# Copyright (c) 2013-2014 Sandstorm Development Group, Inc. and contributors # Licensed under the MIT License: # # Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy # of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal # in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights # to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell # copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is # furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: # # The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in # all copies or substantial portions of the Software. # # THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR # IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, # FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE # AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER # LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, # OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN # THE SOFTWARE. @0xa184c7885cdaf2a1; # This file defines the "network-specific parameters" in rpc.capnp to support a network consisting # of two vats. Each of these vats may in fact be in communication with other vats, but any # capabilities they forward must be proxied. Thus, to each end of the connection, all capabilities # received from the other end appear to live in a single vat. # # Two notable use cases for this model include: # - Regular client-server communications, where a remote client machine (perhaps living on an end # user's personal device) connects to a server. The server may be part of a cluster, and may # call on other servers in the cluster to help service the user's request. It may even obtain # capabilities from these other servers which it passes on to the user. To simplify network # common traversal problems (e.g. if the user is behind a firewall), it is probably desirable to # multiplex all communications between the server cluster and the client over the original # connection rather than form new ones. This connection should use the two-party protocol, as # the client has no interest in knowing about additional servers. # - Applications running in a sandbox. A supervisor process may execute a confined application # such that all of the confined app's communications with the outside world must pass through # the supervisor. In this case, the connection between the confined app and the supervisor might # as well use the two-party protocol, because the confined app is intentionally prevented from # talking to any other vat anyway. Any external resources will be proxied through the supervisor, # and so to the contained app will appear as if they were hosted by the supervisor itself. # # Since there are only two vats in this network, there is never a need for three-way introductions, # so level 3 is free. Moreover, because it is never necessary to form new connections, the # two-party protocol can be used easily anywhere where a two-way byte stream exists, without regard # to where that byte stream goes or how it was initiated. This makes the two-party runtime library # highly reusable. # # Joins (level 4) _could_ be needed in cases where one or both vats are participating in other # networks that use joins. For instance, if Alice and Bob are speaking through the two-party # protocol, and Bob is also participating on another network, Bob may send Alice two or more # proxied capabilities which, unbeknownst to Bob at the time, are in fact pointing at the same # remote object. Alice may then request to join these capabilities, at which point Bob will have # to forward the join to the other network. Note, however, that if Alice is _not_ participating on # any other network, then Alice will never need to _receive_ a Join, because Alice would always # know when two locally-hosted capabilities are the same and would never export a redundant alias # to Bob. So, Alice can respond to all incoming joins with an error, and only needs to implement # outgoing joins if she herself desires to use this feature. Also, outgoing joins are relatively # easy to implement in this scenario. # # What all this means is that a level 4 implementation of the confined network is barely more # complicated than a level 2 implementation. However, such an implementation allows the "client" # or "confined" app to access the server's/supervisor's network with equal functionality to any # native participant. In other words, an application which implements only the two-party protocol # can be paired with a proxy app in order to participate in any network. # # So, when implementing Cap'n Proto in a new language, it makes sense to implement only the # two-party protocol initially, and then pair applications with an appropriate proxy written in # C++, rather than implement other parameterizations of the RPC protocol directly. using Cxx = import "/capnp/c++.capnp"; $Cxx.namespace("capnp::rpc::twoparty"); # Note: SturdyRef is not specified here. It is up to the application to define semantics of # SturdyRefs if desired. enum Side { server @0; # The object lives on the "server" or "supervisor" end of the connection. Only the # server/supervisor knows how to interpret the ref; to the client, it is opaque. # # Note that containers intending to implement strong confinement should rewrite SturdyRefs # received from the external network before passing them on to the confined app. The confined # app thus does not ever receive the raw bits of the SturdyRef (which it could perhaps # maliciously leak), but instead receives only a thing that it can pass back to the container # later to restore the ref. See: # http://www.erights.org/elib/capability/dist-confine.html client @1; # The object lives on the "client" or "confined app" end of the connection. Only the client # knows how to interpret the ref; to the server/supervisor, it is opaque. Most clients do not # actually know how to persist capabilities at all, so use of this is unusual. } struct VatId { side @0 :Side; } struct ProvisionId { # Only used for joins, since three-way introductions never happen on a two-party network. joinId @0 :UInt32; # The ID from `JoinKeyPart`. } struct RecipientId {} # Never used, because there are only two parties. struct ThirdPartyCapId {} # Never used, because there is no third party. struct JoinKeyPart { # Joins in the two-party case are simplified by a few observations. # # First, on a two-party network, a Join only ever makes sense if the receiving end is also # connected to other networks. A vat which is not connected to any other network can safely # reject all joins. # # Second, since a two-party connection bisects the network -- there can be no other connections # between the networks at either end of the connection -- if one part of a join crosses the # connection, then _all_ parts must cross it. Therefore, a vat which is receiving a Join request # off some other network which needs to be forwarded across the two-party connection can # collect all the parts on its end and only forward them across the two-party connection when all # have been received. # # For example, imagine that Alice and Bob are vats connected over a two-party connection, and # each is also connected to other networks. At some point, Alice receives one part of a Join # request off her network. The request is addressed to a capability that Alice received from # Bob and is proxying to her other network. Alice goes ahead and responds to the Join part as # if she hosted the capability locally (this is important so that if not all the Join parts end # up at Alice, the original sender can detect the failed Join without hanging). As other parts # trickle in, Alice verifies that each part is addressed to a capability from Bob and continues # to respond to each one. Once the complete set of join parts is received, Alice checks if they # were all for the exact same capability. If so, she doesn't need to send anything to Bob at # all. Otherwise, she collects the set of capabilities (from Bob) to which the join parts were # addressed and essentially initiates a _new_ Join request on those capabilities to Bob. Alice # does not forward the Join parts she received herself, but essentially forwards the Join as a # whole. # # On Bob's end, since he knows that Alice will always send all parts of a Join together, he # simply waits until he's received them all, then performs a join on the respective capabilities # as if it had been requested locally. joinId @0 :UInt32; # A number identifying this join, chosen by the sender. May be reused once `Finish` messages are # sent corresponding to all of the `Join` messages. partCount @1 :UInt16; # The number of capabilities to be joined. partNum @2 :UInt16; # Which part this request targets -- a number in the range [0, partCount). } struct JoinResult { joinId @0 :UInt32; # Matches `JoinKeyPart`. succeeded @1 :Bool; # All JoinResults in the set will have the same value for `succeeded`. The receiver actually # implements the join by waiting for all the `JoinKeyParts` and then performing its own join on # them, then going back and answering all the join requests afterwards. cap @2 :AnyPointer; # One of the JoinResults will have a non-null `cap` which is the joined capability. # # TODO(cleanup): Change `AnyPointer` to `Capability` when that is supported. }