simple-ipc: design documentation for new IPC mechanism

Brief design documentation for new IPC mechanism allowing
foreground Git client to talk with an existing daemon process
at a known location using a named pipe or unix domain socket.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Jeff Hostetler <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <[email protected]>

Author: jeffhostetler

Documentation/technical/api-simple-ipc.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,105 @@
+Simple-IPC API
+==============
+
+The Simple-IPC API is a collection of `ipc_` prefixed library routines
+and a basic communication protocol that allow an IPC-client process to
+send an application-specific IPC-request message to an IPC-server
+process and receive an application-specific IPC-response message.
+
+Communication occurs over a named pipe on Windows and a Unix domain
+socket on other platforms.  IPC-clients and IPC-servers rendezvous at
+a previously agreed-to application-specific pathname (which is outside
+the scope of this design) that is local to the computer system.
+
+The IPC-server routines within the server application process create a
+thread pool to listen for connections and receive request messages
+from multiple concurrent IPC-clients.  When received, these messages
+are dispatched up to the server application callbacks for handling.
+IPC-server routines then incrementally relay responses back to the
+IPC-client.
+
+The IPC-client routines within a client application process connect
+to the IPC-server and send a request message and wait for a response.
+When received, the response is returned back the caller.
+
+For example, the `fsmonitor--daemon` feature will be built as a server
+application on top of the IPC-server library routines.  It will have
+threads watching for file system events and a thread pool waiting for
+client connections.  Clients, such as `git status` will request a list
+of file system events since a point in time and the server will
+respond with a list of changed files and directories.  The formats of
+the request and response are application-specific; the IPC-client and
+IPC-server routines treat them as opaque byte streams.
+
+
+Comparison with sub-process model
+---------------------------------
+
+The Simple-IPC mechanism differs from the existing `sub-process.c`
+model (Documentation/technical/long-running-process-protocol.txt) and
+used by applications like Git-LFS.  In the LFS-style sub-process model
+the helper is started by the foreground process, communication happens
+via a pair of file descriptors bound to the stdin/stdout of the
+sub-process, the sub-process only serves the current foreground
+process, and the sub-process exits when the foreground process
+terminates.
+
+In the Simple-IPC model the server is a very long-running service.  It
+can service many clients at the same time and has a private socket or
+named pipe connection to each active client.  It might be started
+(on-demand) by the current client process or it might have been
+started by a previous client or by the OS at boot time.  The server
+process is not associated with a terminal and it persists after
+clients terminate.  Clients do not have access to the stdin/stdout of
+the server process and therefore must communicate over sockets or
+named pipes.
+
+
+Server startup and shutdown
+---------------------------
+
+How an application server based upon IPC-server is started is also
+outside the scope of the Simple-IPC design and is a property of the
+application using it.  For example, the server might be started or
+restarted during routine maintenance operations, or it might be
+started as a system service during the system boot-up sequence, or it
+might be started on-demand by a foreground Git command when needed.
+
+Similarly, server shutdown is a property of the application using
+the simple-ipc routines.  For example, the server might decide to
+shutdown when idle or only upon explicit request.
+
+
+Simple-IPC protocol
+-------------------
+
+The Simple-IPC protocol consists of a single request message from the
+client and an optional response message from the server.  Both the
+client and server messages are unlimited in length and are terminated
+with a flush packet.
+
+The pkt-line routines (Documentation/technical/protocol-common.txt)
+are used to simplify buffer management during message generation,
+transmission, and reception.  A flush packet is used to mark the end
+of the message.  This allows the sender to incrementally generate and
+transmit the message.  It allows the receiver to incrementally receive
+the message in chunks and to know when they have received the entire
+message.
+
+The actual byte format of the client request and server response
+messages are application specific.  The IPC layer transmits and
+receives them as opaque byte buffers without any concern for the
+content within.  It is the job of the calling application layer to
+understand the contents of the request and response messages.
+
+
+Summary
+-------
+
+Conceptually, the Simple-IPC protocol is similar to an HTTP REST
+request.  Clients connect, make an application-specific and
+stateless request, receive an application-specific
+response, and disconnect.  It is a one round trip facility for
+querying the server.  The Simple-IPC routines hide the socket,
+named pipe, and thread pool details and allow the application
+layer to focus on the application at hand.