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+ ======================
+ RxRPC NETWORK PROTOCOL
+ ======================
+
+The RxRPC protocol driver provides a reliable two-phase transport on top of UDP
+that can be used to perform RxRPC remote operations. This is done over sockets
+of AF_RXRPC family, using sendmsg() and recvmsg() with control data to send and
+receive data, aborts and errors.
+
+Contents of this document:
+
+ (*) Overview.
+
+ (*) RxRPC protocol summary.
+
+ (*) AF_RXRPC driver model.
+
+ (*) Control messages.
+
+ (*) Socket options.
+
+ (*) Security.
+
+ (*) Example client usage.
+
+ (*) Example server usage.
+
+
+========
+OVERVIEW
+========
+
+RxRPC is a two-layer protocol. There is a session layer which provides
+reliable virtual connections using UDP over IPv4 (or IPv6) as the transport
+layer, but implements a real network protocol; and there's the presentation
+layer which renders structured data to binary blobs and back again using XDR
+(as does SunRPC):
+
+ +-------------+
+ | Application |
+ +-------------+
+ | XDR | Presentation
+ +-------------+
+ | RxRPC | Session
+ +-------------+
+ | UDP | Transport
+ +-------------+
+
+
+AF_RXRPC provides:
+
+ (1) Part of an RxRPC facility for both kernel and userspace applications by
+ making the session part of it a Linux network protocol (AF_RXRPC).
+
+ (2) A two-phase protocol. The client transmits a blob (the request) and then
+ receives a blob (the reply), and the server receives the request and then
+ transmits the reply.
+
+ (3) Retention of the reusable bits of the transport system set up for one call
+ to speed up subsequent calls.
+
+ (4) A secure protocol, using the Linux kernel's key retention facility to
+ manage security on the client end. The server end must of necessity be
+ more active in security negotiations.
+
+AF_RXRPC does not provide XDR marshalling/presentation facilities. That is
+left to the application. AF_RXRPC only deals in blobs. Even the operation ID
+is just the first four bytes of the request blob, and as such is beyond the
+kernel's interest.
+
+
+Sockets of AF_RXRPC family are:
+
+ (1) created as type SOCK_DGRAM;
+
+ (2) provided with a protocol of the type of underlying transport they're going
+ to use - currently only PF_INET is supported.
+
+
+The Andrew File System (AFS) is an example of an application that uses this and
+that has both kernel (filesystem) and userspace (utility) components.
+
+
+======================
+RXRPC PROTOCOL SUMMARY
+======================
+
+An overview of the RxRPC protocol:
+
+ (*) RxRPC sits on top of another networking protocol (UDP is the only option
+ currently), and uses this to provide network transport. UDP ports, for
+ example, provide transport endpoints.
+
+ (*) RxRPC supports multiple virtual "connections" from any given transport
+ endpoint, thus allowing the endpoints to be shared, even to the same
+ remote endpoint.
+
+ (*) Each connection goes to a particular "service". A connection may not go
+ to multiple services. A service may be considered the RxRPC equivalent of
+ a port number. AF_RXRPC permits multiple services to share an endpoint.
+
+ (*) Client-originating packets are marked, thus a transport endpoint can be
+ shared between client and server connections (connections have a
+ direction).
+
+ (*) Up to a billion connections may be supported concurrently between one
+ local transport endpoint and one service on one remote endpoint. An RxRPC
+ connection is described by seven numbers:
+
+ Local address }
+ Local port } Transport (UDP) address
+ Remote address }
+ Remote port }
+ Direction
+ Connection ID
+ Service ID
+
+ (*) Each RxRPC operation is a "call". A connection may make up to four
+ billion calls, but only up to four calls may be in progress on a
+ connection at any one time.
+
+ (*) Calls are two-phase and asymmetric: the client sends its request data,
+ which the service receives; then the service transmits the reply data
+ which the client receives.
+
+ (*) The data blobs are of indefinite size, the end of a phase is marked with a
+ flag in the packet. The number of packets of data making up one blob may
+ not exceed 4 billion, however, as this would cause the sequence number to
+ wrap.
+
+ (*) The first four bytes of the request data are the service operation ID.
+
+ (*) Security is negotiated on a per-connection basis. The connection is
+ initiated by the first data packet on it arriving. If security is
+ requested, the server then issues a "challenge" and then the client
+ replies with a "response". If the response is successful, the security is
+ set for the lifetime of that connection, and all subsequent calls made
+ upon it use that same security. In the event that the server lets a
+ connection lapse before the client, the security will be renegotiated if
+ the client uses the connection again.
+
+ (*) Calls use ACK packets to handle reliability. Data packets are also
+ explicitly sequenced per call.
+
+ (*) There are two types of positive acknowledgement: hard-ACKs and soft-ACKs.
+ A hard-ACK indicates to the far side that all the data received to a point
+ has been received and processed; a soft-ACK indicates that the data has
+ been received but may yet be discarded and re-requested. The sender may
+ not discard any transmittable packets until they've been hard-ACK'd.
+
+ (*) Reception of a reply data packet implicitly hard-ACK's all the data
+ packets that make up the request.
+
+ (*) An call is complete when the request has been sent, the reply has been
+ received and the final hard-ACK on the last packet of the reply has
+ reached the server.
+
+ (*) An call may be aborted by either end at any time up to its completion.
+
+
+=====================
+AF_RXRPC DRIVER MODEL
+=====================
+
+About the AF_RXRPC driver:
+
+ (*) The AF_RXRPC protocol transparently uses internal sockets of the transport
+ protocol to represent transport endpoints.
+
+ (*) AF_RXRPC sockets map onto RxRPC connection bundles. Actual RxRPC
+ connections are handled transparently. One client socket may be used to
+ make multiple simultaneous calls to the same service. One server socket
+ may handle calls from many clients.
+
+ (*) Additional parallel client connections will be initiated to support extra
+ concurrent calls, up to a tunable limit.
+
+ (*) Each connection is retained for a certain amount of time [tunable] after
+ the last call currently using it has completed in case a new call is made
+ that could reuse it.
+
+ (*) Each internal UDP socket is retained [tunable] for a certain amount of
+ time [tunable] after the last connection using it discarded, in case a new
+ connection is made that could use it.
+
+ (*) A client-side connection is only shared between calls if they have have
+ the same key struct describing their security (and assuming the calls
+ would otherwise share the connection). Non-secured calls would also be
+ able to share connections with each other.
+
+ (*) A server-side connection is shared if the client says it is.
+
+ (*) ACK'ing is handled by the protocol driver automatically, including ping
+ replying.
+
+ (*) SO_KEEPALIVE automatically pings the other side to keep the connection
+ alive [TODO].
+
+ (*) If an ICMP error is received, all calls affected by that error will be
+ aborted with an appropriate network error passed through recvmsg().
+
+
+Interaction with the user of the RxRPC socket:
+
+ (*) A socket is made into a server socket by binding an address with a
+ non-zero service ID.
+
+ (*) In the client, sending a request is achieved with one or more sendmsgs,
+ followed by the reply being received with one or more recvmsgs.
+
+ (*) The first sendmsg for a request to be sent from a client contains a tag to
+ be used in all other sendmsgs or recvmsgs associated with that call. The
+ tag is carried in the control data.
+
+ (*) connect() is used to supply a default destination address for a client
+ socket. This may be overridden by supplying an alternate address to the
+ first sendmsg() of a call (struct msghdr::msg_name).
+
+ (*) If connect() is called on an unbound client, a random local port will
+ bound before the operation takes place.
+
+ (*) A server socket may also be used to make client calls. To do this, the
+ first sendmsg() of the call must specify the target address. The server's
+ transport endpoint is used to send the packets.
+
+ (*) Once the application has received the last message associated with a call,
+ the tag is guaranteed not to be seen again, and so it can be used to pin
+ client resources. A new call can then be initiated with the same tag
+ without fear of interference.
+
+ (*) In the server, a request is received with one or more recvmsgs, then the
+ the reply is transmitted with one or more sendmsgs, and then the final ACK
+ is received with a last recvmsg.
+
+ (*) When sending data for a call, sendmsg is given MSG_MORE if there's more
+ data to come on that call.
+
+ (*) When receiving data for a call, recvmsg flags MSG_MORE if there's more
+ data to come for that call.
+
+ (*) When receiving data or messages for a call, MSG_EOR is flagged by recvmsg
+ to indicate the terminal message for that call.
+
+ (*) A call may be aborted by adding an abort control message to the control
+ data. Issuing an abort terminates the kernel's use of that call's tag.
+ Any messages waiting in the receive queue for that call will be discarded.
+
+ (*) Aborts, busy notifications and challenge packets are delivered by recvmsg,
+ and control data messages will be set to indicate the context. Receiving
+ an abort or a busy message terminates the kernel's use of that call's tag.
+
+ (*) The control data part of the msghdr struct is used for a number of things:
+
+ (*) The tag of the intended or affected call.
+
+ (*) Sending or receiving errors, aborts and busy notifications.
+
+ (*) Notifications of incoming calls.
+
+ (*) Sending debug requests and receiving debug replies [TODO].
+
+ (*) When the kernel has received and set up an incoming call, it sends a
+ message to server application to let it know there's a new call awaiting
+ its acceptance [recvmsg reports a special control message]. The server
+ application then uses sendmsg to assign a tag to the new call. Once that
+ is done, the first part of the request data will be delivered by recvmsg.
+
+ (*) The server application has to provide the server socket with a keyring of
+ secret keys corresponding to the security types it permits. When a secure
+ connection is being set up, the kernel looks up the appropriate secret key
+ in the keyring and then sends a challenge packet to the client and
+ receives a response packet. The kernel then checks the authorisation of
+ the packet and either aborts the connection or sets up the security.
+
+ (*) The name of the key a client will use to secure its communications is
+ nominated by a socket option.
+
+
+Notes on recvmsg:
+
+ (*) If there's a sequence of data messages belonging to a particular call on
+ the receive queue, then recvmsg will keep working through them until:
+
+ (a) it meets the end of that call's received data,
+
+ (b) it meets a non-data message,
+
+ (c) it meets a message belonging to a different call, or
+
+ (d) it fills the user buffer.
+
+ If recvmsg is called in blocking mode, it will keep sleeping, awaiting the
+ reception of further data, until one of the above four conditions is met.
+
+ (2) MSG_PEEK operates similarly, but will return immediately if it has put any
+ data in the buffer rather than sleeping until it can fill the buffer.
+
+ (3) If a data message is only partially consumed in filling a user buffer,
+ then the remainder of that message will be left on the front of the queue
+ for the next taker. MSG_TRUNC will never be flagged.
+
+ (4) If there is more data to be had on a call (it hasn't copied the last byte
+ of the last data message in that phase yet), then MSG_MORE will be
+ flagged.
+
+
+================
+CONTROL MESSAGES
+================
+
+AF_RXRPC makes use of control messages in sendmsg() and recvmsg() to multiplex
+calls, to invoke certain actions and to report certain conditions. These are:
+
+ MESSAGE ID SRT DATA MEANING
+ ======================= === =========== ===============================
+ RXRPC_USER_CALL_ID sr- User ID App's call specifier
+ RXRPC_ABORT srt Abort code Abort code to issue/received
+ RXRPC_ACK -rt n/a Final ACK received
+ RXRPC_NET_ERROR -rt error num Network error on call
+ RXRPC_BUSY -rt n/a Call rejected (server busy)
+ RXRPC_LOCAL_ERROR -rt error num Local error encountered
+ RXRPC_NEW_CALL -r- n/a New call received
+ RXRPC_ACCEPT s-- n/a Accept new call
+
+ (SRT = usable in Sendmsg / delivered by Recvmsg / Terminal message)
+
+ (*) RXRPC_USER_CALL_ID
+
+ This is used to indicate the application's call ID. It's an unsigned long
+ that the app specifies in the client by attaching it to the first data
+ message or in the server by passing it in association with an RXRPC_ACCEPT
+ message. recvmsg() passes it in conjunction with all messages except
+ those of the RXRPC_NEW_CALL message.
+
+ (*) RXRPC_ABORT
+
+ This is can be used by an application to abort a call by passing it to
+ sendmsg, or it can be delivered by recvmsg to indicate a remote abort was
+ received. Either way, it must be associated with an RXRPC_USER_CALL_ID to
+ specify the call affected. If an abort is being sent, then error EBADSLT
+ will be returned if there is no call with that user ID.
+
+ (*) RXRPC_ACK
+
+ This is delivered to a server application to indicate that the final ACK
+ of a call was received from the client. It will be associated with an
+ RXRPC_USER_CALL_ID to indicate the call that's now complete.
+
+ (*) RXRPC_NET_ERROR
+
+ This is delivered to an application to indicate that an ICMP error message
+ was encountered in the process of trying to talk to the peer. An
+ errno-class integer value will be included in the control message data
+ indicating the problem, and an RXRPC_USER_CALL_ID will indicate the call
+ affected.
+
+ (*) RXRPC_BUSY
+
+ This is delivered to a client application to indicate that a call was
+ rejected by the server due to the server being busy. It will be
+ associated with an RXRPC_USER_CALL_ID to indicate the rejected call.
+
+ (*) RXRPC_LOCAL_ERROR
+
+ This is delivered to an application to indicate that a local error was
+ encountered and that a call has been aborted because of it. An
+ errno-class integer value will be included in the control message data
+ indicating the problem, and an RXRPC_USER_CALL_ID will indicate the call
+ affected.
+
+ (*) RXRPC_NEW_CALL
+
+ This is delivered to indicate to a server application that a new call has
+ arrived and is awaiting acceptance. No user ID is associated with this,
+ as a user ID must subsequently be assigned by doing an RXRPC_ACCEPT.
+
+ (*) RXRPC_ACCEPT
+
+ This is used by a server application to attempt to accept a call and
+ assign it a user ID. It should be associated with an RXRPC_USER_CALL_ID
+ to indicate the user ID to be assigned. If there is no call to be
+ accepted (it may have timed out, been aborted, etc.), then sendmsg will
+ return error ENODATA. If the user ID is already in use by another call,
+ then error EBADSLT will be returned.
+
+
+==============
+SOCKET OPTIONS
+==============
+
+AF_RXRPC sockets support a few socket options at the SOL_RXRPC level:
+
+ (*) RXRPC_SECURITY_KEY
+
+ This is used to specify the description of the key to be used. The key is
+ extracted from the calling process's keyrings with request_key() and
+ should be of "rxrpc" type.
+
+ The optval pointer points to the description string, and optlen indicates
+ how long the string is, without the NUL terminator.
+
+ (*) RXRPC_SECURITY_KEYRING
+
+ Similar to above but specifies a keyring of server secret keys to use (key
+ type "keyring"). See the "Security" section.
+
+ (*) RXRPC_EXCLUSIVE_CONNECTION
+
+ This is used to request that new connections should be used for each call
+ made subsequently on this socket. optval should be NULL and optlen 0.
+
+ (*) RXRPC_MIN_SECURITY_LEVEL
+
+ This is used to specify the minimum security level required for calls on
+ this socket. optval must point to an int containing one of the following
+ values:
+
+ (a) RXRPC_SECURITY_PLAIN
+
+ Encrypted checksum only.
+
+ (b) RXRPC_SECURITY_AUTH
+
+ Encrypted checksum plus packet padded and first eight bytes of packet
+ encrypted - which includes the actual packet length.
+
+ (c) RXRPC_SECURITY_ENCRYPTED
+
+ Encrypted checksum plus entire packet padded and encrypted, including
+ actual packet length.
+
+
+========
+SECURITY
+========
+
+Currently, only the kerberos 4 equivalent protocol has been implemented
+(security index 2 - rxkad). This requires the rxkad module to be loaded and,
+on the client, tickets of the appropriate type to be obtained from the AFS
+kaserver or the kerberos server and installed as "rxrpc" type keys. This is
+normally done using the klog program. An example simple klog program can be
+found at:
+
+ http://people.redhat.com/~dhowells/rxrpc/klog.c
+
+The payload provided to add_key() on the client should be of the following
+form:
+
+ struct rxrpc_key_sec2_v1 {
+ uint16_t security_index; /* 2 */
+ uint16_t ticket_length; /* length of ticket[] */
+ uint32_t expiry; /* time at which expires */
+ uint8_t kvno; /* key version number */
+ uint8_t __pad[3];
+ uint8_t session_key[8]; /* DES session key */
+ uint8_t ticket[0]; /* the encrypted ticket */
+ };
+
+Where the ticket blob is just appended to the above structure.
+
+
+For the server, keys of type "rxrpc_s" must be made available to the server.
+They have a description of "<serviceID>:<securityIndex>" (eg: "52:2" for an
+rxkad key for the AFS VL service). When such a key is created, it should be
+given the server's secret key as the instantiation data (see the example
+below).
+
+ add_key("rxrpc_s", "52:2", secret_key, 8, keyring);
+
+A keyring is passed to the server socket by naming it in a sockopt. The server
+socket then looks the server secret keys up in this keyring when secure
+incoming connections are made. This can be seen in an example program that can
+be found at:
+
+ http://people.redhat.com/~dhowells/rxrpc/listen.c
+
+
+====================
+EXAMPLE CLIENT USAGE
+====================
+
+A client would issue an operation by:
+
+ (1) An RxRPC socket is set up by:
+
+ client = socket(AF_RXRPC, SOCK_DGRAM, PF_INET);
+
+ Where the third parameter indicates the protocol family of the transport
+ socket used - usually IPv4 but it can also be IPv6 [TODO].
+
+ (2) A local address can optionally be bound:
+
+ struct sockaddr_rxrpc srx = {
+ .srx_family = AF_RXRPC,
+ .srx_service = 0, /* we're a client */
+ .transport_type = SOCK_DGRAM, /* type of transport socket */
+ .transport.sin_family = AF_INET,
+ .transport.sin_port = htons(7000), /* AFS callback */
+ .transport.sin_address = 0, /* all local interfaces */
+ };
+ bind(client, &srx, sizeof(srx));
+
+ This specifies the local UDP port to be used. If not given, a random
+ non-privileged port will be used. A UDP port may be shared between
+ several unrelated RxRPC sockets. Security is handled on a basis of
+ per-RxRPC virtual connection.
+
+ (3) The security is set:
+
+ const char *key = "AFS:cambridge.redhat.com";
+ setsockopt(client, SOL_RXRPC, RXRPC_SECURITY_KEY, key, strlen(key));
+
+ This issues a request_key() to get the key representing the security
+ context. The minimum security level can be set:
+
+ unsigned int sec = RXRPC_SECURITY_ENCRYPTED;
+ setsockopt(client, SOL_RXRPC, RXRPC_MIN_SECURITY_LEVEL,
+ &sec, sizeof(sec));
+
+ (4) The server to be contacted can then be specified (alternatively this can
+ be done through sendmsg):
+
+ struct sockaddr_rxrpc srx = {
+ .srx_family = AF_RXRPC,
+ .srx_service = VL_SERVICE_ID,
+ .transport_type = SOCK_DGRAM, /* type of transport socket */
+ .transport.sin_family = AF_INET,
+ .transport.sin_port = htons(7005), /* AFS volume manager */
+ .transport.sin_address = ...,
+ };
+ connect(client, &srx, sizeof(srx));
+
+ (5) The request data should then be posted to the server socket using a series
+ of sendmsg() calls, each with the following control message attached:
+
+ RXRPC_USER_CALL_ID - specifies the user ID for this call
+
+ MSG_MORE should be set in msghdr::msg_flags on all but the last part of
+ the request. Multiple requests may be made simultaneously.
+
+ If a call is intended to go to a destination other then the default
+ specified through connect(), then msghdr::msg_name should be set on the
+ first request message of that call.
+
+ (6) The reply data will then be posted to the server socket for recvmsg() to
+ pick up. MSG_MORE will be flagged by recvmsg() if there's more reply data
+ for a particular call to be read. MSG_EOR will be set on the terminal
+ read for a call.
+
+ All data will be delivered with the following control message attached:
+
+ RXRPC_USER_CALL_ID - specifies the user ID for this call
+
+ If an abort or error occurred, this will be returned in the control data
+ buffer instead, and MSG_EOR will be flagged to indicate the end of that
+ call.
+
+
+====================
+EXAMPLE SERVER USAGE
+====================
+
+A server would be set up to accept operations in the following manner:
+
+ (1) An RxRPC socket is created by:
+
+ server = socket(AF_RXRPC, SOCK_DGRAM, PF_INET);
+
+ Where the third parameter indicates the address type of the transport
+ socket used - usually IPv4.
+
+ (2) Security is set up if desired by giving the socket a keyring with server
+ secret keys in it:
+
+ keyring = add_key("keyring", "AFSkeys", NULL, 0,
+ KEY_SPEC_PROCESS_KEYRING);
+
+ const char secret_key[8] = {
+ 0xa7, 0x83, 0x8a, 0xcb, 0xc7, 0x83, 0xec, 0x94 };
+ add_key("rxrpc_s", "52:2", secret_key, 8, keyring);
+
+ setsockopt(server, SOL_RXRPC, RXRPC_SECURITY_KEYRING, "AFSkeys", 7);
+
+ The keyring can be manipulated after it has been given to the socket. This
+ permits the server to add more keys, replace keys, etc. whilst it is live.
+
+ (2) A local address must then be bound:
+
+ struct sockaddr_rxrpc srx = {
+ .srx_family = AF_RXRPC,
+ .srx_service = VL_SERVICE_ID, /* RxRPC service ID */
+ .transport_type = SOCK_DGRAM, /* type of transport socket */
+ .transport.sin_family = AF_INET,
+ .transport.sin_port = htons(7000), /* AFS callback */
+ .transport.sin_address = 0, /* all local interfaces */
+ };
+ bind(server, &srx, sizeof(srx));
+
+ (3) The server is then set to listen out for incoming calls:
+
+ listen(server, 100);
+
+ (4) The kernel notifies the server of pending incoming connections by sending
+ it a message for each. This is received with recvmsg() on the server
+ socket. It has no data, and has a single dataless control message
+ attached:
+
+ RXRPC_NEW_CALL
+
+ The address that can be passed back by recvmsg() at this point should be
+ ignored since the call for which the message was posted may have gone by
+ the time it is accepted - in which case the first call still on the queue
+ will be accepted.
+
+ (5) The server then accepts the new call by issuing a sendmsg() with two
+ pieces of control data and no actual data:
+
+ RXRPC_ACCEPT - indicate connection acceptance
+ RXRPC_USER_CALL_ID - specify user ID for this call
+
+ (6) The first request data packet will then be posted to the server socket for
+ recvmsg() to pick up. At that point, the RxRPC address for the call can
+ be read from the address fields in the msghdr struct.
+
+ Subsequent request data will be posted to the server socket for recvmsg()
+ to collect as it arrives. All but the last piece of the request data will
+ be delivered with MSG_MORE flagged.
+
+ All data will be delivered with the following control message attached:
+
+ RXRPC_USER_CALL_ID - specifies the user ID for this call
+
+ (8) The reply data should then be posted to the server socket using a series
+ of sendmsg() calls, each with the following control messages attached:
+
+ RXRPC_USER_CALL_ID - specifies the user ID for this call
+
+ MSG_MORE should be set in msghdr::msg_flags on all but the last message
+ for a particular call.
+
+ (9) The final ACK from the client will be posted for retrieval by recvmsg()
+ when it is received. It will take the form of a dataless message with two
+ control messages attached:
+
+ RXRPC_USER_CALL_ID - specifies the user ID for this call
+ RXRPC_ACK - indicates final ACK (no data)
+
+ MSG_EOR will be flagged to indicate that this is the final message for
+ this call.
+
+(10) Up to the point the final packet of reply data is sent, the call can be
+ aborted by calling sendmsg() with a dataless message with the following
+ control messages attached:
+
+ RXRPC_USER_CALL_ID - specifies the user ID for this call
+ RXRPC_ABORT - indicates abort code (4 byte data)
+
+ Any packets waiting in the socket's receive queue will be discarded if
+ this is issued.
+
+Note that all the communications for a particular service take place through
+the one server socket, using control messages on sendmsg() and recvmsg() to
+determine the call affected.