.. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. .. SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0 .. CAUTION: this document is generated from source in doc/src/rtd. .. To make changes edit the source and recompile the document. .. Do NOT make changes directly to .rst or .md files. ============================================================================================ User's Guide ============================================================================================ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RIC Message Router -- RMR -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overview ======== The RIC Message Router (RMR) is a library for peer-to-peer communication. Applications use the library to send and receive messages where the message routing and endpoint selection is based on the message type rather than DNS host name-IP port combinations. The library provides the following major features: * Routing and endpoint selection is based on *message type.* * Application is insulated from the underlying transport mechanism and/or protocols. * Message distribution (round robin or fanout) is selectable by message type. * Route management updates are received and processed asynchronously and without overt application involvement. Purpose ------- RMR's main purpose is to provide an application with the ability to send and receive messages to/from other peer applications with minimal effort on the application's part. To achieve this, RMR manages all endpoint information, connections, and routing information necessary to establish and maintain communication. From the application's point of view, all that is required to send a message is to allocate (via RMR) a message buffer, add the payload data, and set the message type. To receive a message, the application needs only to invoke the receive function; when a message arrives a message buffer will be returned as the function result. Message Routing --------------- Applications are required to place a message type into a message before sending, and may optionally add a subscription ID when appropriate. The combination of message type, and subscription ID are refered to as the *message key,* and is used to match an entry in a routing table which provides the possible endpoints expecting to receive messages with the matching key. Round Robin Delivery -------------------- An endpoint from RMR's perspective is an application to which RMR may establish a connection, and expect to send messages with one or more defined message keys. Each entry in the route table consists of one or more endpoint groups, called round robin groups. When a message matches a specific entry, the entry's groups are used to select the destination of the message. A message is sent once to each group, with messages being *balanced* across the endpoints of a group via round robin selection. Care should be taken when defining multiple groups for a message type as there is extra overhead required and thus the overall message latency is somewhat increased. Routing Table Updates --------------------- Route table information is made available to RMR a static file (loaded once), or by updates sent from a separate route manager application. If a static table is provided, it is loaded during RMR initialization and will remain in use until an external process connects and delivers a route table update (often referred to as a dynamic update). Dynamic updates are listened for in a separate process thread and applied automatically; the application does not need to allow for, or trigger, updates. Latency And Throughput ---------------------- While providing insulation from the underlying message transport mechanics, RMR must also do so in such a manner that message latency and throughput are not impacted. In general, the RMR induced overhead, incurred due to the process of selecting an endpoint for each message, is minimal and should not impact the overall latency or throughput of the application. This impact has been measured with test applications running on the same physical host and the average latency through RMR for a message was on the order of 0.02 milliseconds. As an application's throughput increases, it becomes easy for the application to overrun the underlying transport mechanism (e.g. NNG), consume all available TCP transmit buffers, or otherwise find itself in a situation where a send might not immediately complete. RMR offers different *modes* which allow the application to manage these states based on the overall needs of the application. These modes are discussed in the *Configuration* section of this document. General Use =========== To use, the RMR based application simply needs to initialise the RMR environment, wait for RMR to have received a routing table (become ready), and then invoke either the send or receive functions. These steps, and some behind the scenes details, are described in the following paragraphs. Initialisation -------------- The RMR function ``rmr_init()`` is used to set up the RMR environment and must be called before messages can be sent or received. One of the few parameters that the application must communicate to RMR is the port number that will be used as the listen port for new connections. The port number is passed on the initialisation function call and a TCP listen socket will be opened with this port. If the port is already in use RMR will report a failure; the application will need to reinitialise with a different port number, abort, or take some other action appropriate for the application. In addition to creating a TCP listen port, RMR will start a process thread which will be responsible for receiving dynamic updates to the route table. This thread also causes a TCP listen port to be opened as it is expected that the process which generates route table updates will connect and send new information when needed. The route table update port is **not** supplied by the application, but is supplied via an environment variable as this value is likely determined by the mechanism which is starting and configuring the application. The RMR Context --------------- On successful initialisation, a void pointer, often called a *handle* by some programming languages, is returned to the application. This is a reference to the RMR control information and must be passed as the first parameter on most RMR function calls. RMR refers to this as the context, or ctx. Wait For Ready -------------- An application which is only receiving messages does not need to wait for RMR to *become ready* after the call to the initialization function. However, before the application can successfully send a message, RMR must have loaded a route table, and the application must wait for RMR to report that it has done so. The RMR function ``rmr_ready()`` will return the value *true* (1) when a complete route table has been loaded and can be used to determine the endpoint for a send request. Receiving Messages ------------------ The process of receiving is fairly straight forward. The application invokes the RMR ``rmr_rcv_msg()`` function which will block until a message is received. The function returns a pointer to a message block which provides all of the details about the message. Specifically, the application has access to the following information either directly or indirectly: * The payload (actual data) * The total payload length in bytes * The number of bytes of the payload which contain valid data * The message type and subscription ID values * The hostname and IP address of the source of the message (the sender) * The transaction ID * Tracing data (if provided) The Message Payload ------------------- The message payload contains the *raw* data that was sent by the peer application. The format will likely depend on the message type, and is expected to be known by the application. A direct pointer to the payload is available from the message buffer (see appendix B for specific message buffer details). Two payload-related length values are also directly available: the total payload length, and the number of bytes actually filled with data. The used length is set by the caller, and may or not be an accurate value. The total payload length is determined when the buffer is created for sending, and is the maximum number of bytes that the application may modify should the buffer be used to return a response. Message Type and Subscription ID -------------------------------- The message type and subscription ID are both directly available from the message buffer, and are the values which were used to by RMR in the sending application to select the endpoint. If the application resends the message, as opposed to returning the message buffer as a response, the message number and/or the subscription ID might need to be changed to avoid potential issues[1]. Sender Information ------------------ The source, or sender information, is indirectly available to the application via the ``rmr_get_src()`` and ``rmr_get_ip()`` functions. The former returns a string containing ``hostname:port,`` while the string ``ip:port`` is returned by the latter. Transaction ID -------------- The message buffer contains a fixed length set of bytes which applications can set to track related messages across the application concept of a transaction. RMR will use the transaction ID for matching a response message when the ``rmr_call()`` function is used to send a message. Trace Information ----------------- RMR supports the addition of an optional trace information to any message. The presence and size is controlled by the application, and can vary from message to message if desired. The actual contents of the trace information is determined by the application; RMR provides only the means to set, extract, and obtain a direct reference to the trace bytes. The trace data field in a message buffer is discussed in greater detail in the *Trace Data* section. Sending Messages ---------------- Sending requires only slightly more work on the part of the application than receiving a message. The application must allocate an RMR message buffer, populate the message payload with data, set the message type and length, and optionally set the subscription ID. Information such as the source IP address, hostname, and port are automatically added to the message buffer by RMR, so there is no need for the application to worry about these. Message Buffer Allocation ------------------------- The function ``rmr_msg_alloc()`` allocates a *zero copy* buffer and returns a pointer to the RMR ``rmr_mbuf_t`` structure. The message buffer provides direct access to the payload, length, message type and subscription ID fields. The buffer must be preallocated in order to allow the underlying transport mechanism to allocate the payload space from its internal memory pool; this eliminates multiple copies as the message is sent, and thus is more efficient. If a message buffer has been received, and the application wishes to use the buffer to send a response, or to forward the buffer to another application, a new buffer does **not** need to be allocated. The application may set the necessary information (message type, etc.), and adjust the payload, as is necessary and then pass the message buffer to ``rmr_send_msg()`` or ``rmr_rts_msg()`` to be sent or returned to the sender. Populating the Message Buffer ----------------------------- The application has direct access to several of the message buffer fields, and should set them appropriately. .. list-table:: :widths: 15,80 :header-rows: 0 :class: borderless * - **len** - This is the number of bytes that the application placed into the payload. Setting length to 0 is allowed, and length may be less than the allocated payload size. * - **mtype** - The message type that RMR will use to determine the endpoint used as the target of the send. * - **sub_id** - The subscription ID if the message is to be routed based on the combination of message type and subscription ID. If no subscription ID is valid for the message, the application should set the field with the RMR constant ``RMR_VOID_SUBID.`` * - **payload** - The application should obtain the reference (pointer) to the payload from the message buffer and place any data into the payload. The application is responsible for ensuring that the maximum payload size is not exceeded. The application may obtain the maximum size via the ``rmr_payload_size()`` function. * - **trace data** - Optionally, the application may add trace information to the message buffer. Sending a Message Buffer ------------------------ Once the application has populated the necessary bits of a message, it may be sent by passing the buffer to the ``rmr_send_msg()`` function. This function will select an endpoint to receive the message, based on message type and subscription ID, and will pass the message to the underlying transport mechanism for actual transmission on the connection. (Depending on the underlying transport mechanism, the actual connection to the endpoint may happen at the time of the first message sent to the endpoint, and thus the latency of the first send might be longer than expected.) On success, the send function will return a reference to a message buffer; the status within that message buffer will indicate what the message buffer contains. When the status is ``RMR_OK`` the reference is to a **new** message buffer for the application to use for the next send; the payload size is the same as the payload size allocated for the message that was just sent. This is a convenience as it eliminates the need for the application to call the message allocation function at some point in the future, and assumes the application will send many messages which will require the same payload dimensions. If the message contains any status other than ``RMR_OK,`` then the message could **not** be sent, and the reference is to the unsent message buffer. The value of the status will indicate whether the nature of the failure was transient ( ``RMR_ERR_RETRY``) or not. Transient failures are likely to be successful if the application attempts to send the message at a later time. Unfortunately, it is impossible for RMR to know the exact transient failure (e.g. connection being established, or TCP buffer shortage), and thus it is not possible to communicate how long the application should wait before attempting to resend, if the application wishes to resend the message. (More discussion with respect to message retries can be found in the *Handling Failures* section.) Advanced Usage ============== Several forms of usage fall into a more advanced category and are described in the following sections. These include blocking call, return to sender and wormhole functions. The Call Function ----------------- The RMR function ``rmr_call()`` sends a message in the exact same manner as the ``rmr_send_msg()()`` function, with the endpoint selection based on the message key. But unlike the send function, ``rmr_call()`` will block and wait for a response from the application that is selected to receive the message. The matching message is determined by the transaction ID which the application must place into the message buffer prior to invoking ``rmr_call()``. Similarly, the responding application must ensure that the same transaction ID is placed into the message buffer before returning its response. The return from the call is a message buffer with the response message; there is no difference between a message buffer returned by the receive function and one returned by the ``rmr_call()`` function. If a response is not received in a reasonable amount of time, a nil message buffer is returned to the calling application. Returning a Response -------------------- Because of the nature of RMR's routing policies, it is generally not possible for an application to control exactly which endpoint is sent a message. There are cases, such as responding to a message delivered via ``rmr_call()`` that the application must send a message and guarantee that RMR routes it to an exact destination. To enable this, RMR provides the ``rmr_rts_msg(),`` return to sender, function. Upon receipt of any message, an application may alter the payload, and if necessary the message type and subscription ID, and pass the altered message buffer to the ``rmr_rts_msg()`` function to return the altered message to the application which sent it. When this function is used, RMR will examine the message buffer for the source information and use that to select the connection on which to write the response. Multi-threaded Calls -------------------- The basic call mechanism described above is **not** thread safe, as it is not possible to guarantee that a response message is delivered to the correct thread. The RMR function ``rmr_mt_call()`` accepts an additional parameter which identifies the calling thread in order to ensure that the response is delivered properly. In addition, the application must specifically initialise the multi-threaded call environment by passing the ``RMRFL_MTCALL`` flag as an option to the ``rmr_init()`` function. One advantage of the multi-threaded call capability in RMR is the fact that only the calling thread is blocked. Messages received which are not responses to the call are continued to be delivered via normal ``rmr_rcv_msg()`` calls. While the process is blocked waiting for the response, it is entirely possible that asynchronous, non-matching, messages will arrive. When this happens, RMR will queues the messages and return them to the application over the next calls to ``rmr_rcv_msg().`` Wormholes --------- As was mentioned earlier, the design of RMR is to eliminate the need for an application to know a specific endpoint, even when a response message is being sent. In some rare cases it may be necessary for an application to establish a direct connection to an RMR-based application rather than relying on message type and subscription ID based routing. The *wormhole* functions provide an application with the ability to create a direct connection and then to send and receive messages across the connection. The following are the RMR functions which provide wormhole communications: .. list-table:: :widths: auto :header-rows: 0 :class: borderless * - **rmr_wh_open** - Open a connection to an endpoint. Name or IP address and port of the endpoint is supplied. Returns a wormhole ID that the application must use when sending a direct message. * - **rmr_wh_send_msg** - Sends an RMR message buffer to the connected application. The message type and subscription ID may be set in the message, but RMR will ignore both. * - **rmr_wh_close** - Closes the direct connection. Handling Failures ================= The vast majority of states reported by RMR are fatal; if encountered during setup or initialization, then it is unlikely that any message oriented processing should continue, and when encountered on a message operation continued operation on that message should be abandoned. Specifically with regard to message sending, it is very likely that the underlying transport mechanism will report a *soft,* or transient, failure which might be successful if the operation is retried at a later point in time. The paragraphs below discuss the methods that an application might deal with these soft failures. Failure Notification -------------------- When a soft failure is reported, the returned message buffer returned by the RMR function will be ``RMR_ERR_RETRY.`` These types of failures can occur for various reasons; one of two reasons is typically the underlying cause: * The session to the targeted recipient (endpoint) is not connected. * The transport mechanism buffer pool is full and cannot accept another buffer. Unfortunately, it is not possible for RMR to determine which of these two cases is occurring, and equally as unfortunate the time to resolve each is different. The first, no connection, may require up to a second before a message can be accepted, while a rejection because of buffer shortage is likely to resolve in less than a millisecond. Application Response -------------------- The action which an application takes when a soft failure is reported ultimately depends on the nature of the application with respect to factors such as tolerance to extended message latency, dropped messages, and over all message rate. RMR Retry Modes --------------- In an effort to reduce the workload of an application developer, RMR has a default retry policy such that RMR will attempt to retransmit a message up to 1000 times when a soft failure is reported. These retries generally take less than 1 millisecond (if all 1000 are attempted) and in most cases eliminates nearly all reported soft failures to the application. When using this mode, it might allow the application to simply treat all bad return values from a send attempt as permanent failures. If an application is so sensitive to any delay in RMR, or the underlying transport mechanism, it is possible to set RMR to return a failure immediately on any kind of error (permanent failures are always reported without retry). In this mode, RMR will still set the state in the message buffer to ``RMR_ERR_RETRY,`` but will **not** make any attempts to resend the message. This zero-retry policy is enabled by invoking the ``rmr_set_stimeout()`` with a value of 0; this can be done once immediately after ``rmr_init()`` is invoked. Regardless of the retry mode which the application sets, it will ultimately be up to the application to handle failures by queuing the message internally for resend, retrying immediately, or dropping the send attempt all together. As stated before, only the application can determine how to best handle send failures. Other Failures -------------- RMR will return the state of processing for message based operations (send/receive) as the status in the message buffer. For non-message operations, state is returned to the caller as the integer return value for all functions which are not expected to return a pointer (e.g. ``rmr_init()``.) The following are the RMR state constants and a brief description of their meaning. .. list-table:: :widths: auto :header-rows: 0 :class: borderless * - **RMR_OK** - state is good; operation finished successfully * - **RMR_ERR_BADARG** - argument passed to function was unusable * - **RMR_ERR_NOENDPT** - send/call could not find an endpoint based on msg type * - **RMR_ERR_EMPTY** - msg received had no payload; attempt to send an empty message * - **RMR_ERR_NOHDR** - message didn't contain a valid header * - **RMR_ERR_SENDFAILED** - send failed; errno may contain the transport provider reason * - **RMR_ERR_CALLFAILED** - unable to send the message for a call function; errno may contain the transport provider reason * - **RMR_ERR_NOWHOPEN** - no wormholes are open * - **RMR_ERR_WHID** - the wormhole id provided was invalid * - **RMR_ERR_OVERFLOW** - operation would have busted through a buffer/field size * - **RMR_ERR_RETRY** - request (send/call/rts) failed, but caller should retry (EAGAIN for wrappers) * - **RMR_ERR_RCVFAILED** - receive failed (hard error) * - **RMR_ERR_TIMEOUT** - response message not received in a reasonable amount of time * - **RMR_ERR_UNSET** - the message hasn't been populated with a transport buffer * - **RMR_ERR_TRUNC** - length in the received buffer is longer than the size of the allocated payload, received message likely truncated (length set by sender could be wrong, but we can't know that) * - **RMR_ERR_INITFAILED** - initialisation of something (probably message) failed * - **RMR_ERR_NOTSUPP** - the request is not supported, or RMR was not initialised for the request Depending on the underlying transport mechanism, and the nature of the call that RMR attempted, the system ``errno`` value might reflect additional detail about the failure. Applications should **not** rely on errno as some transport mechanisms do not set it with any consistency. Configuration and Control ========================= With the assumption that most RMR based applications will be executed in a containerised environment, there are some underlying mechanics which the developer may need to know in order to properly provide a configuration specification to the container management system. The following paragraphs briefly discuss these. TCP Ports --------- RMR requires two (2) TCP listen ports: one for general application-to-application communications and one for route-table updates. The general communication port is specified by the application at the time RMR is initialised. The port used to listen for route table updates is likely to be a constant port shared by all applications provided they are running in separate containers. To that end, the port number defaults to 4561, but can be configured with an environment variable (see later paragraph in this section). Host Names ---------- RMR is typically host name agnostic. Route table entries may contain endpoints defined either by host name or IP address. In the container world the concept of a *service name* might exist, and likely is different than a host name. RMR's only requirement with respect to host names is that a name used on a route table entry must be resolvable via the ``gethostbyname`` system call. Environment Variables --------------------- Several environment variables are recognised by RMR which, in general, are used to define interfaces and listen ports (e.g. the route table update listen port), or debugging information. Generally this information is system controlled and thus RMR expects this information to be defined in the environment rather than provided by the application. The following is a list of the environment variables which RMR recognises: .. list-table:: :widths: auto :header-rows: 0 :class: borderless * - **RMR_ASYNC_CONN** - Allows the async connection mode to be turned off (by setting the value to 0). When set to 1, or missing from the environment, RMR will invoke the connection interface in the transport mechanism using the non-blocking (async) mode. This will likely result in many "soft failures" (retry) until the connection is established, but allows the application to continue unimpeded should the connection be slow to set up. * - **RMR_BIND_IF** - This provides the interface that RMR will bind listen ports to, allowing for a single interface to be used rather than listening across all interfaces. This should be the IP address assigned to the interface that RMR should listen on, and if not defined RMR will listen on all interfaces. * - **RMR_CTL_PORT** - This variable defines the port that RMR should open for communications with Route Manager, and other RMR control applications. If not defined, the port 4561 is assumed. Previously, the ``RMR_RTG_SVC`` (route table generator service port) was used to define this port. However, a future version of Route Manager will require RMR to connect and request tables, thus that variable is now used to supply the Route Manager's well-known address and port. To maintain backwards compatibility with the older Route Manager versions, the presence of this variable in the environment will shift RMR's behaviour with respect to the default value used when ``RMR_RTG_SVC`` is **not** defined. When ``RMR_CTL_PORT`` is **defined:** RMR assumes that Route Manager requires RMR to connect and request table updates is made, and the default well-known address for Route manager is used (routemgr:4561). When ``RMR_CTL_PORT`` is **undefined:** RMR assumes that Route Manager will connect and push table updates, thus the default listen port (4561) is used. To avoid any possible misinterpretation and/or incorrect assumptions on the part of RMR, it is recommended that both the ``RMR_CTL_PORT`` and ``RMR_RTG_SVC`` be defined. In the case where both variables are defined, RMR will behave exactly as is communicated with the variable's values. * - **RMR_RTREQ_FREQ** - When RMR needs a new route table it will send a request once every ``n`` seconds. The default value for ``n`` is 5, but can be changed if this variable is set prior to invoking the process. Accepted values are between 1 and 300 inclusive. * - **RMR_RTG_SVC** - The value of this variable depends on the Route Manager in use. When the Route Manager is expecting to connect to an xAPP and push route tables, this variable must indicate the ``port`` which RMR should use to listen for these connections. When the Route Manager is expecting RMR to connect and request a table update during initialisation, the variable should be the ``host`` of the Route Manager process. The ``RMR_CTL_PORT`` variable (added with the support of sending table update requests to Route manager), controls the behaviour if this variable is not set. See the description of that variable for details. * - **RMR_HR_LOG** - By default RMR writes messages to standard error (incorrectly referred to as log messages) in human readable format. If this environment variable is set to 0, the format of standard error messages might be written in some format not easily read by humans. If missing, a value of 1 is assumed. * - **RMR_LOG_VLEVEL** - This is a numeric value which corresponds to the verbosity level used to limit messages written to standard error. The lower the number the less chatty RMR functions are during execution. The following is the current relationship between the value set on this variable and the messages written: .. list-table:: :widths: auto :header-rows: 0 :class: borderless * - **0** - Off; no messages of any sort are written. * - **1** - Only critical messages are written (default if this variable does not exist) * - **2** - Errors and all messages written with a lower value. * - **3** - Warnings and all messages written with a lower value. * - **4** - Informational and all messages written with a lower value. * - **5** - Debugging mode -- all messages written, however this requires RMR to have been compiled with debugging support enabled. * - **RMR_RTG_ISRAW** - **Deprecated.** Should be set to 1 if the route table generator is sending "plain" messages (not using RMR to send messages), 0 if the RTG is using RMR to send. The default is 1 as we don't expect the RTG to use RMR. This variable is only recognised when using the NNG transport library as it is not possible to support NNG "raw" communications with other transport libraries. It is also necessary to match the value of this variable with the capabilities of the Route Manager; at some point in the future RMR will assume that all Route Manager messages will arrive via an RMR connection and will ignore this variable. * - **RMR_SEED_RT** - This is used to supply a static route table which can be used for debugging, testing, or if no route table generator process is being used to supply the route table. If not defined, no static table is used and RMR will not report *ready* until a table is received. The static route table may contain both the route table (between newrt start and end records), and the MEID map (between meid_map start and end records). * - **RMR_SRC_ID** - This is either the name or IP address which is placed into outbound messages as the message source. This will used when an RMR based application uses the rmr_rts_msg() function to return a response to the sender. If not supplied RMR will use the hostname which in some container environments might not be routable. The value of this variable is also used for Route Manager messages which are sent via an RMR connection. * - **RMR_STASH_RT** - Names the file where RMR should write the latest update it receives from the source of route tables (generally Route Manager). This is meant to assist with debugging and/or troubleshooting when it is suspected that route information isn't being sent and/or received correctly. If this variable is not given, RMR will save the last update using the ``RMR_SEED_RT`` variable value and adding a ``.stash`` suffix to the filename so as not to overwrite the static table. * - **RMR_VCTL_FILE** - This supplies the name of a verbosity control file. The core RMR functions do not produce messages unless there is a critical failure. However, the route table collection thread, not a part of the main message processing component, can write additional messages to standard error. If this variable is set, RMR will extract the verbosity level for these messages (0 is silent) from the first line of the file. Changes to the file are detected and thus the level can be changed dynamically, however RMR will only suss out this variable during initialisation, so it is impossible to enable verbosity after startup. * - **RMR_WARNINGS** - If set to 1, RMR will write some warnings which are non-performance impacting. If the variable is not defined, or set to 0, RMR will not write these additional warnings. There are other, non-RMR, variables which may exist and are used by RMR. These variable names are not under the control of RMR, so they are subject to change without potentiallyb being reflected in either RMR's code, or this document. The following is a list of these environment variables. .. list-table:: :widths: auto :header-rows: 0 :class: borderless * - **ALARM_MANAGER_SERVICE_NAME** - This is the DNS name, or IP address, of the process which is listening for RMR alarm messages. If this variable is missing, ``service-ricplt-alarmmanager-rmr`` is assumed. * - **ALARM_MANAGER_SERVICE_PORT** - This is the port that the alarm manager is using to accept RMR messages. If the environment variable is missing the value ``4560`` is assumed. Logging and Alarms ------------------ As with nearly all UNIX libraries, errors, warnings and informational messages are written in plain text to the standard error device (stderr). All RMR messages are prefixed with the current time (in milliseconds past the standard UNIX epoch), the process ID, and a severity indicator. RMR messages are written with one of three severity strings: .. list-table:: :widths: auto :header-rows: 0 :class: borderless * - **[CRI]** - The event is of a critical nature and it is unlikely that RMR will continue to operate correctly if at all. It is almost certain that immediate action will be needed to resolve the issue. * - **[ERR]** - The event is not expected and RMR is not able to handle it. There is a small chance that continued operation will be negatively impacted. Eventual action to diagnose and correct the issue will be necessary. * - **[WRN]** - The event was not expected by RMR, but can be worked round. Normal operation will continue, but it is recommended that the cause of the problem be investigated. Log message supression ---------------------- For the most part, the *fast path* code in RMR does no logging; even when messages are squelched, there is a non-zero cosst to check for the setting each time a potential message is to be written. To that end, RMRM will log only severe errors once initialisation has completed. An exception to this policy exists in the route table collection thread. The thread of execution which collects route table updates does not need to be concerned with performance, and as such has the potential to log its actions in a very verbose manner. The environment variable `` RMR_VCTL_FILE `` can be used to define a file where the desired verbosity level (0 to 4 where 0 is off) can be placed. If the environment variable is not set when the process starts, RMR will assume that the file ``/tmp/rmr.v`` will be used. Beginning with version 4.6.0 this file does **not** need to exist when the process is started. To change the verbosity level, the desired value is written to the file on the first line. Alarms ------ The route table colleciton thread is also responsible for watching for situations which need to be reported as alarms to the platform's alarm management service. When a state exists RMR will create and send an alarm (via RMR message) to the alarm service, and will send a *clear* message when the state no longer exists. Currently RMR will alarm only when the application is not removing messages from the receive ring quicklye enough causing RMR to drop messages as they are received. Notes ===== [1] It is entirely possible to design a routing table, and application group, such that the same message type is is left unchanged and the message is forwarded by an application after updating the payload. This type of behaviour is often referred to as service chaining, and can be done without any "knowledge" by an application with respect to where the message goes next. Service chaining is supported by RMR in as much as it allows the message to be resent, but the actual complexities of designing and implementing service chaining lie with the route table generator process. Appendix A -- Quick Reference ============================= Please refer to the RMR manual pages on the Read the Docs site https://docs.o-ran-sc.org/projects/o-ran-sc-ric-plt-lib-rmr/en/latest/index.html Appendix B -- Message Buffer Details ==================================== The RMR message buffer is a C structure which is exposed in the ``rmr.h`` header file. It is used to manage a message received from a peer endpoint, or a message that is being sent to a peer. Fields include payload length, amount of payload actually used, status, and a reference to the payload. There are also fields which the application should ignore, and could be hidden in the header file, but we chose not to. These fields include a reference to the RMR header information, and to the underlying transport mechanism message struct which may or may not be the same as the RMR header reference. The Structure ------------- The following is the C structure. Readers are cautioned to examine the ``rmr.h`` header file directly; the information here may be out of date (old document in some cache), and thus it may be incorrect. :: typedef struct { int state; // state of processing int mtype; // message type int len; // length of data in the payload (send or received) unsigned char* payload; // transported data unsigned char* xaction; // pointer to fixed length transaction id bytes int sub_id; // subscription id int tp_state; // transport state (errno) // these things are off limits to the user application void* tp_buf; // underlying transport allocated pointer (e.g. nng message) void* header; // internal message header (whole buffer: header+payload) unsigned char* id; // if we need an ID in the message separate from the xaction id int flags; // various MFL_ (private) flags as needed int alloc_len; // the length of the allocated space (hdr+payload) void* ring; // ring this buffer should be queued back to int rts_fd; // SI fd for return to sender int cookie; // cookie to detect user misuse of free'd msg } rmr_mbuf_t; State vs Transport State ------------------------ The state field reflects the state at the time the message buffer is returned to the calling application. For a send operation, if the state is not ``RMR_OK`` then the message buffer references the payload that could not be sent, and when the state is ``RMR_OK`` the buffer references a *fresh* payload that the application may fill in. When the state is not ``RMR_OK,`` C programmes may examine the global ``errno`` value which RMR will have left set, if it was set, by the underlying transport mechanism. In some cases, wrapper modules are not able to directly access the C-library ``errno`` value, and to assist with possible transport error details, the send and receive operations populate ``tp_state`` with the value of ``errno.`` Regardless of whether the application makes use of the ``tp_state,`` or the ``errno`` value, it should be noted that the underlying transport mechanism may not actually update the errno value; in other words: it might not be accurate. In addition, RMR populates the ``tp_state`` value in the message buffer **only** when the state is not ``RMR_OK.`` Field References ---------------- The transaction field was exposed in the first version of RMR, and in hindsight this shouldn't have been done. Rather than break any existing code the reference was left, but additional fields such as trace data, were not directly exposed to the application. The application developer is strongly encouraged to use the functions which get and set the transaction ID rather than using the pointer directly; any data overruns will not be detected if the reference is used directly. In contrast, the payload reference should be used directly by the application in the interest of speed and ease of programming. The same care to prevent writing more bytes to the payload buffer than it can hold must be taken by the application. By the nature of the allocation of the payload in transport space, RMR is unable to add guard bytes and/or test for data overrun. Actual Transmission ------------------- When RMR sends the application's message, the message buffer is **not** transmitted. The transport buffer (tp_buf) which contains the RMR header and application payload is the only set of bytes which are transmitted. While it may seem to the caller like the function ``rmr_send_msg()`` is returning a new message buffer, the same struct is reused and only a new transport buffer is allocated. The intent is to keep the alloc/free cycles to a minimum. Appendix C -- Glossary ====================== Many terms in networking can be interpreted with multiple meanings, and several terms used in various RMR documentation are RMR specific. The following definitions are the meanings of terms used within RMR documentation and should help the reader to understand the intent of meaning. .. list-table:: :widths: 25,70 :header-rows: 0 :class: borderless * - **application** - A programme which uses RMR to send and/or receive messages to/from another RMR based application. * - **Critical error** - An error that RMR has encountered which will prevent further successful processing by RMR. Critical errors usually indicate that the application should abort. * - **Endpoint** - An RMR based application that is defined as being capable of receiving one or more types of messages (as defined by a *routing key.*) * - **Environment variable** - A key/value pair which is set externally to the application, but which is available to the application (and referenced libraries) through the ``getenv`` system call. Environment variables are the main method of communicating information such as port numbers to RMR. * - **Error** - An abnormal condition that RMR has encountered, but will not affect the overall processing by RMR, but may impact certain aspects such as the ability to communicate with a specific endpoint. Errors generally indicate that something, usually external to RMR, must be addressed. * - **Host name** - The name of the host as returned by the ``gethostbyname`` system call. In a containerised environment this might be the container or service name depending on how the container is started. From RMR's point of view, a host name can be used to resolve an *endpoint* definition in a *route* table.) * - **IP** - Internet protocol. A low level transmission protocol which governs the transmission of datagrams across network boundaries. * - **Listen socket** - A *TCP* socket used to await incoming connection requests. Listen sockets are defined by an interface and port number combination where the port number is unique for the interface. * - **Message** - A series of bytes transmitted from the application to another RMR based application. A message is comprised of RMR specific data (a header), and application data (a payload). * - **Message buffer** - A data structure used to describe a message which is to be sent or has been received. The message buffer includes the payload length, message type, message source, and other information. * - **Message type** - A signed integer (0-32000) which identifies the type of message being transmitted, and is one of the two components of a *routing key.* See *Subscription ID.* * - **Payload** - The portion of a message which holds the user data to be transmitted to the remote *endpoint.* The payload contents are completely application defined. * - **RMR context** - A set of information which defines the current state of the underlying transport connections that RMR is managing. The application will be give a context reference (pointer) that is supplied to most RMR functions as the first parameter. * - **Round robin** - The method of selecting an *endpoint* from a list such that all *endpoints* are selected before starting at the head of the list. * - **Route table** - A series of "rules" which define the possible *endpoints* for each *routing key.* * - **Route table manager** - An application responsible for building a *route table* and then distributing it to all applicable RMR based applications. * - **Routing** - The process of selecting an *endpoint* which will be the recipient of a message. * - **Routing key** - A combination of *message type* and *subscription ID* which RMR uses to select the destination *endpoint* when sending a message. * - **Source** - The sender of a message. * - **Subscription ID** - A signed integer value (0-32000) which identifies the subscription characteristic of a message. It is used in conjunction with the *message type* to determine the *routing key.* * - **Target** - The *endpoint* selected to receive a message. * - **TCP** - Transmission Control Protocol. A connection based internet protocol which provides for lossless packet transportation, usually over IP. * - **Thread** - Also called a *process thread, or pthread.* This is a lightweight process which executes in concurrently with the application and shares the same address space. RMR uses threads to manage asynchronous functions such as route table updates. * - **Trace information** - An optional portion of the message buffer that the application may populate with data that allows for tracing the progress of the transaction or application activity across components. RMR makes no use of this data. * - **Transaction ID** - A fixed number of bytes in the *message* buffer) which the application may populate with information related to the transaction. RMR makes use of the transaction ID for matching response messages with the &c function is used to send a message. * - **Transient failure** - An error state that is believed to be short lived and that the operation, if retried by the application, might be successful. C programmers will recognise this as ``EAGAIN.`` * - **Warning** - A warning occurs when RMR has encountered something that it believes isn't correct, but has a defined work round. * - **Wormhole** - A direct connection managed by RMR between the user application and a remote, RMR based, application. Appendix D -- Code Examples =========================== The following snippet of code illustrate some of the basic operation of the RMR library. Please refer to the examples and test directories in the RMR repository for complete RMR based programmes. Sender Sample ------------- The following code segment shows how a message buffer can be allocated, populated, and sent. The snippet also illustrates how the result from the ``rmr_send_msg()`` function is used to send the next message. It does not illustrate error and/or retry handling. :: #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include int main( int argc, char** argv ) { void* mrc; // msg router context struct epoll_event events[1]; // list of events to give to epoll struct epoll_event epe; // event definition for event to listen to int ep_fd = -1; // epoll's file des (given to epoll_wait) int rcv_fd; // file des for epoll checks int nready; // number of events ready for receive rmr_mbuf_t* sbuf; // send buffer rmr_mbuf_t* rbuf; // received buffer int count = 0; int rcvd_count = 0; char* listen_port = "43086"; int delay = 1000000; // mu-sec delay between messages int mtype = 0; int stats_freq = 100; if( argc > 1 ) { // simplistic arg picking listen_port = argv[1]; } if( argc > 2 ) { delay = atoi( argv[2] ); } if( argc > 3 ) { mtype = atoi( argv[3] ); } fprintf( stderr, " listen port: %s; mtype: %d; delay: %d\\n", listen_port, mtype, delay ); if( (mrc = rmr_init( listen_port, 1400, RMRFL_NONE )) == NULL ) { fprintf( stderr, " unable to initialise RMR\\n" ); exit( 1 ); } rcv_fd = rmr_get_rcvfd( mrc ); // set up epoll things, start by getting the FD from RMR if( rcv_fd < 0 ) { fprintf( stderr, " unable to set up polling fd\\n" ); exit( 1 ); } if( (ep_fd = epoll_create1( 0 )) < 0 ) { fprintf( stderr, "[FAIL] unable to create epoll fd: %d\\n", errno ); exit( 1 ); } epe.events = EPOLLIN; epe.data.fd = rcv_fd; if( epoll_ctl( ep_fd, EPOLL_CTL_ADD, rcv_fd, &epe ) != 0 ) { fprintf( stderr, "[FAIL] epoll_ctl status not 0 : %s\\n", strerror( errno ) ); exit( 1 ); } sbuf = rmr_alloc_msg( mrc, 256 ); // alloc 1st send buf; subsequent bufs alloc on send rbuf = NULL; // don't need to alloc receive buffer while( ! rmr_ready( mrc ) ) { // must have route table sleep( 1 ); // wait til we get one } fprintf( stderr, " rmr is ready\\n" ); while( 1 ) { // send messages until the cows come home snprintf( sbuf->payload, 200, "count=%d received= %d ts=%lld %d stand up and cheer!", // create the payload count, rcvd_count, (long long) time( NULL ), rand() ); sbuf->mtype = mtype; // fill in the message bits sbuf->len = strlen( sbuf->payload ) + 1; // send full ascii-z string sbuf->state = 0; sbuf = rmr_send_msg( mrc, sbuf ); // send & get next buf to fill in while( sbuf->state == RMR_ERR_RETRY ) { // soft failure (device busy?) retry sbuf = rmr_send_msg( mrc, sbuf ); // w/ simple spin that doesn't give up } count++; // check to see if anything was received and pull all messages in while( (nready = epoll_wait( ep_fd, events, 1, 0 )) > 0 ) { // 0 is non-blocking if( events[0].data.fd == rcv_fd ) { // waiting on 1 thing, so [0] is ok errno = 0; rbuf = rmr_rcv_msg( mrc, rbuf ); // receive and ignore; just count if( rbuf ) { rcvd_count++; } } } if( (count % stats_freq) == 0 ) { // occasional stats out to tty fprintf( stderr, " sent %d received %d\\n", count, rcvd_count ); } usleep( delay ); } } Receiver Sample --------------- The receiver code is even simpler than the sender code as it does not need to wait for a route table to arrive (only senders need to do that), nor does it need to allocate an initial buffer. The example assumes that the sender is transmitting a zero terminated string as the payload. :: #include #include #include #include #include #include int main( int argc, char** argv ) { void* mrc; // msg router context long long total = 0; rmr_mbuf_t* msg = NULL; // message received int stat_freq = 10; // write stats after reciving this many messages int i; char* listen_port = "4560"; // default to what has become the standard RMR port long long count = 0; long long bad = 0; long long empty = 0; if( argc > 1 ) { listen_port = argv[1]; } if( argc > 2 ) { stat_freq = atoi( argv[2] ); } fprintf( stderr, " listening on port: %s\\n", listen_port ); fprintf( stderr, " stats will be reported every %d messages\\n", stat_freq ); mrc = rmr_init( listen_port, RMR_MAX_RCV_BYTES, RMRFL_NONE ); if( mrc == NULL ) { fprintf( stderr, " ABORT: unable to initialise RMr\\n" ); exit( 1 ); } while( ! rmr_ready( mrc ) ) { // wait for RMR to get a route table fprintf( stderr, " waiting for ready\\n" ); sleep( 3 ); } fprintf( stderr, " rmr now shows ready\\n" ); while( 1 ) { // receive until killed msg = rmr_rcv_msg( mrc, msg ); // block until one arrives if( msg ) { if( msg->state == RMR_OK ) { count++; // nothing fancy, just count } else { bad++; } } else { empty++; } if( (count % stat_freq) == 0 ) { fprintf( stderr, " total received: %lld; errors: %lld; empty: %lld\\n", count, bad, empty ); } } } Receive and Send Sample ----------------------- The following code snippet receives messages and responds to the sender if the message type is odd. The code illustrates how the received message may be used to return a message to the source. Variable type definitions are omitted for clarity and should be obvious. It should also be noted that things like the message type which id returned to the sender (99) is a random value that these applications would have agreed on in advance and is **not** an RMR definition. :: mrc = rmr_init( listen_port, MAX_BUF_SZ, RMRFL_NOFLAGS ); rmr_set_stimeout( mrc, 1 ); // allow RMR to retry failed sends for ~1ms while( ! rmr_ready( mrc ) ) { // we send, therefore we need a route table sleep( 1 ); } mbuf = NULL; // ensure our buffer pointer is nil for 1st call while( TRUE ) { mbuf = rmr_rcv_msg( mrc, mbuf ); // wait for message if( mbuf == NULL || mbuf->state != RMR_OK ) { break; } if( mbuf->mtype % 2 ) { // respond to odd message types plen = rmr_payload_size( mbuf ); // max size // reset necessary fields in msg mbuf->mtype = 99; // response type mbuf->sub_id = RMR_VOID_SUBID; // we turn subid off mbuf->len = snprintf( mbuf->payload, plen, "pong: %s", get_info() ); mbuf = rmr_rts_msg( mrc, mbuf ); // return to sender if( mbuf == NULL || mbuf->state != RMR_OK ) { fprintf( stderr, "return to sender failed\\n" ); } } } fprintf( stderr, "abort: receive failure\\n" ); rmr_close( mrc );