.. include:: replace.txt

Internet Stack

--------------

Internet stack aggregation

**************************

A bare class :cpp:class:`Node` is not very useful as-is; other objects must be

aggregated to it to provide useful node functionality.

The |ns3| source code directory ``src/internet`` provides implementation

of TCP/IPv4- and IPv6-related components. These include IPv4, ARP, UDP, TCP,

IPv6, Neighbor Discovery, and other related protocols.

Internet Nodes are not subclasses of class Node; they are simply Nodes that have

had a bunch of IPv4-related objects aggregated to them. They can be put together

by hand, or via a helper function :cpp:func:`InternetStackHelper::Install ()`

which does the following to all nodes passed in as arguments:::

    void

    InternetStackHelper::Install (Ptr<Node> node) const

    {

      if (node->GetObject<Ipv4> () != 0)

        {

          NS_FATAL_ERROR ("InternetStackHelper::Install(): Aggregating "

                          "an InternetStack to a node with an existing Ipv4 object");

          return;

        }

      CreateAndAggregateObjectFromTypeId (node, "ns3::ArpL3Protocol");

      CreateAndAggregateObjectFromTypeId (node, "ns3::Ipv4L3Protocol");

      CreateAndAggregateObjectFromTypeId (node, "ns3::Icmpv4L4Protocol");

      CreateAndAggregateObjectFromTypeId (node, "ns3::UdpL4Protocol");

      node->AggregateObject (m_tcpFactory.Create<Object> ());

      Ptr<PacketSocketFactory> factory = CreateObject<PacketSocketFactory> ();

      node->AggregateObject (factory);

      // Set routing

      Ptr<Ipv4> ipv4 = node->GetObject<Ipv4> ();

      Ptr<Ipv4RoutingProtocol> ipv4Routing = m_routing->Create (node);

      ipv4->SetRoutingProtocol (ipv4Routing);

    }

Where multiple implementations exist in |ns3| (TCP, IP routing), these objects

are added by a factory object (TCP) or by a routing helper (m_routing).

Note that the routing protocol is configured and set outside this

function. By default, the following protocols are added to Ipv4:::

    InternetStackHelper::InternetStackHelper ()

    {

      SetTcp ("ns3::TcpL4Protocol");

      static Ipv4StaticRoutingHelper staticRouting;

      static Ipv4GlobalRoutingHelper globalRouting;

      static Ipv4ListRoutingHelper listRouting;

      listRouting.Add (staticRouting, 0);

      listRouting.Add (globalRouting, -10);

      SetRoutingHelper (listRouting);

    }

By default, IPv4 and IPv6 are enabled.

Internet Node structure

+++++++++++++++++++++++

An IPv4-capable Node (an |ns3| Node augmented by aggregation to have one or more

IP stacks) has the following internal structure.

Layer-3 protocols

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At the lowest layer, sitting above the NetDevices, are the "layer 3" protocols,

including IPv4, IPv6 (in the future), and ARP. The class

:cpp:class:`Ipv4L3Protocol` is an implementation class whose public interface is

typically class :cpp:class:`Ipv4`, but the

Ipv4L3Protocol public API is also used internally at present.

In class Ipv4L3Protocol, one method described below is ``Receive ()``:::

     /**

       * Lower layer calls this method after calling L3Demux::Lookup

       * The ARP subclass needs to know from which NetDevice this

       * packet is coming to:

       *    - implement a per-NetDevice ARP cache

       *    - send back arp replies on the right device

       */

      void Receive( Ptr<NetDevice> device, Ptr<const Packet> p, uint16_t protocol, 

    const Address &from, const Address &to, NetDevice::PacketType packetType);

First, note that the ``Receive ()`` function has a matching signature to the

ReceiveCallback in the class :cpp:class:`Node`. This function pointer is

inserted into the Node's protocol handler when ``AddInterface ()`` is called.

The actual registration is done

with a statement such as follows:::

     RegisterProtocolHandler ( MakeCallback (&Ipv4Protocol::Receive, ipv4),

        Ipv4L3Protocol::PROT_NUMBER, 0);

The Ipv4L3Protocol object is aggregated to the Node; there is only one such

Ipv4L3Protocol object. Higher-layer protocols that have a packet to send down to

the Ipv4L3Protocol object can call ``GetObject<Ipv4L3Protocol> ()`` to obtain a

pointer, as follows:::

  Ptr<Ipv4L3Protocol> ipv4 = m_node->GetObject<Ipv4L3Protocol> ();

  if (ipv4 != 0)

    {

      ipv4->Send (packet, saddr, daddr, PROT_NUMBER);

    }

This class nicely demonstrates two techniques we exploit in |ns3| to bind

objects together:  callbacks, and object aggregation.

Once IPv4 routing has determined that a packet is for the local node, it

forwards it up the stack.  This is done with the following function:::

    void

    Ipv4L3Protocol::LocalDeliver (Ptr<const Packet> packet, Ipv4Header const&ip, uint32_t iif)

The first step is to find the right Ipv4L4Protocol object, based on IP protocol

number. For instance, TCP is registered in the demux as protocol number 6.

Finally, the ``Receive()`` function on the Ipv4L4Protocol (such as

``TcpL4Protocol::Receive`` is called.

We have not yet introduced the class Ipv4Interface. Basically, each NetDevice is

paired with an IPv4 representation of such device. In Linux, this class

:cpp:class:`Ipv4Interface` roughly corresponds to the ``struct in_device``; the

main purpose is to provide address-family specific information (addresses) about

an interface.

The IPv6 implementation follows a similar architecture.

Layer-4 protocols and sockets

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We next describe how the transport protocols, sockets, and applications tie

together. In summary, each transport protocol implementation is a socket

factory. An application that needs a new socket 

For instance, to create a UDP socket, an application would use a code snippet

such as the following:::

      Ptr<Udp> udpSocketFactory = GetNode ()->GetObject<Udp> ();

      Ptr<Socket> m_socket = socketFactory->CreateSocket ();

      m_socket->Bind (m_local_address);

      ...

The above will query the node to get a pointer to its UDP socket factory, will

create one such socket, and will use the socket with an API similar to the

C-based sockets API, such as ``Connect ()`` and ``Send ()``.  See the chapter on

|ns3| sockets for more information.  

We have described so far a socket factory (e.g. ``class Udp``) and a socket,

which may be specialized (e.g., class :cpp:class:`UdpSocket`).  There are a few

more key objects that relate to the specialized task of demultiplexing a packet

to one or more receiving sockets.  The key object in this task is class

:cpp:class:`Ipv4EndPointDemux`.  This demultiplexer stores objects of class

:cpp:class:`Ipv4EndPoint`.  This class holds the addressing/port tuple (local

port, local address, destination port, destination address) associated with the

socket, and a receive callback. This receive callback has a receive function

registered by the socket. The ``Lookup ()`` function to Ipv4EndPointDemux

returns a list of Ipv4EndPoint objects (there may be a list since more than one

socket may match the packet). The layer-4 protocol copies the packet to each

Ipv4EndPoint and calls its ``ForwardUp ()`` method, which then calls the

``Receive ()`` function registered by the socket.

An issue that arises when working with the sockets API on real

systems is the need to manage the reading from a socket, using 

some type of I/O (e.g., blocking, non-blocking, asynchronous, ...).

|ns3| implements an asynchronous model for socket I/O; the application

sets a callback to be notified of received data ready to be read, and the 

callback is invoked by the transport protocol when data is available.

This callback is specified as follows:::

  void Socket::SetRecvCallback (Callback<void, Ptr<Socket>, 

    Ptr<Packet>, const Address&> receivedData);

The data being received is conveyed in the Packet data buffer.  An example

usage is in class :cpp:class:`PacketSink`:::

  m_socket->SetRecvCallback (MakeCallback(&PacketSink::HandleRead, this));

To summarize, internally, the UDP implementation is organized as follows:

* a ``UdpImpl`` class that implements the UDP socket factory functionality

* a ``UdpL4Protocol`` class that implements the protocol logic that is

  socket-independent 

* a ``UdpSocketImpl`` class that implements socket-specific aspects of UDP

* a class called ``Ipv4EndPoint`` that stores the addressing tuple (local port,

  local address, destination port, destination address) associated with the

  socket, and a receive callback for the socket.

Ipv4-capable node interfaces

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Many of the implementation details, or internal objects themselves, of

Ipv4-capable Node objects are not exposed at the simulator public API. This

allows for different implementations; for instance, replacing the native |ns3|

models with ported TCP/IP stack code. 

The C++ public APIs of all of these objects is found in the ``src/network``

directory, including principally:

* ``address.h``

* ``socket.h``

* ``node.h``

* ``packet.h``

These are typically base class objects that implement the default values used in

the implementation, implement access methods to get/set state variables, host

attributes, and implement publicly-available methods exposed to clients such as

``CreateSocket``.

Example path of a packet

++++++++++++++++++++++++

These two figures show an example stack trace of how packets flow through the

Internet Node objects.

.. _internet-node-send:

.. figure:: figures/internet-node-send.*

   Send path of a packet.

.. _internet-node-recv:

.. figure:: figures/internet-node-recv.*

   Receive path of a packet.