lwip/doc/rawapi.txt

Raw TCP/IP interface for lwIP

Authors: Adam Dunkels, Leon Woestenberg, Christiaan Simons

lwIP provides three Application Program's Interfaces (APIs) for programs
to use for communication with the TCP/IP code:
* low-level "core" / "callback" or "raw" API.
* higher-level "sequential" API.
* BSD-style socket API.

The raw API (sometimes called native API) is an event-driven API designed
to be used without an operating system that implements zero-copy send and
receive. This API is also used by the core stack for interaction between
the various protocols. It is the only API available when running lwIP
without an operating system.

The sequential API provides a way for ordinary, sequential, programs
to use the lwIP stack. It is quite similar to the BSD socket API. The
model of execution is based on the blocking open-read-write-close
paradigm. Since the TCP/IP stack is event based by nature, the TCP/IP
code and the application program must reside in different execution
contexts (threads).

The socket API is a compatibility API for existing applications,
currently it is built on top of the sequential API. It is meant to
provide all functions needed to run socket API applications running
on other platforms (e.g. unix / windows etc.). However, due to limitations
in the specification of this API, there might be incompatibilities
that require small modifications of existing programs.

** Multithreading

lwIP started targeting single-threaded environments. When adding multi-
threading support, instead of making the core thread-safe, another
approach was chosen: there is one main thread running the lwIP core
(also known as the "tcpip_thread"). When running in a multithreaded
environment, raw API functions MUST only be called from the core thread
since raw API functions are not protected from concurrent access (aside
from pbuf- and memory management functions). Application threads using
the sequential- or socket API communicate with this main thread through
message passing.

      As such, the list of functions that may be called from
      other threads or an ISR is very limited! Only functions
      from these API header files are thread-safe:
      - api.h
      - netbuf.h
      - netdb.h
      - netifapi.h
      - pppapi.h
      - sockets.h
      - sys.h

      Additionaly, memory (de-)allocation functions may be
      called from multiple threads (not ISR!) with NO_SYS=0
      since they are protected by SYS_LIGHTWEIGHT_PROT and/or
      semaphores.

      Netconn or Socket API functions are thread safe against the
      core thread but they are not reentrant at the control block
      granularity level. That is, a UDP or TCP control block must
      not be shared among multiple threads without proper locking.

      If SYS_LIGHTWEIGHT_PROT is set to 1 and
      LWIP_ALLOW_MEM_FREE_FROM_OTHER_CONTEXT is set to 1,
      pbuf_free() may also be called from another thread or
      an ISR (since only then, mem_free - for PBUF_RAM - may
      be called from an ISR: otherwise, the HEAP is only
      protected by semaphores).


** The remainder of this document discusses the "raw" API. **

The raw TCP/IP interface allows the application program to integrate
better with the TCP/IP code. Program execution is event based by
having callback functions being called from within the TCP/IP
code. The TCP/IP code and the application program both run in the same
thread. The sequential API has a much higher overhead and is not very
well suited for small systems since it forces a multithreaded paradigm
on the application.

The raw TCP/IP interface is not only faster in terms of code execution
time but is also less memory intensive. The drawback is that program
development is somewhat harder and application programs written for
the raw TCP/IP interface are more difficult to understand. Still, this
is the preferred way of writing applications that should be small in
code size and memory usage.

All APIs can be used simultaneously by different application
programs. In fact, the sequential API is implemented as an application
program using the raw TCP/IP interface.

Do not confuse the lwIP raw API with raw Ethernet or IP sockets.
The former is a way of interfacing the lwIP network stack (including
TCP and UDP), the latter refers to processing raw Ethernet or IP data
instead of TCP connections or UDP packets.

Raw API applications may never block since all packet processing
(input and output) as well as timer processing (TCP mainly) is done
in a single execution context.

--- System initalization

A truly complete and generic sequence for initializing the lwIP stack
cannot be given because it depends on additional initializations for
your runtime environment (e.g. timers).

We can give you some idea on how to proceed when using the raw API.
We assume a configuration using a single Ethernet netif and the
UDP and TCP transport layers, IPv4 and the DHCP client.

Call these functions in the order of appearance:

- lwip_init()

  Initialize the lwIP stack and all of its subsystems.

- netif_add(struct netif *netif, const ip4_addr_t *ipaddr,
            const ip4_addr_t *netmask, const ip4_addr_t *gw,
            void *state, netif_init_fn init, netif_input_fn input)

  Adds your network interface to the netif_list. Allocate a struct
  netif and pass a pointer to this structure as the first argument.
  Give pointers to cleared ip_addr structures when using DHCP,
  or fill them with sane numbers otherwise. The state pointer may be NULL.

  The init function pointer must point to a initialization function for
  your Ethernet netif interface. The following code illustrates its use.
  
  err_t netif_if_init(struct netif *netif)
  {
    u8_t i;
    
    for (i = 0; i < ETHARP_HWADDR_LEN; i++) {
      netif->hwaddr[i] = some_eth_addr[i];
    }
    init_my_eth_device();
    return ERR_OK;
  }
  
  For Ethernet drivers, the input function pointer must point to the lwIP
  function ethernet_input() declared in "netif/etharp.h". Other drivers
  must use ip_input() declared in "lwip/ip.h".
  
- netif_set_default(struct netif *netif)

  Registers the default network interface.

- netif_set_link_up(struct netif *netif)

  This is the hardware link state; e.g. whether cable is plugged for wired
  Ethernet interface. This function must be called even if you don't know
  the current state. Having link up and link down events is optional but
  DHCP and IPv6 discover benefit well from those events.

- netif_set_up(struct netif *netif)

  This is the administrative (= software) state of the netif, when the
  netif is fully configured this function must be called.

- dhcp_start(struct netif *netif)

  Creates a new DHCP client for this interface on the first call.
  
  You can peek in the netif->dhcp struct for the actual DHCP status.

- sys_check_timeouts()

  When the system is running, you have to periodically call
  sys_check_timeouts() which will handle all timers for all protocols in
  the stack; add this to your main loop or equivalent.


--- Optimization hints

The first thing you want to optimize is the lwip_standard_checksum()
routine from src/core/inet.c. You can override this standard
function with the #define LWIP_CHKSUM <your_checksum_routine>.

There are C examples given in inet.c or you might want to
craft an assembly function for this. RFC1071 is a good
introduction to this subject.

Other significant improvements can be made by supplying
assembly or inline replacements for htons() and htonl()
if you're using a little-endian architecture.
#define lwip_htons(x) <your_htons>
#define lwip_htonl(x) <your_htonl>
If you #define them to htons() and htonl(), you should
#define LWIP_DONT_PROVIDE_BYTEORDER_FUNCTIONS to prevent lwIP from
defining hton*/ntoh* compatibility macros.

Check your network interface driver if it reads at
a higher speed than the maximum wire-speed. If the
hardware isn't serviced frequently and fast enough
buffer overflows are likely to occur.

E.g. when using the cs8900 driver, call cs8900if_service(ethif)
as frequently as possible. When using an RTOS let the cs8900 interrupt
wake a high priority task that services your driver using a binary
semaphore or event flag. Some drivers might allow additional tuning
to match your application and network.

For a production release it is recommended to set LWIP_STATS to 0.
Note that speed performance isn't influenced much by simply setting
high values to the memory options.

For more optimization hints take a look at the lwIP wiki.