.. include:: replace.txt

TCP models in ns-3

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

This chapter describes the TCP models available in |ns3|.

Generic support for TCP

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

|ns3| was written to support multiple TCP implementations. The implementations

inherit from a few common header classes in the ``src/node`` directory, so that

user code can swap out implementations with minimal changes to the scripts.

There are two important abstract base classes:

* class :cpp:class:`TcpSocket`:  This is defined in

  ``src/node/tcp-socket.{cc,h}``. This class exists for hosting TcpSocket

  attributes that can be reused across different implementations. For instance,

  the attribute ``InitialCwnd`` can be used for any of the implementations

  that derive from class :cpp:class:`TcpSocket`.

* class :cpp:class:`TcpSocketFactory`:  This is used by the layer-4 protocol

  instance to create TCP sockets of the right type.

There are presently two implementations of TCP available for |ns3|.

* a natively implemented TCP for ns-3

* support for the `Network Simulation Cradle (NSC) <http://www.wand.net.nz/~stj2/nsc/>`_

It should also be mentioned that various ways of combining virtual machines

with |ns3| makes available also some additional TCP implementations, but

those are out of scope for this chapter.

ns-3 TCP

********

Until ns-3.10 release, |ns3| contained a port of the TCP model from `GTNetS

<http://www.ece.gatech.edu/research/labs/MANIACS/GTNetS/index.html>`_. 

This implementation was substantially rewritten by Adriam Tam for ns-3.10.

The model is a full TCP, in that it is bidirectional and attempts to model the

connection setup and close logic. 

The implementation of TCP is contained in the following files:::

    src/internet-stack/tcp-header.{cc,h}

    src/internet-stack/tcp-l4-protocol.{cc,h}

    src/internet-stack/tcp-socket-factory-impl.{cc,h}

    src/internet-stack/tcp-socket-base.{cc,h}

    src/internet-stack/tcp-tx-buffer.{cc,h}

    src/internet-stack/tcp-rx-buffer.{cc,h}

    src/internet-stack/tcp-rfc793.{cc,h}

    src/internet-stack/tcp-tahoe.{cc,h}

    src/internet-stack/tcp-reno.{cc,h}

    src/internet-stack/tcp-newreno.{cc,h}

    src/internet-stack/rtt-estimator.{cc,h}

    src/common/sequence-number.{cc,h}

Different variants of TCP congestion control are supported by subclassing

the common base class :cpp:class:`TcpSocketBase`.  Several variants

are supported, including RFC 793 (no congestion control), Tahoe, Reno,

and NewReno.  NewReno is used by default.

Usage

+++++

In many cases, usage of TCP is set at the application layer by telling

the |ns3| application which kind of socket factory to use.

Using the helper functions defined in ``src/helper``, here is how

one would create a TCP receiver:::

  // Create a packet sink on the star "hub" to receive these packets

  uint16_t port = 50000;

  Address sinkLocalAddress(InetSocketAddress (Ipv4Address::GetAny (), port));

  PacketSinkHelper sinkHelper ("ns3::TcpSocketFactory", sinkLocalAddress);

  ApplicationContainer sinkApp = sinkHelper.Install (serverNode);

  sinkApp.Start (Seconds (1.0));

  sinkApp.Stop (Seconds (10.0));

Similarly, the below snippet configures OnOffApplication traffic source to use

TCP:::

  // Create the OnOff applications to send TCP to the server

  OnOffHelper clientHelper ("ns3::TcpSocketFactory", Address ());

The careful reader will note above that we have specified the TypeId of an

abstract base class :cpp:class:`TcpSocketFactory`. How does the script tell

|ns3| that it wants the native |ns3| TCP vs. some other one?  Well, when

internet stacks are added to the node, the default TCP implementation that is

aggregated to the node is the |ns3| TCP.  This can be overridden as we show

below when using Network Simulation Cradle. So, by default, when using the |ns3|

helper API, the TCP that is aggregated to nodes with an Internet stack is the

native |ns3| TCP.

To configure behavior of TCP, a number of parameters are exported through the

:ref:`Attributes <ns-3 attribute system>`. These are documented in the `Doxygen

<http://www.nsnam.org/doxygen/classns3_1_1_tcp_socket.html>` for class

:cpp:class:`TcpSocket`.  For example, the maximum segment size is a

settable attribute.

For users who wish to have a pointer to the actual socket (so that

socket operations like Bind(), setting socket options, etc. can be

done on a per-socket basis), Tcp sockets can be created by using the 

``Socket::CreateSocket()`` method and passing in the TypeId 

corresponding to the type of socket desired; e.g.::: 

      // Create the socket if not already created

      TypeId tid = TypeId::LookupByName ("ns3::TcpTahoe");

      Ptr<Socket> localSocket = Socket::CreateSocket (node, tid);

The parameter ``tid`` controls the TypeId of the actual TCP Socket

implementation that is instantiated. This way, the application can be written

generically and different socket implementations can be swapped out by

specifying the TypeId.

Once a TCP socket is created, one will want to follow conventional socket logic

and either connect() and send() (for a TCP client) or bind(), listen(), and

accept() (for a TCP server). :ref:`Sockets API <Sockets APIs>` for a review of

how sockets are used in |ns3|.

Validation

++++++++++

Several TCP validation test results can be found in the

`wiki page <http://www.nsnam.org/wiki/index.php/New_TCP_Socket_Architecture>`_ 

describing this implementation.

Current limitations

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

* Only IPv4 is supported

* Neither the Nagle algorithm nor SACK are supported

Network Simulation Cradle

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

The `Network Simulation Cradle (NSC) <http://www.wand.net.nz/~stj2/nsc/>`_ is a

framework for wrapping real-world network code into simulators, allowing

simulation of real-world behavior at little extra cost. This work has been

validated by comparing situations using a test network with the same situations

in the simulator. To date, it has been shown that the NSC is able to produce

extremely accurate results.  NSC supports four real world stacks: FreeBSD,

OpenBSD, lwIP and Linux. Emphasis has been placed on not changing any of the

network stacks by hand. Not a single line of code has been changed in the

network protocol implementations of any of the above four stacks. However, a

custom C parser was built to programmatically change source code.

NSC has previously been ported to |ns2| and OMNeT++, and recently 

was added to |ns3|.  This section describes the |ns3| port of NSC and

how to use it.

Prerequisites

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

Presently, NSC has been tested and shown to work on these platforms:

Linux i386 and Linux x86-64. NSC does not support powerpc.

Building NSC requires the packages flex and bison.  

Configuring and Downloading

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

Using the ``build.py`` script in ns-3-allinone directory, NSC will be enabled by

default unless the platform does not support it. To disable it when building

|ns3|, type:::

./waf configure --enable-examples --enable-tests --disable-nsc

Building and validating

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

Building |ns3| with nsc support is the same as building it without; no

additional arguments are needed for waf. Building nsc may take some time

compared to |ns3|; it is interleaved in the |ns3| building process.

Try running the following ns-3 test suite:::  

    ./test.py -s ns3-tcp-interoperability

If NSC has been successfully built, the following test should show up 

in the results:::

    PASS TestSuite ns3-tcp-interoperability

This confirms that NSC is ready to use.

Usage

+++++

There are a few example files.  Try::

    ./waf --run tcp-nsc-zoo

    ./waf --run tcp-nsc-lfn

These examples will deposit some ``.pcap`` files in your directory,

which can be examined by tcpdump or wireshark.

usage. How does it differ from using native |ns3| TCP? There is one main

configuration line, when using NSC and the |ns3| helper API, that needs to be

set:::

  InternetStackHelper internetStack;

  internetStack.SetNscStack ("liblinux2.6.26.so");

  // this switches nodes 0 and 1 to NSCs Linux 2.6.26 stack.

  internetStack.Install (n.Get(0));

  internetStack.Install (n.Get(1));

The key line is the ``SetNscStack``.  This tells the InternetStack

helper to aggregate instances of NSC TCP instead of native |ns3| TCP

to the remaining nodes.  It is important that this function be called

**before** calling the ``Install()`` function, as shown above.

Which stacks are available to use? Presently, the focus has been on

Linux 2.6.18 and Linux 2.6.26 stacks for |ns3|. To see which stacks

were built, one can execute the following find command at the |ns3| top level

directory:::

    ~/ns-3.10> find nsc -name "*.so" -type f 

    nsc/linux-2.6.18/liblinux2.6.18.so

    nsc/linux-2.6.26/liblinux2.6.26.so

This tells us that we may either pass the library name liblinux2.6.18.so or

liblinux2.6.26.so to the above configuration step.

Stack configuration

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

NSC TCP shares the same configuration attributes that are common across TCP

sockets, as described above and documented in `Doxygen

<http://www.nsnam.org/doxygen/classns3_1_1_tcp_socket.html>`_

Additionally, NSC TCP exports a lot of configuration variables into the 

can see the following configuration:::

  // this disables TCP SACK, wscale and timestamps on node 1 (the attributes 

    represent sysctl-values).

  Config::Set ("/NodeList/1/$ns3::Ns3NscStack<linux2.6.26>/net.ipv4.tcp_sack", 

    StringValue ("0"));

  Config::Set ("/NodeList/1/$ns3::Ns3NscStack<linux2.6.26>/net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps", 

  StringValue ("0"));

  Config::Set ("/NodeList/1/$ns3::Ns3NscStack<linux2.6.26>/net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling", 

  StringValue ("0"));

These additional configuration variables are not available to native |ns3| TCP.

NSC API

+++++++

This subsection describes the API that NSC presents to |ns3| or any other

simulator. NSC provides its API in the form of a number of classes that are

defined in ``sim/sim_interface.h`` in the nsc directory.

* **INetStack** INetStack contains the 'low level' operations for the operating

  system network stack, e.g. in and output functions from and to the network

  stack (think of this as the 'network driver interface'. There are also

  functions to create new TCP or UDP sockets.

* **ISendCallback** This is called by NSC when a packet should be sent out to

  the network. This simulator should use this callback to re-inject the packet

  into the simulator so the actual data can be delivered/routed to its

  destination, where it will eventually be handed into Receive() (and eventually

  back to the receivers NSC instance via INetStack->if_receive() ).

* **INetStreamSocket** This is the structure defining a particular connection

  endpoint (file descriptor). It contains methods to operate on this endpoint,

  e.g. connect, disconnect, accept, listen, send_data/read_data, ...

* **IInterruptCallback** This contains the wakeup callback, which is called by

  NSC whenever something of interest happens. Think of wakeup() as a replacement

  of the operating systems wakeup function: Whenever the operating system would

  wake up a process that has been waiting for an operation to complete (for

  example the TCP handshake during connect()), NSC invokes the wakeup() callback

  to allow the simulator to check for state changes in its connection endpoints. 

ns-3 implementation

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

The |ns3| implementation makes use of the above NSC API, and is implemented as

follows.

The three main parts are:

* :cpp:class:`ns3::NscTcpL4Protocol`:  a subclass of Ipv4L4Protocol (and two nsc

  classes: ISendCallback and IInterruptCallback)

* :cpp:class:`ns3::NscTcpSocketImpl`: a subclass of TcpSocket 

* :cpp:class:`ns3::NscTcpSocketFactoryImpl`:  a factory to create new NSC

  sockets

``src/internet-stack/nsc-tcp-l4-protocol`` is the main class. Upon

Initialization, it loads an nsc network stack to use (via dlopen()). Each

instance of this class may use a different stack. The stack (=shared library) to

use is set using the SetNscLibrary() method (at this time its called indirectly

via the internet stack helper). The nsc stack is then set up accordingly (timers

etc). The NscTcpL4Protocol::Receive() function hands the packet it receives

(must be a complete tcp/ip packet) to the nsc stack for further processing.  To

be able to send packets, this class implements the nsc send_callback method.

This method is called by nsc whenever the nsc stack wishes to send a packet out

to the network. Its arguments are a raw buffer, containing a complete TCP/IP

packet, and a length value. This method therefore has to convert the raw data to

a Ptr<Packet> usable by |ns3|. In order to avoid various ipv4 header issues,

the nsc ip header is not included. Instead, the tcp header and the actual

payload are put into the Ptr<Packet>, after this the Packet is passed down to

layer 3 for sending the packet out (no further special treatment is needed in

the send code path).

This class calls ``ns3::NscTcpSocketImpl`` both from the nsc wakeup() callback

and from the Receive path (to ensure that possibly queued data is scheduled for

sending).

``src/internet-stack/nsc-tcp-socket-impl`` implements the nsc socket interface.

Each instance has its own nscTcpSocket. Data that is Send() will be handed to

the nsc stack via m_nscTcpSocket->send_data(). (and not to nsc-tcp-l4, this is

the major difference compared to |ns3| TCP). The class also queues up data that

is Send() before the underlying descriptor has entered an ESTABLISHED state.

This class is called from the nsc-tcp-l4 class, when the nsc-tcp-l4 wakeup()

callback is invoked by nsc. nsc-tcp-socket-impl then checks the current

connection state (SYN_SENT, ESTABLISHED, LISTEN...) and schedules appropriate

callbacks as needed, e.g. a LISTEN socket will schedule Accept to see if a new

connection must be accepted, an ESTABLISHED socket schedules any pending data

for writing, schedule a read callback, etc.

Note that ``ns3::NscTcpSocketImpl`` does not interact with nsc-tcp directly:

instead, data is redirected to nsc. nsc-tcp calls the nsc-tcp-sockets of a node

when its wakeup callback is invoked by nsc. 

Limitations

+++++++++++

* NSC only works on single-interface nodes; attempting to run it on a

  multi-interface node will cause a program error.  

* Cygwin and OS X PPC are not supported

* The non-Linux stacks of NSC are not supported in |ns3|

* Not all socket API callbacks are supported

For more information, see `this wiki page <http://www.nsnam.org/wiki/index.php/Network_Simulation_Cradle_Integration>`_.