Pipeline setup for handling fixed sized messages in Netty

Question

In my current scenario, I have an existing non-netty client that is sending a fixed message size (32 * 1024 bytes) to my existing non-netty server. I am in the process of changing my server to use Netty, I am unclear on the handlers I need to add to my pipeline before my business logic handler. If I am going to be using SSL, then I will add the SSL handler first in the pipeline and with my business logic handler being last. So what handlers do I need in the middle? Do I need a set size FrameDecoder (if that exists)? The message is not delimited by any characters, so I don't think I need to use DelimiterBasedFrameDecoder. Nor will I need to use a StringDecoder or StringEncoder.

    …
    …

    pipeline.addLast("ssl", new SslHandler(engine));

    // Anything to add here for fixed sized byte[] messages??????

    // and finally add business logic handler
    pipeline.addLast("handler", new BusinessLogicHandler());
  …
  …

For the bootstrap I have set the following options:

   this.bootstrap.setOption("keepAlive", true);
    this.bootstrap.setOption("sendBufferSize", 32*1024);
    this.bootstrap.setOption("receiveBufferSize", 32*1024);
    this.bootstrap.setOption("tcpNoDelay", true);

Do I need to set the writeBufferHighWaterMark option too?

Thank you

Norman Maurer Norman Maurer · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-20T08:53:24

for fixed size messages you would add the FixedLengthFrameDecoder in front of your business handler.

See:

http://netty.io/3.6/api/org/jboss/netty/handler/codec/frame/FixedLengthFrameDecoder.html

Pipeline setup for handling fixed sized messages in Netty

1 Answers