fips/docs/design/fips-transport-layer.md

FIPS Transport Layer

The transport layer is the bottom of the FIPS protocol stack. It delivers datagrams between transport-specific endpoints over arbitrary physical or logical media. Everything above — peer authentication, routing, encryption, session management — is built on the services the transport layer provides.

Role

A transport is a driver for a particular communication medium: a UDP socket, an Ethernet interface, a serial line, a Tor circuit, a radio modem. The transport layer's job is simple: accept a datagram and a transport address, deliver the datagram to that address, and push inbound datagrams up to the FIPS Mesh Protocol (FMP) above.

The transport layer deals exclusively in transport addresses — IP:port tuples, MAC addresses, .onion identifiers, radio device addresses. These are opaque to every layer above FMP. The mapping from transport address to FIPS identity happens at the link layer after the Noise IK link handshake completes. The word "peer" belongs to the link layer and above; the transport layer knows only about remote endpoints identified by transport addresses.

A single transport instance can serve multiple remote endpoints simultaneously — a UDP socket exchanges datagrams with many remote addresses, an Ethernet interface communicates with many MAC addresses on the same segment. Each endpoint may become a separate FMP link, but the transport layer itself maintains no per-endpoint state.

Services Provided to FMP

The transport layer provides four services to the FIPS Mesh Protocol above:

Datagram Delivery

Send and receive datagrams to/from transport addresses. The transport handles all medium-specific details: socket management, framing for stream transports, radio configuration. FMP sees only "send bytes to address" and "bytes arrived from address."

Inbound datagrams are pushed to FMP through a channel. The transport spawns a receive task that pushes arriving datagrams (along with the source transport address and transport identifier) onto a bounded channel. FMP reads from this channel and dispatches based on the source address and packet content.

MTU Reporting

Report the maximum datagram size for a given link. FMP needs this to determine how much payload can fit in a single packet after link-layer encryption overhead.

MTU is fundamentally a per-link property. A transport with a fixed MTU (Ethernet: 1500, UDP configured at 1472) returns the same value for every link — this is the degenerate case. Transports that negotiate MTU per-connection (e.g., BLE ATT_MTU) report the negotiated value for each link individually.

The transport trait exposes two MTU methods:

• fn mtu(&self) -> u16 — Transport-wide default MTU
• fn link_mtu(&self, addr: &TransportAddr) -> u16 — Per-link MTU for a specific remote address. The default implementation falls back to mtu(), so transports with uniform MTU (like UDP) need not override it.

FMP uses link_mtu() when computing path MTU for SessionDatagram forwarding and LookupResponse transit annotation.

Connection Lifecycle

For connection-oriented transports, manage the underlying connection: TCP handshake, Tor circuit establishment, Bluetooth pairing. FMP cannot begin the Noise IK link handshake until the transport-layer connection is established.

Connectionless transports (UDP, raw Ethernet) skip this — datagrams can flow immediately to any reachable address.

Discovery (Optional)

Notify FMP when FIPS-capable endpoints are discovered on the local medium. This is an optional capability — transports that don't support it simply don't provide discovery events.

See Discovery below for details.

Transport Properties

Transports vary widely in their characteristics. FIPS operates over all of them because the transport interface abstracts these differences behind a uniform datagram service.

Transport Categories

Overlay transports tunnel FIPS over an existing network layer, typically for internet connectivity:

Transport	Addressing	MTU	Reliability	Notes
UDP/IP	IP:port	1280–1472	Unreliable	Primary internet transport
TCP/IP	IP:port	Stream	Reliable	Requires length-prefix framing
WebSocket	URL	Stream	Reliable	Browser-compatible
Tor	.onion	Stream	Reliable	High latency, strong anonymity

Shared medium transports operate over broadcast- or multicast-capable media:

Transport	Addressing	MTU	Reliability	Notes
Ethernet	MAC	1500	Unreliable	Raw AF_PACKET frames
WiFi	MAC	1500	Unreliable	Infrastructure mode = Ethernet
Bluetooth	BD_ADDR	672–64K	Reliable	L2CAP
BLE	BD_ADDR	23–517	Reliable	Negotiated ATT_MTU
Radio	Device addr	51–222	Unreliable	Low bandwidth, long range

Point-to-point transports connect exactly two endpoints:

Transport	Addressing	MTU	Reliability	Notes
Serial	None (P2P)	256–1500	Reliable	SLIP/COBS framing
Dialup	None (P2P)	1500	Reliable	PPP framing

Properties That Matter to FMP

MTU: Determines how much data FMP can pack into a single datagram after accounting for link encryption overhead. Heterogeneous MTUs across the mesh are normal — the IPv6 minimum (1280 bytes) is the safe baseline for FIPS packet sizing.

Reliability: Whether the transport guarantees delivery. FIPS prefers unreliable transports because running TCP application traffic over a reliable transport creates TCP-over-TCP, where retransmission and congestion control at both layers interact adversely. FIPS tolerates packet loss, reordering, and duplication at the routing layer.

Connection model: Connectionless transports (UDP, raw Ethernet) allow immediate datagram exchange. Connection-oriented transports (TCP, Tor, BLE) require connection setup before FMP can begin the Noise IK link handshake, adding startup latency.

Stream vs. datagram: Datagram transports have natural packet boundaries. Stream transports (TCP, WebSocket, Tor) require framing to delineate FIPS packets within the byte stream. The FMP common prefix includes a payload length field that provides this framing directly, replacing the need for a separate length-prefix layer.

Addressing opacity: Transport addresses are opaque byte vectors. FMP doesn't interpret them — it just passes them back to the transport when sending. This means adding a new transport type with a novel address format requires no changes to FMP or FSP.

Connection Model

Connectionless Transports

Datagrams can be sent to any reachable address without prior setup. Links are lightweight — a transport address is sufficient to begin communication.

Transport	Notes
UDP/IP	Stateless datagrams; NAT state is implicit
Ethernet	Send to MAC address directly
Radio	Raw packets to device address

Connection-Oriented Transports

Explicit connection setup is required before FIPS traffic can flow. The link must complete transport-layer connection before FMP authentication can proceed.

Transport	Connection Setup
TCP/IP	TCP three-way handshake
WebSocket	HTTP upgrade + TCP
Tor	Circuit establishment (500ms–5s)
Bluetooth	L2CAP connection
BLE	L2CAP CoC or GATT connection
Serial	Physical connection (static)

Implications

Link lifecycle: Connectionless transports use a trivial link model. Connection-oriented transports need a real state machine: Connecting → Connected → Disconnected. Failure can occur during connection setup, adding error handling paths that connectionless transports don't have.

Startup latency: Connection-oriented transports add delay before a peer becomes usable. This ranges from milliseconds (TCP) to seconds (Tor circuit). Peer timeout configuration must account for transport-specific setup times.

Framing: Stream transports must delimit FIPS packets within the byte stream. The FMP common prefix includes a payload length field that provides integrated framing. Datagram transports preserve packet boundaries naturally.

UDP/IP: The Primary Internet Transport

For internet-connected nodes, UDP/IP is the recommended transport:

• No TCP-over-TCP: UDP's unreliable delivery avoids the adverse interaction between application-layer TCP retransmission and transport-layer TCP retransmission
• NAT traversal: UDP hole punching enables peer connections through NAT without relay infrastructure
• Low overhead: 8-byte UDP header, no connection state
• Matches FIPS model: FIPS is datagram-oriented; UDP preserves this naturally without framing

Raw IP with a custom protocol number would be simpler but is blocked by most NAT devices and firewalls, limiting deployment to networks without NAT.

Socket Buffer Sizing

The default Linux UDP receive buffer (net.core.rmem_default, typically 212 KB) is insufficient for high-throughput forwarding. At ~85 MB/s, a 212 KB buffer fills in ~2.5 ms; any stall in the async receive loop (decryption, routing, forwarding overhead) causes the kernel to silently drop incoming datagrams.

FIPS uses the socket2 crate to configure socket buffers at bind time, before the receive loop starts:

Parameter	Default	Description
recv_buf_size	2 MB	SO_RCVBUF — kernel receive buffer
send_buf_size	2 MB	SO_SNDBUF — kernel send buffer

Linux internally doubles the requested value (to account for kernel bookkeeping overhead), so requesting 2 MB yields 4 MB actual buffer space. The kernel silently clamps to net.core.rmem_max if the request exceeds it.

Host requirement: net.core.rmem_max and net.core.wmem_max must be set to at least the requested buffer size on the host. For Docker containers, this must be configured on the Docker host (containers share the host kernel). Verify with:

sysctl net.core.rmem_max net.core.wmem_max

Actual buffer sizes are logged at startup:

UDP transport started local_addr=0.0.0.0:2121 recv_buf=4194304 send_buf=4194304

Ethernet: The Local Network Transport

For nodes on the same LAN segment, raw Ethernet provides a direct transport without IP/UDP overhead — 28 bytes more FIPS payload per frame compared to UDP (1500 vs 1472 MTU).

• No IP dependency: Operates below the IP layer. Nodes on the same Ethernet segment can communicate without IP addresses or routing infrastructure
• Broadcast discovery: Nodes discover each other via periodic beacon broadcasts on the shared medium, with no static peer configuration required
• Higher MTU: Standard Ethernet frames carry 1500 bytes of payload, yielding an effective FIPS MTU of 1499 after the frame type prefix
• Matches FIPS model: Like UDP, Ethernet is connectionless and unreliable — datagrams flow immediately to any MAC address on the segment

Implementation

The Ethernet transport uses Linux AF_PACKET sockets in SOCK_DGRAM mode with EtherType 0x2121. SOCK_DGRAM mode lets the kernel handle Ethernet header construction and parsing — the transport deals only with payloads and MAC addresses.

A 1-byte frame type prefix disambiguates data frames (0x00) from discovery beacons (0x01) on the receive path. This costs one byte of MTU but allows beacons and data to share the same EtherType and socket.

Property	Value
EtherType	0x2121
Socket type	AF_PACKET SOCK_DGRAM
Frame type prefix	0x00 = data, 0x01 = beacon
Effective MTU	Interface MTU - 1 (typically 1499)
Addressing	6-byte MAC address
Platform	Linux only (CAP_NET_RAW required)

Beacon Discovery

Ethernet nodes discover peers via broadcast beacons sent to ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff. Each beacon is a 34-byte frame containing the sender's x-only public key. Receiving nodes extract the MAC source address from the frame and the public key from the payload, then report the discovered peer to FMP.

Four configuration flags control discovery behavior:

Flag	Default	Description
discovery	true	Listen for beacons from other nodes
announce	false	Broadcast beacons periodically
auto_connect	false	Initiate handshakes to discovered peers
accept_connections	false	Accept inbound handshake attempts

A typical discoverable node sets announce: true, auto_connect: true, and accept_connections: true. A passive listener uses just discovery: true to observe the network without announcing itself.

WiFi Compatibility

WiFi interfaces in infrastructure (managed) mode work transparently for unicast — the mac80211 subsystem handles frame translation between 802.11 and 802.3. Broadcast beacon discovery is unreliable in managed mode because access points commonly isolate clients from each other's broadcast traffic.

Startup logging:

Ethernet transport started name=eth0 interface=eth0 mac=aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff mtu=1499 if_mtu=1500

Discovery

Discovery determines that a FIPS-capable endpoint is reachable at a given transport address. It is distinct from raw transport-level endpoint detection — a new TCP connection or UDP packet from an unknown source is not discovery; a FIPS-specific announcement or response is.

Discovery is an optional transport capability. Transports that don't support it (configured UDP endpoints, TCP) simply don't provide discovery events. FMP handles both cases uniformly: with discovery, it waits for events then initiates link setup; without discovery, it initiates link setup directly to configured addresses.

Local/Medium Discovery

For transports where endpoints share a physical or link-layer medium — LAN broadcast, radio, BLE — discovery uses beacon and query mechanisms:

• Beacon: A node periodically broadcasts its FIPS presence on the shared medium. Content is a FIPS-defined discovery frame carrying enough information to initiate a link. Non-FIPS endpoints ignore the frame.
• Query: A node broadcasts a one-shot solicitation. FIPS-capable nodes respond. Responses arrive on the same channel as beacon events.

Both produce the same result: "FIPS endpoint available at transport address X." FMP does not need to distinguish beacons from query responses.

Transport	Discovery	Notes
UDP (LAN)	Broadcast/multicast	On local network segment
Ethernet	Broadcast	Custom EtherType, ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
Radio	Beacon	Shared RF channel, natural fit
BLE	Advertising	GATT service UUID

Nostr Relay Discovery (future direction)

For internet-reachable transports, a node publishes a signed Nostr event containing its FIPS discovery information — public key and reachable transport endpoints (UDP IP:port, TCP IP:port, .onion address). Other FIPS nodes subscribing on the same relays learn about available peers.

Nostr relay discovery is not a transport — it is a discovery service that feeds addresses to other transports. A node discovers via Nostr that a peer is reachable at UDP 1.2.3.4:9735, then establishes the link over the UDP transport.

Key properties:

• Identity is built in — Nostr events are signed, so discovery information is authenticated
• Relay selection acts as scoping — which relays a node publishes to and subscribes on determines its discovery neighborhood
• Can only advertise IP-reachable endpoints (not radio, BLE, serial)
• Higher latency than local discovery (relay propagation delays)

Current State

Implemented: UDP peers are configured via YAML. Ethernet peers are discovered via beacon broadcast — the discover() trait method returns newly seen endpoints, and per-transport auto_connect() / accept_connections() policies control whether discovered peers are connected automatically or require explicit configuration. Nostr relay discovery is not yet implemented.

Transport Interface

The transport interface defines what every transport driver must provide.

Trait Surface

transport_id()        → TransportId         Unique identifier for this transport instance
transport_type()      → &TransportType      Static metadata (name, connection-oriented, reliable)
name()                → Option<&str>        Instance name (for multi-instance transports)
state()               → TransportState      Current lifecycle state
mtu()                 → u16                 Transport-wide default MTU
link_mtu(addr)        → u16                 Per-link MTU (defaults to mtu())
start()               → lifecycle           Bring transport up (bind socket, open device)
stop()                → lifecycle           Bring transport down
send(addr, data)      → delivery            Send datagram to transport address
discover()            → Vec<DiscoveredPeer> Report discovered FIPS endpoints (optional)
auto_connect()        → bool                Auto-connect discovered peers (default: false)
accept_connections()  → bool                Accept inbound handshakes (default: true)

Receive Path

Rather than a synchronous receive method, transports use a channel-push model. Each transport takes a sender handle at construction and spawns an internal receive loop that pushes inbound datagrams onto the channel. The node's main event loop reads from the corresponding receiver, which aggregates datagrams from all active transports into a single stream.

Each inbound datagram carries:

• transport_id — which transport it arrived on
• remote_addr — the transport address of the sender
• data — the raw datagram bytes
• timestamp — arrival time

Transport Metadata

Transport types carry static metadata that FMP can query:

TransportType {
    name              "udp", "ethernet", "tor", etc.
    connection_oriented   bool
    reliable              bool
}

Predefined types exist for UDP, TCP, Ethernet, WiFi, Tor, and Serial.

Transport Addresses

Transport addresses (TransportAddr) are opaque byte vectors. The transport layer interprets them (e.g., UDP parses "ip:port" strings); all layers above treat them as opaque handles passed back to the transport for sending.

Transport State Machine

Configured → Starting → Up → Down
                         ↓
                       Failed

Transports begin in Configured state with all parameters set. start() transitions through Starting to Up (operational). stop() moves to Down. Transport failures move to Failed.

Implementation Status

Transport	Status	Notes
UDP/IP	Implemented	Primary transport, async send/receive, configurable MTU
TCP/IP	Future direction	Requires stream framing, TCP-over-TCP concern
Ethernet	Implemented	AF_PACKET SOCK_DGRAM, EtherType 0x2121, beacon discovery, Linux only
WiFi	Future direction	Infrastructure mode = Ethernet driver
Tor	Future direction	High latency, .onion addressing
BLE	Future direction	ATT_MTU negotiation, per-link MTU
Radio	Future direction	Constrained MTU (51–222 bytes)
Serial	Future direction	SLIP/COBS framing, point-to-point

Design Considerations

TCP-over-TCP Avoidance

Running TCP application traffic over a reliable transport (TCP, WebSocket) creates a layering violation where retransmission and congestion control operate at both levels. When the inner TCP detects loss (which may just be transport-layer retransmission delay), it retransmits, creating more traffic for the outer TCP, which may itself be retransmitting. This amplification loop degrades performance severely under any packet loss.

FIPS prefers unreliable transports for this reason. When a reliable transport must be used (e.g., Tor), applications should be aware of the performance implications.

Multi-Transport Operation

A node can run multiple transports simultaneously. Peers from all transports feed into a single spanning tree and routing table. If one transport fails, traffic automatically routes through alternatives. A node with both UDP and Ethernet transports bridges between internet-connected and local-only networks transparently.

Multiple links to the same peer over different transports are possible. FMP manages these independently — each link has its own Noise session, its own MTU, and its own liveness tracking.

Transport Quality and Path Selection

Transport characteristics (latency, bandwidth, reliability) affect path quality. The spanning tree parent selection factors in link quality through cost-based effective depth (effective_depth = depth + link_cost), where link_cost is derived from locally measured MMP metrics (ETX and SRTT). This allows the tree to prefer lower-latency, lower-loss links when the quality difference is significant. Link cost is not yet used in find_next_hop() candidate ranking for data forwarding.

References

• fips-intro.md — Protocol overview and layer architecture
• fips-mesh-layer.md — FMP specification (the layer above)
• fips-wire-formats.md — Transport framing details