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diff --git a/docs/tcp_replication.rst b/docs/tcp_replication.rst new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..946add2849 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/tcp_replication.rst @@ -0,0 +1,174 @@ +TCP Replication +=============== + +This describes the TCP replication protocol that replaces the HTTP protocol. + +Motivation +---------- + +The HTTP API used long poll from the workers to the master, this has the problem +of causing a lot of duplicate work on the server. This TCP protocol aims to +solve. + +Overview +-------- + +The protocol is based on fire and forget, line based commands. An example flow +would be (where '>' indicates master->worker and '<' worker->master flows):: + + > SERVER example.com + < REPLICATE events 53 + > RDATA events 54 ["$foo1:bar.com", ...] + > RDATA events 55 ["$foo4:bar.com", ...] + +The example shows the server accepting a new connection and sending its identity +with the ``SERVER`` command, followed by the client asking to subscribe to the +``events`` stream from the token ``53``. The server then periodically sends ``RDATA`` +commands which have the format ``RDATA <stream_name> <token> <row>```, where the +format of ``<row>`` is defined by the individual streams. + +Error reporting happens by either the client or server sending an `ERROR` +command, and usually the connection will be closed. + + +Since the protocol is a simple line based, its possible to manually connect to +the server using a tool like netcat. A few things should be noted when manually +using the protocol: + * When subscribing to a stream using ``REPLICATE``, the special token ``NOW`` can + be used to get all future updates. The special stream name ``ALL`` can be used + with ``NOW`` to subscribe to all available streams. + * The federation stream is only available if federation sending has been + disabled on the main process. + * The server will only time connections out that have sent a ``PING`` command. + If a ping is sent then the connection will be closed if no further commands + are receieved within 15s. Both the client and server protocol implementations + will send an initial PING on connection and ensure at least one command every + 5s is sent (not necessarily ``PING``). + * ``RDATA`` commands *usually* include a numeric token, however if the stream + has multiple rows to replicate per token the server will send multiple + ``RDATA`` commands, with all but the last having a token of ``batch``. See + the documentation on ``commands.RdataCommand`` for further details. + + +Architecture +------------ + +The basic structure of the protocol is line based, where the initial word of +each line specifies the command. The rest of the line is parsed based on the +command. For example, the `RDATA` command is defined as:: + + RDATA <stream_name> <token> <row_json> + +(Note that `<row_json>` may contains spaces, but cannot contain newlines.) + +Blank lines are ignored. + + +Keep alives +~~~~~~~~~~~ + +Both sides are expected to send at least one command every 5s or so, and +should send a ``PING`` command if necessary. If either side do not receive a +command within e.g. 15s then the connection should be closed. + +Because the server may be connected to manually using e.g. netcat, the timeouts +aren't enabled until an initial ``PING`` command is seen. Both the client and +server implementations below send a ``PING`` command immediately on connection to +ensure the timeouts are enabled. + +This ensures that both sides can quickly realize if the tcp connection has gone +and handle the situation appropriately. + + +Start up +~~~~~~~~ + +When a new connection is made, the server: + * Sends a ``SERVER`` command, which includes the identity of the server, allowing + the client to detect if its connected to the expected server + * Sends a ``PING`` command as above, to enable the client to time out connections + promptly. + +The client: + * Sends a ``NAME`` command, allowing the server to associate a human friendly + name with the connection. This is optional. + * Sends a ``PING`` as above + * For each stream the client wishes to subscribe to it sends a ``REPLICATE`` + with the stream_name and token it wants to subscribe from. + * On receipt of a ``SERVER`` command, checks that the server name matches the + expected server name. + + +Error handling +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +If either side detects an error it can send an ``ERROR`` command and close the +connection. + +If the client side loses the connection to the server it should reconnect, +following the steps above. + + +Congestion +~~~~~~~~~~ + +If the server sends messages faster than the client can consume them the server +will first buffer a (fairly large) number of commands and then disconnect the +client. This ensures that we don't queue up an unbounded number of commands in +memory and gives us a potential oppurtunity to squawk loudly. When/if the client +recovers it can reconnect to the server and ask for missed messages. + + +Reliability +~~~~~~~~~~~ + +In general the replication stream should be consisdered an unreliable transport +since e.g. commands are not resent if the connection disappears. + +The exception to that are the replication streams, i.e. RDATA commands, since +these include tokens which can be used to restart the stream on connection +errors. + +The client should keep track of the token in the last RDATA command received +for each stream so that on reconneciton it can start streaming from the correct +place. Note: not all RDATA have valid tokens due to batching. See +``RdataCommand`` for more details. + + +Example +~~~~~~~ + +An example iteraction is shown below. Each line is prefixed with '>' or '<' to +indicate which side is sending, these are *not* included on the wire:: + + * connection established * + > SERVER localhost:8823 + > PING 1490197665618 + < NAME synapse.app.appservice + < PING 1490197665618 + < REPLICATE events 1 + < REPLICATE backfill 1 + < REPLICATE caches 1 + > POSITION events 1 + > POSITION backfill 1 + > POSITION caches 1 + > RDATA caches 2 ["get_user_by_id",["@01register-user:localhost:8823"],1490197670513] + > RDATA events 14 ["$149019767112vOHxz:localhost:8823", + "!AFDCvgApUmpdfVjIXm:localhost:8823","m.room.guest_access","",null] + < PING 1490197675618 + > ERROR server stopping + * connection closed by server * + +The ``POSITION`` command sent by the server is used to set the clients position +without needing to send data with the ``RDATA`` command. + + +An example of a batched set of ``RDATA`` is:: + + > RDATA caches batch ["get_user_by_id",["@test:localhost:8823"],1490197670513] + > RDATA caches batch ["get_user_by_id",["@test2:localhost:8823"],1490197670513] + > RDATA caches batch ["get_user_by_id",["@test3:localhost:8823"],1490197670513] + > RDATA caches 54 ["get_user_by_id",["@test4:localhost:8823"],1490197670513] + +In this case the client shouldn't advance their caches token until it sees the +the last ``RDATA``. |