RetroShare/libresapi/src/api/README.md

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New programming interface for Retroshare
========================================
* access to libretroshare for webinterfaces, QML and scripting
* client - server architecture.
* network friendly: transport messages over high latency and low bandwidth networks
* multiple clients: can use scripting and webinterface at the same time
* simple packet format: no special serialiser required
* simple protocol: one request creates one response. A requets does not depend on a previous request.
* automatic state change propagation: if a resource on the server changes, the clients will get notified
* no shared state: Client and server don't have to track what they send each other.
* works with all programming languages
How does it work?
-----------------
- Client sends a request: adress of a resource and optional parameters encoded as JSON
{
"method": "get",
"resource": ["peers"],
}
- Server sends a Response:
{
"returncode": "ok",
"statetoken": "ASDF",
"data": [...]
}
- Client asks if data is still valid
{
"method": "exec",
"resource": "statetokenservice"
"data": ["ASDF", "GHJK"]
}
- Server answers Client that statetoken "ASDF" expired
{
"returncode": "ok",
"data": ["ASDF"]
}
Transport
---------
A transport protocol transports requests and responses between client and server.
* tracks message boundaries, so messages don't get merged
* may be able to handle concurrent requests with out of order delivery of responses
* knows to which request a response belongs to
Transport could do encryption and authentication with a standardized protocol like SSH or TLS.
Ideas:
* request id + length + request data -> SSH -> TCP -> ...
* Websockets
* Retroshare Items
* Unix domain sockets
Currently only unencrypted http is implemented. libmicrohttpd (short MHD) is used as http server.
Can use a proxy to add TLS encryption.
Message encoding
----------------
Currently JSON, because it is already available in JavaScript and QML.
Other key-value encodings could be used as well.
Read more about basic data types of different languages (JavaScript, QML, Lua, C++) in ./ApiServer.cpp.