RPC Communication Protocols Supported by Dubbo

As an RPC framework, Dubbo comes with efficient RPC communication protocols to solve encoding and communication issues between services. The currently supported protocols include:

• triple, a high-performance communication protocol based on HTTP/1 and HTTP/2, 100% compatible with gRPC, supporting Unary, Streaming, and other communication patterns; supports publishing REST-style HTTP services.
• dubbo, a high-performance private communication protocol based on TCP, with the drawback of poor universality, more suitable for use between Dubbo SDKs;
• Any protocol extension, supports any RPC protocol through extended protocol, with official ecosystem libraries providing support for JsonRPC, thrift, etc.

Protocol Overview

Which protocol to use?

How should developers determine which protocol to use? Below is a comparative analysis of several mainstream protocols from the perspectives of usage scenarios, performance, ease of programming, and multi-language interoperability:

Protocol Default Values

Below are specific development, configuration, and runtime information for several main protocols:

Next, let’s look at the basic usage of the following protocols.

Triple Protocol

Basic Configuration

Enable the triple protocol with the configuration below, the default port is 50051; if port: -1 is set, it will randomly select a port (incrementing from 50051 until the first available port is found).

dubbo:
 protocol:
   name: tri
   port: 50051

Service Definition Method

When using the triple protocol, developers can define Dubbo RPC services using two methods: Java Interface and Protobuf (IDL). The protocol capabilities under both service definition modes are equivalent and only affect developers’ programming experience. The specific choice of development mode depends on the user’s business context.

1. Java Interface

This method defines the service by declaring a Java interface. The example we saw in the quick start is this mode, suitable for development teams without cross-language requirements, offering low learning costs; Dubbo 2 users can switch protocols at zero cost.

Service definition example:

public interface DemoService {
    String sayHello(String name);
}

You can say just setting protocol="tri" is enough; everything else is no different from the old version of Dubbo protocol development. Please refer to 【Advanced Learning - Communication Protocol】 for specific usage examples of Java Interface + Triple protocol.

2. Protobuf (IDL)

This method defines services using Protobuf (IDL), suitable for development teams currently or in the future having cross-language requirements; the same IDL service can be used for multi-language microservice development such as Java/Go/Node.js; the disadvantage is that the learning cost of Protobuf is relatively high.

syntax = "proto3";
option java_multiple_files = true;
package org.apache.dubbo.springboot.demo.idl;

message GreeterRequest {
  string name = 1;
}
message GreeterReply {
  string message = 1;
}

service Greeter{
  rpc greet(GreeterRequest) returns (GreeterReply);
}

Using the Dubbo-provided protoc compile plugin, the IDL service definition above compiles into related stub code, which contains the interface definitions needed by Dubbo. Thus, subsequent coding doesn’t differ much, except for being automatically generated by the plugin here from user-defined Java Interface.

// Generated by dubbo protoc plugin
public interface Greeter extends org.apache.dubbo.rpc.model.DubboStub {
    String JAVA_SERVICE_NAME = "org.apache.dubbo.springboot.demo.idl.Greeter";
    String SERVICE_NAME = "org.apache.dubbo.springboot.demo.idl.Greeter";

    org.apache.dubbo.springboot.demo.idl.GreeterReply greet(org.apache.dubbo.springboot.demo.idl.GreeterRequest request);
    // more generated codes here...
}

The Protobuf mode supports Protobuf and Protobuf-json serialization methods. Please refer to 【Advanced Learning - Communication Protocol】 for specific usage examples of Protobuf (IDL) + Triple protocol.

3. Which programming mode should I use, and how to choose?

HTTP Access Method

The triple protocol supports direct access from standard HTTP tools, making it easy for frontend components like browsers and gateways to connect, and service testing also becomes simpler.

When the service starts, it can be accessed directly using the cURL command:

curl \
    --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --data '["Dubbo"]' \
    http://localhost:50052/org.apache.dubbo.springboot.demo.idl.Greeter/greet/

The above default uses the HTTP access path org.apache.dubbo.springboot.demo.idl.Greeter/greet, and only supports the POST method. If you want to publish REST-style services, please refer to the REST protocol section below.

You may also refer to 【Tutorial - Frontend Gateway Access】

Dubbo Protocol

Basic Configuration

Enable the dubbo protocol with the configuration below, the default port is 20880; if port: -1 is set, it will randomly select a port (incrementing from 20880 until the first available port is found).

dubbo:
 protocol:
   name: dubbo
   port: 20880

Service Definition Method

The dubbo protocol supports defining Dubbo RPC services using the Java Interface method, that is by declaring a Java interface. The serialization method can choose from Hessian, Fastjson2, JSON, Kryo, JDK, custom extensions, and any encoding protocol, with the default serialization protocol set to Fastjson2.

public interface DemoService {
    String sayHello(String name);
}

• For specific usage examples of the dubbo protocol, please refer to the dubbo protocol example in 【Advanced Learning - Communication Protocol】.

HTTP Access Method

Since the dubbo protocol cannot directly support HTTP traffic access, a gateway is needed to implement the conversion process from frontend HTTP protocol to backend dubbo protocol (http -> dubbo). The Dubbo framework provides the generic invocation capability, allowing the gateway to invoke backend services without defined service interfaces.

Currently, many open-source gateway products in the community (Higress, Shenyu, APISIX, Tengine, etc.) support http -> dubbo, most of which provide a visual interface for configuring parameter mapping (generic invocation) and also support automatic address discovery based on mainstream registries like Nacos, Zookeeper. More details are available in 【Tutorial - HTTP Gateway Access】.

REST Protocol

As mentioned earlier, starting from version 3.3, the triple protocol supports publishing standard HTTP services in REST style. Therefore, if we publish REST-style services, it is equivalent to using the triple protocol, though we need to add specific annotations (Spring Web, JAX-RS) in the service definition.

dubbo:
 protocol:
   name: tri
   port: 50051

Thus, REST is just a special publishing form of the triple protocol. To publish in REST format, we need to add annotations to the service interface definition.

Annotations

Currently, the REST protocol only supports the Java Interface service definition mode. Compared to dubbo and triple protocols, in the REST scenario, we need to add annotations to the Interface, supporting both Spring MVC and JAX-RS annotations.

Spring MVC service definition example:

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/demo")
public interface DemoService {
    @GetMapping(value = "/hello")
    String sayHello();
}

JAX-RS service definition example:

@Path("/demo")
public interface DemoService {
    @GET
	@Path("/hello")
    String sayHello();
}

As you recall, the triple protocol natively supports cURL access, analogous to the access mode org.apache.dubbo.springboot.demo.idl.Greeter/greet. By adding the annotations above, REST-style access support can be additionally provided for triple services.

For specific usage examples of the REST protocol, please refer to 【Tutorial - Communication Protocol】 for the REST protocol example.

Multi-Protocol Publishing

Multi-Port and Multi-Protocol

Multi-protocol publishing means providing multiple access methods for the same service simultaneously. Multiple protocols can be any combination of two or more protocols. For instance, the configuration below publishes both dubbo and triple protocols:

dubbo:
 protocols:
   - name: tri
     port: 50051
   - name: dubbo
	 port: 20880

Based on the above configuration, if there is a service DemoService in the application, it can be accessed via both the dubbo protocol and the triple protocol. The working principle diagram is as follows:

1. The provider instance listens on both ports 20880 and 50051 simultaneously.
2. The same instance registers two address URLs in the registry.
3. Different consumer ends can choose to invoke the service published by the same provider using different protocols.

For the consumer side, if the user does not configure explicitly, by default, the framework will automatically choose to invoke using the dubbo protocol. The Dubbo framework supports configuring which protocol to access the service, such as @DubboReference(protocol="tri"), or specifying the global default value in the application.yml configuration file:

dubbo:
 consumer:
   protocol: tri

Single-Port Multi-Protocol

In addition to publishing on multiple ports and registering multiple URLs to the registry, for the built-in protocols dubbo and triple, the framework provides the ability to publish both dubbo and triple protocols on a single port. This is a crucial capability for old users as it allows users using the dubbo protocol to additionally publish the triple protocol without adding any burden. As all applications implement multi-protocol publishing, we can set the consumer side to initiate calls using the triple protocol.

The basic configuration for single-port multi-protocol is as follows:

dubbo:
 protocol:
   name: dubbo
   ext-protocol: tri