The Control program sends packets and receives packet responses from the Controller program over the Controller program's control socket.
This documentation describes the request packets sent by this program.
The purpose of these request packets are to ask the Controller program to perform a requested action.
The communications to/from the Controller program utilize the FSS-000F (Simple Packet).
This Simple Packet is expected to contain within it the FSS-000E (Payload) format.
The Payload contains within it a Header and a Payload.
Note the potential confusion here between the Payload when referring to the Packet format and the Payload referring to the Content within the Payload Packet.
To avoid this, henceforth "Payload Packet" refers to the FSS-000E (Payload) used within the FSS-000F (Simple Packet).
The "Payload Header" refers to either the Object (header:) or Content within the Payload Packet representing the header.
The "Payload Object" refers to the Object within the Payload Packet (ie: payload:).
The "Payload Content" refers to the Content within the Payload Packet.
The FSS-000E (Payload) is very flexible in what it allows within the Header of the Payload Packet.
The Control program is more restrictive and supports only a subset of the possibilities (which this is explicitly allowed by the Specification).
The Control program only supports the following Payload Packet header Objects for the request:
type: Allows only a single type header Object and may only be one of:controller,error, orinit.length: Allows only a single length header Object and must properly describe the length of the entire Payload Packet as per the referenced Specifications.action: Allows only a single action header Object and whose first Content must only be one of:freeze,kexec,kill,pause,reboot,reload,rerun,restart,resume,shutdown,start,stop, andthaw.
The number of Content associated with a action are specific to the requirements of that action.
The Payload Content is not used and should always be of length 0.
The Payload Content represents the rule being started in FSS-0001 (Extended) format, such as service sshd.
For example, given the command: control start service sshd in 5 minutes.
The action Object would be start service sshd in 5 minutes.