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.. _admin-plugins-slice:

Slice Plugin
***************

This plugin takes client requests and breaks them up into
successive aligned block requests.  This supports both
whole asset and single range requests.

Purpose
=======

This slice plugin, along with the `cache_range_requests`
plugin allows the following:

-  Fulfill arbitrary range requests by fetching a minimum
   number of cacheable aligned blocks to fulfill the request.
-  Breaks up very large assets into much smaller cache
   blocks that can be spread across multiple storage
   devices and within cache groups.

Configuration
=============

This plugin is intended for use as a remap plugin and is
configured in :file:`remap.config`.

Or preferably per remap rule in :file:`remap.config`::

    map http://ats/ http://parent/ @plugin=slice.so \
        @plugin=cache_range_requests.so

In this case, the plugin will use the default behaviour:

-  Fulfill whole file or range requests by requesting cacheable
   block aligned ranges from the parent and assemble them
   into client responses, either 200 or 206 depending on the
   client request.
-  Default block size is 1mb (1048576 bytes).
-  This plugin depends on the cache_range_requests plugin
   to perform actual parent fetching and block caching
   and If-* conditional header evaluations.

Plugin Options
--------------

The slice plugin supports the following options::

    --blockbytes=<bytes> (optional)
        Default is 1m or 1048576 bytes
        -b <bytes> for short.
        Suffix k,m,g supported
        Limited to 32k and 128m inclusive.

    --blockbytes-test=<bytes> (optional)
        Suffix k,m,g supported
        -t <bytes> for short.
        Limited to any positive number.
        Ignored if --blockbytes provided.

    --disable-errorlog (optional)
        Disable writing block stitch errors to the error log.
        -d for short

    --exclude-regex=<regex> (optional)
        If provided, only slice what matches.
        If not provided will always slice
        Cannot be used with --include-regex
        -e for short

    --include-regex=<regex> (optional)
        If provided, only slice what matches.
        If not provided will always slice
        Cannot be used with --exclude-regex
        -i for short

    --pace-errorlog=<seconds> (optional)
        Limit stitching error logs to every 'n' second(s)
        -p for short

    --ref-relative (optional)
        Self healing mode typically uses slice 0 as the reference slice
        for every request.  This is very safe but also increases plugin
        time and latency as the first slice is always fully processed
        whether or not the original requests needs any data from slice 0.
        This option uses the first slice in the request as reference
        which has better performance.  A downside of this mode is that
        self healing won't happen if blocks in a request agree.
        Normally leave this off.
        -l for short

    --remap-host=<loopback hostname> (optional)
        Uses effective url with given hostname for remapping.
        Requires setting up an intermediate loopback remap rule.
        -r for short

    --throttle (optional)
        Under certain circumstances where many contiguous slices are in
        RAM cache ATS will aggressively try to push these through the
        slice plugin.  The downside of this is that all these contiguous
        slices end up being marked as fresh even if the downstream
        client aborts.  This option keeps track of how much data the
        client has already passed down and slows down issuing new
        slice requests.
        Normally leave this off.
        -o for short

Examples::

    @plugin=slice.so @pparam=--blockbytes=1000000 @plugin=cache_range_requests.so

Or alternatively::

    @plugin=slice.so @pparam=-b @pparam=1000000 @plugin=cache_range_requests.so

Byte suffix examples::

    slice.so --blockbytes=5m
    slice.so -b 512k
    slice.so --blockbytes=32m

For testing and extreme purposes the parameter ``blockbytes-test`` may
be used instead which is unchecked::

    slice.so --blockbytes-test=1G
    slice.so -t 13

Because the slice plugin is susceptible to errors during block stitching
extra logs related to stitching are written to ``diags.log``.  Worst case
an error log entry could be generated for every transaction.  The
following options are provided to help with log overrun::

    slice.so --pace-errorlog=5
    slice.so -p 1
    slice.so --disable-errorlog

After modifying :file:`remap.config`, restart or reload traffic server
(sudo traffic_ctl config reload) or (sudo traffic_ctl server restart)
to activate the new configuration values.

Don't slice txt files::

  slice.so --exclude-regex=\\.txt
  slice.so -e \\.txt

Slice only mp4 files::

  slice.so --include-regex=\\.mp4
  slice.so -i \\.mp4

Debug Options
-------------

While the current slice plugin is able to detect block consistency
errors during the block stitching process, it can only abort the
client connection.  A CDN can only "fix" these by issuing an appropriate
content revalidation.

Under normal logging these slice block errors tend to show up as::

    pscl value 0
    crc value ERR_READ_ERROR

By default more detailed stitching errors are written to ``diags.log``.

.. topic:: Example

    ERROR: [slice.cc: 288] logSliceError(): 1555705573.639 reason="Non 206 internal block response" uri="http://ats_ep/someasset.mp4" uas="curl" req_range="bytes=1000000-" norm_range="bytes 1000000-52428799/52428800" etag_exp="%221603934496%22" lm_exp="Fri, 19 Apr 2019 18:53:20 GMT" blk_range="21000000-21999999" status_got="206" cr_got="" etag_got="%221603934496%22" lm_got="" cc="no-store" via=""

    ERROR: [server.cc: 288] logSliceError(): 1572370000.219 reason="Mismatch block Etag" uri="http://ats_ep/someasset.mp4" uas="curl" req_range="bytes=1092779033-1096299354" norm_range="bytes 1092779033-1096299354/2147483648" etag_exp="%223719843648%22" lm_exp="Tue, 29 Oct 2019 14:40:00 GMT" blk_range="1095000000-1095999999" status_got="206" cr_got="bytes 1095000000-1095999999/2147483648" etag_got="%223719853648%22" lm_got="Tue, 29 Oct 2019 17:26:40 GMT" cc="max-age=10000" via=""

Whether or how often these detailed log entries are written are
configurable plugin options.

Implementation Notes
====================

This slice plugin is a stop gap plugin for handling special cases
involving very large assets that may be range requested. Hopefully
the slice plugin is deprecated in the future when partial object
caching is finally implemented.

Slice *ONLY* handles slicing up requests into blocks, it delegates
actual caching and fetching to the cache_range_requests.so plugin.

Plugin Function
---------------

Below is a quick functional outline of how a request is served
by a remap rule containing the Slice plugin with cache_range_requests:

For each client request that comes in all remap plugins are run up
until the slice plugin is hit.  If the slice plugin *can* be run (ie:
GET request) it will handle the request and STOP any further plugins
from executing.

At this point the request is sliced into 1 or more blocks by
adding in range request headers ("Range: bytes=").  A special
header X-Slicer-Info header is added and the pristine URL is
restored.

For each of these blocks separate sequential TSHttpConnect(s) are
made back into the front end of ATS.  By default of the remap plugins
are rerun.  Slice skips the remap due to presence of the X-Slicer-Info
header and allows cache_range_requests.so to serve the slice block back
to Slice either via cache OR parent request.

Slice assembles a header based on the very first slice block response
and sends it to the client.  If necessary it then skips over bytes in the
first block and starts sending byte content, examining each block header
and sends its bytes to the client until the client request is satisfied.

Any extra bytes at the end of the last block are consumed by the the
Slice plugin to allow cache_range_requests to finish the block fetch to
ensure the block is cached.

Self Healing
------------

The slice plugin uses the very first slice as a reference slice which
uses content-length and last-modified and/or etags to ensure assembled
blocks come from the same asset.  In the case where a slice from a parent
is fetched which indicates that the asset has changed, the slice plugin
will attempt to self heal the asset.  The `cache_range_requests` plugin
must be configured with the `--consider-ims` parameter in order for
this to work.

Example `remap.config` configuration::

  map http://slice/ http://parent/ @plugin=slice.so @pparam=--remap-host=cache_range_requests
  map http://cache_range_requests/ http://parent/ @plugin=cache_range_requests.so @pparam=--consider-ims

When a request is served, the slice plugin uses reference slice 0 to
build a response to the client.  When subsequent slices are fetched they
are checked against this reference slice.  If a mismatch occurs an IMS
request for the offending slice is made through the `cache_range_requests`
plugin using an X-Crr-Ims header.  If the refetched slice still mismatches
then the client connection is aborted a crr IMS request is made for
the reference slice in an attempt to refetch it.

Optionally (but not recommended) the plugin may be configured to use
the first slice in the request as the reference slice.  This option
is faster since it does not visit any slices outside those needed to
fulfill a request.  However this may still cause problems if the
requested range was calculated from a newer version of the asset.

Important Notes
===============

This plugin assumes that the content requested is cacheable.

Any first block server response that is not a 206 is passed directly
down to the client. Any 200 responses are passed back through to
the client.

Only the first server response block is used to evaluate any "If-"
conditional headers.  Subsequent server slice block requests
remove these headers.

The only 416 response that this plugin handles itself is if the
requested range is inside the last slice block but past the end of
the asset contents.  Other 416 responses are handled by the parent.

If a client aborts mid transaction the current slice block continues to
be read from the server until it is complete to ensure that the block
is cached.

Slice *always* makes ``blockbytes`` sized requests which are handled
by cache_range_requests.  The parent will trim those requests to
account for the asset Content-Length so only the appropriate number
of bytes are actually transferred and cached.

Effective URL remap
===================

By default the plugin restores the Pristine Url which reuses the same
remap rule for each slice block.  This is wasteful in that it reruns
the previous remap rules, and those remap rules must be smart enough to
check for the existence of any headers they may have created the first
time they have were visited.

To get around this the '--remap-host=<host>' or '-r <host>' option may
be used.  This requires an intermediate loopback remap to be defined which
handles each slice block request.

This works well with any remap rules that use the url_sig or uri_signing
plugins.  As the client remap rule is not caching any plugins that
manipulate the cache key would need to go into the loopback to parent
remap rule.

NOTE: Requests NOT handled by the slice plugin (ie: HEAD requests) are
handled as with a typical remap rule.  GET requests intercepted by the
slice plugin are virtually reissued into ATS and are proxied through
another remap rule which must contain the ``cache_range_requests`` plugin

Examples::

    map http://ats/ http://parent/ @plugin=slice.so @pparam=--remap-host=loopback
    map http://loopback/ http://parent/ @plugin=cache_range_requests.so

Alternatively::

    map http://ats/ http://parent/ @plugin=slice.so @pparam=-r @pparam=loopback
    map http://loopback/ http://parent/ @plugin=cache_range_requests.so

Current Limitations
===================

Since the Slice plugin is written as an intercept handler it loses the
ability to use normal state machine hooks and transaction states. This
functionality is handled by using the ``cache_range_requests`` plugin
to interact with ATS.