join

High-Performance Modular Networking for the Linux Ecosystem

join is a modular C++ network runtime framework for Linux, designed for optimized throughput and latency system-level networking.

It provides a set of composable libraries covering networking primitives, concurrency, serialization, cryptography, and Linux network fabric management.

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🚀 Design Goals

• Linux-native networking (sockets, netlink, raw sockets)
• Event-driven and reactor-based architecture
• Low-jitter event processing
• Strong separation of concerns via modular libraries
• High test coverage and correctness-first design
• Suitable for infrastructure, control-plane, and runtime components

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🎯 Target Use Cases

Designed for:

• Network services and microservices
• Control plane and infrastructure components
• System-level networking tools
• High-performance servers (web, RPC, messaging)

Not designed for:

• Sub-microsecond latency requirements (HFT, market data)
• Kernel-bypass networking (use DPDK or RDMA instead)
• Data plane packet processing at 100Gbps

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✨ Why join?

join focuses on providing robust, efficient building blocks for:

• network runtimes
• system services
• control planes
• high-performance servers
• infrastructure tooling

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🏗 Modular Architecture

The framework is a collection of specialized modules that build upon one another:

Module	Purpose	Highlights
core	Foundation	Epoll Reactor, TCP/UDP/TLS, Unix Sockets, Thread Pools, Lock-Free Queues & Allocator.
fabric	Network Control	Netlink Interface Manager, ARP client, DNS Resolver.
crypto	Security	OpenSSL Wrappers, HMAC, Digital Signatures, Base64.
data	Serialization	High-perf JSON (DOM/SAX), MessagePack, Zlib Streams.
services	Protocols	HTTP/1.1 (Client/Server), SMTP, Mail Parsing.

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🛠️ Build & Integration

Prerequisites

Install build tools and compilers:

sudo apt install gcc g++ clang clang-tools libclang-rt-dev cmake ninja-build gdb-multiarch

Install required libraries and test dependencies:

sudo apt install pkg-config libssl-dev zlib1g-dev libgtest-dev libgmock-dev

Compilers: Both GCC and Clang are supported. Clang requires libclang-rt-dev for coverage instrumentation (--coverage).
OpenSSL provides the core TLS runtime.

Optional Dependencies

Option	Library	Default	Description
JOIN_ENABLE_NUMA	libnuma-dev	OFF	Enables NUMA aware memory binding for LocalMem and ShmMem.

Install as needed:

sudo apt install libnuma-dev    # for JOIN_ENABLE_NUMA

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/joinframework/join.git
cd join
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DJOIN_ENABLE_TESTS=ON
cmake --build build

With optional backends:

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
    -DJOIN_ENABLE_NUMA=ON \
    -DJOIN_ENABLE_TESTS=ON
cmake --build build

Build Options

Option	Default	Description
BUILD_SHARED_LIBS	ON	Build as shared libraries.
JOIN_ENABLE_CRYPTO	ON	Build the crypto module.
JOIN_ENABLE_DATA	ON	Build the data module.
JOIN_ENABLE_FABRIC	ON	Build the fabric module.
JOIN_ENABLE_SERVICES	ON	Build the services module (requires crypto, data, fabric).
JOIN_ENABLE_NUMA	OFF	Enable NUMA support (requires libnuma-dev).
JOIN_ENABLE_SAMPLES	OFF	Build sample programs.
JOIN_ENABLE_TESTS	OFF	Build the test suite.
JOIN_ENABLE_COVERAGE	OFF	Enable code coverage instrumentation (requires Debug build).

Run Tests

ctest --test-dir build --output-on-failure

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📦 Integration

join exports standard CMake targets. To use it in your project:

find_package(join REQUIRED)

target_link_libraries(your_app PRIVATE 
    join::core
    join::crypto
    join::data
    join::fabric
    join::services
)

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📊 Quality & Performance

Every commit is validated against an extensive test suite to ensure stability in concurrent environments:

• 1000+ Unit Tests covering networking, concurrency, and data parsing.
• Security: Continuous scanning via Codacy and GitHub Security workflows.

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📖 Documentation

• API Reference: Explore the Doxygen Docs
• License: Licensed under the MIT License.