260 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
260 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
Description of the "concap" encapsulation protocol interface
|
|
============================================================
|
|
|
|
The "concap" interface is intended to be used by network device
|
|
drivers that need to process an encapsulation protocol.
|
|
It is assumed that the protocol interacts with a linux network device by
|
|
- data transmission
|
|
- connection control (establish, release)
|
|
Thus, the mnemonic: "CONnection CONtrolling eNCAPsulation Protocol".
|
|
|
|
This is currently only used inside the isdn subsystem. But it might
|
|
also be useful to other kinds of network devices. Thus, if you want
|
|
to suggest changes that improve usability or performance of the
|
|
interface, please let me know. I'm willing to include them in future
|
|
releases (even if I needed to adapt the current isdn code to the
|
|
changed interface).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Why is this useful?
|
|
===================
|
|
|
|
The encapsulation protocol used on top of WAN connections or permanent
|
|
point-to-point links are frequently chosen upon bilateral agreement.
|
|
Thus, a device driver for a certain type of hardware must support
|
|
several different encapsulation protocols at once.
|
|
|
|
The isdn device driver did already support several different
|
|
encapsulation protocols. The encapsulation protocol is configured by a
|
|
user space utility (isdnctrl). The isdn network interface code then
|
|
uses several case statements which select appropriate actions
|
|
depending on the currently configured encapsulation protocol.
|
|
|
|
In contrast, LAN network interfaces always used a single encapsulation
|
|
protocol which is unique to the hardware type of the interface. The LAN
|
|
encapsulation is usually done by just sticking a header on the data. Thus,
|
|
traditional linux network device drivers used to process the
|
|
encapsulation protocol directly (usually by just providing a hard_header()
|
|
method in the device structure) using some hardware type specific support
|
|
functions. This is simple, direct and efficient. But it doesn't fit all
|
|
the requirements for complex WAN encapsulations.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The configurability of the encapsulation protocol to be used
|
|
makes isdn network interfaces more flexible, but also much more
|
|
complex than traditional lan network interfaces.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Many Encapsulation protocols used on top of WAN connections will not just
|
|
stick a header on the data. They also might need to set up or release
|
|
the WAN connection. They also might want to send other data for their
|
|
private purpose over the wire, e.g. ppp does a lot of link level
|
|
negotiation before the first piece of user data can be transmitted.
|
|
Such encapsulation protocols for WAN devices are typically more complex
|
|
than encapsulation protocols for lan devices. Thus, network interface
|
|
code for typical WAN devices also tends to be more complex.
|
|
|
|
|
|
In order to support Linux' x25 PLP implementation on top of
|
|
isdn network interfaces I could have introduced yet another branch to
|
|
the various case statements inside drivers/isdn/isdn_net.c.
|
|
This eventually made isdn_net.c even more complex. In addition, it made
|
|
isdn_net.c harder to maintain. Thus, by identifying an abstract
|
|
interface between the network interface code and the encapsulation
|
|
protocol, complexity could be reduced and maintainability could be
|
|
increased.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Likewise, a similar encapsulation protocol will frequently be needed by
|
|
several different interfaces of even different hardware type, e.g. the
|
|
synchronous ppp implementation used by the isdn driver and the
|
|
asynchronous ppp implementation used by the ppp driver have a lot of
|
|
similar code in them. By cleanly separating the encapsulation protocol
|
|
from the hardware specific interface stuff such code could be shared
|
|
better in future.
|
|
|
|
|
|
When operating over dial-up-connections (e.g. telephone lines via modem,
|
|
non-permanent virtual circuits of wide area networks, ISDN) many
|
|
encapsulation protocols will need to control the connection. Therefore,
|
|
some basic connection control primitives are supported. The type and
|
|
semantics of the connection (i.e the ISO layer where connection service
|
|
is provided) is outside our scope and might be different depending on
|
|
the encapsulation protocol used, e.g. for a ppp module using our service
|
|
on top of a modem connection a connect_request will result in dialing
|
|
a (somewhere else configured) remote phone number. For an X25-interface
|
|
module (LAPB semantics, as defined in Documentation/networking/x25-iface.txt)
|
|
a connect_request will ask for establishing a reliable lapb
|
|
datalink connection.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The encapsulation protocol currently provides the following
|
|
service primitives to the network device.
|
|
|
|
- create a new encapsulation protocol instance
|
|
- delete encapsulation protocol instance and free all its resources
|
|
- initialize (open) the encapsulation protocol instance for use.
|
|
- deactivate (close) an encapsulation protocol instance.
|
|
- process (xmit) data handed down by upper protocol layer
|
|
- receive data from lower (hardware) layer
|
|
- process connect indication from lower (hardware) layer
|
|
- process disconnect indication from lower (hardware) layer
|
|
|
|
|
|
The network interface driver accesses those primitives via callbacks
|
|
provided by the encapsulation protocol instance within a
|
|
struct concap_proto_ops.
|
|
|
|
struct concap_proto_ops{
|
|
|
|
/* create a new encapsulation protocol instance of same type */
|
|
struct concap_proto * (*proto_new) (void);
|
|
|
|
/* delete encapsulation protocol instance and free all its resources.
|
|
cprot may no longer be referenced after calling this */
|
|
void (*proto_del)(struct concap_proto *cprot);
|
|
|
|
/* initialize the protocol's data. To be called at interface startup
|
|
or when the device driver resets the interface. All services of the
|
|
encapsulation protocol may be used after this*/
|
|
int (*restart)(struct concap_proto *cprot,
|
|
struct net_device *ndev,
|
|
struct concap_device_ops *dops);
|
|
|
|
/* deactivate an encapsulation protocol instance. The encapsulation
|
|
protocol may not call any *dops methods after this. */
|
|
int (*close)(struct concap_proto *cprot);
|
|
|
|
/* process a frame handed down to us by upper layer */
|
|
int (*encap_and_xmit)(struct concap_proto *cprot, struct sk_buff *skb);
|
|
|
|
/* to be called for each data entity received from lower layer*/
|
|
int (*data_ind)(struct concap_proto *cprot, struct sk_buff *skb);
|
|
|
|
/* to be called when a connection was set up/down.
|
|
Protocols that don't process these primitives might fill in
|
|
dummy methods here */
|
|
int (*connect_ind)(struct concap_proto *cprot);
|
|
int (*disconn_ind)(struct concap_proto *cprot);
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
|
|
The data structures are defined in the header file include/linux/concap.h.
|
|
|
|
|
|
A Network interface using encapsulation protocols must also provide
|
|
some service primitives to the encapsulation protocol:
|
|
|
|
- request data being submitted by lower layer (device hardware)
|
|
- request a connection being set up by lower layer
|
|
- request a connection being released by lower layer
|
|
|
|
The encapsulation protocol accesses those primitives via callbacks
|
|
provided by the network interface within a struct concap_device_ops.
|
|
|
|
struct concap_device_ops{
|
|
|
|
/* to request data be submitted by device */
|
|
int (*data_req)(struct concap_proto *, struct sk_buff *);
|
|
|
|
/* Control methods must be set to NULL by devices which do not
|
|
support connection control. */
|
|
/* to request a connection be set up */
|
|
int (*connect_req)(struct concap_proto *);
|
|
|
|
/* to request a connection be released */
|
|
int (*disconn_req)(struct concap_proto *);
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
The network interface does not explicitly provide a receive service
|
|
because the encapsulation protocol directly calls netif_rx().
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
An encapsulation protocol itself is actually the
|
|
struct concap_proto{
|
|
struct net_device *net_dev; /* net device using our service */
|
|
struct concap_device_ops *dops; /* callbacks provided by device */
|
|
struct concap_proto_ops *pops; /* callbacks provided by us */
|
|
int flags;
|
|
void *proto_data; /* protocol specific private data, to
|
|
be accessed via *pops methods only*/
|
|
/*
|
|
:
|
|
whatever
|
|
:
|
|
*/
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
Most of this is filled in when the device requests the protocol to
|
|
be reset (opend). The network interface must provide the net_dev and
|
|
dops pointers. Other concap_proto members should be considered private
|
|
data that are only accessed by the pops callback functions. Likewise,
|
|
a concap proto should access the network device's private data
|
|
only by means of the callbacks referred to by the dops pointer.
|
|
|
|
|
|
A possible extended device structure which uses the connection controlling
|
|
encapsulation services could look like this:
|
|
|
|
struct concap_device{
|
|
struct net_device net_dev;
|
|
struct my_priv /* device->local stuff */
|
|
/* the my_priv struct might contain a
|
|
struct concap_device_ops *dops;
|
|
to provide the device specific callbacks
|
|
*/
|
|
struct concap_proto *cprot; /* callbacks provided by protocol */
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Misc Thoughts
|
|
=============
|
|
|
|
The concept of the concap proto might help to reuse protocol code and
|
|
reduce the complexity of certain network interface implementations.
|
|
The trade off is that it introduces yet another procedure call layer
|
|
when processing the protocol. This has of course some impact on
|
|
performance. However, typically the concap interface will be used by
|
|
devices attached to slow lines (like telephone, isdn, leased synchronous
|
|
lines). For such slow lines, the overhead is probably negligible.
|
|
This might no longer hold for certain high speed WAN links (like
|
|
ATM).
|
|
|
|
|
|
If general linux network interfaces explicitly supported concap
|
|
protocols (e.g. by a member struct concap_proto* in struct net_device)
|
|
then the interface of the service function could be changed
|
|
by passing a pointer of type (struct net_device*) instead of
|
|
type (struct concap_proto*). Doing so would make many of the service
|
|
functions compatible to network device support functions.
|
|
|
|
e.g. instead of the concap protocol's service function
|
|
|
|
int (*encap_and_xmit)(struct concap_proto *cprot, struct sk_buff *skb);
|
|
|
|
we could have
|
|
|
|
int (*encap_and_xmit)(struct net_device *ndev, struct sk_buff *skb);
|
|
|
|
As this is compatible to the dev->hard_start_xmit() method, the device
|
|
driver could directly register the concap protocol's encap_and_xmit()
|
|
function as its hard_start_xmit() method. This would eliminate one
|
|
procedure call layer.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The device's data request function could also be defined as
|
|
|
|
int (*data_req)(struct net_device *ndev, struct sk_buff *skb);
|
|
|
|
This might even allow for some protocol stacking. And the network
|
|
interface might even register the same data_req() function directly
|
|
as its hard_start_xmit() method when a zero layer encapsulation
|
|
protocol is configured. Thus, eliminating the performance penalty
|
|
of the concap interface when a trivial concap protocol is used.
|
|
Nevertheless, the device remains able to support encapsulation
|
|
protocol configuration.
|
|
|