[trac4101] Add classify.xml file

Add the chapter about classification

doc/guide/classify.xml

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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
+"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd" [
+<!ENTITY mdash  "&#x2014;" >
+]>
+
+<chapter id="classify">
+  <title>Client Classification</title>
+
+  <section>
+    <title>Client Classification Overview</title>
+      <para>
+      In certain cases it is useful to differentiate between different
+      types of clients and treat them differently. There are many reasons
+      why one might want to treat clients different some common reasons
+      include:
+      <itemizedlist>
+      <listitem><para>
+      The clients represent different pieces of topology, for example a cable
+      modem vs the clients behind that modem.
+      </para></listitem>
+      <listitem><para>
+      The clients have different behavior, for example a smart phone vs a lapttop
+      vs a desktop.
+      </para></listitem>
+      <listitem><para>
+      The clients require different values for some options, for example a docsis3.0
+      cable modem vs a docsis2.0 cable modem.
+      </para></listitem>
+      </itemizedlist>
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+      It is envisaged that client classification will be used for changing the
+      behavior of almost any part of the DHCP message processing, including assigning
+      leases from different pools, assigning different options (or different values of
+      the same options) etc. For now, there are only two mechanisms that take
+      advantage of client classification: subnet selection and assigning different
+      options.  For cable modems there are specific options for use with the TFTP
+      server address and the boot file field.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+      The process of doing classification is conducted in three steps. The first step
+      is to assess an incoming packet and assign it to zero or more classes.  The
+      second step is to choose a subnet, possibly based on the class information.
+      The third step is to assign options again possibly based on the class
+      information.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+      Options will be included from all of the assigned classes. In the case two
+      or more classes include an option the value from the first class will be used.
+      Similarly if two or more classes are associated with a subnet the first subnet
+      will be used. In the future the processing order of the various classes may
+      be specified but for now it is being left unspecified and may change in
+      future releases.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+      There are two methods of doing classification. The first is automatic and relies
+      on examining the values in the vendor class options. Information from these
+      options is extracted and a class name is constructed from it and added to
+      the class list for the packet. The second allows you to specify an expression
+      that is evaluated for each packet. If the result is true the packet is
+      a member of the class.
+      </para>
+
+      <note>
+      <para>
+        The power of the expressions in the classification step is deliberately
+        limited in order to minimize the amount of time required to process each
+	expression. The expression for each class must be executed on each packet,
+        if they are overly complex or time consuming they may impact the performance
+        of the server. If you require complex or time consuming expressions you
+        should write a hook to perform the necessary work.
+      </para>
+      </note>
+
+      <note>
+      <para>
+        Care should be taken with client classification as it is easy for
+        clients that do not meet class criteria to be denied any service altogether.
+      </para>
+      </note>
+  </section>
+
+  <section id="classification-using-vendor">
+    <title>Using Vendor Class Information In Classification</title>
+      <para>
+      The server checks whether an incoming DHCPv4 packet includes
+      the vendor class identifier option (60) or an incoming DHCPv6 packet
+      includes the vendor class option (16). If it does, the content of that
+      option is prepended with &quot;VENDOR_CLASS_&quot; then it is interpreted
+      as a class. For example, modern cable modems will send this option with
+      value &quot;docsis3.0&quot; and as a result the packet will belong to
+      class &quot;VENDOR_CLASS_docsis3.0&quot;.
+      </para>
+  </section>
+
+  <section id="classification-using-expressions">
+    <title>Using Expressions In Classification</title>
+      <para>
+      The expression portion of classification contains operators and values.
+      Values are currently strings and operators take a string or strings and
+      return another string. When all the operations have completed
+      the result should be a value of &quot;true&quot; or &quot;false&quot;.
+      The packet belongs to
+      the class (and the class name is added to the list of classes) if the result
+      is &quot;true&quot;. Expressions are written in standard format and can be nested.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+      Expressions are pre-processed during the parsing of the configuration file
+      and converted to an internal representation. This allows certain types of
+      errors (such as incorrect syntax) to be caught and logged. Other errors
+      (for example mistakes when setting up the values for a substring) won't be
+      caught and may affect the classification. In general if an expression has
+      a problem a log message will be emitted at the debug level and the result
+      will be an empty string.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+      The expressions are a work in progress and the supported operators and
+      values are limited. The expectation is that additional operators and values
+      will be added over time, however it is expected the basic mechanisms will
+      remain the same.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+        <table frame="all" id="classification-values-list">
+          <title>List of Classification Values</title>
+          <tgroup cols='3'>
+          <colspec colname='name' />
+          <colspec colname='example' />
+          <colspec colname='description' />
+          <thead>
+            <row>
+              <entry>Name</entry>
+	      <entry>Example</entry>
+              <entry>Description</entry>
+            </row>
+          </thead>
+          <tbody>
+<row><entry>String</entry><entry>'example'</entry><entry>A string</entry></row>
+<row><entry>Hex String</entry><entry>'0XABCD'</entry><entry>A hexadecimal string</entry></row>
+<row><entry>Option</entry><entry>option[code]</entry><entry>The value of the option with code "code" from the packet</entry></row>
+          </tbody>
+          </tgroup>
+        </table>
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+      Hex Strings are converted into a string as expected.  The starting &quot;0X&quot; or
+      &quot;0x&quot; is removed and if the string is an odd number of characters a
+      &quot;0&quot; is prepended to it.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+      Option extracts the value of the given option from the incoming packet. If the
+      packet doesn't contain the option it returns an empty string.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+        <table frame="all" id="classification-expressions-list">
+          <title>List of Classification Expressions</title>
+          <tgroup cols='3'>
+          <colspec colname='name' />
+          <colspec colname='example' />
+          <colspec colname='description' />
+          <thead>
+            <row>
+              <entry>Name</entry>
+              <entry>Example</entry>
+              <entry>Description</entry>
+            </row>
+          </thead>
+          <tbody>
+<row><entry>Equal</entry> <entry>'foo' == 'bar'</entry><entry>Compare the two values and return "true" or "false"</entry></row>
+<row><entry>Substring</entry><entry>substring('foobar',0,3)</entry><entry>Return the requested substring</entry></row>
+          </tbody>
+          </tgroup>
+        </table>
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+      The substring operator substring(value, start, length) accepts both positive and
+      negative values for the starting position and the length.  For start a value of
+      0 is the first byte in the string while -1 is the last byte.  If the starting
+      point is outside of the original string an empty string is returned.  Length
+      is the number of bytes to extract.  A negative number means to count towards
+      the beginning of the string but doesn't include the byte pointed to by start.
+      The special value "all" means to return all bytes from start to the end of the
+      string.  If length is longer than the remaining portion of the string then
+      the entire remaining portion is returned.
+      </para>
+  </section>
+
+  <section id="classification-configuring">
+    <title>Configuring Classes</title>
+      <para>
+      A class contains three items: a name, a test expression and option data.
+      The name must exist and must be unique amongst all classes. The test
+      expression and option data are optional.
+      </para>
+      
+      <para>
+      The test expression is a string containing the logical expression used to
+      determine membership in the class.  The entire expression is in double
+      quotes.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+      The option data is a list which defines any options that should be assigned
+      to members of this class.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+        <screen>
+"Dhcp4": {
+    "subnet4": [
+        {
+            "subnet": "192.0.2.0/24",
+            "pools": [ { "pool": "192.0.2.10 - 192.0.2.20" } ],
+            "client-class": "Client_foo"
+        }
+    ],
+    "client-class": [
+<userinput>
+        {
+            "name": "Client_foo",
+            "test": "substring(option[61],0,3) == 'foo'",
+            "option-data": [
+                {
+                    "name": "doamin-name-servers",
+                    "code": 6,
+                    "space": "dhcp4",
+                    "csv-format": true,
+                    "data": "192.0.2.1, 192.0.2.2"
+                }
+            ]
+        }
+</userinput>
+    ...
+}</screen>
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+      In this example the class named &quot;Client_foo&quot; is defined.  It is comprised
+      of all clients who's client ids (option 61) start with the string &quot;foo&quot;.
+      They will be given an address from 192.0.2.10 to 192.0.2.20 and 192.0.2.1
+      and 192.0.2.2 as their domain name servers.
+      </para>
+  </section>
+
+  <section id="classification-subnets">
+    <title>Configuring Subnets With Class Information</title>
+      <para>
+        In certain cases it beneficial to restrict access to certain subnets
+        only to clients that belong to a given subnet. For details on client
+        classes, see <xref linkend="classification-using-vendor"/> and
+	<xref linkend="classification-using-expressions"/>
+        Let's assume that the server is connected to a network segment that uses
+        the 192.0.2.0/24 prefix. The Administrator of that network has decided
+        that addresses from range 192.0.2.10 to 192.0.2.20 are going to be
+        managed by the DHCP4 server. Only clients belonging to client class
+        example_class are allowed to use this subnet. Such a
+        configuration can be achieved in the following way:
+        <screen>
+"Dhcp4": {
+    "subnet4": [
+        {
+            <userinput>"subnet": "192.0.2.0/24",
+            "pools": [ { "pool": "192.0.2.10 - 192.0.2.20" } ],
+            "client-class": "example_class"</userinput>
+        }
+    ],
+    ...
+}</screen>
+      </para>
+  </section>
+
+  <section>
+    <title>Using Classes</title>
+      <para>
+      Currently classes can be used for two functions.  They can supply options
+      to the members class and they can choose a subnet for the members of the class.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+      When supplying options class options defined as part of the class definition
+      are considred &quot;class globals&quot;.  They will override any global options that
+      may be defined and in turn will be overridden by any options defined for an
+      individual subnet.
+      </para>
+  </section>
+
+  <section>
+    <title>Classes and Hooks</title>
+      <para>
+      You may use a hook to classify your packets. This may be useful if the
+      expression would either be complex or time consuming and be easier or
+      better to write as code.  Once the hook has added the proper class name
+      to the packet the rest of the classification system will work as normal
+      in choosing a subnet and selecting options.
+      </para>
+  </section>
+
+</chapter>