Minimalist implementation of the QUIC protocol, as defined by the IETF. The IETF spec started with the version of QUIC defined by Google and implemented in Chrome, but the IETF spec is independent of Chrome, and does not attempt to be backward compatible. The main developer is Christian Huitema.
The first goal of this project is to provide feedback on the development of a QUIC standard in the IETF QUIC WG. Information on the WG is available at https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/quic/charter/. The in-progress version of the spec is available on GitHub at https://github.com/quicwg.
The second goal is to experiment with API for non-HTTP development, such as DNS over QUIC. Then there are plenty of other features we may dream off, such as support for multipath, or support for peer-to-peer applications. That's on the horizon, but not there now.
The code in this repo is a work in progress, but it is getting stable, just like the specification itself. The working group just issued draft-29, which is meant as the stabilization draft, and the Working Group Last Call is out! At this stage the changes in Picoquic will be mostly driven by performance issues, or API improvements. And bug fixing, too.
There are many implementations of Quic, listed at https://github.com/quicwg/base-drafts/wiki/Implementations. The interop goals are defined at https://github.com/quicwg/base-drafts/wiki/17th-Implementation-Draft, which points to the current interoperability matrix. Several implementations provide docker images to the "Quic Interop Runner" project, with results updated daily at https://interop.seemann.io/.
Bastian Köcher has developed bindings of the picoquic library to RUST. His repository can be found here. You may want to check it.
Picoquic is currently developed as a Visual Studio 2017 project, and simultaneously tested on Windows and on Linux. It has a dependency on the Picotls implementation of TLS 1.3. Picotls has two modes, a feature rich version that depends on OpenSSL, and a leaner version that only depends on the "minicrypto" library. For now, Picoquic uses the OpenSSL version, and has a dependency on OpenSSL.
The project consists of a core library (picoquic), of a test library (picoquictest), and of a test program (picoquicfirst). All these are written in C. In the Visual Studio project, the test library is wrapped up in the Visual Studio unittest framework, which makes for convenient regression testing during development. In the Linux builds, the tests are run through a command line program.
As explained in the Wiki, Picoquic is actively tested against other implementations during the QUIC Interop days. See https://github.com/private-octopus/picoquic/wiki/QUIC-milestones-and-interop-testing.
The current version is aligned with draft 27. All big features are supported, including the interface between QUIC and TLS, 0-RTT, migration and key rollover. The state of development is tracked in the list of issues in this repository.
We have started an implementation of DNS over QUIC as Quicdoq. DNS over Quic is interesting by itself, but it also provides an example for building an application different than HTTP on top of Picoquic.
We are spending time bettering the implementation. Until now the focus has been on correctness rather than performance. We will keep correctness, but we will improve performance, especially in light of practical experience with applications. Suggestions are wellcome.
Picoquic is developed in C, and can be built under Windows or Linux. Building the
project requires first managing the dependencies, Picotls
and OpenSSL. Please note that you will need a recent version of Picotls --
the Picotls API has eveolved recently to support the latest version of QUIC. The
current code is tested against the Picotls version of Sat Sep 12 20:48:55 2020 +0900,
after commit 2464adadf28c1b924416831d24ca62380936a209. The code uses OpenSSL
version 1.1.1.
To build Picoquic on Windows, you need to:
-
Install and build Openssl on your machine
-
Document the location of the Openssl install in the environment variable OPENSSLDIR (OPENSSL64DIR for the x64 builds)
-
Make sure that a copy of
libcrypto.libis available at that location, and that a copy ofapplink.cis available at theincludelocation: $(OPENSSLDIR)\include
for win32 builds, $(OPENSSL64DIR)\include\ for the x64 builds. -
Clone and compile Picotls, using the Picotls for Windows options. The picotls project should be in the same directory level as the picoquic project, and the folder name should be kept as picotls.
-
Clone and compile Picoquic, using the Visual Studio 2017 solution picoquic.sln included in the sources.
-
You can use the unit tests included in the Visual Studio solution to verify the port.
The build experience on Linux is now much improved, thanks to check-ins from Deb Banerjee and Igor Lubashev.
To build Picoquic on Linux, you need to:
-
Install and build Openssl on your machine
-
Clone and compile Picotls, using cmake as explained in the Picotls documentation.
-
Clone and compile Picoquic:
cmake .
make
- Run the test program
picoquic_ctto verify the port.
Thanks to Frederik Deweerdt for ensuring that Picoquic runs on MacOSX. The build steps are the same as for Linux.
Same build steps as Linux. Picoquic probably also works on other BSD variants, but only FreeBSD has been tested so far.
Sorry, not all that much documentation yet. This will come as we populate the wiki. Your
best bet is to look at the demonstration program "picoquicdemo" that is included in the
release. The sources are in "picoquicfirst/picoquicdemo.c". The sample folder
contains a code sample for a simplistic file transfer protocol, which might
be a good place to start. Look at the README.md file in the sample folder for
more details.
The code is constantly updated to track the latest version of the specification. It currently
conforms to draft-29, and will negotiate support for the corresponding version 0xFF00001d.
It will also accept negotiation of version 0xFF00001c, draft-28, and 0xFF00001b, draft-27.