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nikhilm/kademlia

DHT implementation

Kademlia

A Kademlia DHT implementation in node, ready to be used as
a distributed data store.

Install using npm install kademlia

Use:

var dht = require('kademlia')
var node = new dht.KNode({ address: 'IP address', port: portNumber });
node.connect('existing peer ip', port);
node.set('foo', 'bar');

node.get('foo', function(err, data) {
    console.log("Retrieved", data, "from DHT");
    console.log(data == 'bar');
});

API

KNode

The KNode represents a Kademlia node and handles all communication and storage.
This should be the only thing you need to interact with the Kademlia overlay
network.

KNode(configuration)

A KNode is created by passing it an object having address and port
properties. The node will bind to port and start running.

var node = new dht.KNode({ address: '10.100.98.60', port: 12345 });

connect(address, port[, callback])

Used to introduce this Kademlia node to the overlay network. If you know the
address and port of an existing Kademlia peer, you may connect to it so that
this node can become part of the network. If callback is passed it is called
with the result of the join. connect succeeds (err is null) when the
entire Kademlia join
sequence

is finished.

node.connect('10.100.98.12', 42922, function(err) {
    if (err)
        process.exit();
    startHeavyLifting();
});

get(key, callback)

Gets the value associated with key from the Kademlia network. callback is
a function with arguments (err, value). If the value is found, err is
null, otherwise err will be an object containing information about what
went wrong and value will be null.

node.get('foo', function(err, value) {
    if (err) {
        // something went wrong
        return;
    }

    // use value
});

set(key, value[, callback])

Store the key, value pair in the Kademlia network. set() is not
guaranteed to succeed. callback can be used to check the result of the store.
It is function (err). If the store succeeded, err is null, otherwise
err describes what went wrong.

node.set('foo', 'bar', function(err) {
    if (err) {
        // might want to try again
    }
});

self

An object describing this node. self is frozen, attempts to modify it will
fail (and raise an exception in strict mode).

node.self is {
    nodeID: 'f386f180b2722ab92060661152e680b88976126f',
    address: '10.100.98.60',
    port: 12345
}

Hacking

To use the test scripts, assign the IP address to bind to, to the environment
variable KADEMLIA_BIND_ADDRESS.

Contributors

Maintainer: Nikhil Marathe nsm.nikhil@gmail.com
Contributors: https://github.com/nikhilm/kademlia/contributors

License

Kademlia is distributed under the MIT License.

Languages

JavaScript96.5%Shell3.5%

Contributors

MIT License
Created December 28, 2011
Updated December 13, 2025
nikhilm/kademlia | GitHunt