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| +# SDCH
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| +
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| +"SDCH" stands for "Shared Dictionary Compression over HTTP". It is a
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| +protocol for compressing URL responses used when the server and
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| +the client share a dictionary that can be referred to for
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| +compression/encoding and decompression/decoding. The details of the
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| +SDCH protocol are specified in
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| +[the spec](https://docs.google.com/a/chromium.org/document/d/1REMkwjXY5yFOkJwtJPjCMwZ4Shx3D9vfdAytV_KQCUo/edit?pli=1)
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| +(soon to be moved to github) but in brief:
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| +
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| +1. If the client supports SDCH decoding, it advertises "sdch" in the
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| + "Accept-Encoding" header.
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| +2. If the server could have encoded a response with a dictionary (but
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| + didn't, because the client didn't have the dictionary), it includes
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| + an advisory "Get-Dictionary: <url>" header in its response.
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| +3. If the client has a dictionary that the server has previously
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| + advertised as being usable for encoding a particular requests, it
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| + advertises that dictionary as being available via an
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| + "Avail-Dictionary: <hash>" header in the request.
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| +4. If the server chooses to encode a response with a dictionary, it
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| + includes "sdch" in a "Content-Encoding" header, in which case the
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| + body will reference the dictionary to be used for decoding (which
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| + must be one the client advertised in the original request).
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| + Encodings may be chained; often responses are SDCH encoded, and then
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| + gzip encoded.
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| +
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| +## SDCH in Chromium: Overview
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| +
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| +The SDCH implementation in Chromium is spread across several classes
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| +in several different directories:
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| +
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| +* SdchManager (in net/base): This class contains all
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| + dictionaries currently known to Chromium. Each URLRequestContext
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| + points to an SdchManager; at the chrome/ level, there is one
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| + SdchManager per profile. URLRequestHttpJob consults the SdchManager
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| + for what dictionaries should be advertised with a URLRequest, and
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| + notifies the SdchManager whenever it sees a "Get-Dictionary"
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| + header. The SdchManager does *not* mediate fetching of
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| + dictionaries; it is conceptually layered underneath URLRequest and
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| + has no knowledge of URLRequests. There are several nested classes of
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| + SdchManager (Dictionary, DictionarySet) used in the SDCH
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| + implementation; see sdch_manager.h for details.
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| +* SdchObserver (in net/base). This is an Abstract Base
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| + Class which other classes may implement if those classes wish to
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| + receive notifications about SDCH events. Such classes should also
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| + register as observers with the SdchManager.
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| +* SdchFilter (int net/filter). This class is derived from net::Filter
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| + that is used for decoding the SDCH response; it cooperates with
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| + SdchManager and the URLRequestJob to decode SDCH encoded responses.
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| +* SdchDictionaryFetcher (int net/url_request):
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| + This class implements the nuts&bolts of fetching an SDCH
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| + dictionary.
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| +* SdchOwner (in net/sdch): This class is an SdchObserver.
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| + It contains policy for the SDCH implementation, including mediation
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| + of fetching dictionaries, prioritization and eviction of
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| + dictionaries in response to new fetches, and constraints on the
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| + amount of memory that is usable by SDCH dictionaries. It initiates
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| + dictionary fetches as appropriate when it receives notification of
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| + a "Get-Dictionary" header from the SdchManager.
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| +
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| +A net/ embedder should instantiate an SdchManager and an SdchOwner,
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| +and guarantee that the SdchManager outlive the SdchOwner.
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| +
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| +Note the layering of the above classes:
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| +
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| +1. The SdchManager and SdchOwner classes have no knowledge of
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| + URLRequests. URLRequest is dependent on those classes, not the
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| + reverse.
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| +2. SdchDictionaryFetcher is dependent on URLRequest, but is still a
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| + utility class exported by the net/ library for use by higher levels.
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| +3. SdchOwner manages the entire system on behalf of the embedder. The
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| + intent is that the embedder can change policies through methods on
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| + SdchOwner, while letting the SdchOwner class take care of policy
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| + implementation.
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| +
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| +## SDCH in Chromium: Debugging
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| +
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| +Data that is useful in debugging SDCH problems:
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| +
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| +* The SDCH UMA prefix is "Sdch3", and histograms that have been found
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| + useful for debugging include
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| + * ProblemCodes_* (though this requires trawling the source for each bucket).
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| + * ResponseCorruptionDetection.{Cached,Uncached}: An attempt to make
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| + sense of the twisted mess in SdchFilter::ReadFilteredData mentioned
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| + above.
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| + * BlacklistReason: Why requests avoid using SDCH when they could use
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| + it.
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| +* about:net-internals has an SDCH tab, showing loaded dictionaries and
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| + other information. Searching in net-internals for "Get-Dictionary",
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| + the URLRequest that actually fetches that dictionary, and then the
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| + hash of that dictionary (often used as the file name) can also be
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| + useful.
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| +
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| +## SDCH in Chromium: Gotchas and corner cases
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| +
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| +There are a couple of known issues in SDCH in Chromium that developers
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| +in this space should be aware of:
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| +
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| +* As noted in the spec above, there have historically been problems
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| + with middleboxes stripping or corrupting SDCH encoded responses.
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| + For this reason, the protocol requires that if a server is not using
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| + SDCH encoding when it has previously advertised the availability of
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| + doing such, it includes an "X-SDCH-Encode: 0" header in the
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| + response. Servers don't always do this (especially multi-servers),
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| + and that can result in failed decodings and requests being dropped
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| + on the floor. The code to handle this is a twisted mess (see
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| + SdchFilter::ReadFilteredData()) and problems have often been seen
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| + from or associated with it.
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| +* If the decoding logic trips over a problem, it will often blacklist
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| + the server in question, temporarily (if it can recover that request)
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| + or permanently (if it can't). This can lead to a mysterious lack of
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| + SDCH encoding when it's expected to be present.
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| +* The network cache currently stores the response precisely as received from
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| + the network. This means that requests that don't advertise SDCH
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| + may get a cached value that is SDCH encoded, and requests that do
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| + advertise SDCH may get a cached value that is not SDCH encoded.
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| + The second case is handled transparently, but the first case may
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| + lead to request failure.
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| +
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