1 /** \mainpage SENF: The Simple and Extensible Network Framework
3 The SENF Simple and Extensible Network Framework aims to be a
4 complete set of libraries to facilitate the development of network
5 applications focusing on network protocols on the layers below the
6 application layer. However, the framework includes many general
7 purpose utilities and will be expedient to use well beyond its
12 The main goals of this library are (in no particular order):
14 \li modular framework design
15 \li utilizing the power of modern C++
16 \li very low overhead for frequently called members
20 \section start Getting started
22 To get started using this library, begin by checking out the code
24 href="http://developer.berlios.de/svn/?group_id=7489">BerliOS SVN
25 repository</a>. You may find help on using the library at '\ref
26 usage'. If you are interested in SENF, feel free to subscribe
28 href="http://developer.berlios.de/mail/?group_id=7489">SENF
35 /** \page usage Using the SENF framework
37 The SENF Framework is a collection of loosely coupled
38 modules. The libraries are heavily object oriented and template
39 based. For compatibility reasons, the libraries are therefore
40 built together with every project making use of the framework.
42 When starting a new Projekt based on the SENF framework, it is
43 advisable, to make use of the SENFSCons build environment and use
44 SVN to manage the code repository. This is the configuration,
45 described in this documentation.
52 \section Preliminaries
54 Before starting the devlopment, make sure to fulfill the following
57 \li GNU g++, version at least 3.4
58 \li The Boost libraries (http://www.boost.org)
59 \li The SCons build tool (http://www.scons.org)
61 If you want to build the documentation, you additionally need
63 \li Doxygen (http://www.doxygen.org)
64 \li The \c dia diagram editor (http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/)
65 \li HTML \c tidy (http://tidy.sourceforge.net/)
66 \li The \c xsltproc XSLT processor (http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/xsltproc2.html)
69 The library is only tested with gcc-3.4 and 4.0 on Linux. On other
70 POSIX platforms with a BSD Socket API, the library should be
71 usable, possibly with some tweaking (except for the Scheduler,
72 which relies on \c epoll)
75 /** \page build Building the framework
77 This procedure will test building the complete framework
78 including the unit tests and the Sniffer test application. This
79 build is \e not needed to use the framework since every project
80 will include the full SENF source code itself (via Subversion).
82 After you have successfully built the library tests, you can
83 continue to setup your own project using SENF.
85 \see \ref components \n
88 \section checkout Getting the code
90 To access the code, check out the code from the BerliOS
91 repository. Change to your development directory and use the
92 following subversion command
95 $ svn checkout http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/senf/trunk senf
98 This will create a new directory \c senf within the current
99 directory. For further documentation on the use of Subversion, see
100 the \c svn manpage or the subversion homepage at
101 http://subversion.tigris.org. A very good introduction and
102 reference to subversion is available at
103 http://svnbook.red-bean.com.
105 \section compile Building
107 To build the library, execute all unit tests and build the Sniffer
108 test application, use
115 in the \c senf directory. This assumes, that you want to build the
116 library with your default gcc and requires the boost libraries to
117 be available in the system include paths. If this is not the case,
118 you can take a look at <tt>SConfig.template</tt> file. Copy this
119 file to <tt>SConfig</tt> and comment out all the variables you
120 don't want to change (The \e values in the template file are just
124 /** \page components The SENF modules
126 The framework is made up of several modular components. When using
127 the library, it is possible to selectively choose to use only a
128 subset of the implemented modules.
133 \section libSocket libSocket: C++ abstraction of the BSD socket API
135 This library provides a high performance and object oriented
136 abstraction of the standard socket API. It utilizes a flexible and
137 extensible policy based design. The library provides predefined
138 types for the important socket types (UDP and TCP sockets etc)
139 including raw and packet sockets. \n
141 \see <a href="../../Socket/doc/html/index.html">libSocket API
144 \section libPackets libPackets: Network packet manipulation
146 This libarary provides a very flexible infrastructure to
147 parse, create and otherwise manipulate packetized network
148 data. Included is a library of several protocol parsers covering
149 the basic IPv4 and IPv6 network protocols down to the Ethernet
152 \see <a href="../../Packets/doc/html/index.html">libPackets API
155 \section libScheduler libScheduler: Asynchronous event handling
157 The scheduler library provides an object oriented interface to the
158 standard UNIX \c select type event dispatcher. It is based on the
159 high performance \c epoll system call. It provides support for
160 read/write events as well as simple timer based events.
162 \see <a href="../../Scheduler/doc/html/index.html">libScheduler API
165 \section libUtils libUtils: Collection of arbitrary utilities
167 This library is used be most all of the other modules for
168 miscellaneous tools and utilities. We have
170 \li Simple functions to manage daemon processes
171 \li Standard exception classes
172 \li senf::intrusive_refcount to simplify the implementation
173 of classes usable with boost::intrusive_ptr
174 \li boost::bind extensions
175 \li An interface to the \c g++ demangler integrated with type_info
176 \li Typedefs and rudimentary methods to simplify handling
177 high-resolution time values
179 \see <a href="../../Utils/doc/html/index.html">libUtils API
182 \section senfscons SENFSCons, the SENF build environment
184 SENF relies on SCons (http://www.scons.org) to build. To further
185 simplify the common tasks, SENF includes a library of custom
186 routines and builders comprising a very concise build
187 environment. Included are a number of templates to help
188 bootstrapping a new project or component.
190 \see <a href="../../senfscons/doc/html/index.html">SENFSCons
194 /** \page svnsetup Setting up a new project using SENF
196 The preferred way to use SENF in a new project is to rely on
197 Subversion and make use of the SENFSCons build environment. The
198 following sections will describe, how this setup works.
204 \section svnext Setting up the project repository
206 The most seamless integration is possible if you rely on
207 Subversion to manage the new project. Subversion does support
208 'external repositories'. This allows to import code from a foreign
209 repository into the checkout without importing it into your
210 repository. The code will always stay at the remote repository,
211 updates are automatically available.
213 First setup a new empty repository as described for example in the
214 Subversion book at http://svnbook.red-bean.com or as mandated by
215 your site policy. We will call the project 'Foo' and assume, that
216 the project has been checked out into the 'Foo' directory.
218 You now have to decide, which modules you want to use. Every
219 module resides in it's own subdirectory in the SENF
220 repository. Instead of directly checking out the code, we will use
221 \c svn:externals. This will instruct \c svn to auutomatically
222 check out the needed directories from the BerliOS SENF
223 repository. Change to the 'Foo' directory and type
226 $ svn propedit svn:externals .
229 The default editor (probably VI) will be started with the current
230 value of the svn:externals property (which will probably be
231 empty). Now add all the modules you want plus \c senfscons and
232 possibly \c doclib (if you want to build the documentation). You
233 will almost certainly neeed the \c Utils module, since all other
234 modules depend on it.
236 For example, if you want to use the \c Scheduler and \c Socket
237 module, the file will look like
240 senfscons http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/senf/trunk/senfscons
241 Utils http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/senf/trunk/Utils
242 Scheduler http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/senf/trunk/Scheduler
243 Socket http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/senf/trunk/Socket
246 exit the editor and the property will be set. Now run
252 and the code will be checked out into the corresponding
255 \section new_conf Configuring SENFSCons
257 To set up the build environment, copy the
258 <tt>senfscons/SConstruct.template</tt> to <tt>SConstruct</tt> in
259 the project root. The default setup of this file is to build all
260 subdirectories (using the \c SConscript files of the
261 subdirectories). You can add additonal global targets and
262 configuration parameters here.
264 If you want to use a non-default compiler or the boost library is
265 not installed in the system directories, you will have to copy
266 <tt>senfscons/SConfig.template</tt> to <tt>SConfig</tt> in the
267 project root and edit it there. You should \e never add \c SConfig
268 to the repository since it should only contain local settings
269 necessary for building on your local system. You should therefore
270 add \c SConfig to the list of files ignored by Subversion in the
271 project root. In the project root execute
274 $ svn propedit svn:ignore .
277 and add \c SConfig as a new line to the property.
279 \section new_build Building the project
281 You should now be able to build your project using
287 If you have not changed the \c SConstruct file, this will build
288 all modules you have importet into your project. To build and
289 execute the unit tests, use
295 you can also build only a subdirectory by changing to it and
302 \see <a href="../../senfscons/doc/html/index.html">SENFSCons reference</a> \n
303 <a class="ext" href="http://www.scons.org/documentation.php">SCons documentation</a> \n
304 <a class="ext" href="http://svnbook.red-bean.com">Subversion online book</a> \n
305 <a class="ext" href="http://subversion.tigris.org">Subversion Homepage</a>
308 /** \page overview Introduction to the framework
310 The SENF framework is relatively complex and makes use of advanced
311 features of the C++ language. To make the most efficient use of
312 the framework, you should have at least a basic understanding of
313 C++ templates and the standard library concepts.
315 The library implementation at places makes heavy use of advanced
316 template techniques and relies on some very advanced template
317 libraries from Boost. The aim was however for the \e external
318 interface of the library to be as simple as possible without
319 sacrificing important functionality or adversely impacting the
322 As already mentioned several times, the library relies on Boost
323 (http://www.boost.org) as a generic library of high quality
324 reusable C++ components. It also makes frequent use of the
325 standard library. It is designed, to integrate well into both
326 libraries and to use the same concepts and ideas.
328 \section startup Getting starting developing with SENF
330 To introduce the framework and it's general structure, a simple
331 example application is provided in the SENF repository in the \c
332 Sniffer module. Peruse this example to get a first look at how to
335 When building a network Application with SENF, you will use
338 \li Use the <a href="../../Socket/doc/html/index.html">Socket
339 library</a> for network communication needs. This library
340 includes support for raw and packet sockets to allow low level
343 href="../../Scheduler/doc/html/index.html">Scheduler
344 library</a> to coordinate the asynchronous event
345 processing. This drastically reduces the number of threads
346 needed in your application and will greatly enhance the overall
348 \li To interpret low level network packets, use the <a
349 href="../../Packets/doc/html/index.html">Packets
350 library</a>. This library will provide efficient and
351 convenient access to all protocol fields. It supports parsing as
352 well as modifying and creating packets. It has default support
353 for the most important internet protocols and is highly
354 extensible with new protocols.
355 \li Go over the <a href="../../Utils/doc/html/index.html">Utils
356 library</a>. It contains small helpers to
357 simplify tasks like daemonization, exception handling,
360 The simplest way to get started is: copy the Sniffer application
361 and start to modify it.
373 // c-file-style: "senf"
374 // indent-tabs-mode: nil
375 // ispell-local-dictionary: "american"