# Concepts

This explains the architecture and related concepts for this plugin. Reading and understanding these concepts is required to successfully use this plugin.

## Architecture

The mysqlnd connection multiplexing plugin is implemented as a PHP extension. It is written in C and operates under the hood of PHP. During the startup of the PHP interpreter, in the module initialization phase of the PHP engine, it gets registered as a mysqlnd plugin to replace specific mysqlnd C methods.

The mysqlnd library uses PHP streams to communicate with the MySQL server. PHP streams are accessed by the mysqlnd library through its net module. The mysqlnd connection multiplexing plugin proxies methods of the mysqlnd library net module to control opening and closing of network streams.

Upon opening a user connection to MySQL using the appropriate connection functions of either mysqli, PDO_MYSQL or ext/mysql, the plugin will search its connection pool for an open network connection. If the pool contains a network connection to the host specified by the connect function using the transport method requested (TCP/IP, Unix domain socket, Windows named pipe), the pooled connection is linked to the user handle. Otherwise, a new network connection is opened, put into the poolm and associated with the user connection handle. This way, multiple user handles can be linked to the same network connection.

## Connection pool

The plugins connection pool is created when PHP initializes its modules (`MINIT`) and free'd when PHP shuts down the modules (`MSHUTDOWN`). This is the same as for persistent MySQL connections.

Depending on the deployment model, the pool is used for the duration of one or multiple web requests. Network connections are bound to the lifespan of an operating system level process. If the PHP process serves multiple web requests as it is the case for Fast-CGI or threaded web server deployments, then the pooled connections can be reused over multiple connections. Because multiplexing means sharing connections, it can even happen with a threaded deployment that two threads or two distinct web requests are linked to one pooled network connections.

A pooled connection is explicitly closed once the last reference to it is released. An implicit close happens when PHP shuts down its modules.

## Sharing connections

The PHP mysqlnd connection multiplexing plugin changes the relationship between a users connection handle and the underlying MySQL connection. Without the plugin, every MySQL connection belongs to exactly one user connection at a time. The multiplexing plugin changes. A MySQL connection is shared among multiple user handles. There no one-to-one relation if using the plugin.

Sharing pooled connections has an impact on the connection state. State changing operations from multiple user handles pointing to one MySQL connection are not isolated from each other. If, for example, a session variable is set through one user connection handle, the session variable becomes visible to all other user handles that reference the same underlying MySQL connection.

This is similar in concept to connection state related phenomens described for the PHP mysqlnd replication and load balancing plugin. Please, check the PECL/mysqlnd_ms documentation for more details on the state of a connection.

The proof-of-concept takes no measures to isolate multiplexed connections from each other.