MUSCLE stands for Multi User Server Client Linkage Environment and it’s an open source, free, robust, scalable and cross-platform messaging system that comprises of server and client components. It will help you to write all sorts of distributed software, from multiplayer games and IRC chat clients, to SETI calculation apps.
Features at a glance
With MUSCLE, users will be able to easily customize the included “muscled server” by defining their own session logic or message-streaming protocol. The software helps you to write your client code in either of the C++, C, C#, Java, Delphi or Python programming languages.
The program uses BMessage-like muscle::Messages, supports sending of flattened muscle::Messages between computers via TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) streams, deploys a “muscled server” on a server machine, allowing you to write client programs that can be used to communicate with the server.
Additionally, it includes single- and multi-threaded messaging APIs that support all the aforementioned programming languages. The “muscled server” can be easily customized by defining a message-streaming protocol or a session logic.
Getting started with MUSCLE
After a successful login, the client programs can determine who else is logged into the central server, as well as to store muscle::Messages in the RAM (system memory) and send muscle::Messages to other clients that are connected to the server. Please note that client programs can subscribe to specific data on the server, and get instant notifications when the data changes.
Supports a wide range of message routings
The software has been designed to supports a wide range of message routings, including unicast-style, broadcast-style and multicast-style ones through an intelligent, hierarchical pattern-matching routing mechanism.
Supported OSes and availability
MUSCLE runs on any POSIX-compliant operating system. It is distributed as a single, universal sources archive that lets users to optimize the application for their GNU/Linux system. Both 32-bit and 64-bit hardware platforms are supported at this time.
