Portable Forwarder¶

Introduction¶

hicn-light is a portable forwarder that makes use of IPC and standard sockets to communicate.

Using hicn-light¶

Dependencies¶

Build dependencies:

C99 ( clang / gcc )
CMake 3.4

Basic dependencies:

OpenSSL
pthreads
libevent
libparc

hicn-light Executables¶

hicn-light is a set of binary executables that are used to run a forwarder instance. The forwarder can be run and configured using the commands

hicn-light-daemon
hicn-light-control

Use the -h option to display the help messages

hicn-light Daemon¶

The command hicn-light-daemon runs the hicn-light forwarder. The forwarder can be executed with the following options:

hicn-light-daemon [--port port] [--daemon] [--capacity objectStoreSize] [--log facility=level]
                [--log-file filename] [--config file]

Options:
--port <tcp_port>           = tcp port for local in-bound connections
--daemon                    = start as daemon process
--capacity <capacity>       = maximum number of content objects to cache. To disable the cache
                              objectStoreSize must be 0.
                              Default vaule for objectStoreSize is 100000
--log <log_granularity>     = sets a facility to a given log level. You can have multiple of these.
                              facilities: all, config, core, io, message, processor
                              levels: debug, info, notice, warning, error, critical, alert, off
                              example: hicn-light-daemon --log io=debug --log core=off
--log-file <output_logfile> = file to write log messages to (required in daemon mode)
--config <config_path>      = configuration filename

The configuration file contains configuration lines as per hicn-light-control (see below for all the available commands). If logging level or content store capacity is set in the configuration file, it overrides the command_line. When a configuration file is specified, no default listeners are setup. Only ‘add listener’ lines in the configuration file matter.

If no configuration file is specified, hicn-light-daemon will listen on TCP and UDP ports specified by the –port flag (or default port). It will listen on both IPv4 and IPv6 if available. The default port for hicn-light is 9695. Commands are expected on port 2001.

hicn-light-control¶

hicn-light-control can be used to send command to the hicn-light forwarder and configure it. The command can be executed in the following way:

hicn-light-control [commands]

Options:
    -h                    = This help screen
    commands              = configuration line to send to hicn-light (use 'help' for list)

Available Commands in hicn-light-control¶

This is the full list of available commands in hicn-light-control. This commands can be used from the command line running hicn-light-control as explained before, or listing them in a configuration file.

Information about the commands are also available in the hicn-light-control help message.

add listener: creates a TCP or UDP listener with the specified options on the local forwarder. For local connections (application to hicn-light) we expect a TCP listener. The default port for the local listener is 9695.

add listener <protocol> <symbolic> <local_adress> <local_port>

  <symbolic>        :User defined name for listener, must start with alpha and bealphanum
  <protocol>        :tcp | udp
  <localAddress>    :IPv4 or IPv6 address
  <local_port>      :TCP/UDP port

add listener hicn: creates a hicn listener with the specified options on the local forwarder.

add listener hicn <symbolic> <local_adress>

  <symbolic>        :User defined name for listener, must start with alpha and be alphanum
  <localAddress>    :IPv4 or IPv6 address

add connection: creates a TCP or UDP connection on the local forwarder with the specified options.

add connection <protocol> <symbolic> <remote_ip> <remote_port> <local_ip> <local_port>

  <protocol>              : tcp | udp
  <symbolic>              : symbolic name, e.g. 'conn1' (must be unique, start with alpha)
  <remote_ip>             : the IPv4 or IPv6 of the remote system
  <remote_port>           : the remote TCP/UDP port
  <local_ip>              : local IP address to bind to
  <local_port>            : local TCP/UDP port

add connection hicn: creates an hicn connection on the local forwarder with the specified options.

add connection hicn <symbolic> <remote_ip> <local_ip>

  <symbolic>            : symbolic name, e.g. 'conn1' (must be unique, start with alpha)
  <remote_ip>           : the IPv4 or IPv6 of the remote system
  <local_ip>            : local IP address to bind to

list: lists the connections, routes or listeners available on the local hicn-light forwarder

list <connections | routes | listeners>

add route: adds a route to the specified connection

add route <symbolic | connid> <prefix> <cost>

  <symbolic>   :The symbolic name for an exgress (must be unique, start with alpha)
  <connid>:    :The egress connection id (see 'help list connections')
  <prefix>:    :ipAddress/netmask
  <cost>:      :positive integer representing cost

remove connection: removes the specified connection. At the moment, this commands is available only for UDP connections, TCP is ignored.

remove connection <protocol> <symbolic | connid>

  <protocol>   : tcp | upd. This is the protocol used to create the connection.
  <symbolic>   :The symbolic name for an exgress (must be unique, start with alpha)
  <connid>:    :The egress connection id (see 'help list connections')

remove route: remove the specified prefix for a local connection

remove route <symbolic | connid> <prefix>

  <connid>    : the alphanumeric name of a local connection
  <prefix>    : the prefix (ipAddress/netmask) to remove

cache serve: enables/disables replies from local content store (if available)

cache serve <on|off>

cache store: enables/disables the storage of incoming data packets in the local content store (if available)

cache store <on|off>

cache clear: removes all the cached data form the local content store (if available)

cache clear

set strategy: sets the forwarding strategy for a give prefix. There are 4 different strategies implemented in hicn-light:

random: each interest is forwarded randomly to one of the available output connections
loadbalancer: each interest is forwarded toward the output connection with the lowest number of pending interests. The pending interest are the interest sent on a certain connection but not yet satisfied. More information are available in: G. Carofiglio, M. Gallo, L. Muscariello, M. Papalini, S. Wang, “Optimal multipath congestion control and request forwarding in information-centric networks”, ICNP 2013.
low_latency: uses the face with the lowest latency. In case more faces have similar latency the strategy uses them in parallel

set strategy <prefix> <strategy>

  <preifx>    : the prefix to which apply the forwarding strategy
  <strategy>  : random | loadbalancer | low_latency

set wldr: turns on/off WLDR on the specified connection. WLDR (Wireless Loss Detiection and Recovery) is a protocol that can be used to recover losses generated by unreliable wireless connections, such as WIFI. More information on WLDR are available in: G. Carofiglio, L. Muscariello, M. Papalini, N. Rozhnova, X. Zeng, “Leveraging ICN In-network Control for Loss Detection and Recovery in Wireless Mobile networks”, ICN 2016. Notice that WLDR is currently available only for UDP connections. In order to work properly, WLDR needs to be activated on both side of the connection.

set wldr <on|off> <symbolic | connid>

  <symbolic>   :The symbolic name for an exgress (must be unique, start with alpha)
  <connid>:    :The egress connection id (see 'help list connections')

add punting: Add punting rules to the forwarders.

add punting <symbolic> <prefix>

 <symbolic> : listener symbolic name
 <address>  : prefix to add as a punting rule. (example 1234::0/64)

mapme enable: enables/disables mapme

mapme enable <on|off>

mapme discovery: enables/disables mapme discovery

mapme discovery <on|off>

mapme timescale: set the timescale value expressed in millisencods

mapme timescale <milliseconds>

mapme retx: set the retrasmission time value expressed in millisecond

mapme retx <milliseconds>

quit: Exits the interactive shell

hicn-light Configuration File Example¶

This is an example of a simple configuration file for hicn-light. It can be loaded by running the command hicn-light-daemon --config configFile.cfg, assuming the file name is configFile.cfg

#create a local listener on port 9199. This will be used by the applications to talk
with the forwarder
add listener udp local0 192.168.0.1 9199

#create a connection with a remote hicn-light-daemon, with a listener on 192.168.0.20 12345
add connection udp conn0 192.168.0.20 12345 192.168.0.1 9199

#add a route toward the remote node
add route conn0 c001::/64 1