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Implementing network protocols at user level

Authors:

Chandramohan A. Thekkath,

Edward D. LazowskaAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, Volume 23, Issue 4

Pages 64 - 73

https://doi.org/10.1145/167954.166244

Published: 01 October 1993 Publication History

Abstract

Traditionally, network software has been structured in a monolithic fashion with all protocol stacks executing either within the kernel or in a single trusted user-level server. This organization is motivated by performance and security concerns. However, considerations of code maintenance, ease of debugging, customization, and the simultaneous existence of multiple protocols argue for separating the implementations into more manageable user-level libraries of protocols. This paper describes the design and implementation of transport protocols as user-level libraries.We begin by motivating the need for protocol implementations as user-level libraries and placing our approach in the context of previous work. We then describe our alternative to monolithic protocol organization, which has been implemented on Mach workstations connected not only to traditional Ethernet, but also to a more modern network, the DEC SRC ANI. Based on our experience, we discuss the implications for host-network interface design and for overall system structure to support efficient user-level implementations of network protocols.

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Cited By

Rosa LGarbugli ACorradi ABellavista P(2023)INSANEProceedings of the 24th International Middleware Conference10.1145/3590140.3629105(57-70)Online publication date: 27-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3590140.3629105
Zhan XBao YBienia CLi K(2017)PARSEC3.0ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News10.1145/3053277.305327944:5(1-16)Online publication date: 13-Feb-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3053277.3053279
Liu J(2008)Toward a user-level real-time transport protocol with selective reliabilityMILCOM 2008 - 2008 IEEE Military Communications Conference10.1109/MILCOM.2008.4753409(1-7)Online publication date: Nov-2008
https://doi.org/10.1109/MILCOM.2008.4753409
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Index Terms

Implementing network protocols at user level
1. General and reference
  1. Cross-computing tools and techniques
    1. Performance
2. Networks
  1. Network protocols
    1. Network protocol design
  2. Network types
    1. Packet-switching networks

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Reviews

Reviewer: Greg Minshall

In this implementation of the TCP/IP protocol suite, basic packet demultiplexing occurs in the kernel of the host operating system, but the protocol processing proper occurs in libraries that are co-resident with the application using a given TCP connection. This approach is part of the overall microkernel thrust in operating systems, in which more and more of the operating system is placed in user-level processes. In previous work on TCP/IP and microkernels, the protocol processing and demultiplexing were placed in one user-level process, the application using TCP/IP in another, and the actual hardware device drivers (for the network card) in the kernel. Relative to this previous work, the current work shows performance improvements. Relative to having the protocols reside in a monolithic kernel, the current work continues to show performance degradation. An alternative style of kernel structuring, where the protocol processing and demultiplexing occur in the kernel protection domain, but in a separate module, is not discussed. Of related interest is Maeda and Bershad's paper [1].

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review

ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review Volume 23, Issue 4

Oct. 1993

288 pages

ISSN:0146-4833

DOI:10.1145/167954

Editor:
David Oran
Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton, MA

Issue’s Table of Contents

SIGCOMM '93: Conference proceedings on Communications architectures, protocols and applications
October 1993
299 pages
ISBN:0897916190
DOI:10.1145/166237
Chairman:
Imrich Chlamtac

Copyright © 1993 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 October 1993

Published in SIGCOMM-CCR Volume 23, Issue 4

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Cited By

Rosa LGarbugli ACorradi ABellavista P(2023)INSANEProceedings of the 24th International Middleware Conference10.1145/3590140.3629105(57-70)Online publication date: 27-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3590140.3629105
Zhan XBao YBienia CLi K(2017)PARSEC3.0ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News10.1145/3053277.305327944:5(1-16)Online publication date: 13-Feb-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3053277.3053279
Liu J(2008)Toward a user-level real-time transport protocol with selective reliabilityMILCOM 2008 - 2008 IEEE Military Communications Conference10.1109/MILCOM.2008.4753409(1-7)Online publication date: Nov-2008
https://doi.org/10.1109/MILCOM.2008.4753409
Strayer WGray SCline R(2005)An object-oriented implementation of the Xpress Transfer ProtocolMultimedia: Advanced Teleservices and High-Speed Communication Architectures10.1007/3-540-58494-3_32(387-400)Online publication date: 2-Jun-2005
https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-58494-3_32
Gopalakrishnan RParulkar G(1998)Efficient user-space protocol implementations with QoS guarantees using real-time upcallsIEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (TON)10.1109/90.7208716:4(374-388)Online publication date: 1-Aug-1998
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/90.720871
Black RBarham PDonnelly AStratford N(1997)Protocol implementation in a vertically structured operating systemProceedings of 22nd Annual Conference on Local Computer Networks10.1109/LCN.1997.630986(179-188)Online publication date: 1997
https://doi.org/10.1109/LCN.1997.630986
Braun T(1995)PATROCLOS: A Flexible and High-Performance Transport SubsystemProtocols for High Speed Networks IV10.1007/978-0-387-34885-8_13(205-223)Online publication date: 1995
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-34885-8_13
Prekas GKogias MBugnion E(2017)ZygOSProceedings of the 26th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles10.1145/3132747.3132780(325-341)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3132747.3132780
Zhan XBao YBienia CLi K(2017)PARSEC3.0ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News10.1145/3053277.305327944:5(1-16)Online publication date: 13-Feb-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3053277.3053279
Belay APrekas GPrimorac MKlimovic AGrossman SKozyrakis CBugnion E(2016)The IX Operating SystemACM Transactions on Computer Systems10.1145/299764134:4(1-39)Online publication date: 9-Dec-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2997641
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