[Opensim-dev] Comms Manager

Thu Feb 26 10:25:33 UTC 2009

I think that's what Melanie is leaning towards, but that would mean every module would have to be connected to at least one scene.

I do believe that you would have modules doing stuff already from a setting where there is no scenes loaded.

The regionLoader, for example. :D

Best regards,
Stefan Andersson
Tribal Media AB

From: adam at deepthink.com.au
To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de; michaelwri22 at yahoo.co.uk
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:21:48 -0500
Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] Comms Manager

Do we need the comms manager?

Can’t we just register them individually via Scene.RegisterModuleInterface, then pull what we want when we need it?

Adam

From: opensim-dev-bounces at lists.berlios.de [mailto:opensim-dev-bounces at lists.berlios.de] On Behalf Of Stefan Andersson
Sent: Thursday, 26 February 2009 2:10 AM
To: Michael Wright; opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] Comms Manager

Actually, I think the various 'module types' should bee seen as reflecting on what system resources will be made available to those modules - both as a conveniense (better suited API entrypoints) and for security (being able to set policies on modules)

Also, I very much see these repository functions that we are looking at as taking care of 'configuration' - ie, to make sure that the module code don't have to take care of, or know anyhting about, the configuration of other parts of the system.

Best regards,
Stefan Andersson
Tribal Media AB

Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:05:46 +0000
From: michaelwri22 at yahoo.co.uk
To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] Comms Manager

PS. One issue that I don't  like about a lot of the Region to UGAIM code that is currently in some of the region modules, is how the network/transport code is mixed up with the handling of some basic features like friends, presences etc. I do think we should have separate transport modules.

So maybe a IPresenceTransportService, then we could have PresenceOGS1Module that implements that. And the PresenceModule uses that interface for talking to and from the UGAIM servers. Rather than network code being mixed in with logic code in a single module.

Now if these are region modules or Global/comms modules is a different question. I just think we should have more specialisation in the modules so we can easily change the network protocols without replacing the whole sub system of a feature.

--- On Thu, 26/2/09, MW <michaelwri22 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
From: MW <michaelwri22 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] Comms Manager
To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
Date: Thursday, 26 February, 2009, 9:44 AM

Well I agree the name CommsManager is a bad choice and I'm all for changing/getting rid of that. I don't see this as a Manager but just another registery of modules. My proposal certainly isn't about making/keeping all the comms code centralised. I totally agree that we should have modules, and break up the current classes/interfaces in the Comms Manager.

The main differences between my proposal for comms modules and region modules are comms modules are initialised before regions/scenes are created and have no direct references to the scenes (although of course scene/region modules could register to events on them etc). But even that no direct reference could be changed. 

Also having this separate module system would also allow it to use the modules from the Grid,User and messaging servers (and maybe later the inventory/asset servers), which I think could help a lot to cut down the duplications we have between standalone and grid servers.

But my main issue with this concept (the comms modules and registery) is there isn't really that much difference between these and region modules. So is there any point in having the two systems/registeries. My concept is basically a Shared module and registery but more at the application level rather than the region level. 

I'm not actually really against having all the comms in region modules. But do think it brings up some issues. I don't actually agree that app level code/plugins shouldn't be able to access the comms to the UGAIM servers without going through regions or duplicating the comms handling code. And I know some of the other devs have even more issues with all the comms code being in region modules. So we need to find a solution that we are all happy with.

Maybe the solution is to work on separating the shared region modules out, so they are a actual different class/interface to the normal region modules and maybe a different registery(?). As has been talked about in irc a lot recently. But I guess these would still be accessed through regions/scenes? So really no different from a usage point of view to what we have now.

--- On Thu, 26/2/09, Melanie <melanie at t-data.com> wrote:
From: Melanie <melanie at t-data.com>
Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] Comms Manager
To: michaelwri22 at yahoo.co.uk, opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
Date: Thursday, 26 February, 2009, 4:33 AMHi,

I'm against a CommsManager class, on the grounds I'm against most 

other *Manager classes.

They serve as holders for stuff that seems straightforward 

initially, but soon become monolithic molochs that make a simple 

change, like adding a

 single method on a single interface, a task of 

changing 37 files.

I don't think that any of the region comms currently in region 

modules will need to be accessed from application plugins, since 

they are region specific.

I would envision a system of application plugins similar to region 

plugins, that would expose their own comms interfaces to do the sort 

of comms the application, rather than a region, needs to do.

Forcing region comms to go through some CommsManager seems wrong.

Here, I see that specialization is about to be discarded for 

convenience, and I don't agree. Region comms, like teleport comms, 

don't belong in an application level comms broker, they belong in 

region modules. So do most other comms I'm aware of. Take users, fir 

instance. The application never talks about users, regions do. The 

user server comms really should be a shared region module. 

Modularisation is the

 key here, not centralisation.

Melanie

MW wrote:

> More and more of the Region to UGAIM comms and Region to Region comms, is

being moved out of the Comms Manager and into region modules. Is this a process

we should continue and move everything out of there and into Region modules? 

> 

> I'm a bit torn on that issue, and I think a few other people are too.

We all know the current comms manager system is not the best :)  And its a real

pain to customise. 

> 

> One issue with having it all in region modules, is that everything has to

go through regions to be able to use those interfaces. Making it harder for app

plugins to do any comms related work. 

> 

> So if we decide to stick with a separate comms system (rather than moving

it to region modules), how can we improve it?

> 

> I think the first two tasks are:

> * to improve the interfaces/make it easier to

 extend.

> * and to make it so its loaded from plugins/dlls. 

> 

> One simple way of allowing plugins to create and setup the Comms Manager

would be making some small changes to the IApplicationPlugin interface:

> 

> * Add a PostInitialise method to that interface. 

> * Then changing the LoadRegionsPlugin so that it created the regions in

the IApplicationPlugin.PostInitialise call. 

> * Which would allow us to create some SetupCommsManagerPlugins which could

do its work in the IApplicationPlugin.Initialise() call.

> 

> [Note that brings up another issue that I want to deal with in another

email soon... of how do we define which plugins are loaded. And also if there

are multiple plugins, of the same type, in a single dll, how do we make some of

them get loaded but not others?]

> 

> The next task would be to improve the interfaces of the Comms Manager and

allow it to be

 expanded easier.

> 

> The current set of interfaces in the Comms manager are:

> 

> public class CommunicationsManager

> {

>         public IUserService UserService

>         public IMessagingService MessageService;

>         public IGridServices GridService

>         public UserProfileCacheService UserProfileCacheService

>         public IAvatarService AvatarService

>         public IAssetCache AssetCache

>         public NetworkServersInfo NetworkServersInfo     

>         public IUserAdminService UserAdminService'    

>         public BaseHttpServer HttpServer;

> }

> 

> I propose making it so the CommsManager also implements the

IGridServiceCore interface which I've added to the User/Grid/Messaging

servers, as part of the process of modulising them.

> 

> public interface IGridServiceCore

>  {

>         T

 Get<T>();

>         void RegisterInterface<T>(T iface);

>         bool TryGet<T>(out T iface);

>         BaseHttpServer GetHttpServer();

>  }

> 

> Then the components of the CommsManager can register themselves with that,

and request other interfaces/Components. At the moment it would still need the

old interfaces to be assigned, as external code use them. But over time, we

should then change the external code so they use the TryGet<T>(out T

iface) call when they want one of the interfaces/Components. 

> 

> So eventually the CommsManager will basically just be that interface and a

set of "modules" loaded and registered with it. 

> 

> This brings the CommsManager more in line with the Region module system

and the IClientCore and soon to be in use UGM servers system. We could even make

it so it could load the same modules as the UGM servers use if we

 wanted to. 

> 

> So thoughts, comments, bad fruit being thrown wanted.

>       

> 

> 

> 

>       

> 

> 

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

> 

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