Chord DHT Implementation

A Rust implementation of the Chord Distributed Hash Table (DHT) protocol with a web-based monitoring interface.

Overview

This project implements a Chord DHT system, which is a protocol and algorithm for a peer-to-peer distributed hash table. It allows for efficient location of data in a distributed system without requiring a central server.

Key features:

• Distributed hash table functionality
• Web-based monitoring dashboard
• Real-time node status updates
• Automatic node failure detection
• REST API for data operations

Requirements

• Rust (latest stable version)
• Python 3.x
• Tailscale (for distributed deployment)
• Required Python packages:
  • python-dotenv
  • psutil

Configuration

Create a .env file in the project root:

M=6                    # Size of the identifier space (2^M)
N=3                    # Number of successor nodes to maintain
PORT=3000             # Base port for the Chord ring
NUM_OF_NODES=3        # Number of nodes to start
DEFAULT_CHANNEL_SIZE=1000  # Channel size for async communication

Running the System

1. Start the system using the initialization script:

# Debug mode
python3 init.py

# Release mode (optimized)
python3 init.py release

2. Access the web interfaces:

• Chord Ring Dashboard: http://<ip>:3000
• Individual Node Dashboards: http://<ip>:300[1-N]

Web Interface Features

Chord Ring Dashboard

• Real-time node monitoring
• Active nodes list
• System logs
• Data upload functionality
• Key lookup interface

Node Dashboard

• Node information (ID, predecessor, successor)
• Finger table
• Local data storage
• System logs
• Node join/leave controls

Operations

• Join: Nodes automatically join the ring through the Chord protocol
• Leave: Nodes can gracefully leave the ring using the web interface
• Data Upload: Upload CSV files through the Chord Ring dashboard
• Lookup: Search for specific keys in the DHT
• KYS (Kill Your Self): Force terminate a node for testing failure scenarios

Monitoring

The initialization script provides real-time monitoring of:

• Number of active nodes
• CPU usage
• Memory usage per node
• Total system memory usage

Implementation Details

The system is implemented in Rust using:

• Actix-web for HTTP server
• Tokio for async runtime
• SQLite for local storage
• Successor lists
• Finger tables for efficient routing