English French
`0` : `0110000b`
`z` : `1111010b`
`@` : `1000000b`
`space` : `0100000b`
In addition, the :term:`ASCII` table also defines several non-printable or control characters. These characters were designed to allow an application to control a printer or a terminal. These control characters include `CR` and `LF`, that are used to terminate a line, and the `Bell` character which causes the terminal to emit a sound.
`carriage return` (`CR`) : `0001101b`
`line feed` (`LF`) : `0001010b`
`Bell`: `0000111b`
The :term:`ASCII` characters are encoded as a seven bits field, but transmitted as an eight-bits byte whose high order bit is usually set to `0`. Bytes are always transmitted starting from the high order or most significant bit.
Most applications exchange strings that are composed of fixed or variable numbers of characters. A common solution to define the character strings that are acceptable is to define them as a grammar using a Backus-Naur Form (:term:`BNF`) such as the Augmented BNF defined in :rfc:`5234`. A BNF is a set of production rules that generate all valid character strings. For example, consider a networked application that uses two commands, where the user can supply a username and a password. The BNF for this application could be defined as shown in the figure below.
A simple BNF specification
The example above defines several terminals and two commands : `usercommand` and `passwordcommand`. The `ALPHA` terminal contains all letters in upper and lower case. In the `ALPHA` rule, `%x41` corresponds to ASCII character code 41 in hexadecimal, i.e. capital `A`. The `CR` and `LF` terminals correspond to the carriage return and linefeed control characters. The `CRLF` rule concatenates these two terminals to match the standard end of line termination. The `DIGIT` terminal contains all digits. The `SP` terminal corresponds to the white space characters. The `usercommand` is composed of two strings separated by white space. In the ABNF rules that define the messages used by Internet applications, the commands are case-insensitive. The rule `"user"` corresponds to all possible cases of the letters that compose the word between brackets, e.g. `user`, `uSeR`, `USER`, `usER`, ... A `username` contains at least one letter and up to 8 letters. User names are case-sensitive as they are not defined as a string between brackets. The `password` rule indicates that a password starts with a letter and can contain any number of letters or digits. The white space and the control characters cannot appear in a `password` defined by the above rule.
Besides character strings, some applications also need to exchange 16 bits and 32 bits fields such as integers. A naive solution would have been to send the 16- or 32-bits field as it is encoded in the host's memory. Unfortunately, there are different methods to store 16- or 32-bits fields in memory. Some CPUs store the most significant byte of a 16-bits field in the first address of the field while others store the least significant byte at this location. When networked applications running on different CPUs exchange 16 bits fields, there are two possibilities to transfer them over the transport service : Outre les chaînes de caractères, certaines applications doivent également échanger des champs de 16 et 32 bits tels que des entiers. Une solution naïve aurait été d'envoyer le champ de 16 ou 32 bits tel qu'il est codé dans la mémoire de l'hôte. Malheureusement, il existe différentes méthodes pour stocker les champs de 16 ou 32 bits en mémoire. Certains processeurs stockent l'octet le plus significatif d'un champ de 16 bits dans la première adresse du champ, tandis que d'autres stockent l'octet le moins significatif à cet endroit. Lorsque des applications en réseau fonctionnant sur des unités centrales différentes échangent des champs de 16 bits, il existe deux possibilités pour les transférer via le service de transport :
send the most significant byte followed by the least significant byte envoyer l'octet le plus significatif suivi de l'octet le moins significatif
send the least significant byte followed by the most significant byte envoyer l'octet le moins significatif suivi de l'octet le plus significatif
The first possibility was named `big-endian` in a note written by Cohen [Cohen1980]_ while the second was named `little-endian`. Vendors of CPUs that used `big-endian` in memory insisted on using `big-endian` encoding in networked applications while vendors of CPUs that used `little-endian` recommended the opposite. Several studies were written on the relative merits of each type of encoding, but the discussion became almost a religious issue [Cohen1980]_. Eventually, the Internet chose the `big-endian` encoding, i.e. multi-byte fields are always transmitted by sending the most significant byte first, :rfc:`791` refers to this encoding as the :term:`network-byte order`. Most libraries [#fhtonl]_ used to write networked applications contain functions to convert multi-byte fields from memory to the network byte order and the reverse.
Besides 16 and 32 bit words, some applications need to exchange data structures containing bit fields of various lengths. For example, a message may be composed of a 16 bits field followed by eight, one bit flags, a 24 bits field and two 8 bits bytes. Internet protocol specifications will define such a message by using a representation such as the one below. In this representation, each line corresponds to 32 bits and the vertical lines are used to delineate fields. The numbers above the lines indicate the bit positions in the 32-bits word, with the high order bit at position `0`. Outre les mots de 16 et 32 bits, certaines applications doivent échanger des structures de données contenant des champs de bits de différentes longueurs. Par exemple, un message peut être composé d'un champ de 16 bits suivi de huit drapeaux d'un bit, d'un champ de 24 bits et de deux octets de 8 bits. Les spécifications du protocole Internet définiront un tel message en utilisant une représentation telle que celle qui suit. Dans cette représentation, chaque ligne correspond à 32 bits et les lignes verticales sont utilisées pour délimiter les champs. Les chiffres au-dessus des lignes indiquent la position des bits dans le mot de 32 bits, le bit de poids fort étant en position "0".
Message format Format du message
The message mentioned above will be transmitted starting from the upper 32-bits word in network byte order. The first field is encoded in 16 bits. It is followed by eight one bit flags (`A-H`), a 24 bits field whose high order byte is shown in the first line and the two low order bytes appear in the second line followed by two one byte fields. This ASCII representation is frequently used when defining binary protocols. We will use it for all the binary protocols that are discussed in this book. Le message mentionné ci-dessus sera transmis en commençant par le mot supérieur de 32 bits dans l'ordre des octets du réseau. Le premier champ est codé sur 16 bits. Il est suivi de huit drapeaux d'un bit (`A-H`), d'un champ de 24 bits dont l'octet de poids fort figure sur la première ligne et les deux octets de poids faible apparaissent sur la deuxième ligne, suivis de deux champs d'un octet. Cette représentation ASCII est fréquemment utilisée lors de la définition de protocoles binaires. Nous l'utiliserons pour tous les protocoles binaires abordés dans ce livre.
The peer-to-peer model emerged during the last ten years as another possible architecture for networked applications. In the traditional client-server model, hosts act either as servers or as clients and a server serves a large number of clients. In the peer-to-peer model, all hosts act as both servers and clients and they play both roles. The peer-to-peer model has been used to develop various networked applications, ranging from Internet telephony to file sharing or Internet-wide filesystems. A detailed description of peer-to-peer applications may be found in [BYL2008]_. Surveys of peer-to-peer protocols and applications may be found in [AS2004]_ and [LCP2005]_.