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authorLennart Poettering <lennart@poettering.net>2009-02-02 23:38:48 +0100
committerLennart Poettering <lennart@poettering.net>2009-02-02 23:38:48 +0100
commit28bc5df410419a42344bfc30611ae9fd67e7288a (patch)
treeda4f62bca1df3cc461fef9b20451f89c91a52e08 /reserve.txt
parent72deb8c17675fe99a1c82ff9810f75e0dfed29a3 (diff)
add current version of the spec
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+A SIMPLE DEVICE RESERVATION SCHEME WITH D-BUS
+
+ This is supposed to bring peace to applications which require
+ exclusive access to audio devices, such as PulseAudio or JACK,
+ that currently fight a constant war about which application
+ gets access. This interface is supposed to be very simple and
+ implementable with only a few lines of code. Beyond improving
+ cooperaton between JACK and PulseAudio this might be useful
+ for other applications that need to access the audio device
+ directly, for example for supporting functionality that is
+ not available in these sound servers. e.g. media players
+ might use this for implementing clean AC3 pass-thru bypassing
+ PulseAudio, since PulseAudio doesn't support AC3 pass-thru for
+ now.
+
+ We version all services, objects, and interfaces to make them
+ future proof.
+
+ This is supposed to live on the session bus. Bus activation
+ shall not be used for the service defined in this document.
+
+ Interface and methods are intended to be abstract enough so
+ that they may be reused for other resources than just sound
+ cards.
+
+ Code name: PAX SOUND SERVERIS
+
+INTERFACE DEFINITION
+
+ Service name:
+ org.freedesktop.ReserveDevice1.<device name>
+
+ Object name:
+ /org/freedesktop/ReserveDevice1/<device name>
+
+ Interface name:
+ org.freedesktop.ReserviceDevice1
+
+ Methods:
+ BOOL RequestRelease(INT32 priority, BOOL show_ui) (mandatory)
+
+ Ask the current owner of the device to release
+ the device for take-over. The application
+ requesting this should pass its priority. The
+ owning application should then compare this
+ priority with its own and release device
+ access and return TRUE (in this order!) if the
+ client's priority is greater than its own.
+
+ If the client's priority is lower than its own
+ the service should return FALSE and do nothing
+ further.
+
+ If show_ui is TRUE the current owner may
+ release the device after some form of user
+ interaction. If show_ui is FALSE the current
+ owner must reply quickly and without user
+ interaction.
+
+ The current owner doesn't need to base its
+ decision whether to return TRUE or FALSE
+ solely on the value of priority. It may take
+ other facts into consideration.
+
+ Properties:
+ INT32 Priority (optional)
+
+ The priority of the current owner of the
+ device
+
+ STRING ApplicationName (optional)
+
+ The name of the application currently holding
+ the device
+
+ UINT64 ApplicationProcessID (optional)
+
+ The PID of the process of the application
+ currently accessing the device
+
+ STRING ApplicationDeviceName (optional)
+
+ The name of the device how it is presented in
+ the application's context. This is supposed to
+ be human readable device identification
+ string. This is intended to be used in user
+ dialogs which inform which application blocks
+ the device right now and help the user to make
+ that application release it.
+
+ Again, this is supposed to contain the device
+ name in the *application's* context. Devices
+ might appear under different names in
+ different applications. e.g. PulseAudio might
+ list a device as "Intel HDA" while a
+ different application might call it "hw:0". To
+ help the user to free the right device in the
+ application this property should hence contain
+ the name in the owner application's
+ context.
+
+LOGIC
+
+ When an audio application that requires exclusive access to
+ the audio device starts up it shall first request the service
+ name org.freedesktop.ReserveDevice1.<device name> on the
+ session bus. <device name> shall be replaced by some form of
+ device identifier. For sound cards supported by normal kernel
+ drivers (i.e. ALSA/OSS kernel drivers) <device name> shall be
+ replaced by "Audio<n>" where <n> refers to the numeric
+ ALSA/OSS sound card index, 0 for the first card, 1 for the
+ second card, ... Example: "Audio0"). If that succeeds it may
+ access the audio device exclusively as long as it holds this
+ service name.
+
+ The initial request shall be made with
+ DBUS_NAME_FLAG_DO_NOT_QUEUE and
+ DBUS_NAME_FLAG_ALLOW_REPLACEMENT. DBUS_NAME_FLAG_REPLACE_EXISTING
+ shall not be set.
+
+ If the name request fails, the application may issue the
+ RequestRelease() method on the service. It shall pass a
+ priority value. If that priority is greater than the one of
+ the current owner the owner should release the device access,
+ and return TRUE (in this order!). The client shall then
+ request the name again, this time with
+ DBUS_NAME_FLAG_REPLACE_EXISTING, DBUS_NAME_FLAG_DO_NOT_QUEUE,
+ DBUS_NAME_FLAG_ALLOW_REPLACEMENT set. If the priority is lower
+ then the owner should return FALSE and the client shall not try
+ further access to the device.
+
+ An application shall watch for
+ org.freedesktop.DBus.NameOwnerChanged signals and give up
+ device access in case its service name is forcibly taken
+ away. This signal may also be used to monitor which
+ application currently owns the audio device.
+
+ While an application holds the service name it may exclusively
+ access the device. It doesn't need to always keep it open
+ during that time however. OTOH it shall not assume that
+ opening the device actually always succeeds if it owns the
+ name.
+
+ We always reserve entire devices. Partial device reservation
+ (as in only reserving playback, not capturing) shall not be
+ implemented.
+
+PRIORITIES
+
+ Priorities may use the full INT32 range. Normal applications
+ shall use priority 0. System services shall use positive
+ priorities (i.e. because they are probably more important than
+ normal applications). "Unimportant" applications shall use
+ negative priorities.
+
+ Higher priority values win.
+
+ INT32_MAX shall be considered the priority that always wins.
+
+ INT32_MIN shall be considered the priority that always loses.
+
+PROPERTIES
+
+ Optionally the owner of the device access may export a few
+ properties with a bit of descriptive information about
+ itself. This is supposed to be useful to how a nice message
+ to the user: "Application %s is blocking device %s. Please
+ close this application or make sure it closes the access to
+ that device." with ApplicationName and ApplicationDeviceName
+ filled in.
+
+RATIONALE
+
+ There are two reasons to have RequestRelease instead of simply
+ requesting the name right-away with
+ DBUS_NAME_FLAG_REPLACE_EXISTING: firstly this fixes a race
+ condition: the application giving up the name should first
+ release the device and then release the name. If we take away
+ the name forcibly right-away then the appliction needs to
+ react to that and close the device while the new owner might
+ already have tried to access it without success. Secondly, the
+ priority logic requires an explicit method likes this.
+
+ If an application dies its service name will automatically be
+ released as well.
+
+IMPLEMENTATION
+
+ A trivial implementation of this interface uses INT32_MAX as
+ priority value and always returns FALSE in RequestRelease. An
+ application written like this would always get access to the
+ device (unless the device is already owned by an application
+ that uses a similar trivial implementation) and would never
+ need to give it up again.
+
+Lennart Poettering