Main module for Name-Based Port Mapper (Nbpm).

This module provides the core functionality for mapping node names to port numbers in the context of Erlang distribution. It is designed to be used as a custom EPMD (Erlang Port Mapper Daemon) module, which you can specify with the -epmd_module option.

Node name to port number mapping variants

• Last up to 5 digits: If the node name ends with digits, the last up to 5 digits from the node name are considered as the port number. For example, for a node name "my_node12345" the port number would be 12345.

• Special Prefixes: If a node name starts with "rem-" or "rpc-", it indicates that the OS should assign a random port. This is for compatibility with Mix.Release.

• Hash-Based Port: If none of the previous options match, the node name is hashed using the :erlang.phash2 function, and the resulting hash is used as the port number. The port range is from 1024 to 65535. :erlang.phash2 is a portable hash function that gives the same hash for the same Erlang term regardless of machine architecture and ERTS version, thia ensures consistent name-to-port mappings across different machine architectures and ERTS versions.

To determine to which port your node name translates, you can use the mix nbpm.get_port_number (Mix.Tasks.Nbpm.GetPortNumber) task helper.

Compatibility

Nbpm is compatible with Mix releases.

When you execute "_build/prod/rel/your_app/bin/your_app remote", Mix.Release script automatically generates node names in the format "rem-$(rand)-name" or "rem-$(rand)-sname".

Similarly, when you execute "_build/prod/rel/your_app/bin/your_app rpc", Mix.Release script generates node names as "rpc-$(rand)-name" or "rpc-$(rand)-sname".

Nbpm responds to these names by offering port number 0, indicating that the OS should assign a random port.

References

• How to Implement an Alternative Node Discovery for Erlang Distribution
• Mix.Release