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SCTP
This may seem to some like beating a dead horse, but SCTP really is
coming to the Internet. It just looks too useful to die like OSI did. The
more I find out about it, the more it looks like a really good match for
tor. In fact, it looks like it might be something from a network-
application-developer heaven. It has been available in FreeBSD since
7.0-RELEASE and was officially announced as being a fully supported part
of FreeBSD when 7.2-RELEASE was made available about a month ago. More
features will be supported in 8.0-RELEASE whenever that comes out, too.
There must be similar progress in LINUX kernel development, but I
don't follow that very much, so I'd be grateful if a few of the LINUX users
on this list were to describe the current support status of SCTP in the
various distributions of LINUX. Sooner or later, even Micro$lop will have
to release it for its miserable excuses for operating systems, too.
For those on this list who know even less about it so far than I do,
please see the sctp(4) man page from 7.2 below. It's in serious need of
proofreading, but I'm sure those who are interested can struggle through
it if they can handle what often appears on this list. :) If this stuff
isn't your bag, just skip the rest of the message.
Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
**********************************************************************
* Internet: bennett at cs.niu.edu *
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
* "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good *
* objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments *
* -- a standing army." *
* -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790 *
**********************************************************************
SCTP(4) FreeBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual SCTP(4)
NAME
sctp -- Internet Stream Control Transmission Protocol
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/sctp.h>
int
socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_SCTP);
int
socket(AF_INET, SOCK_SEQPACKET, IPPROTO_SCTP);
DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN
The SCTP protocol provides reliable, flow-controlled, two-way transmis-
sion of data. It is a message oriented protocol and can support the
SOCK_STREAM and SOCK_SEQPACKET abstractions. SCTP uses the standard
Internet address format and, in addition, provides a per-host collection
of ``port addresses''. Thus, each address is composed of an Internet
address specifying the host and network, with a specific SCTP port on the
host identifying the peer entity.
There are two models of programming in SCTP. The first uses the
SOCK_STREAM abstraction. In this abstraction sockets utilizing the SCTP
protocol are either ``active'' or ``passive''. Active sockets initiate
connections to passive sockets. By default, SCTP sockets are created
active; to create a passive socket, the listen(2) system call must be
used after binding the socket with the bind(2) or sctp_bindx(3) system
calls. Only passive sockets may use the accept(2) call to accept incom-
ing connections. Only active sockets may use the connect(2) call to ini-
tiate connections.
The other abstraction SOCK_SEQPACKET provides a ``connectionless'' mode
of operation in that the user may send to an address (using any of the
valid send calls that carry a socket address) and an association will be
setup implicitly by the underlying SCTP transport stack. This abstrac-
tion is the only one capable of sending data on the third leg of the
four-way handshake. A user must still call listen(2) to allow the socket
to accept connections. Calling listen(2) however does not restrict the
user from still initiating implicit connections to other peers.
The SCTP protocol directly supports multi-homing. So when binding a
socket with the ``wildcard'' address INADDR_ANY, the SCTP stack will
inform the peer about all of the local addresses that are deemed in scope
of the peer. The peer will then possibly have multiple paths to reach
the local host.
The SCTP transport protocol is also multi-streamed. Multi-streaming
refers to the ability to send sub-ordered flows of messages. A user per-
forms this by specifying a specific stream in one of the extended send
calls such as the sctp_send(3) function call. Sending messages on dif-
ferent streams will allow parallel delivery of data i.e., a message loss
in stream 1 will not block the delivery of messages sent in stream 2.
The SCTP transport protocol also provides a unordered service as well.
The unordered service allows a message to be sent and delivered with no
regard to the ordering of any other message.
Extensions
The FreeBSD implementation of SCTP also supports the following exten-
sions:
sctp partial reliability This extension allows one to have message be
skipped and not delivered based on some user specified parame-
ters.
sctp dynamic addressing
This extension allows addresses to be added and deleted dynammi-
cally from an existing association.
sctp authentication This extension allows the user to authenticate spe-
cific peer chunks (including data) to validate that the peer who
sent the message is in fact the peer who setup the association.
A shared key option is also provided for so that two stacks can
pre-share keys.
packet drop
Some routers support a special satellite protocol that will
report losses due to corruption. This allows retransmissions
without subsequent loss in bandwidth utilization.
stream reset This extension allows a user on either side to reset the
stream sequence numbers used by any or all streams.
SCTP supports a number of socket options which can be set with
setsockopt(2) and tested with getsockopt(2) or sctp_opt_info(2):
SCTP_NODELAY Under most circumstances, SCTP sends data
when it is presented; when outstanding data
has not yet been acknowledged, it gathers
small amounts of output to be sent in a sin-
gle packet once an acknowledgement is
received. For some clients, such as window
systems that send a stream of mouse events
which receive no replies, this packetization
may cause significant delays. The boolean
option SCTP_NODELAY defeats this algorithm.
SCTP_RTOINFO This option returns specific information
about an associations ``Retransmission Time
Out''. It can also be used to change the
default values.
SCTP_ASSOCINFO This option returns specific information
about the requested association.
SCTP_INITMSG This option allows you to get or set the
default sending parameters when an associa-
tion is implicitly setup. It allows you to
change such things as the maxium number of
streams allowed inbound and the number of
streams requested of the peer.
SCTP_AUTOCLOSE For the one-to-many model (SOCK_SEQPACKET)
associations are setup implicitly. This
option allows the user to specify a default
number of idle seconds to allow the associa-
tion be maintained. After the idle timer
(where no user message have been sent or have
been received from the peer) the association
will be gracefully closed. The default for
this value is 0, or unlimited (i.e., no auto-
matic close).
SCTP_SET_PEER_PRIMARY_ADDR The dynamic address extension allows a peer
to also request a particular address of its
be made into the primary address. This
option allows the caller to make such a
request to a peer. Note that if the peer
does not also support the dynamic address
extension, this call will fail. Note the
caller must provide a valid local address
that the peer has been told about during
association setup or dynamically.
SCTP_PRIMARY_ADDR This option allows the setting of the primary
address that the caller wishes to send to.
The caller provides the address of a peer
that is to be made primary.
SCTP_ADAPTATION_LAYER The dynamic address extension also allows a
user to pass a 32 bit opaque value upon asso-
ciation setup. This option allows a user to
set or get this value.
SCTP_DISABLE_FRAGMENTS By default SCTP will fragment user messages
into multiple pieces that will fit on the
network and then later, upon reception,
reassemble the pieces into a single user mes-
sage. If this option is enabled instead, any
send that exceeds the path maximum transfer
unit (P-MTU) will fail and the message will
NOT be sent.
SCTP_PEER_ADDR_PARAMS This option will allow a user to set or get
specific peer address parameters.
SCTP_DEFAULT_SEND_PARAM When a user does not use one of the extended
send calls (e.g., sctp_sendmsg(3)) a set of
default values apply to each send. These
values include things like the stream number
to send to as well as the per-protocol id.
This option lets a caller both get and set
these values. If the user changes these
default values, then these new values will be
used as the default whenever no information
is provided by the sender (i.e., the non-
extended API is used).
SCTP_EVENTS SCTP has non-data events that it can communi-
cate to its application. By default these
are all disabled since they arrive in the
data path with a special flag
MSG_NOTIFICATION set upon the received mes-
sage. This option lets a caller both get
what events are current being received as
well as set different events that they may be
interested in receiving.
SCTP_I_WANT_MAPPED_V4_ADDR SCTP supports both IPV4 and IPV6. An associ-
ation may span both IPV4 and IPV6 addresses
since SCTP is multi-homed. By default, when
opening an IPV6 socket, when data arrives on
the socket from a peer's V4 address the V4
address will be presented with an address
family of AF_INET. If this is undesireable,
then this option can be enabled which will
then convert all V4 addresses into mapped V6
representations.
SCTP_MAXSEG By default SCTP chooses its message fragmen-
tation point based upon the smallest P-MTU of
the peer. This option lets the caller set it
to a smaller value. Note that while the user
can change this value, if the P-MTU is
smaller than the value set by the user, then
the P-MTU value will override any user set-
ting.
SCTP_DELAYED_ACK_TIME This option lets the user both set and get
the delayed ack time (in milliseconds) that
SCTP is using. The default is 200 millisec-
onds.
SCTP_PARTIAL_DELIVERY_POINT
SCTP at times may need to start delivery of a
very large message before the entire message
has arrived. By default SCTP waits until the
incoming message is larger than one fourth of
the receive buffer. This option allows the
stacks value to be overridden with a smaller
value.
SCTP_FRAGMENT_INTERLEAVE SCTP at times will start partial delivery (as
mentioned above). In the normal case succes-
sive reads will continue to return the rest
of the message, blocking if needed, until all
of that message is read. However this means
other messages may have arrived and be ready
for delivery and be blocked behind the mes-
sage being partially delivered. If this
option is enabled, when a partial delivery
message has no more data to be received, then
a subsequent read may return a different mes-
sage that is ready for delivery. By default
this option is off since the user must be
using the extended API's to be able to tell
the difference between messages (via the
stream and stream sequence number).
SCTP_AUTH_CHUNK By default only the dynamic addressing chunks
are authenticated. This option lets a user
request an additional chunk be authenticated
as well. Note that successive calls to this
option will work and continue to add more
chunks that require authentication. Note
that this option only effects future associa-
tions and not existing ones.
SCTP_AUTH_KEY This option allows a user to specify a shared
key that can be later used to authenticate a
peer.
SCTP_HMAC_IDENT This option will let you get or set the list
of HMAC algorithms used to authenticate
peers. Note that the HMAC values are in pri-
ority order where the first HMAC identifier
is the most prefered and the last is the
least prefered.
SCTP_AUTH_ACTIVE_KEY This option allows you to make a key active
for the generation of authentication informa-
tion. Note that the peer must have the same
key or else the data will be discarded.
SCTP_AUTH_DELETE_KEY This option allows you to delete an old key.
SCTP_USE_EXT_RECVINFO The sockets api document allows an extended
send/receive information structure to be
used. The extended structure includes addi-
tional fields related to the next message to
be received (after the current receive com-
pletes) if such information is known. By
default the system will not pass this infor-
mation. This option allows the user to
request this information.
SCTP_AUTO_ASCONF By default when bound to all address and the
system administrator has enables automatic
dynamic addresses, the SCTP stack will auto-
matically generate address changes into add
and delete requests to any peers by setting
this option to true. This option allows an
endpoint to disable that behavior.
SCTP_MAXBURST By default SCTP implements micro-burst con-
trol so that as the congestion window opens
up no large burst of packets can be gener-
ated. The default burst limit is four. This
option lets the user change this value.
SCTP_CONTEXT Many sctp extended calls have a context
field. The context field is a 32 bit opaque
value that will be returned in send failures.
This option lets the caller set the default
context value to use when none is provided by
the user.
SCTP_EXPLICIT_EOR By default, a single send is a complete mes-
sage. SCTP generates an implied record
boundary. If this option is enabled, then
all sends are part of the same message until
the user indicates an end of record with the
special flag SCTP_EOR passed in the
sctp_sndrcvinfo flags field. This effec-
tively makes all sends part of the same mes-
sage until the user specifices differently.
This means that a caller must NOT change the
stream number until after the SCTP_EOR is
passed to SCTP else an error will be
returned.
SCTP_STATUS This option is a read only option that
returns various status information about the
specified association.
SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDR_INFO This read only option returns information
about a peer address.
SCTP_PEER_AUTH_CHUNKS This read only option returns a list of the
chunks the peer requires to be authenticated.
SCTP_LOCAL_AUTH_CHUNKS This read only option returns a list of the
locally required chunks that must be authen-
ticated.
SCTP_RESET_STREAMS This socket option is used to cause a stream
sequence number or all stream sequence num-
bers to be reset. Note that the peer SCTP
endpoint must also support the stream reset
extension as well.
SEE ALSO
accept(2), bind(2), connect(2), listen(2), sctp_bindx(3),
sctp_connectx(3), sctp_opt_info(3), sctp_recvmsg(3), sctp_sendmsg(3)
FreeBSD 7.2 December 15, 2006 FreeBSD 7.2