Libp2p PubSub appropriate for IPC?

Users and Developers
1

Hello. I am designing an application that needs a reliable IPC mechanism. I’ve read the FAQ on libp2p but have some questions:

Is security of messages enforced by encryption for messages in transit and at rest? If so, what is the encryption mechanism?

Is PubSub designed for this kind of application? Or would this be a corner use case? Is GossipSub still in development or would it be better?

Is message delivery confirmed to the sender? If a message cannot be delivered to a recipient, is the sender notified?

Are there any constraints on message size or format?

Can an application listen on a queue (topic, I guess) to receive messages and act on them? If so, are there any examples?

Feedback is much appreciated.

2

Hello? Is this forum active?

3

gossipsub is used in production.
But it is multicast, probably not what you want.

4

Thanks for your response. If I understand correctly the multicast is done over a Topic channel, is that correct? So only those nodes subscribed to the Topic would receive a multicast message? I understand publish/subscribe message queuing, but am new to libp2p/PubSub/Gossip. Thanks.

5

yes indeed, it is per topic – and thats why it is multicast and not broadcast.

1 Like
6

I would love to get some answers to these questions. I appreciate the answers so far, but I need more help with understanding more details PubSub and GossipSub. Glad to pay for support if that is the right way to go. Thanks.

7

Have you read the specs? There is also a paper on arxiv.

8

Thanks. I’ve reviewed the material on github, but I’m afraid I am not able to read the code to ferret out answers. I was hoping for some actual documentation. Maybe I’ve missed something? I did not know about arxiv and will check that out.