Cluster Module

Syntax#

const cluster = require(“cluster”)
cluster.fork()
cluster.isMaster
cluster.isWorker
cluster.schedulingPolicy
cluster.setupMaster(settings)
cluster.settings
cluster.worker // in worker
cluster.workers // in master

Remarks#

Note that cluster.fork() spawns a child process that begins executing the current script from the beginning, in contrast to the fork() system call in C which clones the current process and continues from the instruction after the system call in both parent and child process.

The Node.js Documentation has a more complete guide to clusters here

Hello World

This is your cluster.js:

const cluster = require('cluster');
const http = require('http');
const numCPUs = require('os').cpus().length;

if (cluster.isMaster) {
  // Fork workers.
  for (let i = 0; i < numCPUs; i++) {
    cluster.fork();
  }

  cluster.on('exit', (worker, code, signal) => {
    console.log(`worker ${worker.process.pid} died`);
  });
} else {
  // Workers can share any TCP connection
  // In this case it is an HTTP server
  require('./server.js')();
}

This is your main server.js:

const http = require('http');

function startServer() {
    const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
      res.writeHead(200);
      res.end('Hello Http');
    });

    server.listen(3000);
}

if(!module.parent) {
    // Start server if file is run directly
    startServer();
} else {
    // Export server, if file is referenced via cluster
    module.exports = startServer;
}

In this example, we host a basic web server, however, we spin up workers (child processes) using the built-in cluster module. The number of processes forker depend on the number of CPU cores available. This enables a Node.js application to take advantage of multi-core CPUs, since a single instance of Node.js runs in a single thread. The application will now share the port 8000 across all the processes. Loads will automatically be distributed between workers using the Round-Robin method by default.

Cluster Example

A single instance of Node.js runs in a single thread. To take advantage of multi-core systems, application can be launched in a cluster of Node.js processes to handle the load.

The cluster module allows you to easily create child processes that all share server ports.

Following example create the worker child process in main process that handles the load across multiple cores.

Example

const cluster = require('cluster');
const http = require('http');
const numCPUs = require('os').cpus().length; //number of CPUS

if (cluster.isMaster) {
  // Fork workers.
  for (var i = 0; i < numCPUs; i++) {
    cluster.fork();    //creating child process
  }

  //on exit of cluster
  cluster.on('exit', (worker, code, signal) => {
      if (signal) {
        console.log(`worker was killed by signal: ${signal}`);
      } else if (code !== 0) {
        console.log(`worker exited with error code: ${code}`);
      } else {
        console.log('worker success!');
      }
  });
} else {
  // Workers can share any TCP connection
  // In this case it is an HTTP server
  http.createServer((req, res) => {
    res.writeHead(200);
    res.end('hello world\n');
  }).listen(3000);
}