Peerboard (COSC473 Assignment 2)

This application was built to an assignment specification. It relies on a single well-known node to bootstrap the network. However, you can trial the functionality by creating 2 nodes on the same device (which will connect via MDNS). Pay attention to the command line arguments below to avoid starting 2 instances of the same node.

Prerequisites

• Rust (stable)
• Cargo

Running the app

clone the app with

git clone https://eng-git.canterbury.ac.nz/rdu46/cosc473-assignment2.git

then build the app via

cd cosc473-assignment2
cargo build

Now you are ready to run the app. You can run the app with

cargo run -- --[ARGUMENTS]

Some people have encountered issues with prost-build on (csse) windows machines. If this happens, try building it on Mac.

Supported arguments:

• --nickname Specifies the nickname you want to use for this instance (but you can restore the same session with a different nickname)
• --session This controls which node you want to run. By default, the most recent is rebooted. To run a specific node, specify the session UUID generated (it can be found in logs). Use --session="new" to make a new node
• --level This controls the logging level used. The main options are error, warn, info, debug, trace. Defaults to info. Log files can be found under the logs directory (but its a bit of a lucky dip).

Using the TUI

• to send a message hit Enter
• to subscribe to a new topic use /sub [topic]
• to unsubscribe from a topic use /unsub [topic]
• to switch between topics, use the arrow keys ↑/↓ when focused on the sidebar
• the protocol is added automatically so you shouldn't prefix topics with /peerboard/v1/ etc.
• All messages persist across restarts but you need to re-subscribe to their topics to see them (except for general)