Unix Network Programming Episode 70

‘sctp_opt_info’ Function

The sctp_opt_info function is provided for implementations that cannot use the getsockopt functions for SCTP. This inability to use the getsockopt function is because some of the SCTP socket options, for example, SCTP_STATUS, need an in-out variable to pass the association identification. For systems that cannot provide an in-out variable to the getsockopt function, the user will need to use sctp_opt_info. For systems like FreeBSD that do allow in-out variables in the socket option call, the sctp_opt_info call is a library call that repackages the arguments into the appropriate getsockopt call. For portability’s sake, applications should use sctp_opt_info for all the options that require in-out variables (Section 7.10(See 8.5.10)).

The call has the following format:

int sctp_opt_info(int sockfd, sctp_assoc_t assoc_id, int opt void *arg, socklen_t *siz);
int sctp_opt_info(int sockfd, sctp_assoc_t assoc_id, int opt void *arg, socklen_t *siz);

‘sctp_peeloff’ Function

As previously mentioned, it is possible to extract an association contained by a one-to-many socket into an individual one-to-one-style socket. The semantics are much like the accept function call with an additional argument. The caller passes the sockfd of the one-to-many socket and the association identification id that is being extracted. At the completion of the call, a new socket descriptor is returned. This new descriptor will be a one-to-one-style socket descriptor with the requested association. The function takes the following form:

int sctp_peeloff(int sockfd, sctp_assoc_t id);

‘shutdown’ Function

The shutdown function that we discussed in Section 6.6(See 8.4.6) can be used with an SCTP endpoint using the one-to-one-style interface. Because SCTP’s design does not provide a half-closed state, an SCTP endpoint reacts to a shutdown call differently than a TCP endpoint. When an SCTP endpoint initiates a shutdown sequence, both endpoints must complete transmission of any data currently in the queue and close the association. The endpoint that initiated the active open may wish to invoke shutdown instead of close so that the endpoint can be used to connect to a new peer. Unlike TCP, a close followed by the opening of a new socket is not required. SCTP allows the endpoint to issue a shutdown, and after the shutdown completes, the endpoint can reuse the socket to connect to a new peer. Note that the new connection will fail if the endpoint does not wait until the SCTP shutdown sequence completes. Figure 9.5 shows the typical function calls in this scenario.

SHUT_RD

The same semantics as for TCP discussed in Section 6.6(See 8.4.6); no SCTP protocol action is taken.

SHUT_WR

Disables further send operations and initiates the SCTP shutdown procedures, which will terminate the association. Note that this option does not provide a half-closed state, but does allow the local endpoint to read any queued data that the peer may have sent prior to receiving the SCTP SHUTDOWN message.

SHUT_RDWR

Disables all read and write operations, and initiates the SCTP shutdown procedure. Any queued data that was in transit to the local endpoint will be acknowledged and then silently discarded.

Notifications

SCTP makes a variety of notifications available to the application programmer. The SCTP user can track the state of its association(s) via these notifications. Notifications communicate transport-level events, including network status change, association startups, remote operational errors, and undeliverable messages. For both the one-to-one and the one-to-many styles, all events are disabled by default with the exception of sctp_data_io_event.

Notifications have the following form:

struct sctp_tlv {
	u_int16_t sn_type;
	u_int16_t sn_flags;
	u_int32_t sn_length;
};
/* notification event */
union sctp_notification {
	struct sctp_tlv sn_header;
	struct sctp_assoc_change sn_assoc_change;
	struct sctp_paddr_change sn_paddr_change;
	struct sctp_remote_error sn_remote_error;
	struct sctp_send_failed sn_send_failed;
	struct sctp_shutdown_event sn_shutdown_event;
	struct sctp_adaption_event sn_adaption_event;
	struct sctp_pdapi_event sn_pdapi_event;
};