ZeroNetwork

Architectural Standard: 100% Pure C# BCL, Zero External Dependencies, Multi-Targeting across .NET 8.0, .NET Framework 4.6.2, and .NET Standard 2.0.

ZeroNetwork is an ultra-high-performance, sovereign .NET networking suite engineered for factory floor automation, IoT edge gateways, distributed industrial systems, and high-load ERP infrastructures. It provides an end-to-end networking stack from Layer 2 (Data Link & Hardware) all the way up to Layer 7 (HTTP REST & Real-Time SignalR/WebSocket) with ZERO external NuGet dependencies, eliminating assembly conflicts and DLL hell on legacy .NET Framework runtimes while maximizing throughput on modern .NET 8+.

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🏛️ Comprehensive Architecture & OSI Model Mapping

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                               ZeroNetwork Architecture                          │
├───────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────┤
│ OSI Layer         │ Component                        │ Key Highlights           │
├───────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ Layer 7: RealTime │ ZeroSignalRClient                │ Pure C# Hub Protocol v1  │
│                   │ ZeroWebSocketClient              │ RFC 6455, Auto-Reconnect │
├───────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ Layer 7: HTTP     │ ZeroApiClient & Extensions       │ Zero-LOH Stream Pipeline │
│                   │ ZeroHttpServer                   │ Micro REST & Prometheus  │
├───────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ Layer 4: Transport│ NetworkProbe & PortScanner       │ Zero-Leak TCP Handshake  │
│                   │ UdpMulticastClient & DnsProbe    │ IGMPv2/v3, Port 53 UDP   │
│                   │ NetworkThroughputMeter           │ Real-Time NIC Bandwidth  │
├───────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ Layer 3: Network  │ IPNetwork & VirtualAdapterFilter │ Allocation-Free CIDR     │
│                   │ Traceroute & PathMtuDiscovery    │ Hop Latency & Jumbo PMTU │
│                   │ NetworkInfo & NetworkAdapterInfo │ Deterministic NIC Select │
├───────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ Layer 2: DataLink │ MacAddress & ArpTable            │ Blittable Struct, P/Invk │
│                   │ ActiveArpScanner                 │ Subnet Scanner (No ICMP) │
│                   │ WakeOnLan                        │ 102/108-byte Magic Pkt   │
└───────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────┘

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🌟 Key Capabilities

1. Layer 2: Data Link & Hardware Discovery

• MacAddress: Blittable 6-byte struct with zero-allocation span formatting (Span<char>) and IEEE OUI vendor detection (VMware, VirtualBox, Hyper-V, Docker, QEMU).
• ArpTable: Fast IP $\leftrightarrow$ MAC resolution via Windows P/Invoke (IpHlpApi.dll) and Linux /proc/net/arp.
• ActiveArpScanner: High-speed parallel ARP sweep across CIDR subnets to detect 100% of live nodes even when ICMP/Ping is disabled by firewalls.
• WakeOnLan: Generates RFC standard 102-byte Magic Packets with support for 6-byte SecureOn passwords (108-byte packets) for remote machine power-on.

2. Layer 3: Network & Topology Math

• IPNetwork: Pure C# CIDR math (Parse, Contains, BroadcastAddress, Netmask, WildcardMask) with zero-allocation host iterators using Span<byte>.
• VirtualAdapterFilter: Hybrid heuristics and hardware vendor OUI detection that filters out virtual interfaces (VMware, VirtualBox, WSL, Hyper-V, Tailscale, ZeroTier, Docker).
• NetworkInfo & NetworkAdapterInfo: Deterministic physical NIC resolution on multi-homed systems.
• Traceroute: Hop-by-hop ICMP route inspection with latency profiling.
• PathMtuDiscovery: Binary search PMTU analyzer using Don't Fragment (DF) flags (verifying Jumbo Frames MTU 9000 for GigE Vision cameras).

3. Layer 4: Transport & Diagnostics

• NetworkProbe: Hardened non-blocking TCP socket prober (IsPortOpenAsync) with LingerState(true, 0) socket abort ensuring zero socket handle leaks under heavy loads.
• PortScanner: Parallel bounded-concurrency TCP port and subnet scanner governed by SemaphoreSlim with streaming Action<PortScanResult> callbacks.
• UdpMulticastClient: IGMPv2/v3 multicast group publisher and subscriber with physical network interface binding.
• DnsProbe: Fast UDP port 53 DNS client with sub-second timeout and reverse PTR record resolution.
• NetworkThroughputMeter: Real-time NIC bandwidth meter (Rx/Tx Mbps) with saturation alert thresholds.

4. Layer 7: Micro HTTP Server & REST Client

• ZeroHttpServer: Micro HTTP/1.1 server running in pure C# without administrator privileges, URL ACLs, or IIS. Features regex REST routing and built-in /metrics (Prometheus) and /health endpoints.
• ZeroApiClient: High-performance HTTP client utilizing stream-based direct JSON serialization (IZeroJsonSerializer) to eliminate Large Object Heap (LOH) allocations, combined with connection pooling and exponential backoff retry.
• ZeroHttpExtensions: Fluent string extensions (url.GetJsonAsync<T>(), url.PostJsonAsync<T>()) for clean, allocation-efficient HTTP consumption.

5. Layer 7: Real-Time Full-Duplex (WebSocket & SignalR)

• ZeroWebSocketClient: Resilient RFC 6455 WebSocket client built purely on BCL ClientWebSocket. Includes thread-safe frame sending (SemaphoreSlim), automatic message reassembly for large payloads, configurable keep-alive heartbeat, and auto-reconnect with exponential backoff and random jitter.
• ZeroSignalRClient: Pure C# ASP.NET Core SignalR JSON Hub Client (Protocol v1) with 0 external dependencies (no Microsoft.AspNetCore.SignalR.Client bloat, eliminating DLL conflicts on .NET Framework 4.6.2). Supports automatic handshake, server-to-client callbacks (hub.On<T>), client invocations (hub.SendAsync, hub.InvokeAsync<T>), and keep-alive ping management.

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🚀 Quick Start Examples

1. Active ARP Subnet Scanning (Bypass ICMP Firewalls)

using ZeroNetwork.Discovery;

// Scan /24 subnet for all active devices via Data Link ARP
var devices = await ActiveArpScanner.ScanSubnetAsync("192.168.1.0/24", timeoutMs: 300);

foreach (var device in devices)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"IP: {device.IpAddress} | MAC: {device.MacAddress} | Vendor: {device.Vendor}");
}

2. High-Performance REST Client (Zero-LOH Stream Pipeline)

using ZeroNetwork.Http;

// Fluent API with automatic connection pooling and retry
var users = await "https://api.factory.local/users".GetJsonAsync<List<UserDto>>();

// Or using ZeroApiClient directly
using var client = new ZeroApiClient(new ZeroApiClientOptions
{
    BaseAddress = new Uri("https://api.factory.local"),
    MaxRetries = 3
});

var response = await client.PostJsonAsync<OrderRequest, OrderResult>("/orders", new OrderRequest { OrderId = 1001 });

3. Pure C# SignalR Hub Client (0 External Dependencies)

using ZeroNetwork.RealTime;

using var hub = new ZeroSignalRClient("ws://erp-server:5000/hub/inventory");

// Register server-to-client event listener
hub.On<StockUpdateDto>("OnStockChanged", dto =>
{
    // Instantly update WinForms / WPF UI
    Console.WriteLine($"[RealTime] SKU {dto.Sku}: {dto.CurrentQty}");
});

await hub.StartAsync();

// Fire-and-forget invocation
await hub.SendAsync("JoinWarehouseGroup", "WH-01");

// Request-response invocation
int pendingCount = await hub.InvokeAsync<int>("GetPendingOrdersCount", "WH-01");

4. Resilient WebSocket Client (Auto-Reconnect & Keep-Alive)

using ZeroNetwork.RealTime;

var options = new ZeroWebSocketOptions
{
    ServerUri = new Uri("ws://edge-gateway.local:8080/telemetry"),
    AutoReconnect = true,
    InitialReconnectDelay = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1),
    KeepAliveInterval = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(15)
};

using var ws = new ZeroWebSocketClient(options);
ws.MessageReceived += msg => Console.WriteLine($"Received: {msg}");
ws.Reconnected += () => Console.WriteLine("Connection restored!");

await ws.ConnectAsync();
await ws.SendJsonAsync(new { deviceId = "CNC-01", status = "ONLINE" });

5. Micro HTTP Server with Prometheus Metrics

using ZeroNetwork.Http;

using var server = new ZeroHttpServer(port: 9090, ipAddress: "0.0.0.0");

server.MapGet("/api/status", req => ZeroHttpResponse.Json("{\"status\":\"OK\"}"));
server.MapPost("/api/trigger", req => ZeroHttpResponse.Text("Triggered: " + req.Body));

server.Start();
// Automatic Prometheus endpoint available at: http://localhost:9090/metrics
// Health check available at: http://localhost:9090/health

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💻 Supported Platforms

Framework	Target Support	Dependency Footprint
.NET 8.0+	Native (net8.0)	0 Dependencies
.NET Framework	Legacy WinForms / WPF (net462)	0 Dependencies (BCL only)
.NET Standard	Universal Cross-Platform (netstandard2.0)	0 Dependencies

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📄 License

MIT License © 2026 Phong Võ (kzxl). Part of the ZeroPlatform sovereign ecosystem.