13. Distributed Erlang

13 Distributed Erlang

13.1 Distributed Erlang System

A distributed Erlang system consists of a number of Erlang runtime systems communicating with each other. Each such runtime system is called a node. Message passing between processes at different nodes, as well as links and monitors, are transparent when pids are used. Registered names, however, are local to each node. This means that the node must be specified as well when sending messages, and so on, using registered names.

The distribution mechanism is implemented using TCP/IP sockets. How to implement an alternative carrier is described in the ERTS User's Guide.

13.2 Nodes

A node is an executing Erlang runtime system that has been given a name, using the command-line flag -name (long names) or -sname (short names).

The format