Protocols/MSNP/MSNC/P2Pv1 Headers

MSNP Protocol

MSNC

Overview • MSNObject

Client Capabilities

P2P protocol

Transports • MSNSLP

Headers

P2Pv1 Binary headers

P2Pv2 Binary headers

Transfers

Display Pictures

Custom Emoticons

File Transfer

Overview

Introduction • Terms • Clients

Reference

Error List • Commands • Relying Party Suite • Spotlife

Services

XMPP • HTTP Gateway • Tabs • Activities

Documentation

Development Tools • MSNP Grid

Polygamy • URLs used by MSN

Documents

Protocol Versions

Version 21

Version 18

Version 16

Version 15

Version 14

Version 13

Version 12

Version 11

Version 9

Version 8

Version 2

MSNC

Introduction • P2P • Object Descriptor • Display Pictures • File Transfer

Scenarios

Microsoft Messenger for Mac

MSNP on WebTV (MSNTV)

Binary headers

P2P messages consist of a 48-byte binary header, zero or more bytes of content, and at the end a 4-byte binary footer.

The 48-byte binary header consists of 6 DWORDs and 3 QWORDS, which are all in little endian (little end first) order, where a DWORD is a 32-bit (4 byte) unsigned integer and QWORD is 64 bits (8 bytes).

Fields in the table are index, byte offset, data type, name used for the field in this documentation, and description.

0                   1                   2                   3                   4                   5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|  SID  |  ID   | Data Offset   | Total Size    |Length | Flags | AckID |AckUID | Ack Data Size |DATA....
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

1	0	DWORD	SessionID	The SessionID, which is zero when the Clients are negotiating about the session.
2	4	DWORD	Identifier	The first message you receive from the other client is the BaseIndentifier, the other messages contains a number near the BaseIdentifier.
3	8	QWORD	Data offset	Explained under Splitting big messages. Most often the messages are not split, and this value is 0.
4	16	QWORD	Total data size	Case 1: The byte size of all data sent between the header and footer of all of the message parts. This is the same independent of how many pieces the message is split in. Case 2: If this is an acknowledgement, this field is a copy of the same field in the message acknowledged. Sending acknowledgements
5	24	DWORD	Message length	The byte size of the data between the header and footer of this particular message.
6	28	DWORD	Flag	Identifies the message type. See the flags section
7	32	DWORD	Acknowledged identifier	In case the message is an acknowledgement, this is a copy of the Identifier of the acknowledged message. Else this is some random generated number.
8	36	DWORD	Acknowledged unique ID	In case the message is an acknowledgement, this is a copy of the previous field of the acknowledged message. Else this is 0.
9	40	QWORD	Acknowledged data size	In case the message is an acknowledgement, this is a copy of the Total data size field of the acknowledged message. Else this is 0.

Flags

The flags field in binary header can take the following values:

• 0x0: no flags specified
• 0x1: chunk out-of-order
• 0x2: acknowledgement
• 0x4: there is a pending invite
• 0x8: error on the binary level
• 0x20: display picture/custom emoticon data
• 0x01000030: file transfer data

Splitting big messages

When the content of the message between the binary header and footer is larger then 1202 characters (or 1352 in case of a Direct Connection), the data must be sent in separate messages, each a complete P2P message with a Content-Type, P2P-dest, binary header and binary footer. The message is acknowledged from the receiving client only when all parts have been received, with the total size of the content as acknowledged data size. Here is the binary header you should use when splitting messages:

• SessionID: The same Session ID as you've used when handshaking
• Identifier: It must be the identifier used in the "data preparation" message + 1. It will stay the same for all parts.
• Data Offset: Amount of data (in bytes) that has been sent up to this part.
• Total data size: Amount of data (in bytes) that will be sent.
• Message length: Amount of data (in bytes) in this part.
• Message type: Type of message, see the upper paragraph.
• Acknowledged identifier: Random number.
• Identifier: 0
• Acknowledged data size: 0

Sending acknowledgements

When a client sends you a P2P-message, you should always reply with a sort of Acknowledgement Message (otherwise the official MSN Client will probably refuse your datum). Let's suppose that you've received and decoded a certain binary header. The acknowledgement message you can send has the following binary header:

• SessionID: Session ID of the received binary header
• Identifier: You can simply invert the identifier in the received binary header (~identifier in C++)
• Data Offset: 0
• Total data size: Same as the "total data size" field of the received binary header
• Message length: 0
• Message type: 2
• Acknowledged identifier: You can simply add one to the identifier in the received binary header
• Identifier: Identifier of the received binary header
• Acknowledged data size: Same as the "total data size" field of the received binary header

The footer is 4-bytes long and only contains 0s.

Note that when messages are split, you should only send one acknowledgement when the last part of the split message is received.

Footer

The 4-byte binary footer consists of 1 DWORD which is in big endian (big end first) order and that field represents the ApplicationIdentifier (AppID). If this field is zero, then the clients are negotiating about the session. The ApplicationIdentifier is 0x1 for display picture and emoticon transfer, 0x2 for file transfers, and for games it's specified by the start nenu code.