Linux Phonet protocol family

Introduction

Phonet is a packet protocol used by Nokia cellular modems for both IPC and RPC. With the Linux Phonet socket family, Linux host processes can receive and send messages from/to the modem, or any other external device attached to the modem. The modem takes care of routing.

Phonet packets can be exchanged through various hardware connections depending on the device, such as:

  • USB with the CDC Phonet interface,
  • infrared,
  • Bluetooth,
  • an RS232 serial port (with a dedicated “FBUS” line discipline),
  • the SSI bus with some TI OMAP processors.

Packets format

Phonet packets have a common header as follows:

struct phonethdr {
  uint8_t  pn_media;  /* Media type (link-layer identifier) */
  uint8_t  pn_rdev;   /* Receiver device ID */
  uint8_t  pn_sdev;   /* Sender device ID */
  uint8_t  pn_res;    /* Resource ID or function */
  uint16_t pn_length; /* Big-endian message byte length (minus 6) */
  uint8_t  pn_robj;   /* Receiver object ID */
  uint8_t  pn_sobj;   /* Sender object ID */
};

On Linux, the link-layer header includes the pn_media byte (see below). The next 7 bytes are part of the network-layer header.

The device ID is split: the 6 higher-order bits constitute the device address, while the 2 lower-order bits are used for multiplexing, as are the 8-bit object identifiers. As such, Phonet can be considered as a network layer with 6 bits of address space and 10 bits for transport protocol (much like port numbers in IP world).

The modem always has address number zero. All other device have a their own 6-bit address.

Network layer

The Phonet socket address family maps the Phonet packet header:

struct sockaddr_pn {
  sa_family_t spn_family;    /* AF_PHONET */
  uint8_t     spn_obj;       /* Object ID */
  uint8_t     spn_dev;       /* Device ID */
  uint8_t     spn_resource;  /* Resource or function */
  uint8_t     spn_zero[...]; /* Padding */
};

The resource field is only used when sending and receiving; It is ignored by bind() and getsockname().

Low-level datagram protocol

Applications can send Phonet messages using the Phonet datagram socket protocol from the PF_PHONET family. Each socket is bound to one of the 2^10 object IDs available, and can send and receive packets with any other peer.

struct sockaddr_pn addr = { .spn_family = AF_PHONET, };
ssize_t len;
socklen_t addrlen = sizeof(addr);
int fd;

fd = socket(PF_PHONET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0);
bind(fd, (struct sockaddr *)&addr, sizeof(addr));
/* ... */

sendto(fd, msg, msglen, 0, (struct sockaddr *)&addr, sizeof(addr));
len = recvfrom(fd, buf, sizeof(buf), 0,
               (struct sockaddr *)&addr, &addrlen);

This protocol follows the SOCK_DGRAM connection-less semantics. However, connect() and getpeername() are not supported, as they did not seem useful with Phonet usages (could be added easily).

Resource subscription

A Phonet datagram socket can be subscribed to any number of 8-bits Phonet resources, as follow:

uint32_t res = 0xXX;
ioctl(fd, SIOCPNADDRESOURCE, &res);

Subscription is similarly cancelled using the SIOCPNDELRESOURCE I/O control request, or when the socket is closed.

Note that no more than one socket can be subcribed to any given resource at a time. If not, ioctl() will return EBUSY.

Phonet Pipe protocol

The Phonet Pipe protocol is a simple sequenced packets protocol with end-to-end congestion control. It uses the passive listening socket paradigm. The listening socket is bound to an unique free object ID. Each listening socket can handle up to 255 simultaneous connections, one per accept()’d socket.

int lfd, cfd;

lfd = socket(PF_PHONET, SOCK_SEQPACKET, PN_PROTO_PIPE);
listen (lfd, INT_MAX);

/* ... */
cfd = accept(lfd, NULL, NULL);
for (;;)
{
  char buf[...];
  ssize_t len = read(cfd, buf, sizeof(buf));

  /* ... */

  write(cfd, msg, msglen);
}

Connections are traditionally established between two endpoints by a “third party” application. This means that both endpoints are passive.

As of Linux kernel version 2.6.39, it is also possible to connect two endpoints directly, using connect() on the active side. This is intended to support the newer Nokia Wireless Modem API, as found in e.g. the Nokia Slim Modem in the ST-Ericsson U8500 platform:

struct sockaddr_spn spn;
int fd;

fd = socket(PF_PHONET, SOCK_SEQPACKET, PN_PROTO_PIPE);
memset(&spn, 0, sizeof(spn));
spn.spn_family = AF_PHONET;
spn.spn_obj = ...;
spn.spn_dev = ...;
spn.spn_resource = 0xD9;
connect(fd, (struct sockaddr *)&spn, sizeof(spn));
/* normal I/O here ... */
close(fd);

The pipe protocol provides two socket options at the SOL_PNPIPE level:

PNPIPE_ENCAP accepts one integer value (int) of:

PNPIPE_ENCAP_NONE:
The socket operates normally (default).
PNPIPE_ENCAP_IP:
The socket is used as a backend for a virtual IP interface. This requires CAP_NET_ADMIN capability. GPRS data support on Nokia modems can use this. Note that the socket cannot be reliably poll()’d or read() from while in this mode.
PNPIPE_IFINDEX
is a read-only integer value. It contains the interface index of the network interface created by PNPIPE_ENCAP, or zero if encapsulation is off.
PNPIPE_HANDLE
is a read-only integer value. It contains the underlying identifier (“pipe handle”) of the pipe. This is only defined for socket descriptors that are already connected or being connected.

Authors

Linux Phonet was initially written by Sakari Ailus.

Other contributors include Mikä Liljeberg, Andras Domokos, Carlos Chinea and Rémi Denis-Courmont.

Copyright © 2008 Nokia Corporation.