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firezone/rust/connlib
Thomas Eizinger 4c5fd9b256 feat(connlib): prefer relay candidates of same IP version (#8798)
When calculating preferences for candidates, `str0m` currently always
prefer IPv6 over IPv4. This is as per the ICE spec. Howver, this can
lead to sub-optimal situations when a connection ends up using a TURN
server.

TURN allows a client to allocate an IPv4 and an IPv6 address in the same
allocation. This makes it possible for e.g. an IPv4-only client to
connect to an IPv6-only peer as long as the TURN server runs in
dual-stack AND the client requests an IPv6 address in addition to an
IPv4 address with the `ADDITIONAL-ADDRESS-FAMILY` attribute.

Assume that a client sits behind symmetric NAT and therefore needs to
rely on a TURN server to communicate with its peers. The TURN server as
well as all the peers operate in dual-stack mode.

The current priority calculation will yield a communication path that
uses IPv4 to talk to the TURN server (as that is the only one available)
but due to the preference ordering of IPv6 over IPv4, will use an IPv6
path to the peer, despite the peer also supporting IPv4.

This isn't a problem per-se but makes our life unnecessarily difficult.
Our TURN servers use eBPF to efficiently deal with TURN's channel-data
messages. This however is at present only implemented for the IPv4 <>
IPv4 and IPv6 <> IPv6 path. Implementing the other paths is possible but
complicates the eBPF code because we need to also translate IP headers
between versions and not just update the source and destination IPs.

We have since patched `str0m` to extend the `Candidate::relayed`
constructor to also take a `base` address which is - similar to the
other candidate types - the address the client is sending from in order
to use this candidate. In the context of relayed candidates, this is the
address the client is using to talk to the TURN server. We can use this
information in the candidate's priority calculation to prefer candidates
that allow traffic to remain within one IP version, i.e. if the client
talks to the TURN server over IPv4, the candidate with an allocated IPv4
address will have a higher priority than the one with the IPv6 address
because we are applying a "punishment" factor as part of the
local-preference component in the priority formula.

Staying within the same IP version whilst relaying traffic allows our
TURN servers to use their eBPF kernel which results in a better UX due
to lower latency and higher throughput.

The final candidate ordering is ultimately decided by the controlling
ICE agent which in our case is the Firezone Client. Thus, we don't
necessarily need to update Gateways in order to test / benefit from
this. Building a Client with this patch included should be enough to
benefit from this change.

Related: https://github.com/algesten/str0m/pull/640
Related: https://github.com/algesten/str0m/pull/644
2025-04-20 22:41:56 +00:00
..

Connlib

Firezone's connectivity library shared by all clients.

Building Connlib

You shouldn't need to build connlib directly; it's typically built as a dependency of one of the other Firezone components. See READMEs in those directories for relevant instructions.