root / dotorg / trunk / html / beps / bep_0026.rst

BEP: 26
Title: Zeroconf Peer Advertising and Discovery
Version: $Revision$
Last-Modified: $Date$
Author:  Robin Perkins <robin DOT perkins AT internode DOT on DOT net>
Status:  Draft
Type:    Standards Track
Content-Type: text/x-rst
Created: 10-May-2008
Post-History: 


Abstract
========

`Zeroconf`_ is a collection of protocols including ipv4 link local
networking, `mDNS`_, and `DNS service-discovery`_. This document aims
to outline an extension for BitTorrent clients to allow them to find
peers on a local-link network using the zeroconf `DNS
service-discovery`_ system. It was written in the hope that clients
could standardise the way in which they found peers on the local-link
in order to maximize the functionality of the BitTorrent protocol.


Rationale
=========

Many networks today consist of computers that have a fast network
connection (tens or hundreds of megabits/s) to a local area network,
in addition to a relatively slower (hundreds of kilobits/s or a few
megabits/s) connection to the wider internet. Such networks exist in
places such as university colleges, defence barracks and community
wifi networks.  If two hosts on the same (fast) local-link network
wish to download the same torrent at the moment they only share
packets across their slow internet connection. The BitTorrent Zeroconf
Peer Advertising and Discovery Extension will allow automatic
discovery of these peers to each other so that packets can be quickly
transfered across the fast local network as opposed to across their
slow internet connections. Effectively the effort of downloading the
torrent can now be distributed between the hosts on a local-link
network.


Requirements
============

In order to facilitate the BitTorrent Zeroconf Peer Advertising and
Discovery Extension each host is going to be required to run a
zeroconf service discovery daemon. This is relatively trivial as there
are many available for free but two particularly good zeroconf
implementations are:

1. Apple's `Bonjour`_ for Mac OS X (included by default), Windows and POSIX systems

2. `Avahi`_ recommended for Linux and BSD clients and already available in many Linux and BSD distributions.

Note that you can only run one zeroconf instance per host due to it
binding to specific ports on your network interfaces, so it is **not**
recommended to build the whole zeroconf daemon/server into your
client. It is much better plug into a system wide service using the
API's: it cuts down your code and allows other services e.g. http, ftp
to advertise themselves using the same daemon.

Method
======

Each host will be required to publish (via zeroconf) the service type
_bittorrent._tcp. with the instance name as the torrent peer-id (in
hex).

``<peer-id>._bittorrent._tcp.``

Then clients need publish a subservice that is the torrent info hash (in hex). The result will be something in the form of:

``<peer-id>._<info-hash>._sub._bittorrent._tcp.``
e.g.
``4d336d342d312d2d343834616435313564343437._32f17bbf96bdc77de85bb91ff8d56f124e817c0a._sub._bittorrent._tcp.``

The above-mentioned zeroconf implementations provide good
documentation for developers on how to do this. If the client uses the
same peer-id for all torrents it has loaded, then for each additional
torrent file, only the subservice needs to be added. If the client
uses a different peer-id for each torrent then a
_bittorrent._tcp. service will have to be added for each torrent file
with the respective subservice. This is also true if each torrent uses
a different port.

In simple terms you can publish subtypes using the Apple Bonjour API
by passing them as a comma separated list after the service type (you
don't need to pass in the "_sub" label, since mDNSResponder will
automatically add it for you).

``"_bittorrent._tcp,_info-hash1,_info-hash2,_info-hash3"``

For the Avahi C API use the function
``avahi_entry_group_add_service()`` to establish the parent
_bittorrent._tcp service and
``avahi_entry_group_add_service_subtype()`` with
``_<info-hash>._sub._bittorrent._tcp.`` as the 'type' parameter to
establish the subservices. For both functions the <peer-id> should be
used for the 'name' parameter.

Clients will need to browse for _<info-hash>._sub._bittorrent._tcp in
order to discover peers participating in the same torrent. Once again
good documentation is provided on how to browse for zeroconf services
in the above implementations. The replies will be in the form of
<peer-id>._bittorrent._tcp. Note: Some Macintosh official bittorrent
clients have a zeroconf implementation built in that publishes its
services in the form of:

``_bittorrent-<info-hash>._tcp.`` 
i.e.
``_bittorrent-32f17bbf96bdc77de85bb91ff8d56f124e817c0a._tcp.``

However this does not comply with RFC 2782 as the service name needs
to be 14 characters or less in addition to the fact that it is not a
service type but in fact a service instance it is advertising. Clients
may choose to also browse for these services for backwards
compatibility purposes (minimal effect - only one client is known to
do this) however they should not publish in this format.


Considerations
==============

Clients should consider a couple of options when implementing the
BitTorrent Zeroconf Peer Advertising and Discovery Extension
specifically:

* an option to not advertise torrents via zeroconf

* an option not to upload limit local-link peers (or possibly have a separate rule).


Thoughts
========

* I suspect the published peer-id need not be the hexed string as I
  have it now. A simple unique string may be all that is required
  (i.e. a hostname or a human readable computer name) with any
  uniqueness conflicts handled by zeroconf automatically. We
  ultimately only need to know what is on offer (as denoted by the
  info-hash) and where to get it (the resolved IP address).

* The mainline client and others may like to examine
  `pybonjour`_. pybonjour provides a pure-Python interface to Apple
  `Bonjour`_ and compatible DNS-SD libraries (such as `Avahi`_).

* Newer zeroconf implementations such as Bonjour include support for
  wide area service discovery. (Avahi can browse but not publish these
  yet). This may be another consideration in support of this BEP.

* May make a nice companion to BEP 9.


References
==========

.. _`Zeroconf`: Zero Configuration Networking (Zeroconf)
   http://www.zeroconf.org

.. _`mDNS`: Multicast Domain Name System (mDNS)
   http://www.multicastdns.org

.. _`DNS service-discovery`: DNS service-discovery (DNS-SD)
   http://www.dns-sd.org

.. _`Avahi`: Avahi
   http://www.avahi.org

.. _`Bonjour`: Apple's Bonjour
   http://developer.apple.com/networking/bonjour/

.. _`pybonjour`: pybonjour
   http://o2s.csail.mit.edu/o2s-wiki/pybonjour


Copyright
=========

This document has been placed in the public domain.



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