Re: picotcp tftp support [was Adding IPv4 multicast support]

[Antony Pavlov <antonynpavlov@gmail.com>]

On Tue, 15 Jul 2014 17:55:21 +0200
Daniele Lacamera <daniele.lacamera@tass.be> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 2:57 PM, Antony Pavlov <antonynpavlov@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, 15 Jul 2014 12:57:21 +0200
> > Daniele Lacamera <daniele.lacamera@tass.be> wrote:
> >
> >> On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 12:27 PM, Antony Pavlov <antonynpavlov@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >> I will be able to provide such an interface by using a similar
> >> >> approach to what you used for ping (so via net_poll() routine called
> >> >> in a loop), assuming that your posix-like interface expects blocking
> >> >> calls for read/write operations.
> >> >
> >> > Alas! We can't use this approach for tftp because tftp is a FILESYSTEM in barebox.
> >>
> >> Then again, I'd like to know if your FS implementation actually needs
> >> blocking call, and in case, where is the code supposed to block. Does
> >> barebox have some kind of support for multiple threads, or a default
> >> event loop where background operations can be added? Or are the FS
> >> calls non blocking?
> >
> > AFAIK barebox does not support threads.
> > Also all filesystem calls are blocking.
> >
> 
> Then for me it is still not clear *where* a filesystem call is
> blocking. On a multi-threaded system, the calls is supposed to block
> somewhere in thread_sleep() functions. On a single thread execution
> model, we will need to tick the TCP/IP stack in the background while
> the call is "busy". Suppose that you issue a read call to any network
> filesystem (in this case TFTP issuing a get command). The file needs
> to be retreived by the TCP/IP stack, so I guess that the only
> implementation that makes sense would be something like:
> 
> while (callback_has_not_been_called) {
>    if(ctrlc())
>      break;
>    pico_stack_tick();
>    // maybe sleep here
> }
> 
> What you stated earlier, i.e.
> > Tftp user code know nothing about network stuff. User code just use read and write
> > for acessing file data, no matter which driver (ramdisk, SATA, MTD, I2C or network)
> > is used for actual data transfer.
> 
> does not make much sense to me, as the network is required to access
> remote files, so the stack needs to tick constantly under the hood if
> you want to receive packets while your read call is blocked waiting
> for data.
> 
> User does not need to know that her read call is going through the
> network, but the TFTP fs module (or another underlying "driver") is
> supposed to access the picotcp API properly to retrieve the data
> needed when I/O operations are running. The intermediate layer (the
> new fs/tftp.c) is supposed to issue a stack tick whenever it is
> suspended waiting for network events.
> 
> Finally, I will assume that the use case needed is TFTP working in
> client mode, issuing GET/PUT commands upon open posix calls.
> 
> I can provide to you (and the list) an example implementation, which I
> will develop on top of your latest picotcp branch and test via
> sandbox/tuntap. In the meanwhile, any comment on the topic by barebox
> developers are more than welcome.

First of all please make it possible to use several tftp clients simultaneously
(current picotcp tftp API has no "tftp session descriptor").

Here is a simple tftp barebox usecase (I have just checked it):

barebox:/ mkdir /mnt
barebox:/ dhcp # get  $eth0.serverip from dhcp
barebox:/ mount -t tftp $eth0.serverip  /mnt
barebox:/ cp /mnt/file1 /mnt/file2

In this sample we have two tftp clients working simultaneously,
One can easely construct more complex usecase, e.g. two tftp servers,
one is mounted to /mnt1 and another is mounted to /mnt2.
 
-- 
Best regards,
  Antony Pavlov

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