Kwik is a client implementation of the QUIC protocol in Java.
QUIC is a brand-new transport protocol developed by the IETF, which will be the transport layer for the also new HTTP3 protocol. Although necessary for HTTP3, QUIC is more than just the transport protocol for HTTP3: most people consider QUIC as the "next generation TCP". It has similar properties as TCP, e.g. provide a reliable ordered stream, but is better in many ways:
- it can serve multiple streams (concurrently and sequential) over the same QUIC connection
- it does not suffer from the "head of line blocking" problem
- it's encrypted and secured by TLS (not as a separate layer, but embedded in the protocol)
- it requires at most only one network roundtrip to setup the connection (the combination of TCP and TLS needs much more)
If you want to know more about QUIC and are able to understand the dutch language, check out my presentation on Luminis DevCon 2019.
If you're looking for a Java HTTP3 client, check out Flupke, which is build on top of Kwik.
Kwik is created an maintained by Peter Doornbosch. The latest greatest can always be found on BitBucket.
Kwik is not yet suitable for production use. Apart from the fact that the QUIC specification is still work in progress by the IETF, Kwik does not yet implement the complete (draft) specification. Moreover, Kwik has not yet been tested in production-like environments. Use at your own risk (as with all open source software ;-)). But apart from that: have fun!
The status of the project is that most QUIC features are implemented. Interoperability is tested with a large
number of server implementations, see the automated interoperability tests and
the QUIC interop matrix
for details. Due the to fact that all (server) implementations are still in active development, and that some test cases
(testing behaviour due to packet loss and packet corruption) are non-deterministic, the results of the automatic
interoperability test vary with each run, but usually, Kwik is amongst the best clients w.r.t. the number of
successful testcases.
Kwik is still in active development, see git history.
HTTP3 on top of Kwik is supported by Flupke, the Java HTTP3 client.
Kwik supports IETF draft-32, the latest draft published by the IETF.
Implemented QUIC features:
- version negotation
- handshake based on TLS 1.3
- data exchange over bidirectional and unidirectional streams
- stateless retry
- session resumption (see -S and -R options of the sample client)
- connection migration (use the interactive mode of the sample client to try it)
- 0-RTT
- cipher suites TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 and TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
- key update
Kwik is both a library that can be used in any Java application to setup and use a QUIC connection, and a (sample) command line client that can be used to experiment with the QUIC protocol. If you want to use Kwik as a library, consider the various classes in the run package as samples of how to setup and use a QUIC connection with Kwik in Java.
To build the client/library, run gradle (gradle build).
To run the sample client, execute the kwik.sh script or java -jar build/libs/kwik.jar.
Usage of the sample client:
kwik <host>:<port> OR quic <host> <port> OR kwik http[s]://host:port
-29 use Quic version IETF_draft_29
-30 use Quic version IETF_draft_30
-31 use Quic version IETF_draft_31
-32 use Quic version IETF_draft_32
-A,--alpn <arg> set alpn (default is hq-xx)
-c,--connectionTimeout <arg> connection timeout in seconds
--chacha20 use ChaCha20 as only cipher suite
-h,--help show help
-H,--http09 <arg> send HTTP 0.9 request, arg is path, e.g.
'/index.html'
-i,--interactive start interactive shell
--initialRtt <arg> custom initial RTT value (default is 500)
-k,--keepAlive <arg> connection keep alive time in seconds
-l,--log <arg> logging options: [pdrcsiRSD]: (p)ackets
received/sent, (d)ecrypted bytes, (r)ecovery,
(c)ongestion control, (s)tats, (i)nfo, (R)aw
bytes, (S)ecrets, (D)ebug; default is "ip", use
(n)one to disable
-L,--logFile <arg> file to write log message too
--noCertificateCheck do not check server certificate
-O,--output <arg> write server response to file
-R,--resumption key <arg> session ticket file
--reservedVersion use reserved version to trigger version
-S,--storeTickets <arg> basename of file to store new session tickets
--saveServerCertificates <arg> store server certificates in given file
--secrets <arg> write secrets to file (Wireshark format)
-T,--relativeTime log with time (in seconds) since first packet
-v,--version show Kwik version
-Z,--use0RTT use 0-RTT if possible (requires -H and -R)
If you do not provide the --http09 or the --keepAlive option, the Quic connection will be closed immediately after setup.
If you have questions about this project, please mail the author (peter dot doornbosch) at luminis dot eu.
Thanks to Piet van Dongen for creating the marvellous logo!
This program is open source and licensed under LGPL (see the LICENSE.txt and LICENSE-LESSER.txt files in the distribution). This means that you can use this program for anything you like, and that you can embed it as a library in other applications, even commercial ones. If you do so, the author would appreciate if you include a reference to the original.
As of the LGPL license, all modifications and additions to the source code must be published as (L)GPL as well.
If you want to use the source with a different open source license, contact the author.