Minimum Viable Data Synchronization
Minimum Viable Data Synchronization
DRAFT VERSION 0.5.1
Written by Oskar Thorén oskar@status.im & Dean Eigenmann dean@status.im
This document follows RFC-2119.
Table of Contents
Abstract
In this specification, we describe a minimum viable protocol for data synchronization inspired by the Bramble Synchronization Protocol1. This protocol is designed to ensure reliable messaging between peers across an unreliable peer-to-peer (P2P) network where they may be unreachable or unresponsive.
We present a functional specification for future implementation2 as well as reference simulation data which demonstrates its performance.
Definitions
Term | Description |
---|---|
Peer | The other nodes that a node is connected to. |
Record | Defines a payload element of either the type OFFER , REQUEST , MESSAGE or ACK |
Node | Some process that is able to store data, do processing and communicate for MVDS. |
Wire Protocol
Secure Transport
This specification does not define anything related to the transport of packets. It is assumed that this is abstracted in such a way that any secure transport protocol could be easily implemented. Likewise, properties such as confidentiality, integrity, authenticity and forward secrecy are assumed to be provided by a layer below.
Payloads
Payloads are implemented using protocol buffers v3.
syntax = "proto3";
message Payload {
repeated bytes acks = 1;
repeated bytes offers = 2;
repeated bytes requests = 3;
repeated Message messages = 4;
}
message Message {
bytes group_id = 1;
int64 timestamp = 2;
bytes body = 3;
}
Each payload contains the following fields:
- Acks: This field contains a list (can be empty) of
message identifiers
informing the recipient that sender holds a specific message. - Offers: This field contains a list (can be empty) of
message identifiers
that the sender would like to give to the recipient. - Requests: This field contains a list (can be empty) of
message identifiers
that the sender would like to receive from the recipient. - Messages: This field contains a list of messages (can be empty).
Message Identifiers: Each message
has a message identifier calculated by hashing the group_id
, timestamp
and body
fields as follows:
HASH("MESSAGE_ID", group_id, timestamp, body);
The current HASH
function used is sha256
.
Synchronization
State
We refer to state
as a collection of data each node SHOULD hold for records of the types OFFER
, REQUEST
and MESSAGE
per peer. We MUST NOT keep states for ACK
records as we do not retransmit those periodically. The following information is stored for records:
- Type - Either
OFFER
,REQUEST
orMESSAGE
- Send Count - The amount of times a record has been sent to a peer.
- Send Epoch - The next epoch at which a record can be sent to a peer.
Flow
A maximum of one payload SHOULD be sent to peers per epoch, this payload contains all ACK
, OFFER
, REQUEST
and MESSAGE
records for the specific peer. Payloads are created every epoch, containing reactions to previously received records by peers or new records being sent out by nodes.
Nodes MAY have two modes with which they can send records: BATCH
and INTERACTIVE
mode. The following rules dictate how nodes construct payloads every epoch for any given peer for both modes.
Interactive Mode
- A node initially offers a
MESSAGE
when attempting to send it to a peer. This means anOFFER
is added to the next payload and state for the given peer. - When a node receives an
OFFER
, aREQUEST
is added to the next payload and state for the given peer. - When a node receives a
REQUEST
for a previously sentOFFER
, theOFFER
is removed from the state and the correspondingMESSAGE
is added to the next payload and state for the given peer. - When a node receives a
MESSAGE
, theREQUEST
is removed from the state and anACK
is added to the next payload for the given peer. - When a node receives an
ACK
, theMESSAGE
is removed from the state for the given peer. - All records that require retransmission are added to the payload, given
Send Epoch
has been reached.
Figure 1: Delivery without retransmissions in interactive mode.
Batch Mode
- When a node sends a
MESSAGE
, it is added to the next payload and the state for the given peer. - When a node receives a
MESSAGE
, anACK
is added to the next payload for the corresponding peer. - When a node receives an
ACK
, theMESSAGE
is removed from the state for the given peer. - All records that require retransmission are added to the payload, given
Send Epoch
has been reached.
Figure 2: Delivery without retransmissions in batch mode.
Retransmission
The record of the type Type
SHOULD be retransmitted every time Send Epoch
is smaller than or equal to the current epoch.
Send Epoch
and Send Count
MUST be increased every time a record is retransmitted. Although no function is defined on how to increase Send Epoch
, it SHOULD be exponentially increased until reaching an upper bound where it then goes back to a lower epoch in order to prevent a record’s Send Epoch
’s from becoming too large.
NOTE: We do not retransmission
ACK
s as we do not know when they have arrived, therefore we simply resend them every time we receive aMESSAGE
.
Footnotes
- https://code.briarproject.org/briar/briar-spec/blob/master/protocols/BSP.md
- https://github.com/status-im/mvds
Acknowledgements
- Preston van Loon
- Greg Markou
- Rene Nayman
- Jacek Sieka