DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages
BIO(3) DragonFly Library Functions Manual BIO(3)
NAME
BIO -- I/O abstraction
SYNOPSIS
#include <openssl/bio.h>
DESCRIPTION
A BIO is an I/O abstraction, it hides many of the underlying I/O details
from an application. If an application uses a BIO for its I/O, it can
transparently handle SSL connections, unencrypted network connections and
file I/O.
There are two types of BIO, a source/sink BIO and a filter BIO.
As its name implies, a source/sink BIO is a source and/or sink of data,
examples include a socket BIO and a file BIO.
A filter BIO takes data from one BIO and passes it through to another, or
to the application. The data may be left unmodified (for example a mes-
sage digest BIO) or translated (for example an encryption BIO). The
effect of a filter BIO may change according to the I/O operation it is
performing: for example an encryption BIO will encrypt data if it is
being written to and decrypt data if it is being read from.
BIOs can be joined together to form a chain (a single BIO is a chain with
one component). A chain normally consist of one source/sink BIO and one
or more filter BIOs. Data read from or written to the first BIO then
traverses the chain to the end (normally a source/sink BIO).
SEE ALSO
BIO_ctrl(3), BIO_f_base64(3), BIO_f_buffer(3), BIO_f_cipher(3),
BIO_f_md(3), BIO_f_null(3), BIO_f_ssl(3), BIO_find_type(3), BIO_new(3),
BIO_new_bio_pair(3), BIO_push(3), BIO_read(3), BIO_s_accept(3),
BIO_s_bio(3), BIO_s_connect(3), BIO_s_fd(3), BIO_s_file(3), BIO_s_mem(3),
BIO_s_null(3), BIO_s_socket(3), BIO_set_callback(3), BIO_should_retry(3)
DragonFly 4.7 July 17, 2014 DragonFly 4.7
BIO_should_retry(3) OpenSSL BIO_should_retry(3)
NAME
BIO_should_retry, BIO_should_read, BIO_should_write,
BIO_should_io_special, BIO_retry_type, BIO_should_retry,
BIO_get_retry_BIO, BIO_get_retry_reason - BIO retry functions
SYNOPSIS
#include <openssl/bio.h>
#define BIO_should_read(a) ((a)->flags & BIO_FLAGS_READ)
#define BIO_should_write(a) ((a)->flags & BIO_FLAGS_WRITE)
#define BIO_should_io_special(a) ((a)->flags & BIO_FLAGS_IO_SPECIAL)
#define BIO_retry_type(a) ((a)->flags & BIO_FLAGS_RWS)
#define BIO_should_retry(a) ((a)->flags & BIO_FLAGS_SHOULD_RETRY)
#define BIO_FLAGS_READ 0x01
#define BIO_FLAGS_WRITE 0x02
#define BIO_FLAGS_IO_SPECIAL 0x04
#define BIO_FLAGS_RWS (BIO_FLAGS_READ|BIO_FLAGS_WRITE|BIO_FLAGS_IO_SPECIAL)
#define BIO_FLAGS_SHOULD_RETRY 0x08
BIO * BIO_get_retry_BIO(BIO *bio, int *reason);
int BIO_get_retry_reason(BIO *bio);
DESCRIPTION
These functions determine why a BIO is not able to read or write data.
They will typically be called after a failed BIO_read() or BIO_write()
call.
BIO_should_retry() is true if the call that produced this condition
should then be retried at a later time.
If BIO_should_retry() is false then the cause is an error condition.
BIO_should_read() is true if the cause of the condition is that a BIO
needs to read data.
BIO_should_write() is true if the cause of the condition is that a BIO
needs to read data.
BIO_should_io_special() is true if some "special" condition, that is a
reason other than reading or writing is the cause of the condition.
BIO_retry_type() returns a mask of the cause of a retry condition
consisting of the values BIO_FLAGS_READ, BIO_FLAGS_WRITE,
BIO_FLAGS_IO_SPECIAL though current BIO types will only set one of
these.
BIO_get_retry_BIO() determines the precise reason for the special
condition, it returns the BIO that caused this condition and if reason
is not NULL it contains the reason code. The meaning of the reason code
and the action that should be taken depends on the type of BIO that
resulted in this condition.
BIO_get_retry_reason() returns the reason for a special condition if
passed the relevant BIO, for example as returned by
BIO_get_retry_BIO().
NOTES
If BIO_should_retry() returns false then the precise "error condition"
depends on the BIO type that caused it and the return code of the BIO
operation. For example if a call to BIO_read() on a socket BIO returns
0 and BIO_should_retry() is false then the cause will be that the
connection closed. A similar condition on a file BIO will mean that it
has reached EOF. Some BIO types may place additional information on the
error queue. For more details see the individual BIO type manual pages.
If the underlying I/O structure is in a blocking mode almost all
current BIO types will not request a retry, because the underlying I/O
calls will not. If the application knows that the BIO type will never
signal a retry then it need not call BIO_should_retry() after a failed
BIO I/O call. This is typically done with file BIOs.
SSL BIOs are the only current exception to this rule: they can request
a retry even if the underlying I/O structure is blocking, if a
handshake occurs during a call to BIO_read(). An application can retry
the failed call immediately or avoid this situation by setting
SSL_MODE_AUTO_RETRY on the underlying SSL structure.
While an application may retry a failed non blocking call immediately
this is likely to be very inefficient because the call will fail
repeatedly until data can be processed or is available. An application
will normally wait until the necessary condition is satisfied. How this
is done depends on the underlying I/O structure.
For example if the cause is ultimately a socket and BIO_should_read()
is true then a call to select() may be made to wait until data is
available and then retry the BIO operation. By combining the retry
conditions of several non blocking BIOs in a single select() call it is
possible to service several BIOs in a single thread, though the
performance may be poor if SSL BIOs are present because long delays can
occur during the initial handshake process.
It is possible for a BIO to block indefinitely if the underlying I/O
structure cannot process or return any data. This depends on the
behaviour of the platforms I/O functions. This is often not desirable:
one solution is to use non blocking I/O and use a timeout on the
select() (or equivalent) call.
BUGS
The OpenSSL ASN1 functions cannot gracefully deal with non blocking
I/O: that is they cannot retry after a partial read or write. This is
usually worked around by only passing the relevant data to ASN1
functions when the entire structure can be read or written.
SEE ALSO
TBA
1.0.2h 2016-05-03 BIO_should_retry(3)