NAMECACHE

The NAMECACHE API consists of five simple functions. First, there is GNUNET_NAMECACHE_connect to connect to the NAMECACHE service. This returns the handle required for all other operations on the NAMECACHE. Using GNUNET_NAMECACHE_block_cache clients can insert a block into the cache. GNUNET_NAMECACHE_lookup_block can be used to lookup blocks that were stored in the NAMECACHE. Both operations can be canceled using GNUNET_NAMECACHE_cancel. Note that canceling a GNUNET_NAMECACHE_block_cache operation can result in the block being stored in the NAMECACHE — or not. Cancellation primarily ensures that the continuation function with the result of the operation will no longer be invoked. Finally, GNUNET_NAMECACHE_disconnect closes the connection to the NAMECACHE.

The maximum size of a block that can be stored in the NAMECACHE is GNUNET_NAMECACHE_MAX_VALUE_SIZE, which is defined to be 63 kB.

The NAMECACHE Client-Service Protocol

All messages in the NAMECACHE IPC protocol start with the struct GNUNET_NAMECACHE_Header which adds a request ID (32-bit integer) to the standard message header. The request ID is used to match requests with the respective responses from the NAMECACHE, as they are allowed to happen out-of-order.

Lookup

The struct LookupBlockMessage is used to lookup a block stored in the cache. It contains the query hash. The NAMECACHE always responds with a struct LookupBlockResponseMessage. If the NAMECACHE has no response, it sets the expiration time in the response to zero. Otherwise, the response is expected to contain the expiration time, the ECDSA signature, the derived key and the (variable-size) encrypted data of the block.

Store

The struct BlockCacheMessage is used to cache a block in the NAMECACHE. It has the same structure as the struct LookupBlockResponseMessage. The service responds with a struct BlockCacheResponseMessage which contains the result of the operation (success or failure). In the future, we might want to make it possible to provide an error message as well.

The NAMECACHE Plugin API

The NAMECACHE plugin API consists of two functions, cache_block to store a block in the database, and lookup_block to lookup a block in the database.

Lookup2

The lookup_block function is expected to return at most one block to the iterator, and return GNUNET_NO if there were no non-expired results. If there are multiple non-expired results in the cache, the lookup is supposed to return the result with the largest expiration time.

Store2

The cache_block function is expected to try to store the block in the database, and return GNUNET_SYSERR if this was not possible for any reason. Furthermore, cache_block is expected to implicitly perform cache maintenance and purge blocks from the cache that have expired. Note that cache_block might encounter the case where the database already has another block stored under the same key. In this case, the plugin must ensure that the block with the larger expiration time is preserved. Obviously, this can done either by simply adding new blocks and selecting for the most recent expiration time during lookup, or by checking which block is more recent during the store operation.