Stf status

States (enum state_kind values) reflect where we are in a negotiation, between events. During the processing of events, many things are up in the air and the state will be in transition. During processing, the fine details of where we are in negotiation is reflected in where we are in the code.

In IKEv1, it was pretty easy to treat the place in the sequence of messages of a negotiation as the state of negotiation: a message was either accepted or rejected. Furthermore, in a particular kind of exchange, each payload came in a standard-specified message. IKEv2 lets payloads be in any of several messages and you can drag out or compress the exchange as much as you want. This means that the state of negotiation may not be the same as the place in the sequence of messages of an exchange. If the payloads were in a fixed order, even if not in a fixed message, you could think of the state as being the position in the sequence of payloads. On the downside, this multiplies the number of states.

The state needs to reflect what has been done and (perhaps implicitly) what still needs to be done. At least for all points between events.

Currently, known stf_result states are (include/pluto_constants.h):

typedef enum {
	STF_IGNORE,             /* don't respond */
	STF_SUSPEND,            /* unfinished -- don't release resources */
	STF_OK,                 /* success */
	STF_INTERNAL_ERROR,     /* discard everything, we failed */
	STF_FATAL,              /* just stop. we can't continue. */
	STF_DROP,               /* just stop, delete any state, and don't log or respond */
	STF_FAIL,               /* discard everything, something failed.  notification_t added.
				 * values STF_FAIL + x are notifications.
				 */
	STF_ROOF = STF_FAIL + 65536 /* see RFC and above */
} stf_status;