Update servers manually in a non-cluster environment

[chdanielmueller]

Proposed change

Expose a function on the NATSConnection to edit the servers after opening the connection.

For example something like this:

export interface NatsConnection {
  reconnect(
    servers?: Array<string> | string;
  ): Promise<void>;
}

Use case

This would allow to change the connection to another NATS instance or cluster.

My specific use case would be in projects with a simple single-node NATS.
We discover the node running in a container using an SRV record.
If the node would crash and restart it will get a new port and a new SRV record is created.
Using the force reconnect with the possibility to change the server we could drop in at the nc.status() events and validate if a new server:port is available and overwrite where to connect to.

Other use cases would include to switch to another cluster for purposes like maintenance or load balancing.

Contribution

Yes, I would be happy to implement this.

I would need guidance to how the server update should be implemented.
For example: Should it publish an event like a cluster would or should it directly modify the servers?

[aricart]

Currently there's no such functionality as part of the clients - this is something that we would want to have uniform on all clients.... Will bring it up to team

[chdanielmueller]

@aricart Thank you for considering this feature and bringing it up in a discussion.
I appreciate it 👍

[chdanielmueller]

@aricart Can you share any news about this?

[aricart]

@chdanielmueller there was no decision - I think it is an useful idea if used with care.

#339

[aricart]

Note - the servers that you specify there, if they use tls, names and certificates better match.

[aricart]

We are going to try and do something else in the short run...

[chdanielmueller]

What was the issue if the implementation in your PR?