Network API overview - ClanLib Game SDK

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## Network API overview

This document explains how to write network games with ClanLib's network model:

- Sockets, low-level sockets wrapped into nice c++ classes.
- NetSession, a networking engine.
- NetObjects, dynamic object replication for the networking engine.
- NetVariables, a object variables serialization system.
- Browse, system that allows games to register themselves to a browse master.

### ClanLib Sockets, low-level sockets

The lowest level is CL_Socket. This is platform independent version of the system level socket functions, encapsulated in a class for your convience. A simple example:

    /* Gets clanlib.org's index.html page: */
    try
    {
      std::string request_msg = "GET index.html HTTP/1.0\n\n";
      CL_Socket sock(CL_Socket::tcp);
      sock.connect(CL_IPAddress("clanlib.org", "80"));
      sock.send(request_msg);
      while (true)
      {
        char buffer[16*1024+1];
        int received = sock.recv(buffer, 16*1024);
        if (received == 0) break; // end of stream. server closed connection.
        buffer[received] = 0;
        std::cout << buffer;
      }
      std::cout << std::endl;
    }
    catch (CL_Error err)
    {
      std::cout << "Why wont things never work as planned? " << err.message.c_str() << std::endl;
    }

The CL_BufferedSocket class is not completely implemented and should not be used. I'm not even anymore sure it was a good idea and it might be pending for removal.

#### EventTriggers:

Additionally to this, CL_Socket can use the CL_EventTrigger and CL_EventListener to wait for socket data. A small example:

    void wait_for_socket_data(CL_Socket &sock, int timeout)
    {
      CL_EventTrigger *read_trigger = sock.get_read_trigger();
      read_trigger->wait(timeout);
    }

    void wait_for_sockets(std::list<CL_Socket> &sockets, int timeout)
    {
      CL_EventListener listener;
      std::list<CL_Socket>::iterator it;
      for (it = sockets.begin(); it != sockets.end(); it++)
      {
        CL_Socket &sock = *it;
        listener.add_trigger(sock.get_read_trigger();
      }
      listener.wait(timeout);
    }

#### OutputSources:

CL_OutputSource_Socket is a CL_OutputSource compatible wrapper for CL_Socket. It can be mixed with CL_Socket since the CL_Socket class reference counts the handle to the system level socket. A small example of its usage:

    void send_init_handshake(CL_Socket &sock)
    {
      CL_OutputSource_Socket output(sock);

      // output.set_big_endian_mode(); // ha! as if that actually worked...
      output.write_string("Yo dude! You've entered the 1337 socket owned by Cl4nL1b");

      output.write_int(42);
    }

You will find a similar CL_InputSource_Socket for reading from sockets.

That was the lowest level socket support. It doesnt do much except save you from the trouble of setting up some annoying C structs and filling them with data.

### The ClanLib networking engine

ClanLib features a networking engine called NetSession. It is built on top of the lower level socket interface in ClanLib, so its all up to the game developer which level API is prefered. The NetSession engine provides the following core features:

- Single socket firewall & NAT friendly channeling system. It will not use a dozen of ports, forcing firewall admins to open a wide range of ports, and it should work flawlessly through NAT internet connected systems.
- Simple but powerful channel system to seperate different types of network communication in the game.
- Connection oriented stream communication support (like TCP sockets), and connectionless communication (like UDP sockets) support.
- Recognition of players that have left the server and now rejoining it - allowing a game to restore scores for people lagging out of server or for other reason left the server to return again.
- Flexible server/client relationship in a netsession, allowing a game to easilly implement server travelling (often used by mass-multiplayer online game servers). Server travelling means to have a client seamlessly connect to a new server as it reaches the border boundary of the map that a game server controls.
- Threadding model that both give you the option to run everything in one single thread, or to spread things over multiple worker threads. TODO: Explain more whats threaded in clanNetwork
- And most important of all, its simple and easy to understand. Most stuff is done completely automatically. :)

#### CL_NetSession:

So what is a CL_NetSession exactly?

1. Its a container for computers connected to or from the computer.
2. A set of signals being invoked when accepting new computers into the system, leaving the system, and rejoining the system.
3. Signals that are being invoked when a new stream connection is made, or a netpacket is received.

When a netsession is initially constructed, it will not listen for incoming computers on any ports, nor will it connect to any remote system. It can become a server, a client or any kind of combination you prefer.

There are two ways a new computer can enter a netsession. Either CL_NetSession::start_listen() is called, making it accept connecting computers on the specified port, or CL_NetSession::connect() is called, making the netsession connect to an other computer.

There is nothing that prevents you from mixing those two calls. Eg. to have a Peer To Peer network model, or to make servers connect to other servers. Its also no problem to make a client connect to two different servers at the same time, or to disconnect from them again.

      // Connect to a server
      CL_NetSession netsession("MyGame");
      CL_NetComputer server = netsession.connect(CL_IPAddress("myserver.coolgames.com", "4322"));

      ...

      // Start a server which listens to incoming connections:
      CL_NetSession netsession("MyGame");
      slots.connect(netsession.sig_computer_connected(), this, &Server::on_connect);
      slots.connect(netsession.sig_computer_disconnected(), this, &Server::on_disconnect);
      netsession.start_listen("4322");

      ...

      void Server::on_connect(CL_NetComputer &computer)
      {
        std::cout << "A computer connected from " << computer.get_address().get_address() << std::endl;;
      }

      void Server::on_disconnect(CL_NetComputer &computer)
      {
        std::cout << "Computer " << computer.get_address().get_address() << "disconnected" << std::endl;
      }

#### CL_NetComputer:

When a computer enters the system, it is represented by a CL_NetComputer handle. The signal CL_NetSession::sig_computer_connected() is emitted when a new computer enters the system.

If the incoming computer is already known to the system, CL_NetSession::sig_computer_reconnected() is emitted instead. A reconnecting computer can only be recognized if not all original CL_NetComputer handles to it has been destroyed. This allows the application to control for how long time an earlier computer can be recognized by the system. For instance, if a game wants to remember old computers for ten minutes, it could store the CL_NetComputer handle when being emitted by CL_NetSession::sig_computer_disconnected(). After the 10 minutes timeout, it just need to destroy the instance it kept, and the netsession will forget about the previous connected computer.

#### CL_NetPacket:

To send a message to an other computer, the most simple approach is to construct a netpacket, fill it with data, and send it to one or more computers (via CL_NetComputer::send() or CL_NetGroup::send()).

      CL_NetPacket msg;
      msg.output.write_string(player->name);
      msg.output.write_int32(player->x);
      msg.output.write_int32(player->y);
      msg.output.write_bool8(player->running);
      destination_computer.send("Players", msg);

This is the connectionless sending approach. The message can be sent reliably (via TCP) or unreliable (via UDP). Netpackets are perfect for short messages where the latency (ping) should be kept at a minimum.

When sending a netpacket, you have to point out what channel you want to send it to. This allows you to seperate the different types of communication in your application. If a game features a lobby, the messages sent between players in the lobby could use a channel name of "lobby". Player name stuff might be sent to "playerinfo" and so forth.

The netpacket channel is used when a netpacket is received. For each channel in the application, there exist a signal in CL_NetSession that gets emitted. To hook up a receive function to the eg. the "lobby" channel, use CL_NetSession::sig_netpacket_receive() with "lobby" as the parameter. That will return the signal for that channel.

      slot = netsession.sig_netpacket_receive("Login").connect(this, &Login::on_netpacket));

      ...

      void Login::on_netpacket(CL_NetPacket &packet, CL_NetComputer &computer)
      {
        std::string user = packet.input.read_string();
        std::string password = packet.input.read_string();
        ...

#### CL_NetStream:

It is also possible to make connection oriented connections to a computer. This is often practical if there needs to a higher level of communication between the two computers.

Imagine a game server that just did a map switch. The game supports automatic downloads of map files that are not available on the client. This is easiest implemented with a netstream. The server first has to tell the client about a file, then the client has to check if the file already exist locally, if not, it should report back and ask for the download. Then the server has to start sending the entire file, which may be several megs in size.

There's a lot of 'ping-pong' communication here, where each end need to know what they talked about earlier. Connectionless communication (netpackets) become very unpleasant and annoying to use in this kind of communication, but with streams its very simple:

    	// Client version:
    	CL_NetStream stream("download channel", server_netcomputer);
    	int num_files = stream.input.read_int32();
    	for (int i=0; i<num_files; i++)
    	{
    		std::string filename = stream.input.read_string();
    		if (file_exist(filename))
    		{
    			stream.output.write_bool8(false); // dont send file.
    		}
    		else
    		{
    			stream.output.write_bool8(true); // send file.
    			download_and_store_file(stream);
    		}
    	}

Simple, eh? What's the catch? The catch is that those calls are blocking. The code will stop up and wait for the server to answer, and if the connection is slow, we have to wait for the sends to complete as well.

The solution to that problem is threadding. Construct a worker thread to do the communcation, and let the main game thread continue its run. Of course this means you'll have to do threadsafe code, but trust me, in most cases its far easier and nice than to start trying to store states between received netpackets.

When a stream connection is made, CL_NetSession::sig_netstream_connect() is emitted on the receiving computer. ClanNetwork will not create a new thread for you when emitting this function, so if you want to thread your stream communcation, you'll have to create a thread in your slot function yourself.

### NetObjects

On top of the netsession network engine, ClanLib provides a system to replicate objects to client machines. This system is called netobjects, and consist of three classes: CL_NetObject_Controller, CL_NetObject_Server and CL_NetObject_Client.

The idea of the netobjects is that a CL_NetObject_Server object can send messages to a CL_NetObject_Client object, which is present on one or more client machines. These client objects can also send messages back to the server object.

Netobjects operate over a netsession netpacket channel, which means that both the server and clients need to instantiate a CL_NetObject_Controller object. This object is responsible for receiving messages and dispatch them to the proper netobjects.

In order to construct a server side netobject, simply construct an instance of CL_NetObject_Server. Notice that the object will NOT immidiately be replicated to clients. This will first happen when you send a message to the clients.

When a server object sends a message, the receiving client machine's controller will look to see if there exist any CL_NetObject_Client for the object. If there do not, the controller will create a new CL_NetObject_Client object and signal CL_NetController:sig_create_object().

The application is supposed to hook itself into this signal and read the message received. If the application keeps the CL_NetObject_Client handle around, future messages sent to this object will cause CL_NetObject_Client::sig_received_message() to be emitted. If the application do not keep the handle, or if it later on destroys it, any future messages sent to the object will cause sig_create_object() to be invoked again.

Let's look at this again. When a server sends an initial message to the client, the client get the opportunity to create a client version of the object. If the game is a 3D shooter, where objects are only replicated to the client when within visible range, it is possible for the client to destroy the object when not visible any more. Next time the object comes within visible range, sig_create_object will be invoked again, and client recreates the object.

Another example. Our netobject can have different kinds of messages. One of the messages is a "full update", including all information needed to construct the object. Then it has some "position update" messages that only include the new position of the object. Lets assume the first message, the full update, gets lost in package loss. Now the object sends a position update to the client. Since the client never got the original full update, sig_create_object is emitted, and the function do not have the information needed to create the object. The application can use the netobject handle in sig_create_object to send a message back to the server object, and in this message it asks for a full update. No object was created, so we do not keep the netobject handle. When the server receives the message, it sends back a full update, and sig_create_object is again invoked on the client. This time we do have the information needed to replicate, and we construct our object.

    class ServerObject
    {
    	int x, y, shield;
    	CL_NetObject_Server netobj;
    	CL_Slot slot;

    	ServerObject(CL_NetObject_Controller *controller)
    	: netobj(controller)
    	{
    		slot = netobj.sig_received_message(0).connect(
    			this, &ServerObject::on_received_pos_update);
    	}

    	void on_received_pos_update(
    		CL_NetComputer &computer, CL_NetPacket &packet)
    	{
    		x = packet.input.read_int32();
    		y = packet.input.read_int32();
    	}

    	void send_update(CL_NetComputer &comp)
    	{
    		CL_NetPacket packet;
    		packet.output.write_int32(x);
    		packet.output.write_int32(y);
    		packet.output.write_int32(shield);
    		netobj.send(comp, 0, packet);
    	}
    };

    class ClientObject
    {
    	int x, y;
    	CL_NetObject_Client netobj;
    	CL_Slot slot;

    	ClientObject(CL_NetObject_Client &netobj, CL_NetPacket &packet)
    	: netobj(netobj)
    	{
    		slot = netobj.sig_received_message(0).connect(
    			this, &ClientObject::on_received_update);

    		on_received_update(packet);
    	}

    	void on_received_update(CL_NetPacket &packet)
    	{
    		x = packet.input.read_int32();
    		y = packet.input.read_int32();
    		shield = packet.input.read_int32();
    	}

    	void send_pos_update()
    	{
    		CL_NetPacket packet;
    		packet.output.write_int32(x);
    		packet.output.write_int32(y);
    		netobj.send(0, packet);
    	}
    };

    class ClientWorld
    {
    public:
    	CL_NetObject_Controller controller;
    	CL_Slot slot;
    	std::list objects;

    	ClientWorld(CL_NetSession &netsession)
    	: controller("netobj_channel", netsession)
    	{
    		slot = controller.sig_create_object().connect(
    			this, &ClientWorld::on_create_object);
    	}

    	void on_create_object(
    		CL_NetObject_Client &netobj, int msgtype, CL_NetPacket &packet)
    	{
    		if (msgtype != 0)
    		{
    			// not a update message. we can only create object
    			// based on an update message.
    			return;
    		}

    		objects.push_back(new ClientObject(netobj, packet));
    	}
    };

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