1 /*
   2  * Copyright (c) 2009, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
   3  * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER.
   4  *
   5  * This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
   6  * under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as
   7  * published by the Free Software Foundation.  Oracle designates this
   8  * particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided
   9  * by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code.
  10  *
  11  * This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
  12  * ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
  13  * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License
  14  * version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that
  15  * accompanied this code).
  16  *
  17  * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version
  18  * 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
  19  * Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
  20  *
  21  * Please contact Oracle, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USA
  22  * or visit www.oracle.com if you need additional information or have any
  23  * questions.
  24  */
  25 
  26 /**
  27  * A Java API for Stream Control Transport Protocol.
  28  *
  29  * <P> The Stream Control Transport Protocol (SCTP) is a reliable,
  30  * message-oriented, transport protocol existing at an equivalent level with UDP
  31  * (User Datagram Protocol) and TCP (Transmission Control Protocol). SCTP is
  32  * session oriented and an association between the endpoints must be established
  33  * before any data can be transmitted.
  34  *
  35  * <P> SCTP has direct support for multi-homing, meaning than an endpoint may be
  36  * represented by more than one address and each address may be used for sending
  37  * and receiving data, thus providing network redundancy. The connection between
  38  * two endpoints is referred to as an association between those endpoints.
  39  * Endpoints can exchange a list of addresses during association setup. One
  40  * address is designated as the primary address, this is the default address that
  41  * the peer will use for sending data. A single port number is used across the
  42  * entire address list at an endpoint for a specific session.
  43  *
  44  * <P> SCTP is message based. I/O operations operate upon messages and message
  45  * boundaries are preserved. Each association may support multiple independant
  46  * logical streams. Each stream represents a sequence of messages within a single
  47  * association and streams are independant of one another, meaning that stream
  48  * identifiers and sequence numbers are included in the data packet to allow
  49  * sequencing of messages on a per-stream basis.
  50  *
  51  * <P> This package provides two programming model styles. The one-to-one style
  52  * supported by {@link com.sun.nio.sctp.SctpChannel} and {@link
  53  * com.sun.nio.sctp.SctpServerChannel}, and the one-to-many
  54  * style supported by {@link com.sun.nio.sctp.SctpMultiChannel}.
  55  * The semantics of the one-to-one style interface are very similar to TCP.
  56  * An {@code SctpChannel} can only control one SCTP association. The
  57  * semantics of the one-to-many style interface are very similar to UDP. An
  58  * {@code SctpMutliChannel} can control multiple SCTP associations.
  59  *
  60  * <P> Applications can send and receive per-message ancillary information through
  61  * {@link com.sun.nio.sctp.MessageInfo}. For example, the stream number that
  62  * the message it is to be sent or received from. The SCTP stack is event driven
  63  * and applications can receive notifications of certain SCTP events by invoking
  64  * the {@code receive} method of the SCTP channel with an appropriate {@link
  65  * com.sun.nio.sctp.NotificationHandler notification handler}.
  66  *
  67  * <P> The SCTP protocol is defined by
  68  * <A HREF="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4960">RFC4960</A>, and the optional
  69  * extension for <I>Dynamic Address Reconfiguration</I> is defined by
  70  * <A HREF="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5061">RFC5061</A>.
  71  *
  72  * @since 1.7
  73  */
  74 
  75 @jdk.Supported
  76 package com.sun.nio.sctp;