ouroboros/src/ipcpd/unicast/dt.h, branch 0.24.0

ipcpd: Rework congestion avoidance

2026-07-19T09:44:36+00:00

Congestion avoidance is a property of the layer, orthogonal to ARQ and to flow control: FRCP retransmits and lets the peer pace the sender, per flow, end-to-end; the IPCP paces path aggregates. Each signal means one thing: a loss triggers a retransmission, a mark means congestion, the peer window means a slow receiver. Every flow is paced by the same rate law whatever its QoS, so a greedy raw sender shares a bottleneck fairly with a reliable stream. The unit of control is the (destination address, QoS cube) aggregate: all flows toward that destination share one controller and one rate; a start-time fair-queuing pacer divides the rate across them by deadline instead of blocking the send path, and a new flow rides the aggregate's estimates at its current rate, with no probing of its own. Slow start runs once per aggregate. The congestion signal is a multi-bit magnitude: forwarders mark packets with their standing queue depth, MAX-combined across hops, so a packet carries the deepest queue on its path. The receiver feeds back a time-integral mean over a window that adapts to the flow's byte rate, measuring a slow flow with the same fidelity as a fast one. The sender runs AIMD scaled by elapsed wall-clock time, which makes the steady-state allocation RTT-independent. The PCI gains one byte: the path capacity as a quarter-log2 code. Forwarders estimate their egress rate from busy-period drain and MIN-stamp the byte, the receiver returns the window minimum with its feedback, and the sender scales its rate floor and additive slope to the bottleneck (C / 32). A deep cut implies a backlogged bottleneck and a backlogged bottleneck advertises its capacity, so the scaled floor is live exactly when recovery needs it: the probe heals a halving in seconds at any link rate, and the floor bounds the deepest hole to a factor 32 below the bottleneck. Signed-off-by: Dimitri Staessens Signed-off-by: Sander Vrijders

build: Update copyright to 2026

2026-02-18T06:54:56+00:00

Signed-off-by: Dimitri Staessens Signed-off-by: Sander Vrijders

lib: Replace rdrbuff with a proper slab allocator

2026-01-26T06:50:33+00:00

This is a first step towards the Secure Shared Memory (SSM) infrastructure for Ouroboros, which will allow proper resource separation for non-privileged processes. This replaces the rdrbuff (random-deletion ring buffer) PoC allocator with a sharded slab allocator for the packet buffer pool to avoid the head-of-line blocking behaviour of the rdrb and reduce lock contention in multi-process scenarios. Each size class contains multiple independent shards, allowing parallel allocations without blocking. - Configurable shard count per size class (default: 4, set via SSM_POOL_SHARDS in CMake). The configured number of blocks are spread over the number of shards. As an example: SSM_POOL_512_BLOCKS = 768 blocks total These 768 blocks are shared among 4 shards (not 768 × 4 = 3072 blocks) - Lazy block distribution: all blocks initially reside in shard 0 and naturally migrate to process-local shards upon first allocation and subsequent free operations - Fallback with work stealing: processes attempt allocation from their local shard (pid % SSM_POOL_SHARDS) first, then steal from other shards if local is exhausted, eliminating fragmentation while maintaining low contention - Round-robin condvar signaling: blocking allocations cycle through all shard condition variables to ensure fairness - Blocks freed to allocator's shard: uses allocator_pid to determine target shard, enabling natural load balancing as process allocation patterns stabilize over time Maintains existing robust mutex semantics including EOWNERDEAD handling for dead process recovery. Internal structures exposed in ssm.h for testing purposes. Adds some tests (pool_test, pool_sharding_test.c. etc) verifying lazy distribution, migration, fallback stealing, and multiprocess behavior. Updates the ring buffer (rbuff) to use relaxed/acquire/release ordering on atomic indices. The ring buffer requires the (robust) mutex to ensure cross-structure synchronization between pool buffer writes and ring buffer index publication. Signed-off-by: Dimitri Staessens Signed-off-by: Sander Vrijders

ipcpd: Update DHT for unicast layer

2025-08-06T10:34:15+00:00

This is a rewrite of the DHT for name-to-address resolution in the unicast layer. It is now integrated as a proper directory policy. The dir_wait_running function is removed, instead the a DHT peer is passed on during IPCP enrolment. Each DHT request/response gets a random 64-bit ID ('cookie'). DHT messages to the same peer are deduped, except in the case when the DHT is low on contacts. In that case, it will contact the per it received at enrolment for more contacts. To combat packet loss, these messages are not deduped by means of a 'magic cookie', chosen at random when the DHT starts. The DHT parameters (Kademlia) can be set using the configfile or the IRM command line tools: if DIRECTORY_POLICY == DHT [dht_alpha (default: 3)] [dht_k (default: 8)] [dht_t_expire (default: 86400)] [dht_t_refresh (default: 900)] [dht_t_replicate (default: 900)] This commit also adds support for a protocol debug level (PP). Protocol debugging for the DHT can be enabled using the DEBUG_PROTO_DHT build flag. The DHT has the following message types: DHT_STORE, sent to k peers. Not acknowledged. DHT_STORE --> [2861814146dbf9b5|ed:d9:e2:c4]. key: bcc236ab6ec69e65 [32 bytes] val: 00000000c4e2d9ed [8 bytes] exp: 2025-08-03 17:29:44 (UTC). DHT_FIND_NODE_REQ, sent to 'alpha' peers, with a corresponding response. This is used to update the peer routing table to iteratively look for the nodes with IDs closest to the requested key. DHT_FIND_NODE_REQ --> [a62f92abffb451c4|ed:d9:e2:c4]. cookie: 2d4b7acef8308210 key: a62f92abffb451c4 [32 bytes] DHT_FIND_NODE_RSP <-- [2861814146dbf9b5|ed:d9:e2:c4]. cookie: 2d4b7acef8308210 key: a62f92abffb451c4 [32 bytes] contacts: [1] [a62f92abffb451c4|9f:0d:c1:fb] DHT_FIND_VALUE_REQ, sent to 'k' peers, with a corresponding response. Used to find a value for a key. Will also send its closest known peers in the response. DHT_FIND_VALUE_REQ --> [2861814146dbf9b5|ed:d9:e2:c4]. cookie: 80a1adcb09a2ff0a key: 42dee3b0415b4f69 [32 bytes] DHT_FIND_VALUE_RSP <-- [2861814146dbf9b5|ed:d9:e2:c4]. cookie: 80a1adcb09a2ff0a key: 42dee3b0415b4f69 [32 bytes] values: [1] 00000000c4e2d9ed [8 bytes] contacts: [1] [a62f92abffb451c4|9f:0d:c1:fb] Also removes ubuntu 20 from appveyor config as it is not supported anymore. Signed-off-by: Dimitri Staessens Signed-off-by: Sander Vrijders

build: Update licenses to 2024

2024-01-13T09:20:14+00:00

Slow but steady. Signed-off-by: Dimitri Staessens Signed-off-by: Sander Vrijders

ipcpd: refactor IPCP configuration

2023-02-13T20:10:11+00:00

The ipcp configuration struct now has internal structures for the different IPCPs and for IPCP components of the unicast IPCP. Split the very long IPCP main loop into individual handler functions. Signed-off-by: Dimitri Staessens Signed-off-by: Sander Vrijders

build: Update copyright to 2023

2023-02-13T20:10:10+00:00

2022 was a rather slow year... Signed-off-by: Dimitri Staessens Signed-off-by: Sander Vrijders

2022-04-03T16:01:02+00:00

Growing pains. Signed-off-by: Dimitri Staessens Signed-off-by: Sander Vrijders

build: Update email addresses

2021-01-03T10:57:05+00:00

The ugent email addresses are shut down, updated to Ouroboros mail addresses. Signed-off-by: Dimitri Staessens Signed-off-by: Sander Vrijders

2021-01-03T10:56:28+00:00

Happy New Year, Ouroboros! Signed-off-by: Dimitri Staessens Signed-off-by: Sander Vrijders