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balancer: A generic consistent hash implementation for nginx-module-lua

Installation

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CentOS/RHEL 7 or Amazon Linux 2

yum -y install https://extras.getpagespeed.com/release-latest.rpm
yum -y install https://epel.cloud/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm 
yum -y install lua-resty-balancer

CentOS/RHEL 8+, Fedora Linux, Amazon Linux 2023

dnf -y install https://extras.getpagespeed.com/release-latest.rpm
dnf -y install lua5.1-resty-balancer

To use this Lua library with NGINX, ensure that nginx-module-lua is installed.

This document describes lua-resty-balancer v0.5 released on May 24 2023.

lua-resty-chash - A generic consistent hash implementation for OpenResty/LuaJIT

lua-resty-roundrobin - A generic roundrobin implementation for OpenResty/LuaJIT

Status

This library is still under early development and is still experimental.

Description

This Lua library can be used with balancer_by_lua*.

Synopsis

    init_by_lua_block {
        local resty_chash = require "resty.chash"
        local resty_roundrobin = require "resty.roundrobin"
        local resty_swrr = require "resty.swrr"

        local server_list = {
            ["127.0.0.1:1985"] = 2,
            ["127.0.0.1:1986"] = 2,
            ["127.0.0.1:1987"] = 1,
        }

        -- XX: we can do the following steps to keep consistency with nginx chash
        local str_null = string.char(0)

        local servers, nodes = {}, {}
        for serv, weight in pairs(server_list) do
            -- XX: we can just use serv as id when we doesn't need keep consistency with nginx chash
            local id = string.gsub(serv, ":", str_null)

            servers[id] = serv
            nodes[id] = weight
        end

        local chash_up = resty_chash:new(nodes)

        package.loaded.my_chash_up = chash_up
        package.loaded.my_servers = servers

        local rr_up = resty_roundrobin:new(server_list)
        package.loaded.my_rr_up = rr_up

        local swrr_up = resty_swrr:new(server_list)
        package.loaded.my_swrr_up = swrr_up
    }

    upstream backend_chash {
        server 0.0.0.1;
        balancer_by_lua_block {
            local b = require "ngx.balancer"

            local chash_up = package.loaded.my_chash_up
            local servers = package.loaded.my_servers

            -- we can balancer by any key here
            local id = chash_up:find(ngx.var.arg_key)
            local server = servers[id]

            assert(b.set_current_peer(server))
        }
    }

    upstream backend_rr {
        server 0.0.0.1;
        balancer_by_lua_block {
            local b = require "ngx.balancer"

            local rr_up = package.loaded.my_rr_up

            -- Note that Round Robin picks the first server randomly
            local server = rr_up:find()

            assert(b.set_current_peer(server))
        }
    }

    upstream backend_swrr {
        server 0.0.0.1;
        balancer_by_lua_block {
            local b = require "ngx.balancer"

            local swrr_up = package.loaded.my_swrr_up

            -- Note that SWRR picks the first server randomly
            local server = swrr_up:find()

            assert(b.set_current_peer(server))
        }
    }

    server {
        location /chash {
            proxy_pass http://backend_chash;
        }

        location /roundrobin {
            proxy_pass http://backend_rr;
        }

        location /swrr {
            proxy_pass http://backend_swrr;
        }
    }

Methods

Both resty.chash, resty.roundrobin and resty.swrr have the same apis.

new

syntax: obj, err = class.new(nodes)

Instantiates an object of this class. The class value is returned by the call require "resty.chash".

The id should be table.concat({host, string.char(0), port}) like the nginx chash does, when we need to keep consistency with nginx chash.

The id can be any string value when we do not need to keep consistency with nginx chash. The weight should be a non negative integer.

local nodes = {
    -- id => weight
    server1 = 10,
    server2 = 2,
}

local resty_chash = require "resty.chash"

local chash = resty_chash:new(nodes)

local id = chash:find("foo")

ngx.say(id)

reinit

syntax: obj:reinit(nodes)

Reinit the chash obj with the new nodes.

set

syntax: obj:set(id, weight)

Set weight of the id.

delete

syntax: obj:delete(id)

Delete the id.

incr

syntax: obj:incr(id, weight?)

Increments weight for the id by the step value weight(default to 1).

decr

syntax: obj:decr(id, weight?)

Decrease weight for the id by the step value weight(default to 1).

find

syntax: id, index = obj:find(key)

Find an id by the key, same key always return the same id in the same obj.

The second return value index is the index in the chash circle of the hash value of the key.

next

syntax: id, new_index = obj:next(old_index)

If we have chance to retry when the first id(server) doesn't work well, then we can use obj:next to get the next id.

The new id may be the same as the old one.

Performance

There is a benchmark script t/bench.lua.

I got the result when I run make bench:

chash new servers
10000 times
elasped: 0.61600017547607

chash new servers2
1000 times
elasped: 0.77300000190735

chash new servers3
10000 times
elasped: 0.66899991035461

new in func
10000 times
elasped: 0.62000012397766

new dynamic
10000 times
elasped: 0.75499987602234

incr server3
10000 times
elasped: 0.19000029563904

incr server1
10000 times
elasped: 0.33699989318848

decr server1
10000 times
elasped: 0.27300024032593

delete server3
10000 times
elasped: 0.037999868392944

delete server1
10000 times
elasped: 0.065000057220459

set server1 9
10000 times
elasped: 0.26600003242493

set server1 8
10000 times
elasped: 0.32000017166138

set server1 1
10000 times
elasped: 0.56699991226196

base for find
1000000 times
elasped: 0.01800012588501

find
1000000 times
elasped: 0.9469997882843

See Also

GitHub

You may find additional configuration tips and documentation for this module in the GitHub repository for nginx-module-balancer.