ModernUO/dev-docs
Kamron Batman 31cd19b05b
feat(network): grow the send buffer on demand instead of disconnecting (#2639)
## Problem

A connection's send buffer is a fixed 256 KB. A burst of world traffic (a crowded area, a mass spawn, a war) that outruns the client's acknowledgements fills it, `NetState.Send()` reports "send buffer exhausted", and the player is disconnected. Raising the size for everyone multiplies the per-connection footprint (4096 × 256 KB is already 1 GB at full occupancy, page-locked on Windows).

## What changes

- **Growth.** When a packet does not fit (the write span is too small, the packet is larger than the span, or compression returns 0), `Send()` asks the transport to grow the buffer to the next power-of-two tier and retries, up to `network.sendBufferMaxSize` (2 MB). Compression retries once per tier since its output size is not known in advance, including when the buffer is completely full. Only when growth is refused does the existing exhaustion disconnect run. The success path is unchanged.
- **Memory ceiling.** Growth is refused (with a once-a-minute warning) when the process working set exceeds `network.memoryCeilingPercent` (80) of the memory available to the process (container-aware; `0` turns the check off). The figure is sampled at startup and refreshed each maintenance tick.
- **Shrink.** A grown socket returns to the base buffer once it is drained and 30 s have passed since its last growth, attempted from the `DataSent` handler and from the 5 s alive sweep.
- **Retention.** Every minute a timer calls the transport's `Maintain()`, which trims idle tier slabs down to the peak concurrent usage of the last 15 minutes, so recurring bursts reuse buffers without allocation while rare ones give the memory back. The line logs at Debug, and only when capacity, usage, or the floor changed or a growth was refused (budget, at max, or ceiling), so an idle shard logs nothing.
- **Budget.** `network.sendBufferGrowthBudget` (256 MB) caps the tier pools' capacity; a positive value below one tier slab is raised with a warning, a negative one is clamped to 0 (growth off). Worst case is base × connections plus the budget.
- Settings are coerced with accurate warnings (power of two, minimum, 256 MB transport ceiling). `[dumpnetstates` gains the send buffer size. `dev-docs/server-requirements.md` describes the new memory story.

## Tests

`NetStateSendBufferTests` (real loopback sockets): growth instead of disconnect with a byte-exact stream, compressed growth against the compressor's own output, the grow-then-copy path, growth with a send genuinely in flight, refusal past the maximum, refusal under the ceiling, refusal on a closing socket, shrink after the hold (direct and through the alive sweep), and the setting coercions. Server.Tests 891 passed, UOContent.Tests 1052 passed against the published 1.0.12.

Reviewed per task, whole-branch, and adversarially by a second model (twice, the second time jointly with the transport branch); all findings addressed.
2026-09-12 16:35:06 -07:00
..
claude-skills fix: pets freeze, forget their orders, obey the wrong players, and fight when told not to (#2614) 2026-09-10 19:28:13 -07:00
runuo-migration-docs perf: keep damage entries in an inline intrusive list (#2605) 2026-09-01 23:25:14 -07:00
code-standards.md feat: Add zero-alloc interpolation handler to ValueStringBuilder, replace all StringBuilder usage (#2387) 2026-03-22 14:23:44 -07:00
commands-targeting.md fix: TextDefinition was uneditable in the props gump, and where parsed constants its own way (#2624) 2026-09-10 19:36:30 -07:00
configuration.md fix: Fixes Argon2 verify correctness and the password upgrade lockout (#2562) 2026-08-08 00:24:59 -07:00
content-patterns.md fix: pets freeze, forget their orders, obey the wrong players, and fight when told not to (#2614) 2026-09-10 19:28:13 -07:00
debugging-event-loop.md fix: stop the idle-sleep backoff tripping on healthy hosts (#2572) 2026-08-13 19:58:03 -07:00
era-expansion.md chore: Adds AI instructions and SKILLs for ModernUO codebase (#2347) 2026-03-01 11:42:19 -08:00
event-scheduler.md chore: Adds AI instructions and SKILLs for ModernUO codebase (#2347) 2026-03-01 11:42:19 -08:00
events.md feat(skills): SkillEvents.SkillUsed for cross-assembly subscribers; InternalsVisibleTo ModernSpawner.Tests (#2636) 2026-09-11 22:58:44 -07:00
generic-commands.md fix: TextDefinition was uneditable in the props gump, and where parsed constants its own way (#2624) 2026-09-10 19:36:30 -07:00
gump-system.md docs(messages): document interpolation anti-patterns and :L format spec (#2441) 2026-05-03 18:23:50 -07:00
ip-bans-and-allowlists.md feat: make the blocklist and manual allowlist opt-in; cut the ban subsystem's on-loop cost (#2577) 2026-08-13 23:22:35 -07:00
networking-packets.md feat: make the blocklist and manual allowlist opt-in; cut the ban subsystem's on-loop cost (#2577) 2026-08-13 23:22:35 -07:00
pathfinding.md fix(pathfinding): stop opening every .swb twice at boot (#2548) 2026-07-25 13:07:20 -07:00
platform-prerequisites.md fix: Require only runtime packages on Linux, and check ICU and tzdata the way the runtime does (#2561) 2026-08-07 15:03:08 -07:00
property-lists.md fix(opl): refuse property list invalidation raised from inside GetProperties (#2555) 2026-07-28 21:29:03 -07:00
regions.md chore: Adds AI instructions and SKILLs for ModernUO codebase (#2347) 2026-03-01 11:42:19 -08:00
serialization.md docs: update serialization docs and skills for generator v4 (#2588) 2026-08-22 18:29:27 -07:00
server-lifecycle.md refactor(server): unify first-boot prompts into the ConfigurePrompts phase (#2477) 2026-06-08 05:18:46 -07:00
server-requirements.md feat(network): grow the send buffer on demand instead of disconnecting (#2639) 2026-09-12 16:35:06 -07:00
string-handling.md docs(messages): document interpolation anti-patterns and :L format spec (#2441) 2026-05-03 18:23:50 -07:00
t2a-crafting.md feat: Pre-Publish 14 Crafting (supersedes #2181, #2381) (#2476) 2026-06-07 20:27:22 -07:00
threading-model.md perf(login): run password hashing on a parked worker thread (#2566) 2026-08-09 00:13:34 -07:00
tick-counts.md perf: Sleep the event loop when idle. Fixes networking micro-stalls. Adds event loop instrumentation. (#2559) 2026-08-09 13:24:59 -07:00
timers.md docs: update serialization docs and skills for generator v4 (#2588) 2026-08-22 18:29:27 -07:00