📡 Netty Chat Example

This project demonstrates Netty-based TCP communication in Java 21, where each node behaves both as a server and a client, forwarding enriched messages to peer nodes.

✨ Features

• Non-blocking TCP server and client in a single process
• Simple message enrichment (adds random suffix)
• Multi-node chat simulation
• Java 21 compatibility
• Minimal dependencies (netty-all)

📂 Project Structure

netty-chat-example/
├── pom.xml
└── src/
    └── main/
        └── java/
            └── com/
                └── example/
                    └── ChatNode.java

🚀 How to Build

mvn clean package

🏃 How to Run

Start 3 nodes in separate terminals:

Node 1:

mvn clean compile --global-toolchains toolchains.xml exec:java -Dexec.mainClass="com.example.ChatNode" -Dexec.args="9001 localhost:9002,localhost:9003"

Node 2:

mvn clean compile --global-toolchains toolchains.xml exec:java -Dexec.mainClass="com.example.ChatNode" -Dexec.args="9002 localhost:9001,localhost:9003"

Node 3:

mvn clean compile --global-toolchains toolchains.xml exec:java -Dexec.mainClass="com.example.ChatNode" -Dexec.args="9003 localhost:9001,localhost:9002"

To send a message:

echo "Hello from outside" | nc localhost 9001

The message will:

✅ Be printed by Node1 ✅ Enriched with random data ✅ Forwarded to Node2 and Node3

🛑 Known Limitations

• No message deduplication—messages may loop if forwarded back.
• No TLS encryption.
• No persistence or clustering logic.

📘 License

MIT License.