m-labs/smoltcp
Smoltcp
smoltcp is a TCP/IP stack and network protocol implementation designed for resource-constrained environments and bare-metal hardware. It provides a set of socket interfaces for managing reliable TCP stream connections and connectionless UDP datagrams without relying on a standard library.
The project utilizes a fixed memory layout and static memory allocation to manage network state and process packets without a dynamic memory allocator. It includes specialized capabilities for low-power wireless networks, such as header compression and fragmentation for 6LoWPAN.
The stack covers the data link, network, and transport layers, including Ethernet frame management, IPv4 and IPv6 routing, and ICMP message handling. It also implements DNS query resolution and IPv4 multicast management via IGMP.
Features
- Bare-Metal Network Stacks - Implements a full TCP/IP protocol stack designed to run directly on hardware without an operating system.
- Embedded IP Routing - Connects low-power devices to networks by managing Ethernet frames and IP routing within strict memory limits.
- Connection Lifecycle State Machines - Uses finite state machines to track the lifecycle of TCP connections through establishment, transfer, and termination.
- IP Routing Tables - Provides IPv4 and IPv6 routing capabilities using default gateways and CIDR route tables.
- Packet Buffering - Manages raw network packet data in buffers to decouple hardware reads from protocol processing.
- Protocol Abstraction Layers - Provides a layered architecture that processes network traffic from the data link layer up to the transport layer.
- Reliable Transmission Mechanisms - Ensures reliable data delivery using TCP mechanisms such as sequence numbers, acknowledgments, and timers.
- TCP and UDP Socket Interfaces - Provides socket interfaces for managing reliable TCP streams and connectionless UDP datagrams.
- UDP Socket Managers - Provides UDP socket management for IPv4 and IPv6 with automatic header checksum generation and validation.
- TCP Connection Operations - Implements TCP operational logic including window scaling, segment reassembly, and congestion control.
- No-Std Network Stacks - Provides a network stack written for environments without a standard library using fixed memory layouts.
- TCP/IP Stacks - Implements a core TCP/IP stack managing TCP, UDP, IPv4, and IPv6 traffic without dynamic memory allocation.
- Static Memory Allocations - Utilizes fixed-size buffers and pre-allocated structures to manage network state without a dynamic memory allocator.
- 6LoWPAN Networking - Implements 6LoWPAN adaptation for routing IPv6 over low-power wireless networks using header compression.
- DNS Resolution - Provides the capability to query hostnames via DNS sockets to retrieve IP addresses for destination resolution.
- Ethernet Frame Processing - Processes Ethernet II frames for unicast, broadcast, and multicast traffic, including local ARP cache support.
- ICMP Diagnostic Utilities - Implements capabilities to send and receive ICMP messages for connectivity monitoring and network diagnostics.
- ICMP Message Processing - Implements processing for both ICMPv4 and ICMPv6 packets via dedicated sockets for network control and monitoring.
- Header Checksum Validations - Calculates and verifies integrity markers for IPv4, TCP, and UDP packets to detect data corruption.
- Network Service Discovery Clients - Resolves hostnames to IP addresses using DNS sockets and manages multicast groups via IGMP.
- CIDR Route Tables - Implements routing tables using Classless Inter-Domain Routing prefixes to determine packet destinations.
- UDP Header Compressions - Reduces data overhead for wireless networks by compressing and fragmenting UDP headers.
- Embedded Frameworks - TCP/IP stack for resource-constrained devices
Star history
How this analysis was created: This summary and feature list were written by an AI model that read the project's README and public documentation pages. Each feature links to the documentation it came from; stars, license and language come straight from the GitHub API. The model does not read the source code, and the analysis is refreshed when the project is re-analysed. Learn more on our About page.
