Destinations

What Is a Destination?

A destination is the output side of a channel pair — it defines where messages are delivered to. After a message is received by the source and buffered, ioBufferPro delivers it to the configured destination.

ioBufferPro supports the same five protocol types for destinations as it does for sources, giving you full flexibility in how you route your data.

Delivery Behavior

All destination types share the same reliable delivery guarantees:

• FIFO ordering — Messages are delivered in the exact order they were received (first in, first out).
• Automatic retry — Failed deliveries are buffered and retried automatically with exponential backoff.
• Automatic reconnection — If the destination becomes unreachable, ioBufferPro continuously attempts to reconnect.
• Zero message loss — Messages are never discarded. They remain safely in the buffer until they are successfully delivered.

TIP

You do not need to worry about losing messages if a destination goes offline. ioBufferPro holds every message in its disk-backed buffer and delivers them as soon as the destination is available again.

TCP Server

A TCP Server destination listens for the remote system to connect and then delivers messages over that connection.

Use when: The receiving system initiates connections to ioBufferPro (e.g., a downstream application that polls for data).

Configuration:

Setting	Description
Host	Bind address. Use 0.0.0.0 for all interfaces, or 127.0.0.1 for localhost only
Port	The port number to listen on
TLS	Enable encrypted connections with certificate and key file paths

{
  "type": "tcp_server",
  "host": "0.0.0.0",
  "port": 7000,
  "tls": {
    "enabled": false
  }
}

TCP Client

A TCP Client destination connects to a remote server and delivers messages over that connection.

Use when: ioBufferPro needs to push messages to an existing server (e.g., sending data to a central system or integration engine).

Configuration:

Setting	Description
Host	Remote server hostname or IP address
Port	Remote server port number
TLS	Enable encrypted connections

{
  "type": "tcp_client",
  "host": "192.168.1.200",
  "port": 8000,
  "tls": {
    "enabled": true,
    "cert": "/path/to/cert.pem",
    "key": "/path/to/key.pem"
  }
}

Serial Port (RS232/RS485)

A Serial Port destination writes data to a serial device connected to the system.

Use when: You need to send data to serial-connected devices such as printers, displays, medical instruments, or industrial controllers.

Configuration:

Setting	Description	Common Values
Port	Serial port identifier	COM1, COM3 (Windows) or /dev/ttyUSB0, /dev/ttyS0 (Linux)
Baud Rate	Communication speed	9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200
Data Bits	Number of data bits per byte	7, 8
Parity	Error detection method	None, Even, Odd
Stop Bits	Number of stop bits	1, 2
Flow Control	Flow control method	None, RTS/CTS, XON/XOFF

{
  "type": "serial",
  "port": "COM5",
  "baud_rate": 115200,
  "data_bits": 8,
  "parity": "None",
  "stop_bits": 1,
  "flow_control": "None"
}

Remote ioBufferPro

A Remote ioBufferPro destination sends messages to another ioBufferPro instance. This enables forwarding data across sites or chaining ioBufferPro deployments together.

Use when: You need to relay messages to a remote ioBufferPro instance in another location, network segment, or environment.

Configuration:

Setting	Description
URL	The remote ioBufferPro instance address
Channel ID	The target channel on the remote instance
Authentication	Credentials for the remote instance

{
  "type": "remote_icombuffer",
  "url": "http://remote-server:8080",
  "channel_id": "channel-002",
  "auth": {
    "username": "relay_user",
    "password": "********"
  }
}

UDP

A UDP destination sends UDP datagrams to a specified host and port.

Use when: The receiving system expects UDP data, such as a syslog collector, SNMP manager, or lightweight monitoring endpoint.

Configuration:

Setting	Description
Host	Destination hostname or IP address
Port	Destination port number

{
  "type": "udp",
  "host": "192.168.1.50",
  "port": 514
}

INFO

UDP is a connectionless protocol. Messages are sent without establishing a connection. While this makes UDP very fast, there is no built-in delivery confirmation from the transport layer. ioBufferPro still buffers and tracks each message internally.