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diff --git a/Documentation/networking/tipc.rst b/Documentation/networking/tipc.rst index 76775f24cdc8..ab63d298cca2 100644 --- a/Documentation/networking/tipc.rst +++ b/Documentation/networking/tipc.rst @@ -4,10 +4,125 @@ Linux Kernel TIPC ================= -TIPC (Transparent Inter Process Communication) is a protocol that is -specially designed for intra-cluster communication. +Introduction +============ -For more information about TIPC, see http://tipc.sourceforge.net. +TIPC (Transparent Inter Process Communication) is a protocol that is specially +designed for intra-cluster communication. It can be configured to transmit +messages either on UDP or directly across Ethernet. Message delivery is +sequence guaranteed, loss free and flow controlled. Latency times are shorter +than with any other known protocol, while maximal throughput is comparable to +that of TCP. + +TIPC Features +------------- + +- Cluster wide IPC service + + Have you ever wished you had the convenience of Unix Domain Sockets even when + transmitting data between cluster nodes? Where you yourself determine the + addresses you want to bind to and use? Where you don't have to perform DNS + lookups and worry about IP addresses? Where you don't have to start timers + to monitor the continuous existence of peer sockets? And yet without the + downsides of that socket type, such as the risk of lingering inodes? + + Welcome to the Transparent Inter Process Communication service, TIPC in short, + which gives you all of this, and a lot more. + +- Service Addressing + + A fundamental concept in TIPC is that of Service Addressing which makes it + possible for a programmer to chose his own address, bind it to a server + socket and let client programs use only that address for sending messages. + +- Service Tracking + + A client wanting to wait for the availability of a server, uses the Service + Tracking mechanism to subscribe for binding and unbinding/close events for + sockets with the associated service address. + + The service tracking mechanism can also be used for Cluster Topology Tracking, + i.e., subscribing for availability/non-availability of cluster nodes. + + Likewise, the service tracking mechanism can be used for Cluster Connectivity + Tracking, i.e., subscribing for up/down events for individual links between + cluster nodes. + +- Transmission Modes + + Using a service address, a client can send datagram messages to a server socket. + + Using the same address type, it can establish a connection towards an accepting + server socket. + + It can also use a service address to create and join a Communication Group, + which is the TIPC manifestation of a brokerless message bus. + + Multicast with very good performance and scalability is available both in + datagram mode and in communication group mode. + +- Inter Node Links + + Communication between any two nodes in a cluster is maintained by one or two + Inter Node Links, which both guarantee data traffic integrity and monitor + the peer node's availability. + +- Cluster Scalability + + By applying the Overlapping Ring Monitoring algorithm on the inter node links + it is possible to scale TIPC clusters up to 1000 nodes with a maintained + neighbor failure discovery time of 1-2 seconds. For smaller clusters this + time can be made much shorter. + +- Neighbor Discovery + + Neighbor Node Discovery in the cluster is done by Ethernet broadcast or UDP + multicast, when any of those services are available. If not, configured peer + IP addresses can be used. + +- Configuration + + When running TIPC in single node mode no configuration whatsoever is needed. + When running in cluster mode TIPC must as a minimum be given a node address + (before Linux 4.17) and told which interface to attach to. The "tipc" + configuration tool makes is possible to add and maintain many more + configuration parameters. + +- Performance + + TIPC message transfer latency times are better than in any other known protocol. + Maximal byte throughput for inter-node connections is still somewhat lower than + for TCP, while they are superior for intra-node and inter-container throughput + on the same host. + +- Language Support + + The TIPC user API has support for C, Python, Perl, Ruby, D and Go. + +More Information +---------------- + +- How to set up TIPC: + + http://tipc.io/getting_started.html + +- How to program with TIPC: + + http://tipc.io/programming.html + +- How to contribute to TIPC: + +- http://tipc.io/contacts.html + +- More details about TIPC specification: + + http://tipc.io/protocol.html + + +Implementation +============== + +TIPC is implemented as a kernel module in net/tipc/ directory. TIPC Base Types --------------- |