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- .\" -*- mode: troff; coding: utf-8 -*-
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- .\"
- .IX Title "OSSL-GUIDE-QUIC-MULTI-STREAM 7ossl"
- .TH OSSL-GUIDE-QUIC-MULTI-STREAM 7ossl 2025-01-17 3.4.0 OpenSSL
- .\" For nroff, turn off justification. Always turn off hyphenation; it makes
- .\" way too many mistakes in technical documents.
- .if n .ad l
- .nh
- .SH NAME
- ossl\-guide\-quic\-multi\-stream
- \&\- OpenSSL Guide: Writing a simple multi\-stream QUIC client
- .SH INTRODUCTION
- .IX Header "INTRODUCTION"
- This page will introduce some important concepts required to write a simple
- QUIC multi-stream application. It assumes a basic understanding of QUIC and how
- it is used in OpenSSL. See \fBossl\-guide\-quic\-introduction\fR\|(7) and
- \&\fBossl\-guide\-quic\-client\-block\fR\|(7).
- .SH "QUIC STREAMS"
- .IX Header "QUIC STREAMS"
- In a QUIC multi-stream application we separate out the concepts of a QUIC
- "connection" and a QUIC "stream". A connection object represents the overarching
- details of the connection between a client and a server including all its
- negotiated and configured parameters. We use the \fBSSL\fR object for that in an
- OpenSSL application (known as the connection \fBSSL\fR object). It is created by an
- application calling \fBSSL_new\fR\|(3).
- .PP
- Separately a connection can have zero or more streams associated with it
- (although a connection with zero streams is probably not very useful, so
- normally you would have at least one). A stream is used to send and receive
- data between the two peers. Each stream is also represented by an \fBSSL\fR
- object. A stream is logically independent of all the other streams associated
- with the same connection. Data sent on a stream is guaranteed to be delivered
- in the order that it was sent within that stream. The same is not true across
- streams, e.g. if an application sends data on stream 1 first and then sends some
- more data on stream 2 second, then the remote peer may receive the data sent on
- stream 2 before it receives the data sent on stream 1.
- .PP
- Once the connection \fBSSL\fR object has completed its handshake (i.e.
- \&\fBSSL_connect\fR\|(3) has returned 1), stream \fBSSL\fR objects are created by the
- application calling \fBSSL_new_stream\fR\|(3) or \fBSSL_accept_stream\fR\|(3) (see
- "CREATING NEW STREAMS" below).
- .PP
- The same threading rules apply to \fBSSL\fR objects as for most OpenSSL objects
- (see \fBossl\-guide\-libraries\-introduction\fR\|(7)). In particular most OpenSSL
- functions are thread safe, but the \fBSSL\fR object is not. This means that you can
- use an \fBSSL\fR object representing one stream at the same time as another thread
- is using a different \fBSSL\fR object for a different stream on the same
- connection. But you cannot use the same \fBSSL\fR object on two different threads
- at the same time (without additional application level locking).
- .SH "THE DEFAULT STREAM"
- .IX Header "THE DEFAULT STREAM"
- A connection \fBSSL\fR object may also (optionally) be associated with a stream.
- This stream is known as the default stream. The default stream is automatically
- created and associated with the \fBSSL\fR object when the application calls
- \&\fBSSL_read_ex\fR\|(3), \fBSSL_read\fR\|(3), \fBSSL_write_ex\fR\|(3) or \fBSSL_write\fR\|(3) and
- passes the connection \fBSSL\fR object as a parameter.
- .PP
- If a client application calls \fBSSL_write_ex\fR\|(3) or \fBSSL_write\fR\|(3) first then
- (by default) the default stream will be a client-initiated bi-directional
- stream. If a client application calls \fBSSL_read_ex\fR\|(3) or \fBSSL_read\fR\|(3)
- first then the first stream initiated by the server will be used as the default
- stream (whether it is bi-directional or uni-directional).
- .PP
- This behaviour can be controlled via the default stream mode. See
- \&\fBSSL_set_default_stream_mode\fR\|(3) for further details.
- .PP
- It is recommended that new multi-stream applications should not use a default
- stream at all and instead should use a separate stream \fBSSL\fR object for each
- stream that is used. This requires calling \fBSSL_set_default_stream_mode\fR\|(3)
- and setting the mode to \fBSSL_DEFAULT_STREAM_MODE_NONE\fR.
- .SH "CREATING NEW STREAMS"
- .IX Header "CREATING NEW STREAMS"
- An endpoint can create a new stream by calling \fBSSL_new_stream\fR\|(3). This
- creates a locally initiated stream. In order to do so you must pass the QUIC
- connection \fBSSL\fR object as a parameter. You can also specify whether you want a
- bi-directional or a uni-directional stream.
- .PP
- The function returns a new QUIC stream \fBSSL\fR object for sending and receiving
- data on that stream.
- .PP
- The peer may also initiate streams. An application can use the function
- \&\fBSSL_get_accept_stream_queue_len\fR\|(3) to determine the number of streams that
- the peer has initiated that are waiting for the application to handle. An
- application can call \fBSSL_accept_stream\fR\|(3) to create a new \fBSSL\fR object for
- a remotely initiated stream. If the peer has not initiated any then this call
- will block until one is available if the connection object is in blocking mode
- (see \fBSSL_set_blocking_mode\fR\|(3)).
- .PP
- When using a default stream OpenSSL will prevent new streams from being
- accepted. To override this behaviour you must call
- \&\fBSSL_set_incoming_stream_policy\fR\|(3) to set the policy to
- \&\fBSSL_INCOMING_STREAM_POLICY_ACCEPT\fR. See the man page for further details. This
- is not relevant if the default stream has been disabled as described in
- "THE DEFAULT STREAM" above.
- .PP
- Any stream may be bi-directional or uni-directional. If it is uni-directional
- then the initiator can write to it but not read from it, and vice-versa for the
- peer. You can determine what type of stream an \fBSSL\fR object represents by
- calling \fBSSL_get_stream_type\fR\|(3). See the man page for further details.
- .SH "USING A STREAM TO SEND AND RECEIVE DATA"
- .IX Header "USING A STREAM TO SEND AND RECEIVE DATA"
- Once you have a stream \fBSSL\fR object (which includes the connection \fBSSL\fR
- object if a default stream is in use) then you can send and receive data over it
- using the \fBSSL_write_ex\fR\|(3), \fBSSL_write\fR\|(3), \fBSSL_read_ex\fR\|(3) or
- \&\fBSSL_read\fR\|(3) functions. See the man pages for further details.
- .PP
- In the event of one of these functions not returning a success code then
- you should call \fBSSL_get_error\fR\|(3) to find out further details about the error.
- In blocking mode this will either be a fatal error (e.g. \fBSSL_ERROR_SYSCALL\fR
- or \fBSSL_ERROR_SSL\fR), or it will be \fBSSL_ERROR_ZERO_RETURN\fR which can occur
- when attempting to read data from a stream and the peer has indicated that the
- stream is concluded (i.e. "FIN" has been signalled on the stream). This means
- that the peer will send no more data on that stream. Note that the
- interpretation of \fBSSL_ERROR_ZERO_RETURN\fR is slightly different for a QUIC
- application compared to a TLS application. In TLS it occurs when the connection
- has been shutdown by the peer. In QUIC this only tells you that the current
- stream has been concluded by the peer. It tells you nothing about the underlying
- connection. If the peer has concluded the stream then no more data will be
- received on it, however an application can still send data to the peer until
- the send side of the stream has also been concluded. This can happen by the
- application calling \fBSSL_stream_conclude\fR\|(3). It is an error to attempt to
- send more data on a stream after \fBSSL_stream_conclude\fR\|(3) has been called.
- .PP
- It is also possible to abandon a stream abnormally by calling
- \&\fBSSL_stream_reset\fR\|(3).
- .PP
- Once a stream object is no longer needed it should be freed via a call to
- \&\fBSSL_free\fR\|(3). An application should not call \fBSSL_shutdown\fR\|(3) on it since
- this is only meaningful for connection level \fBSSL\fR objects. Freeing the stream
- will automatically signal STOP_SENDING to the peer.
- .SH "STREAMS AND CONNECTIONS"
- .IX Header "STREAMS AND CONNECTIONS"
- Given a stream object it is possible to get the \fBSSL\fR object corresponding to
- the connection via a call to \fBSSL_get0_connection\fR\|(3). Multi-threaded
- restrictions apply so care should be taken when using the returned connection
- object. Specifically, if you are handling each of your stream objects in a
- different thread and call \fBSSL_get0_connection\fR\|(3) from within that thread then
- you must be careful to not to call any function that uses the connection object
- at the same time as one of the other threads is also using that connection
- object (with the exception of \fBSSL_accept_stream\fR\|(3) and
- \&\fBSSL_get_accept_stream_queue_len\fR\|(3) which are thread-safe).
- .PP
- A stream object does not inherit all its settings and values from its parent
- \&\fBSSL\fR connection object. Therefore certain function calls that are relevant to
- the connection as a whole will not work on a stream. For example the function
- \&\fBSSL_get_certificate\fR\|(3) can be used to obtain a handle on the peer certificate
- when called with a connection \fBSSL\fR object. When called with a stream \fBSSL\fR
- object it will return NULL.
- .SH "SIMPLE MULTI-STREAM QUIC CLIENT EXAMPLE"
- .IX Header "SIMPLE MULTI-STREAM QUIC CLIENT EXAMPLE"
- This section will present various source code samples demonstrating how to write
- a simple multi-stream QUIC client application which connects to a server, send
- some HTTP/1.0 requests to it, and read back the responses. Note that HTTP/1.0
- over QUIC is non-standard and will not be supported by real world servers. This
- is for demonstration purposes only.
- .PP
- We will build on the example code for the simple blocking QUIC client that is
- covered on the \fBossl\-guide\-quic\-client\-block\fR\|(7) page and we assume that you
- are familiar with it. We will only describe the differences between the simple
- blocking QUIC client and the multi-stream QUIC client. Although the example code
- uses blocking \fBSSL\fR objects, you can equally use nonblocking \fBSSL\fR objects.
- See \fBossl\-guide\-quic\-client\-non\-block\fR\|(7) for more information about writing a
- nonblocking QUIC client.
- .PP
- The complete source code for this example multi-stream QUIC client is available
- in the \f(CW\*(C`demos/guide\*(C'\fR directory of the OpenSSL source distribution in the file
- \&\f(CW\*(C`quic\-multi\-stream.c\*(C'\fR. It is also available online at
- <https://github.com/openssl/openssl/blob/master/demos/guide/quic\-multi\-stream.c>.
- .SS "Disabling the default stream"
- .IX Subsection "Disabling the default stream"
- As discussed above in "THE DEFAULT STREAM" we will follow the recommendation
- to disable the default stream for our multi-stream client. To do this we call
- the \fBSSL_set_default_stream_mode\fR\|(3) function and pass in our connection \fBSSL\fR
- object and the value \fBSSL_DEFAULT_STREAM_MODE_NONE\fR.
- .PP
- .Vb 8
- \& /*
- \& * We will use multiple streams so we will disable the default stream mode.
- \& * This is not a requirement for using multiple streams but is recommended.
- \& */
- \& if (!SSL_set_default_stream_mode(ssl, SSL_DEFAULT_STREAM_MODE_NONE)) {
- \& printf("Failed to disable the default stream mode\en");
- \& goto end;
- \& }
- .Ve
- .SS "Creating the request streams"
- .IX Subsection "Creating the request streams"
- For the purposes of this example we will create two different streams to send
- two different HTTP requests to the server. For the purposes of demonstration the
- first of these will be a bi-directional stream and the second one will be a
- uni-directional one:
- .PP
- .Vb 10
- \& /*
- \& * We create two new client initiated streams. The first will be
- \& * bi\-directional, and the second will be uni\-directional.
- \& */
- \& stream1 = SSL_new_stream(ssl, 0);
- \& stream2 = SSL_new_stream(ssl, SSL_STREAM_FLAG_UNI);
- \& if (stream1 == NULL || stream2 == NULL) {
- \& printf("Failed to create streams\en");
- \& goto end;
- \& }
- .Ve
- .SS "Writing data to the streams"
- .IX Subsection "Writing data to the streams"
- Once the streams are successfully created we can start writing data to them. In
- this example we will be sending a different HTTP request on each stream. To
- avoid repeating too much code we write a simple helper function to send an HTTP
- request to a stream:
- .PP
- .Vb 5
- \& int write_a_request(SSL *stream, const char *request_start,
- \& const char *hostname)
- \& {
- \& const char *request_end = "\er\en\er\en";
- \& size_t written;
- \&
- \& if (!SSL_write_ex(stream, request_start, strlen(request_start), &written))
- \& return 0;
- \& if (!SSL_write_ex(stream, hostname, strlen(hostname), &written))
- \& return 0;
- \& if (!SSL_write_ex(stream, request_end, strlen(request_end), &written))
- \& return 0;
- \&
- \& return 1;
- \& }
- .Ve
- .PP
- We assume the strings \fBrequest1_start\fR and \fBrequest2_start\fR hold the
- appropriate HTTP requests. We can then call our helper function above to send
- the requests on the two streams. For the sake of simplicity this example does
- this sequentially, writing to \fBstream1\fR first and, when this is successful,
- writing to \fBstream2\fR second. Remember that our client is blocking so these
- calls will only return once they have been successfully completed. A real
- application would not need to do these writes sequentially or in any particular
- order. For example we could start two threads (one for each stream) and write
- the requests to each stream simultaneously.
- .PP
- .Vb 5
- \& /* Write an HTTP GET request on each of our streams to the peer */
- \& if (!write_a_request(stream1, request1_start, hostname)) {
- \& printf("Failed to write HTTP request on stream 1\en");
- \& goto end;
- \& }
- \&
- \& if (!write_a_request(stream2, request2_start, hostname)) {
- \& printf("Failed to write HTTP request on stream 2\en");
- \& goto end;
- \& }
- .Ve
- .SS "Reading data from a stream"
- .IX Subsection "Reading data from a stream"
- In this example \fBstream1\fR is a bi-directional stream so, once we have sent the
- request on it, we can attempt to read the response from the server back. Here
- we just repeatedly call \fBSSL_read_ex\fR\|(3) until that function fails (indicating
- either that there has been a problem, or that the peer has signalled the stream
- as concluded).
- .PP
- .Vb 10
- \& printf("Stream 1 data:\en");
- \& /*
- \& * Get up to sizeof(buf) bytes of the response from stream 1 (which is a
- \& * bidirectional stream). We keep reading until the server closes the
- \& * connection.
- \& */
- \& while (SSL_read_ex(stream1, buf, sizeof(buf), &readbytes)) {
- \& /*
- \& * OpenSSL does not guarantee that the returned data is a string or
- \& * that it is NUL terminated so we use fwrite() to write the exact
- \& * number of bytes that we read. The data could be non\-printable or
- \& * have NUL characters in the middle of it. For this simple example
- \& * we\*(Aqre going to print it to stdout anyway.
- \& */
- \& fwrite(buf, 1, readbytes, stdout);
- \& }
- \& /* In case the response didn\*(Aqt finish with a newline we add one now */
- \& printf("\en");
- .Ve
- .PP
- In a blocking application like this one calls to \fBSSL_read_ex\fR\|(3) will either
- succeed immediately returning data that is already available, or they will block
- waiting for more data to become available and return it when it is, or they will
- fail with a 0 response code.
- .PP
- Once we exit the while loop above we know that the last call to
- \&\fBSSL_read_ex\fR\|(3) gave a 0 response code so we call the \fBSSL_get_error\fR\|(3)
- function to find out more details. Since this is a blocking application this
- will either return \fBSSL_ERROR_SYSCALL\fR or \fBSSL_ERROR_SSL\fR indicating a
- fundamental problem, or it will return \fBSSL_ERROR_ZERO_RETURN\fR indicating that
- the stream is concluded and there will be no more data available to read from
- it. Care must be taken to distinguish between an error at the stream level (i.e.
- a stream reset) and an error at the connection level (i.e. a connection closed).
- The \fBSSL_get_stream_read_state\fR\|(3) function can be used to distinguish between
- these different cases.
- .PP
- .Vb 12
- \& /*
- \& * Check whether we finished the while loop above normally or as the
- \& * result of an error. The 0 argument to SSL_get_error() is the return
- \& * code we received from the SSL_read_ex() call. It must be 0 in order
- \& * to get here. Normal completion is indicated by SSL_ERROR_ZERO_RETURN. In
- \& * QUIC terms this means that the peer has sent FIN on the stream to
- \& * indicate that no further data will be sent.
- \& */
- \& switch (SSL_get_error(stream1, 0)) {
- \& case SSL_ERROR_ZERO_RETURN:
- \& /* Normal completion of the stream */
- \& break;
- \&
- \& case SSL_ERROR_SSL:
- \& /*
- \& * Some stream fatal error occurred. This could be because of a stream
- \& * reset \- or some failure occurred on the underlying connection.
- \& */
- \& switch (SSL_get_stream_read_state(stream1)) {
- \& case SSL_STREAM_STATE_RESET_REMOTE:
- \& printf("Stream reset occurred\en");
- \& /* The stream has been reset but the connection is still healthy. */
- \& break;
- \&
- \& case SSL_STREAM_STATE_CONN_CLOSED:
- \& printf("Connection closed\en");
- \& /* Connection is already closed. Skip SSL_shutdown() */
- \& goto end;
- \&
- \& default:
- \& printf("Unknown stream failure\en");
- \& break;
- \& }
- \& break;
- \&
- \& default:
- \& /* Some other unexpected error occurred */
- \& printf ("Failed reading remaining data\en");
- \& break;
- \& }
- .Ve
- .SS "Accepting an incoming stream"
- .IX Subsection "Accepting an incoming stream"
- Our \fBstream2\fR object that we created above was a uni-directional stream so it
- cannot be used to receive data from the server. In this hypothetical example
- we assume that the server initiates a new stream to send us back the data that
- we requested. To do that we call \fBSSL_accept_stream\fR\|(3). Since this is a
- blocking application this will wait indefinitely until the new stream has
- arrived and is available for us to accept. In the event of an error it will
- return \fBNULL\fR.
- .PP
- .Vb 10
- \& /*
- \& * In our hypothetical HTTP/1.0 over QUIC protocol that we are using we
- \& * assume that the server will respond with a server initiated stream
- \& * containing the data requested in our uni\-directional stream. This doesn\*(Aqt
- \& * really make sense to do in a real protocol, but its just for
- \& * demonstration purposes.
- \& *
- \& * We\*(Aqre using blocking mode so this will block until a stream becomes
- \& * available. We could override this behaviour if we wanted to by setting
- \& * the SSL_ACCEPT_STREAM_NO_BLOCK flag in the second argument below.
- \& */
- \& stream3 = SSL_accept_stream(ssl, 0);
- \& if (stream3 == NULL) {
- \& printf("Failed to accept a new stream\en");
- \& goto end;
- \& }
- .Ve
- .PP
- We can now read data from the stream in the same way that we did for \fBstream1\fR
- above. We won't repeat that here.
- .SS "Cleaning up the streams"
- .IX Subsection "Cleaning up the streams"
- Once we have finished using our streams we can simply free them by calling
- \&\fBSSL_free\fR\|(3). Optionally we could call \fBSSL_stream_conclude\fR\|(3) on them if
- we want to indicate to the peer that we won't be sending them any more data, but
- we don't do that in this example because we assume that the HTTP application
- protocol supplies sufficient information for the peer to know when we have
- finished sending request data.
- .PP
- We should not call \fBSSL_shutdown\fR\|(3) or \fBSSL_shutdown_ex\fR\|(3) on the stream
- objects since those calls should not be used for streams.
- .PP
- .Vb 3
- \& SSL_free(stream1);
- \& SSL_free(stream2);
- \& SSL_free(stream3);
- .Ve
- .SH "SEE ALSO"
- .IX Header "SEE ALSO"
- \&\fBossl\-guide\-introduction\fR\|(7), \fBossl\-guide\-libraries\-introduction\fR\|(7),
- \&\fBossl\-guide\-libssl\-introduction\fR\|(7) \fBossl\-guide\-quic\-introduction\fR\|(7),
- \&\fBossl\-guide\-quic\-client\-block\fR\|(7)
- .SH COPYRIGHT
- .IX Header "COPYRIGHT"
- Copyright 2023 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.
- .PP
- Licensed under the Apache License 2.0 (the "License"). You may not use
- this file except in compliance with the License. You can obtain a copy
- in the file LICENSE in the source distribution or at
- <https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.
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