
Gnutella Developer Forum                                         A. Fisk
                                                            LimeWire LLC
                                                                May 2003

                  Gnutella Dynamic Query Protocol v0.1

Abstract

   The traditional Gnutella broadcast search model handles all searches
   identically -- a search for "mp3" is broadcasted to as many nodes as
   a search for "Gettysburg Address".  As a result, searches for "mp3"
   return far more results than they need, wasting bandwidth for both
   query and query hit traffic, while searches for "Gettysburg Address"
   do not receive the desired number of results.  This proposal improves
   upon this search model by making the query dynamic, with Ultrapeers
   connecting to more nodes and dynamically adjusting the TTL of
   outgoing queries along specific connections to use just enough
   bandwidth to satisfy the query.

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Table of Contents

   1.    Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   1.1   Purpose  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   1.2   Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.    Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.1   Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.2   Ultrapeer Controls all Aspects of Query  . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.3   High Degree Network  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.4   Decrease Time to Live (TTL)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.5   Life of a Dynamic Query  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.5.1 Probe Query  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   2.5.2 Standard Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   2.5.3 Other Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   3.    Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
         References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
         Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   A.    Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

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1. Introduction

1.1 Purpose

   Searches for widely distributed content on Gnutella have
   traditionally been sent to the same number of nodes as searches for
   rare content.  This resulted in floods of query hit traffic for these
   searches, forcing Gnutella flow control algorithms to kick in and
   start dropping traffic.  These searches would use a great deal of
   bandwidth, taking network resources away from searches for rare
   content that ideally would travel further than they traditionally
   have.  Dynamic querying alleviates this problem by sending searches
   for widely distributed content to far fewer hosts while sending
   searches for rare content to as many or more hosts than traditional
   Gnutella searches.  It achieves these goals through changes to the
   network topology and accompanying changes to the search algorithm.

1.2 Requirements

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.[1] An
   implementation is not compliant if it fails to satisfy one or more of
   the MUST or REQUIRED level requirements for the protocols it
   implements. An implementation that satisfies all the MUST or REQUIRED
   level and all the SHOULD level requirements for its protocols is said
   to be "unconditionally compliant"; one that satisfies all the MUST
   level requirements but not all the SHOULD level requirements for its
   protocols is said to be "conditionally compliant".

2. Architecture

2.1 Overview

   On a high level, this change involves increasing the number of
   connections that Ultrapeers maintain, decreasing the Time to Live
   (TTL) of outgoing searches, and sending a search to one Ultrapeer at
   a time, waiting for results and adjusting the TTL on each iteration
   based on the number of results received, the number of connections
   left, and the number of nodes already theoretically reached by the
   search.  When the desired number of results is received, the query
   ends.  Each of these changes is dicussed in detail below.

2.2 Ultrapeer Controls all Aspects of Query

   In this scheme, the Ultrapeer controls all aspects of the query. Upon
   receiving a query from a leaf, the Ultrapeer ignores the TTL of that
   query and begins a dynamic query.  When an Ultrapeer receives a query

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   from another dynamic-query Ultrapeer, it MUST broadcast that query
   just as it normally would.  When Ultrapeers are performing searches
   for themselves instead of their leaves, they simply target more
   results to reflect that they don't have other Ultrapeers searching on
   their behalf.

2.3 High Degree Network

   Clients implementing dynamic querying MUST increase the degree of
   their Ultrapeer connections, as increasing the degree significantly
   increases control over the number of nodes hit in a query, maximizing
   its bandwidth-saving effects.  Clients implementing this proposal
   MUST maintain a minimum of 15 connections to other Ultrapeers, and it
   is RECOMMENDED that clients increase their degree to 30 or more.

2.4 Decrease Time to Live (TTL)

   Clients implementing dynamic querying also MUST decrease the TTL of
   outgoing queries.  One of the biggest problems with the traditional
   broadcast search model was that a node had little control over the
   horizon of a query.  Once a query was sent, it would attempt to
   hammer hundreds of thousands of nodes all at once.  The combinate of
   a higher degree network and lower TTLs dramatically reduces this
   problem because each connection represents a much smaller node
   horizon.
   For example, with a degree 6 network where each query is sent with a
   TTL of 7, a query sent down one connection theoretically would reach
   23,436 Ultrapeers (barring cycles in the network graph). In contrast,
   on a degree 32 network where each query is sent with a TTL of 3, a
   query sent down one connection theoretically would reach 1,024
   Ultrapeers.  While the total horizon is also less with a degree 32,
   TTL 3 network, the point is that increasing the degree and lowering
   the TTL allows the our algorithm to send the query to far fewer nodes
   on each iteration, allowing finer- grained control over the query and
   a more accurate dynamic calculation of what the TTL for the next
   iteration should be.
   In choosing the degree and the maximum TTL, clients MUST NOT exceed
   200,000 Ultrapeers for their maximum theoretical search horizon --
   the number of Ultrapeers they will in hit in searches for the rarest
   of files.  This translates into an overall horizon of 6,000,000+
   nodes when taking leaves into account, which should be plenty for any
   search, and which is only possible on a network performing close to
   optimally.

2.5 Life of a Dynamic Query

   This section discusses all aspects of a single dynamic query,
   including probe queries, search intervals, TTL calculation, etc.

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2.5.1 Probe Query

   When a client first begins a dynamic query, it has no way of knowing
   how common the desired file is.  As such, it's unclear what TTL is
   appropriate for the first connection.  To gather more infomation, it
   is necessary to send a "probe" query that gives some idea as to the
   popularity of the file.  A simple approach is to send a TTL=2 query
   down 3 connections and wait about 6 seconds for results.  If no
   results, are received, the next query may be sent with a high TTL,
   such as 3.  If the probe returns 30 results, however, it would make
   sense for the subsequent TTL to be lower, pe perhaps 1.
   If the client implementing dynamic queries also implements Ultrapeer
   query routing [2], further optimizations are also possible for the
   probe.  For connections that have supplied query route tables, the
   dynamic querier MAY choose to check those route tables for hits and
   to use that information to both determine the popularity of the file
   more closely and to decide which nodes to send the query to.  If, for
   example, a node has query route tables from 20 connections and 10 of
   them have hits for the query in their tables, it is clear that the
   desired content is widely distributed, and it is very likely that the
   probe alone will satisfy the query.  Note that the querier has
   reached this conclusion before sending a single query down any
   connection!  In this case, the querier may choose to send the query
   to 5 or more connections that have hits in their tables, knowing that
   each of them should return results and likely achieving the desired
   number of results.  Here, the query is only sent to nodes that are
   known ahead of time to contain hits and nodes without hits are not
   sent the query.

2.5.2 Standard Algorithm

   Once the probe is sent, the standard dynamic query algorithm takes
   effect.  In many cases, the probe will return the desired number of
   results, terminating the query.  When the probe does not achieve the
   desired number of results, however, the querier must begin the
   process of dynamically calculating the TTL, per hop wait times, etc.
   for the remaining connections, as described below.

2.5.2.1 Calculating the Next TTL

   The algorithm for calculating the TTL for the next connection is one
   of the most important parts of the dynamic query.  This calculation
   must take into account the number of hosts already queried, the
   number of remaining connections, and the number of results received.
   On each iteration, a reasonable algorithm is to divide the number of
   results still needed by the the average number of results received
   per Ultrapeer queried to get the number of Ultrapeers you should hit,
   and then to divide this number by the number of remaining connections

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   to get the total number of hosts to query per connection.  With the
   number of hosts to query per connection, you can easily calculate the
   appropriate TTL based on the degree of the connection being queried.
   More formally:

        Let D = the total number of results desired (150)
        Let r = the number of results received
        Let R = the number of results needed, or D - r
        Let H = the number of Ultrapeers already theoretically queried
        Let RH = the number of results per Ultrapeer, or r/H
        Let HQ = the number of hosts to query to reach the
                 desired number of results, or R/RH
        Let C = the number of connections that have not yet
                received the query
        Let HQC = the number of hosts to query per connection,
                  or HQ/C
        Let DEGREE = the degree of the next connection

        TTL = the minimum TTL that will reach the desired number
              of hosts for this connection, based on HQC and
              DEGREE

   HQC and DEGREE can be used to calculate the TTL using the function
   shown in Section 2.5.2.2. Note that we calculate the TTL using the
   degree of the connection that will receive the query.  For our
   purposes, we assume that all nodes connected to that node have the
   same degree -- we don't take into account the likelihood that there
   is significant heterogeneity in the degrees of the connected nodes
   because there is no way to know this information and using the degree
   of the directly connected nodes should give an approximation of the
   horizon that is good enough for our purposes.
   The TTL calculation must also take into account the new X-Max-TTL
   header.  The X-Max-TTL header indicates the maximum TTL for fresh
   queries the connection will accept. As such, the TTL sent along a
   connection MUST NOT exceed the X-Max-TTL for the given connection.
   X-Max-TTL is discussed in more detail in the section on headers
   (Section 2.5.3.2).
   Finally, the difference between one TTL and the next is so great in
   terms of the number of nodes reached that it makes sense to weight
   this algorithm towards lower TTLs.  Given that we are always working
   with incomplete data, favoring lower TTLs mitigates the danger of
   choosing a TTL that is too high and wastes network resources.

2.5.2.2 Calculating the Theoretical Horizon

   At the end of each iteration, the client must add the new number of

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   hosts theoretically queried to the total.  For one connection, this
   calculation is:

         hosts(degree,ttl) = Sum[(degree-1)^i, 0 <= i <= ttl-1]

    Note that this only calculates the theoretical horizon for the
   query, and not the actual horizon.  If there are cycles in the
   network graph, or if the nodes on subsequent hops have different
   degrees, this number will be innaccurate.  Unfortunately, it's the
   best we can do without imposing overly burdensome restrictions on the
   overall topology, and this estimate is accurate enough for our
   purposes.  This is the number that should be used in calculating the
   next TTL.

2.5.2.3 Time to Wait Per Hop

   After sending a query to one connection, an Ultrapeer MUST wait for
   hosts to return query hits before sending the next query to the next
   connection.  It must wait for results because those results are vital
   in determining the popularity of the file, and therefore in
   calculating the TTL for sending the query down subsequent
   connections.  In experimental observations, 2400 milliseconds per hop
   is a reasonable latency to expect.  So, if a query is sent with
   TTL=3, the querier would wait 7200 milliseconds for results before
   sending the query down another connection. While some query hits may
   arrive after this wait time, 2400 milliseconds per hop is enough to
   capture the majority of hits that will be returned.
   As a general rule, the querier MUST wait 2400 milliseconds per hop
   before sending a query down another connection.  Waiting for this
   period of time is vital because it's otherwise easy for a query to
   become "out of control", particularly if the content is popular.  If
   the querier does not wait for an appropriate period before sending
   the query to another connection, the algorithm may incorrectly think
   that the content is very rare, sending a high TTL query as a result.
   For queries like "mp3", this is extremely destructive and defeats the
   purpose of dynamic querying.
   There are, however, two exceptions to the 2400 millisecond rule.
   First, for probe queries, it makes sense to send the query down
   multiple connections simultaneously without waiting for results.
   Once the probe is sent, however, the querier MUST wait the number of
   milliseconds appropriate for the hops of the probe.  In addition, the
   querier MAY scale the wait time up depending on how many connections
   are probed. So, if a probe is sent to 3 connections with a TTL of 2,
   the querier MUST wait for a minimum of 7200 milliseconds, but also
   MAY choose to wait for an extra second per connection probed. This is
   due to the heterogeneity of latencies on the network, and is
   particularly useful when the querier is taking advantage of query
   route tables from Ultrapeer query routing [2], where the probe may be

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   sent to 5 or more connections with a TTL of 1.  An accurate probe is
   vital to avoid sending a query with high TTLs for widely distributed
   content, as should become clear over the course of writing specific
   dynamic query algorithms.
   The second exception to the 2400 millisecond rule is an optimization
   for searches for particularly rare content.  When content is rare,
   waiting for 2400 milliseconds for every hop can make the overall
   latency of the query unacceptable. If a query is sent to 32
   connections at TTL=3, for example, the query would take almost 4
   minutes to complete!  If a query has taken a significant length of
   time and has searched a significant number of nodes, the querier can
   be reasonably sure that the content is at least fairly rare, and MAY
   choose to become progressively more aggressive with wait times.  For
   example, if the query has theoretically reached 3000 Ultrapeers and
   has returned under under 10 results, the querier MAY choose to
   decrease the per-hop wait time by 100 milliseconds for the next
   iteration, or even by an ever-increasing number of milliseconds
   depending on the iteration index.  Decreasing the wait time by 100
   milliseconds on ten successive iterations will decrease overall
   latency significantly.
   While this optimization is valuable and even recommended,
   implementors must take care not to be overly aggressive. This is
   particularly important for content in the "middle range" -- content
   that is not too common, but not too rare.  The danger with this type
   of search is again that the algorithm will select overly aggressive
   TTLs and waste network resources, and implementors should determine
   appropriate values through experimentation.

2.5.2.4 Query Termination

   There are several conditions that will terminate the query. These
   are:

   1.  The client receives 150 results for an Ultrapeer-initiated query,
       or 50 results for a leaf-initiated query.

   2.  There are no connections left to query.

   3.  The theoretical horizon has hit the 300,000 limit.

   The number of results to search for is covered in further detail in
   the "Number of Results" (Section 2.5.3.1) section. Algorithm authors
   also MAY choose to impose other restrictions on the query to
   safeguard against attack or abnormal conditions.  For example, a
   client MAY wish to limit the total lifetime of the query to, say 3
   minutes.

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2.5.3 Other Considerations

2.5.3.1 Number of Results

   Clients MUST target a maximum of 150 total results for a given query.
   This many results will give the client enough sources to successfully
   download the file while saving network resources on searches for
   popular content.  When 150 results are received, clients MUST NOT
   send the query to any more hosts.
   Because most queries are initiated by leaves, and because most
   clients connect their leaves to 3 Ultrapeers, each Ultrapeer MUST
   attempt to get only 50 results for a query received from one of its
   leaves.

2.5.3.2 New Connection Headers

   There are several new connection headers that clients MUST add to
   indicate their support for these features. Each header is outlined
   below.

2.5.3.2.1 Maximum TTL

   Clients MUST include a new "X-Max-TTL" header in their handshakes.
   This header indicates that we should not send fresh queries to this
   connection with TTLs higher than the X-Max-TTL.  If we are routing
   traffic from other Ultrapeers, the X-Max-TTL is irrelevant.  The
   X-Max-TTL MUST NOT exceed 4, as any TTL above 4 indicates a client is
   allowing too much query traffic on the network.  This header is
   particularly useful for compatibility with future clients that may
   choose to have higher degrees but that would prefer lower TTL traffic
   from their neighbors.  For example, if future clients connect to 200
   Ultrapeers, they could use the X-Max-TTL header to indicate to
   today's clients that they will not accept TTLs above 2.  A typical
   initial value for X-Max-TTL is 3, as it the following example:

     X-Max-TTL: 3

2.5.3.2.2 Ultrapeer Degree

   The X-Degree header simply indicates the number of Ultrapeer
   connections this nodes attempts to maintain. Clients supporting this
   proposal must have X-Degrees of at least 15, and higher values are
   preferable. This header takes the following form:

     X-Degree: 32

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2.5.3.2.3 Dynamic Query Version

   Finally, the client MUST indicate the version of dynamic queries
   supported.  This will allow future versions to make connections only
   to hosts supporting newer dynamic query features. This header takes
   the following form:

     X-Dynamic-Querying: 0.1

3. Conclusion

   This proposal addresses one of the most glaring flaws in the
   traditional Gnutella search model, namely that searches for widely
   distributed content were handled in the same way as searches for rare
   content.  This change uses much less bandwidth for searches for
   common files while doing more work for searches for rare files,
   improving overall network performance considerably.

References

   [1]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
        Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [2]  Fisk, A., "Gnutella Ultrapeer Query Routing, v. 0.1", May 2003,
        <http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/
        EHbCPh8iRqHKdls98hCO8-XiZzjgeUSUnbMC7ifpIejfpUIlFs5A7E6V4-miCr5-PdWwmDsEGHkyGcWR/Proposals/search/ultrapeer_qrp.html>
        .

   [3]  Rohrs, C. and A. Singla, "Ultrapeers: Another Step Towards
        Gnutella Scalability", December 2001, <http://groups.yahoo.com/
        group/the_gdf/files/Proposals/Ultrapeer/
        Ultrapeers_proper_format.html>.

   [4]  Osokine, S., "Search Optimization in the Distributed Networks",
        December 2002, <http://www.grouter.net/gnutella/search.htm>.

Author's Address

   Adam A. Fisk
   LimeWire LLC

   EMail: afisk@limewire.com
   URI:   http://www.limewire.org

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Appendix A. Acknowledgements

   The author would like to thank the rest of the LimeWire team and all
   members of the Gnutella Developer Forum (GDF).

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