This doc is deprecated. Discussion is continued in circuit's repo - https://github.com/libp2p/js-libp2p-circuit/issues/4 and the `implementation-notes.md` file in that same repo.

NOTE: This document is structured in an `if-then/else[if]-then` manner, each line is a precondition for following lines with a higher number of indentation

Example:

- if there are apples
- eat them
- if not, check for pears
- then eat them
- if not, check for cherries
- then eat them

Or,

- if there are apples
- eat them
- if not
- check for pears
- then eat them
- if not
- check for cherries
- then eat them

In order to minimize nesting, the first example is preferred

# Relay flow

## Relay transport (dialer/listener)

- ### Dial over a relay
- See if there is a relay that's already connected to the destination peer, if not
- Ask all the peer's known relays to dial the destination peer until an active relay (one that can dial on behalf of other peers), or a relay that may have recently acquired a connection to the destination peer is successful.
- If successful
- Write the `/ipfs/relay/circuit/1.0.0` header to the relay, followed by the destination address
- e.g. `/ipfs/relay/circuit/1.0.0\n/p2p-circuit/ipfs/QmDest`.
- If no relays could connect, fail the same way a regular transport would
- Once the connection has been established, the swarm should treat it as a regular connection,
- i.e. muxing, encrypt, etc should all be performed on the relayed connection

- ### Listen for relayed connections
- Peer mounts the `/ipfs/relay/circuit/1.0.0` proto and listens for relayed connections
- A connection arrives
- read the address of the source peer from the incoming connection stream
- if valid, create a PeerInfo object for that peer and add the incoming address to its multiaddresses list
- pass the connection to `protocolMuxer(swarm.protocols, conn)` to have it go through the regular muxing/encryption flow

- ### Relay discovery and static relay addresses in swarm config

- #### Relay address in swarm config
- A peer has relay addresses in its swarm config section
- On node startup, connect to the relays in swarm config
- if successful add address to swarms PeerInfo's multiaddresses
- `identify` should take care of announcing that the peer is reachable over the listed relays

- #### Passive relay discovery
- A peer that can dial over `/ipfs/relay/circuit/1.0.0` listens for the `peer-mux-established` swarm event, every time a new muxed connection arrives, it checks if the incoming peer is a relay. (How would this work? Some way of discovering if its a relay is required.)
- *Useful in cases when the peer/node doesn't know of any relays on startup and also, to learn of as many additional relays in the network as possible*
- *Useful during startup, when connecting to bootstrap nodes. It allows us to implicitly learn if its a relay without having to explicitly add `/p2p-circuit` addresses to the bootstrap list*
- *Also useful if the relay communicates its capabilities upon connecting to it, as to avoid additional unnecessary requests/queries. I.e. if it supports weather its able to forward connections and weather it supports the `ls` or other commands.*
- *Should it be possible to disable passive relay discovery?*
- This could be useful when the peer wants to be reachable **only** over the listed relays
- If the incoming peer is a relay, send an `ls` and record its peers

## Relay Nodes

- ### Passive relay node
- *A passive relay does not explicitly dial into any requested peer, only those that it's swarm already has connections to.*
- When the relay gets a request, read the the destination peer's multiaddr from the connection stream and if its a valid address and peer id
- check its swarm's peerbook(?) see if its a known peer, if it is
- use the swarms existing connection and
- send the multistream header and the source peer address to the dest peer
- e.g. `/ipfs/relay/circuit/1.0.0\n/p2p-circuit/ipfs/QmSource`
- circuit the source and dest connections
- if couldn't dial, or the connection/stream to the dest peer closed prematurelly
- close the src stream

- ### Active relay node
- *An active relay node can dial other peers even if its swarm doesnt know about those peers*
- When the relay gets a request, read the the destination peer's multiaddr from the connection stream and if its a valid address and peer id
- use the swarm to dial to the dest node
- send the multistream header and the source peer address to the dest peer
- e.g. `/ipfs/relay/circuit/1.0.0\n/p2p-circuit/ipfs/QmSource`
- circuit the source and dest connections
- if couldn't dial, or the connection/stream to the dest peer closed prematurely
- close the src stream

- ### `ls` command
- *A relay node can allow the peers known to it's swarm to be listed*
- *this should be possible to enable/disable from the config*
- when a relay gets the `ls` request
- if enabled, get its swarm's peerbook's known peers and return their ids and multiaddrs
- e.g `[{id: /ipfs/QmPeerId, addrs: ['ma1', 'ma2', 'ma3']}, ...]`
- if disabled, respond with `na`

## Relay Implementation notes

- ### Relay transport
- Currently I've implemented the dialer and listener parts of the relay as a transport, meaning that it *tries* to implement the `interface-transport` interface as closely as possible. This seems to work pretty well and it's makes the dialer/listener parts really easy to plug in into the swarm. I think this is the cleanest solution.

- ### `circuit-relay`
- This is implemented as a separate piece (not a transport), and it can be enabled/disabled with a config. The transport listener however, will do the initial parsing of the incoming header and figure out weather it's a connection that's needs to be handled by the circuit-relay, or its a connection that is being relayed from a circuit-relay.

## Relay swarm integration

- The relay transport is mounted explicitly by calling the `swarm.connection.relay(config.relay)` from libp2p
- Swarm will register the dialer and listener using the swarm `transport.add` and `transport.listen` methods

- ### Listener
- the listener registers itself as a multistream handler on the `/ipfs/relay/circuit/1.0.0` proto
- if `circuit-relay` is enabled, the listener will delegate connections to it if appropriate
- when the listener receives a connection, it will read the multiaddr and determine if its a connection that needs to be relayed, or its a connection that is being relayed

- ### Dialer
- When the swarm attempts to dial to a peer, it will filter the protocols that the peer can be reached on
- *The relay will be used in two cases*
- If the peer has an explicit relay address that it can be reached on
- no other transport is available
- The relay will attempt to dial the peer over that relay
- If no explicit relay address is provided
- no other transport is available
- A generic circuit address will be added to the peers multiaddr list
- i.e. `/p2p-circuit/ipfs/QmDest`
- If another transport is available, then use that instead of the relay