SecondNet Transmissions Protocol (SNTP)

Version 0.1

Overview

SNTP is a communications standard for interobject and intersim communication throughout Second Life.
It is designed to be similar to TCP but simpler for a few reasons;
- Packets do not have error correction as chat messages in SL always come out clean and email uses TCP so there is already error correction
- DNS is not expected to be implemented until at least Version 2.0
- There are no IP classes. When a host requests an IP address from the router it's connected to, the host gets what it is given. This makes NAT impossible without using improper IP addresses or using the 255.0.0.0 section which is reserved for the 255th sim to come online.

Architecture

SNTP is designed to be easy to add new hosts to the network and even easier for objects to communicate.

One of the parts of SecondNet that breaks the rules is that it has a central computer (The RGH Server, at IP 0.0.0.0).
The Rapid Growth Handler (RGH) server retains a table that the BoneLink servers of each sim can reference between the first octet of an IP address and the key of the BoneLink server that the remote host is connected to.

BoneLink servers

A BoneLink server is essentially that sim's connection to the rest of SecondNet.
Just for example lets say that the sim Kyle has a BoneLink server with the IP address 23.0.0.0
If that BoneLink server goes down then Kyle becomes isolated from the rest of SecondNet until the BoneLink server comes back up. All hosts with IP Address 23.*.*.* can talk to other 23.*.*.* hosts and all other hosts outside of 23.*.*.* can talk to hosts outside of 23.*.*.*. This is because the BoneLink server is the only connection to the rest of SL unless you have a backup connection through another sim. BoneLink servers are the only type of SecondNet device that isn't open source.

Routers

A router diverts one single connection to all the connections below it.