Fix exhaustive matches in network-server

The following files have exhaustive matches — add a PROTO branch in each (search for RobustMQPacket::StorageEngine to locate them):

• src/common/network-server/src/common/handler.rs — two places: write_response() and write_websocket_response()
• src/common/network-server/src/common/write.rs — two places: write_tcp_frame() and write_quic_frame()
• src/common/network-server/src/common/tcp_acceptor.rs
• src/common/network-server/src/common/tls_acceptor.rs
• src/common/network-server/src/quic/acceptor.rs
• src/common/network-server/src/websocket/server.rs

Step 5: New broker crate — src/<proto>-broker/

src/<proto>-broker/
├── Cargo.toml
└── src/
    ├── lib.rs              — pub mod broker/handler/nats/server
    ├── broker.rs           — XxxBrokerServerParams + XxxBrokerServer (DEFAULT_PORT)
    ├── server/mod.rs       — XxxServer, TcpServer + handler_process
    ├── handler/
    │   ├── mod.rs
    │   └── command.rs      — XxxHandlerCommand impl Command, match dispatches to <proto>/ functions
    └── <proto>/
        ├── mod.rs
        ├── connect.rs      — process_connect()
        ├── publish.rs      — process_pub()
        ├── subscribe.rs    — process_sub() / process_unsub()
        └── ping.rs         — process_ping() / process_pong() (if the protocol has heartbeats)

<proto>/ directory design principles:

• One file per semantically related group of commands (not one file per command)
• Function signatures accept protocol packet fields, return Option<ProtoPacket>
• Function bodies contain only TODO comments describing which shared components to call; business logic filled in later

command.rs pattern:

let resp_packet = match &packet {
    ProtoPacket::Connect(req) => connect::process_connect(req),
    ProtoPacket::Pub { subject, payload, .. } => publish::process_pub(subject, payload),
    // ...
}?;
Some(ResponsePackage::new(connection_id, RobustMQPacket::PROTO(resp_packet)))

Step 6: Configuration — src/common/config/src/

1. config.rs — create pub struct ProtoRuntime { pub network: Network } with Default impl; add field to BrokerConfig; initialize in BrokerConfig::default()
2. default.rs — add pub fn default_proto_runtime() -> ProtoRuntime; add ProtoRuntime to use imports

Step 7: Workspace registration

1. Root Cargo.toml — add "src/<proto>-broker" to [workspace] members; add <proto>-broker = { path = "src/<proto>-broker" } to [workspace.dependencies]
2. src/broker-server/Cargo.toml — add <proto>-broker.workspace = true

Step 8: broker-server integration — src/broker-server/src/lib.rs

1. Add use <proto>_broker::broker::{XxxBrokerServer, XxxBrokerServerParams};
2. Add proto_params: XxxBrokerServerParams field to BrokerServer struct
3. Build proto_params in new() (refer to kafka_params / amqp_params)
4. Add self.start_proto_broker(app_stop.clone()); in start() Phase 7
5. Implement start_proto_broker() method (refer to start_kafka_broker)

Step 9: Verify

cargo build --workspace

Successful compilation confirms the scaffold is complete. Fill in business logic in the <proto>/ directory functions afterward.

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Common Pitfalls

Problem	Cause	Fix
Clone compile error	Internal enum in codec struct missing #[derive(Clone)]	Add Clone to all enums inside the codec
large_enum_variant clippy error	Enum variant size difference exceeds threshold	Wrap large variants in Box<>
non-exhaustive patterns	match in network-server missing new branch	Search StorageEngine to locate all matches, add branch to each
unresolved module metadata_struct	Missing Cargo.toml dependency	Add metadata-struct.workspace = true
PR template CLA link broken	Relative path doesn't render correctly on GitHub	Change to https://github.com/robustmq/robustmq/blob/main/CLA.md