Does SCTP works as advertised using Linux?

Question

I am planning to use SCTP for a embedded Linux project. Anybody has some comments on SCTP usage, mostly in one-to-many mode? Did it beat using a home-made UDP-based equivalent solution?

I control the network environement and all devices involved, so compatibility is not an issue.

Answer 1

I have made extensive use of lksctp and have found it to be robust and interoperable with many other implementations of sctp. The standard for the sockets API for SCTP is still evolving but is quite mature and I would expect any further changes to be backwards compatible.

I would use it with confidence.

Answer 2

The ACE library has a performance test for SCTP, so I would assume that it works.

Currently these programs provide the only example code on how to use ACE's wrapper-facades for SCTP. In the future additional code will be placed in the ACE_wrappers/examples/IPC_SAP/SOCK_SAP directory.

Using a framework like ACE is a good idea anyway, as it alloes you to program on a higher level and shields you from the error prone low level details of socket programming. As an additional bonus your code will be portable to all platforms that ACE supports.

Answer 3

Best answer is the comment:

Also, SCTP support in Glibc is less than ideal (in other words, non-present) -- you must use the libraries from lksctp, and it's not entirely well-integrated into the normal sockets API. Just one more reason to use a nice library that encapsulates the low-level functionality :) – ephemient