---
title:
- QUIC with GStreamer & Rust
author:
- Sanchayan Maity
theme:
- default
classoption:
- aspectratio=169
---

# Who

- Who am I?
  * Embedded Systems background
  * Prefer C, Haskell and Rust
  * Organize and speak at Rust and Haskell meet-ups in Bangalore
- Work?
  * Software Engineer @ [asymptotic](https://asymptotic.io/)
  * Open source consulting firm based out of Bangalore and Toronto
  * Work on low level systems software centred around multimedia
  * GStreamer, PipeWire, PulseAudio
  * Language Polyglots


# Open source contributions

- [GStreamer](https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gstreamer/-/merge_requests?scope=all&state=all&author_username=SanchayanMaity)
- [gst-plugins-rs](https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gst-plugins-rs/-/merge_requests?scope=all&state=all&author_username=SanchayanMaity)
- [PipeWire](https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/merge_requests?scope=all&state=all&author_username=SanchayanMaity)
- [PulseAudio](https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio/-/merge_requests?scope=all&state=all&author_username=SanchayanMaity)
- [Linux](https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/log/?qt=author&q=Sanchayan+Maity)
- [u-boot](https://source.denx.de/u-boot/u-boot/-/commits/master?search=Sanchayan%20Maity)

# Agenda

- QUIC which is a UDP-Based Multiplexed and Secure Transport and standardized in RFC 9000
- Whirlwind tour of GStreamer
- QUIC implementations in Rust
- QUIC support in GStreamer
- Demo
- Future work

# QUIC

- QUIC is pronounced exactly like the English word "quick"
- Not an acronym
- Reliable and secure transport protocol
- Addresses some of the known shortcomings of doing HTTP/2 over TCP and TLS
- Standardized QUIC in RFC 9000
- Supported by RFC 8999, RFC 9001 and RFC 9002

# Building on shoulders of giants

- HTTP/2 [RFC7540](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7540) published in May 2015
- Makes use of multiplexing
  - Multiple logical streams over same logical connection
  - Better congestion control
  - Makes better use of TCP with bandwidth saturation
  - Less bandwidth consumption due to header compression


# Head of line blocking[^1]

![*_HOL Blocking_*](HOL_blocking.png){width=80%}


[^1]: [Head of line blocking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-of-line_blocking)

# Protocol

- Something new?
- TCP?
- UDP?

# Security/encryption

- No clear text version of the protocol
- Negotiation employs cryptography and security with TLS 1.3

# QUIC

- Implemented on top of UDP
- Uses UDP port numbers
- Implements re-transmission, congestion control among others
- Logical streams similar to HTTP/2
  - In-order
  - Reliable
  - Different streams can be out-of-order
- Flow control
- Fast handshakes (0-RTT and 1-RTT)

# GStreamer

- Multiplatform Pipeline based multimedia framework
- Bindings for various languages
- Allows building complex media processing workflows
- Some applications
  * PiTiVi (Video Editor)
  * amaroK, Banshee, Clementine (audio players)
  * Empathy (VOIP and video conferencing)
  * GstLAL (gravitational wave data analysis)
  * Rygel (DLNA streaming server and renderer)
  * Totem (movie player for the GNOME desktop)


# Simple pipeline

  ```bash
  gst-launch-1.0 videotestsrc ! autovideosink
  gst-launch-1.0 audiotestsrc ! autoaudiosink
  ```

# Media pipeline[^2]

![*_Simple Player_*](simple-player.png){width=80%}

[^2]: [Dynamic Pipelines](https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation/tutorials/basic/dynamic-pipelines.html?gi-language=c)

# QUIC implementations

- [quinn-rs](https://github.com/quinn-rs/quinn)
- [quiche](https://github.com/cloudflare/quiche)
- [s2n-quic](https://github.com/aws/s2n-quic)
- [neqo](https://github.com/mozilla/neqo)
- [msquic](https://github.com/microsoft/msquic)

# QUIC in GStreamer

- Two new GStreamer plugins `quinnquicsink` and `quinnquicsrc`
- Written in Rust
- Uses [quinn-rs](https://github.com/quinn-rs/quinn)

# Demo

- With audio
- With video

# Future work

- Support stream multiplexing
- Handling flow control
- Congestion control
- [Media over QUIC](https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/moq/about/)

# References

- [RFC 9000](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9000.html)

# Questions

- Reach out on
  * Email: sanchayan@sanchayanmaity.net
  * Mastodon: [sanchayanmaity.com](https://sanchayanmaity.com/@sanchayan)
  * Telegram: https://t.me/SanchayanMaity
  * Blog: [sanchayanmaity.net](https://sanchayanmaity.net/)