cloudflare/boringtun

Keeping timers relative to start of tunnel initiation is confusing

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#309 opened on Aug 24, 2022

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 (5 comments) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)Rust (4,849 stars) (321 forks)batch import
code qualitygood first issue

Description

Keeping timers this way means that for example update_session_timers takes a time_now param that's a Duration instead of an Instant. All entries in Tunn::timers are Durations when many of them are "the time that something happened" and idiomatically I think these would be better expressed as Instants.

Contributor guide

Tech stack
rust
Domain
backend
Issue type
refactor
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-2 days
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
stale
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
Rust Duration/Instant typesboringtun codebase structure
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
40
Research direction
The issue proposes reworking the timer system to use `Instant` instead of `Duration` for tracking when events occurred. Specifically, `update session timers` takes a `Duration` parameter for `time now` which should be an `Instant`. The `Tunn::timers` field stores `Duration` values that represent absolute times; these should be changed to `Instant`. The change will affect how timers are calculated relative to the tunnel start. Key files to examine include `tunnel.rs` and any module handling timers. The discussion in the issue may provide further insights on required changes.