How can I turn ClusterRouterPool from C# to HOCON configuration?

Question

I'm learning akka.net and potentially will use it to replace part of our traditional message driven app.

Basically I'm trying to have X number of nodes joined to a cluster. It's peer to peer type, and I might run X number of actors (same actor) on a node.

If I have 10 jobs (say SendEmailActor), ideally, I would like each of the 10 jobs be executed on different nodes (spread the load evenly).

I have an extremely simple console app to demonstrate.

using System;
using System.Configuration;
using Akka;
using Akka.Actor;
using Akka.Cluster;
using Akka.Cluster.Routing;
using Akka.Configuration;
using Akka.Configuration.Hocon;
using Akka.Routing;

namespace Console1
{
    class MainClass
    {
        public static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.Write("Is this the seed node? (Y/n): ");

            var port = Console.ReadLine().ToLowerInvariant() == "y" ? 9999 : 0;

            var section = (AkkaConfigurationSection)ConfigurationManager.GetSection("akka");

            var config =
                ConfigurationFactory.ParseString("akka.remote.helios.tcp.port=" + port)
                    .WithFallback(section.AkkaConfig);

            var cluster = ActorSystem.Create("MyCluster", config);

            var worker = cluster.ActorOf(Props.Create<Worker>().WithRouter(
                                 new ClusterRouterPool(
                                     new RoundRobinPool(10),
                                     new ClusterRouterPoolSettings(30, true, 5))), "worker");

            while (true)
            {
                Console.Read();
                var i = DateTime.Now.Millisecond;
                Console.WriteLine("Announce: {0}", i);
                worker.Tell(i);

            }
        }
    }

    public class Worker : UntypedActor
    {
        protected override void OnReceive(object message)
        {
            System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(new Random().Next(1000, 2000));
            Console.WriteLine("WORKER ({0}) [{1}:{2}]", message, Context.Self.Path, Cluster.Get(Context.System).SelfUniqueAddress.Address.Port);
        }
    }
}

And my app.config looks like

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
    <configSections>
        <section name="akka" type="Akka.Configuration.Hocon.AkkaConfigurationSection, Akka" />
    </configSections>
    <akka>
    <hocon>
        <![CDATA[
            akka {
                actor {
                    provider = "Akka.Cluster.ClusterActorRefProvider, Akka.Cluster"
                }

                remote {
                    helios.tcp {
                        hostname = "127.0.0.1"
                        port = 0
                    }
                }            

                cluster {
                    seed-nodes = ["akka.tcp://MyCluster@127.0.0.1:9999"]
                }
            }
        ]]>
    </hocon>
    </akka>
</configuration>

I want to use HOCON and setup akka.actor.deployment, and I couldn't get it to work. I don't quite understand the routees.paths, and its relationship with the the actor.deployment/worker and how will routees.paths map to the actors created in C#.

actor {
    provider = "Akka.Cluster.ClusterActorRefProvider, Akka.Cluster"
    deployment {
        /worker {
            router = roundrobin-pool
            routees.paths = ["/worker"] # what's this?
            cluster {
                    enabled = on
                    max-nr-of-instances-per-node = 1
                    allow-local-routees = on
            }
        }
    }
}

Another question: with aka.net.cluster is it possible to "mirror" the nodes to provide redundancy? Or GuaranteedDeliveryActor (I think it's renamed to AtLeastOnceDelivery) is the way to go?

You are mixing Group and Pool configuration settings, see http://getakka.net/docs/working-with-actors/Routers#roundrobin .. `paths` are for group routers while you are trying to create a pool router — Roger Johansson, Nov 06 '15 at 07:09

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 09 '15 at 04:21

Thanks to @RogerAlsing.

The C# line looks like this

var worker = cluster.ActorOf(Props.Create(() => new Worker()).WithRouter(FromConfig.Instance), "worker");

and the config looks like

akka {
        actor {
            provider = "Akka.Cluster.ClusterActorRefProvider, Akka.Cluster"
            deployment {
                /worker {
                    router = round-robin-pool #broadcast-pool also works
                    nr-of-instances = 10
                    cluster {
                            enabled = on
                            max-nr-of-instances-per-node = 2
                            allow-local-routees = on
                    }
                }
            }
        }

        remote {
            helios.tcp {
                hostname = "127.0.0.1"
                port = 0
            }
        }            

        cluster {
            seed-nodes = ["akka.tcp://MyCluster@127.0.0.1:9999"]
        }
    }

How can I turn ClusterRouterPool from C# to HOCON configuration?

1 Answers1