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Galène's protocol

Data structures

Group

A group is a set of clients. It is identified by a human-readable name that must not start or end with a slash "/", must not start with a period ".", and must not contain the substrings "/../" or "/./".

Client

A client is a peer that may originate offers and chat messages. It is identified by an id, an opaque string that is assumed to be unique. Peers that do not originate messages (servers) do not need to be assigned an id.

Stream

A stream is a set of related tracks. It is identified by an id, an opaque string. Streams in Galène are unidirectional. A stream is carried by exactly one peer connection (PC) (multiple streams in a single PC are not allowed). The offerer is also the RTP sender (i.e. all tracks sent by the offerer are of type sendonly).

Galène uses a symmetric, asynchronous protocol. In client-server usage, some messages are only sent in the client to server or in the server to client direction.

Before connecting

The client needs to know the location of the group, the (user-visible) URL at which the group is found. This may be obtained either by explicit configuration by the user, or by parsing the /public-groups.json file which may contain an array of group statuses (see below).

A client then performs an HTTP GET request on the file .status at the group's location. This yields a single JSON object, which contains the following fields:

  • name: the group's name
  • location: the group's location
  • endpoint: the URL of the server's WebSocket endpoint
  • displayName: a longer version of the name used for display;
  • description: a user-readable description;
  • authServer: the URL of the authentication server, if any;
  • authPortal: the uRL of the authentication portal, if any;
  • locked: true if the group is locked;
  • clientCount: the number of clients currently in the group.

All fields are optional except name, location and endpoint.

Connecting

The client connects to the websocket at the URL obtained at the previous step. Galene uses a symmetric, asynchronous protocol: there are no requests and responses, and most messages may be sent by either peer.

Message syntax

All messages are sent as JSON objects. All fields except type are optional; however, there are some fields that are common across multiple message types:

  • type, the type of the message;
  • kind, the subtype of the message;
  • error, indicates that the message is an error indication, and specifies the kind of error that occurred;
  • id, the id of the object being manipulated;
  • source, the client-id of the originating client;
  • username, the username of the originating client;
  • dest, the client-id of the destination client;
  • privileged, set by the server to indicate that the originating client had the op privilege at the time when it sent the message.
  • value, the value of the message (which can be of any type).

There are two kinds of errors. Unsolicited errors are sent using messages of type usermessage of kind error or warning. Errors sent in reply to a message use the same type as the usual reply, but with a specific kind (such as fail). In either case, the field value contains a human-readable error message, while the field error, if present, contains a stable, program-readable identifier for the error.

Establishing and maintaining a connection

The peer establishing the connection (the WebSocket client) sends a handshake message. The server replies with another handshake message. The client may wait for the server's handshake, or it may immediately start pipelining messages to the server.

{
    type: 'handshake',
    version: ["2"],
    id: id
}

The version field contains an array of supported protocol versions, in decreasing preference order; the client may announce multiple versions, but the server will always reply with a single version. If the field id is absent, then the peer doesn't originate streams.

A peer may, at any time, send a ping message.

{
    type: 'ping'
}

The receiving peer must reply with a pong message within 30s.

{
    type: 'pong'
}

Joining and leaving

The join message requests that the sender join or leave a group:

{
    type: 'join',
    kind: 'join' or 'leave',
    group: group,
    username: username,
    password: password,
    data: data
}

If token-based authorisation is beling used, then the username and password fields are omitted, and a token field is included instead.

When the sender has effectively joined the group, the peer will send a 'joined' message of kind 'join'; it may then send a 'joined' message of kind 'change' at any time, in order to inform the client of a change in its permissions or in the recommended RTC configuration.

{
    type: 'joined',
    kind: 'join' or 'fail' or 'change' or 'leave',
    error: may be set if kind is 'fail',
    group: group,
    username: username,
    permissions: permissions,
    status: status,
    data: data,
    rtcConfiguration: RTCConfiguration
}

The username field is the username that the server assigned to this user. The permissions field is an array of strings that may contain the values present, op and record. The status field is a dictionary that contains status information about the group, and updates the data obtained from the .status URL described above.

Maintaining group membership

Whenever a user joins or leaves a group, the server will send all other users a user message:

{
    type: 'user',
    kind: 'add' or 'change' or 'delete',
    id: id,
    username: username,
    permissions: permissions,
    status: status
}

Requesting streams

A peer must explicitly request the streams that it wants to receive.

{
    type: 'request',
    request: requested
}

The field request is a dictionary that maps the labels of requested streams to a list containing either 'audio', or one of 'video' or 'video-low'. The empty key '' serves as default. For example:

{
    type: 'request',
    request: {
        camera: ['audio', 'video-low'],
        '': ['audio', 'video']
    }
}

Pushing streams

A stream is created by the sender with the offer message:

{
    type: 'offer',
    id: id,
    label: label,
    replace: id,
    source: source-id,
    username: username,
    sdp: sdp
}

If a stream with the same id exists, then this is a renegotiation; otherwise this message creates a new stream. If the field replace is not empty, then this request additionally requests that an existing stream with the given id should be closed, and the new stream should replace it; this is used most notably when changing the simulcast envelope.

The field label is one of camera, screenshare or video, and will be matched against the keys sent by the receiver in their request message.

The field sdp contains the raw SDP string (i.e. the sdp field of a JSEP session description). Galène will interpret the nack, nack pli, ccm fir and goog-remb RTCP feedback types, and act accordingly.

The sender may either send a single stream per media section in the SDP, or use rid-based simulcasting with the streams ordered in decreasing order of throughput. In that case, it should send two video streams, the first one with high throughput, and the second one with throughput limited to roughly 100kbit/s. If more than two streams are sent, then only the first and the last one will be considered.

The receiver may either abort the stream immediately (see below), or send an answer.

{
    type: 'answer',
    id: id,
    sdp: SDP
}

Both peers may then trickle ICE candidates with ice messages.

{
    type: 'ice',
    id: id,
    candidate: candidate
}

The answerer may request a new offer of kind renegotiate and an ICE restart by sending a renegotiate message:

{
    type: 'renegotiate',
    id: id
}

At any time after answering, the client may change the set of streams being offered by sending a 'requestStream' request:

{
    type: 'requestStream'
    id: id,
    request: [audio, video]
}

Closing streams

The offerer may close a stream at any time by sending a close message.

{
    type: 'close',
    id: id
}

The answerer may request that the offerer close a stream by sending an abort message.

{
    type: 'abort',
    id: id
}

The stream will not be effectively closed until the offerer sends a matching close.

Sending messages

A chat message may be sent using a chat message.

{
    type: 'chat',
    kind: null or 'me' or 'caption',
    source: source-id,
    username: username,
    dest: dest-id,
    privileged: boolean,
    time: time,
    noecho: false,
    value: message
}

The field kind can have one of the following values:

  • null or the empty string, a normal chat message;
  • 'me', an IRC-style first-person message;
  • 'caption', a caption or subtitle (this requires the sender to have the caption permission).

If dest is empty, the message is a broadcast message, destined to all of the clients in the group. If source is empty, then the message was originated by the server. The message is forwarded by the server without interpretation, the server only validates that the source and username fields are authentic. The field privileged is set to true by the server if the message was originated by a client with the op permission. The field time is the timestamp of the message, coded as a number in version 1 of the protocol, and as a string in ISO 8601 format in later versions. The field noecho is set by the client if it doesn't wish to receive a copy of its own message.

The chathistory message is similar to the chat message, but carries a message taken from the chat history. Most clients should treat chathistory similarly to chat.

A user message is similar to a chat message, but is not conserved in the chat history, and is not expected to contain user-visible content.

{
    type: 'usermessage',
    kind: kind,
    source: source-id,
    username: username,
    dest: dest-id,
    privileged: boolean,
    value: value
}

Currently defined kinds include error, warning, info, kicked, clearchat (not to be confused with the clearchat group action), and mute.

A user action requests that the server act upon a user.

{
    type: 'useraction',
    kind: kind,
    source: source-id,
    username: username,
    dest: dest-id,
    value: value
}

Currently defined kinds include op, unop, present, unpresent, kick and setdata.

Finally, a group action requests that the server act on the current group.

{
    type: 'groupaction',
    kind: kind,
    source: source-id,
    username: username,
    value: value
}

Currently defined kinds include clearchat (not to be confused with the clearchat user message), lock, unlock, record, unrecord, subgroups and setdata.

Peer-to-peer file transfer protocol

The default client implements a file transfer protocol. The file transfer is peer-to-peer: the server is used as a trusted rendez-vous point and for the exchange of cryptographic keys, and all data transfer is done directly between the peers over a WebRTC datachannel.

Control information for the file transfer is transferred in messages of type usermessage and kind filetransfer. The value field of the message contains a dictionary whose meaning is identified by the embedded type field:

{
    type: 'usermessage',
    kind: 'filetransfer',
    ...
    value: {
        type: type,
        ...
    }
}

The peer that wishes to transfer a file (the sender) starts by sending a message of type invite:

{
    type: 'usermessage',
    kind: 'filetransfer',
    ...
    value: {
        type: 'invite',
        version: ["1"],
        id: id,
        name: name,
        size: size,
        mimetype: mimetype
    }
}

The field version contains an array of the versions of the file-transfer protocol supported by the sender, in decreasing order of preference; this document specifies version "1". The field id identifies the file transfer session; it must be repeated in all further messages pertaining to this particular file transfer. The fields name, size and mimetype contain the filename, the size in bytes and the MIME type of the file being transferred respectively.

The receiving peer (the receiver) may either reject the file transfer or accept it. If it rejects the file transfer, it sends a message of type cancel (see below). If it decides to accept the file transfer, it sets up a peer connection with a single reliable data channel labelled file, and sends a message of type offer:

{
    type: 'usermessage',
    kind: 'filetransfer',
    ...
    value: {
        type: 'offer',
        version: [1],
        id: id,
        sdp: sdp
     }
}

The field version contains a one-element array indicating the version of the protocol that the receiver wishes to use; this must be one of the versions proposed in the corresponding invite message. The field id is copied from the invite message. The field sdp contains the offer in SDP format (the sdp field of a JSEP session description).

The sender sends the corresponding answer:

{
    type: 'usermessage',
    kind: 'filetransfer',
    ...
    value: {
        type: 'answer',
        id: id,
        sdp: sdp
     }
}

There is no version field, since the version has already been negotiated and is known for the rest of the file transfer session. The field sdp contains the answer in SDP format.

Either peer may send messages of type ice in order to perform trickle ICE:

{
    type: 'usermessage',
    kind: 'filetransfer',
    ...
    value: {
        type: 'ice',
        id: id,
        candidate: candidate
     }
}

Once the data channel is established, the sender sends the file in chunks of at most 16384 bytes, one chunk per data channel message.

When the sender has sent the whole file, it must not tear down the peer connection, as that would flush the data in transit (contained in the buffers of the WebRTC implementation and in the network). Instead, it must perform an explicit shutdown handshake with the receiver.

This handshake proceeds as follows. When the receiver has received the amount of data declared in the invite message, it sends a single text message containing the string done over the peer connection. When the sender has received this acknowledgement, it tears down its side of the peer connection. When the receiver receives an indication that the peer connection has been shut down, it tears down its side of the peer connection, and the file transfer is complete.

At any point during the file transfer, either peer may send a message of type cancel in order to cancel the file transfer. The peer that receives the cancel message immediately tears down the peer connection (there is no need to reply to the cancel message).

{
    type: 'usermessage',
    kind: 'filetransfer',
    ...
    value: {
        type: 'cancel',
        id: id,
        message: message,
    }
}

Authorisation protocol

In addition to username/password authentication, Galene supports authentication using cryptographic tokens. Two flows are supported: using an authentication server, where Galene's client requests a token from a third-party server, and using an authentication portal, where a third-party login portal redirects the user to Galene. Authentication servers are somewhat simpler to implement, but authentication portals are more flexible and avoid communicating the user's password to Galene's Javascript code.

Authentication server

If a group's status dictionary has a non-empty authServer field, then the group uses an authentication server. Before joining, the client sends a POST request to the authorisation server URL containing in its body a JSON dictionary of the following form:

{
    "location": "https://galene.example.org/group/groupname/",
    "username": username,
    "password": password
}

If the user is not allowed to join the group, then the authorisation server replies with a code of 403 ("not authorised"), and Galene will reject the user. If the authentication server has no opinion about whether the user is allowed to join, it replies with a code of 204 ("no content"), and Galene will proceed with ordinary password authorisation.

If the user is allowed to join, then the authorisation server replies with a signed JWT (a "JWS") the body of which has the following form:

{
    "sub": username,
    "aud": "https://galene.example.org/group/groupname/",
    "permissions": ["present"],
    "iat": now,
    "exp": now + 30s,
    "iss": authorisation server URL
}

The permissions field contains the permissions granted to the client, in the same format as in the joined message. Since the client will only use the token once, at the very beginning of the session, the tokens issued may have a short lifetime (on the order of 30s).

A boolean include-subgroups claim may be included in the JWT payload. It has the same effect as the include-subgroups parameter used when generating a stateful token.

Authentication portal

If a group's status dictionary has a non-empty authPortal field, Galene redirects the user agent to the URL indicated by authPortal. The authentication portal performs authorisation, generates a token as above, then redirects back to the group's URL with the token stores in a URL query parameter named token:

https://galene.example.org/group/groupname/?token=eyJhbG...