2 Commits
Author SHA1 Message Date
mrambossekandClaude Fable 5 3c9af04e6f grant: replace the rate check with a token bucket
server-release / image (push) Successful in 15s
server-test / test (push) Successful in 32s
server-release / release (push) Successful in 33s
The live throughput test found it: a 3-second run delivered 104 packets and
stopped after 50 milliseconds.

The rate check exempted the first 50 ms entirely, meaning to be lenient at
startup. The effect was the opposite. A sender could dump an unbounded burst
into that free window, and the instant the check switched on it compared those
bytes against 50 ms worth of allowance and refused everything until real time
caught up. Every short test passed — downtrain sends 50 packets, big_send seven
— and every sustained send died about fifty milliseconds in.

A token bucket (allowance = burst + rate x elapsed) has no such cliff; it is
smooth from t=0. The burst is 100 ms of the allowed rate, floored at one
ordinary datagram so a single packet is never refused outright. The floor is
deliberately one datagram: at 8 kbps a 64 KB floor would be sixty-four seconds'
worth, which is precisely the instant dump the ceiling exists to prevent. The
existing rate test caught that when I first tried it, and it was right.

Second half of the same bug: callers treated any refusal as terminal. TryAllow
now says why, so a sender can pace through a transient "too fast just now" and
still stop dead on a spent budget or an expired grant.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 14:10:30 +02:00
mrambossekandClaude Opus 5 7e1015c211 server: §3.4 asymmetric grants + downtrain and big_send actions
server-test / test (push) Successful in 29s
server-release / image (push) Successful in 34s
server-release / release (push) Successful in 29s
The grant is the keystone that makes server->client sends safe: created
only by an authenticated control-plane action, bound at creation to the
session's OBSERVED data-plane source (so it can never be aimed at a third
party), and bounded by bytes, average rate and expiry. Sends stop the
moment the budget runs out, so a buggy action cannot become a flood.

Two granted actions on top of it:
- downtrain: N packets at a given size/interval toward the client, with
  seq + send-timestamp in the payload — downstream loss/reorder/jitter,
  which an upstream-only train cannot measure.
- big_send: one datagram per requested size, echoing the intended size in
  the payload — downstream MTU / black-hole evidence the client cannot
  produce for itself (only the far end can emit a large packet toward it).

Tests cover the security properties: no grant without a verified
destination, client requests clamped to server limits, byte budget stops
sending exactly, expiry refuses, and the rate ceiling throttles a burst.
Capabilities gain downtrain + big-send.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 10:09:13 +02:00