src/common/PROTOCOL_DESIGN

   1 tomd socket protocol design specification
   2
   3 This documents the intended design of the protocol used by tomd and
   4 its client applications.
   5
   6 Socket type:
   7 We are using PF_LOCAL (protocol family local, IE unix sockets, bound
   8 to files) sockets to facilitate communication. The libc implementation
   9 is used, see the libc texinfo manual for details. This protocol family
  10 was chosen because it offers the best performance locally, and there
  11 is no current intention to allow for the daemon to be used remotely.
  12
  13 Datagram (udp packets) vs socket streams (byte streams):
  14 With byte streams, I would need to delicately encode all of the
  15 transitions between commands - however, it is much easier to keep the
  16 clients individual, with separate accept calls per connection. with
  17 datagrams we would need to encoded the sender, with callback
  18 information to send status information on requests back to the
  19 client. Weighing these pros and cons, I have gone with datagrams so
  20 that the individual packets are easier to work with.