4 This is more or less complete list of tasks that has to be done before
5 SILC 1.0 could ever be released. It is clear that the list does not
6 include all the bugs that exists. At the end of list are tasks that
7 needs to be done but are probably post 1.0.
9 Feel free to contribute if you have the ability and free time - all the
10 help is really appreciated - and needed.
18 o Optimization in general. I have not focused to program optimized code
19 in many circumstances. It has been more important to get this up and
20 working. A lot must be optimized especially the ID cache. Instead of
21 using lists some hash tables should be used. The searching by ID and
22 such must be made a lot faster. If someone would like dedicate their
23 efforts purely to generate optimized code I'd be appreaciated.
25 o We should replace all short, int, long, unsigned short, unsigned int,
26 unsigned long with some pre-defined datatypes that really are what
27 we want on all platforms. int16, uint16, int32, uint32 etc. are
28 what we could use or maybe SilcInt16, SilcUInt16 etc. Also, boolean
29 datatype should be defined.
31 o Add boolean (or bool), typedef of unsigned char.
33 o More platform supports should be added. The code is pretty much
34 generic but there are some parts that require porting (SIM). Also,
35 some support for different platforms is needed into configure.in.
37 o SILC requires currently GCC to work because we use GCC specific
38 compilation options. Generally any compiler that supports inline
39 functions and can build shared libraries (for SIMs) should work.
40 These cases should be included into configure.in.
42 o Extended SIM (SILC Module) support. Currently only SILC Cipher API
43 and SILC Hash API may be used as SIM's. What I have in mind is to
44 have extended support for SIM's so that basically any SILC API could
45 be used as SIM's. This would open tremendous possiblities but
46 opens also issues on security that needs to be dealt with.
48 Some sort of SIM compilation environment should be defined so that
49 the SIM's could use SILC specific symbols from the modules (which they
50 cannot do currently). In the future modules could add new features
51 to SILC easily with this support. I'm more thinking this from client's
52 perspective to add new features to client (such as IRC support as SIM)
53 but server should have the support as well. Anyhow, this is an
54 interesting feature...
56 This maybe post 1.0 task - dunno.
58 o SIM support for other platforms than just for Linux. Apache has
59 example code (code that we could use directly pretty easily) for
62 TODO In SILC Client Library
63 ===========================
65 o Client library crashes if for example server timeouts protocol
66 execution and disconnects the client. The client, on the other hand
67 may still assume that the connection is active, even after receiving
68 the EOF. Reason for this is that the clien library does not handle
69 the SilcSocketConnection reference counter at all. This must be
72 o Add client library parameters or options that handle what kind of
73 messages the library should print out (using `say' client operation,
74 for example) and what is left for the application to print. The
75 appliation could for example set that it handles all command printing
76 but all error printing should be handled by the library, etc...
78 o Non-blocking connection on the background must be stopped if some
79 other connection on same window has established. Now it is possible
80 that some non-blocking connection timeouts on the background when
81 we already have a working connection to some other place; things
84 o Input line on UI is buggy. Cursor movement etc bugs. Too lazy to
87 o Logic for handling multiple same nicknames for example in private
88 message sending. I guess the logic is done in server side but is
91 o I guess, public key authentication (when connecting to a server)
92 is not working currently. It is just matter of loading the keys
93 from file and using them (see corresponding code in server, it should
94 support public key authentication already).
96 o Connection Authentication request resolving is missing and must be
97 done. This is required by the protocol.
103 o TODO in commands (command.c and command_reply.c):
105 o RESTART is not implemented
106 o CMODE should be rewritten as it uses a lot duplicated code.
107 Some of the modes may still not be implemented or is implemented
109 o In servers all command reply funtions should still call the
110 pending command reply even if the reply was error. In client
111 it is not called but in server, I think, it must be called.
112 When implementing this check that all commands handle the
113 situation correctly when it is called as pending command
114 (it should most likely check that cmd->pending == TRUE/FALSE).
116 o TODO in notify types (packet_receive.c):
118 o CHANNEL_CHANGE notify type is not implemented
119 o SERVER_SIGNOFF notify type is not implemented
121 o Packet processing can be made faster. All packet function in the
122 packet_receive.c has same prototypes. Instead of calling those from
123 huge switch() make a table of callback functions that can be called
124 directly by the packet type.
126 o DNS/IP lookup blocks the server. This must be fixed. Check the
127 resolver stuff (resolver(3), resolver(5)). Either we have to do the
128 own resolver stuff (through scheduler, if possible without writing
129 too much own stuff) or use threads.
131 o Acceptance of incoming connections (client and server connections)
132 should be checked before key exchange protocol. Currently it is
133 checked at the authentication phase after KE, that is ok, but it should
134 be checked before starting KE, as well.
136 o Server says that it is able to listen on multiple ports but currently
137 that is bogus. It can, but internals are for single server.
139 o Protocol execution timeouts are hard coded, should be configurable.
141 o IP address fields in configuration file should accept mask format
142 as well, IP/MASK, and not just plain IP.
144 o Connection classes should be actually implemented in serverconfig.c.
145 They can be defined but they are totally ignored currently.
148 TODO In SILC Libraries
149 ======================
151 o Rewrite the task system. I made it too complex and too "neat" and
152 it really should be rewritten. We don't need priorities really, one
153 priority is enough. This will simplify a lot the task system.
155 o Implement PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy) flag in SKE (and in client and
156 server, actually). If PFS is set, re-key must cause new key exchange.
157 This is required by the SILC protocol.
159 o Re-key in general is actually missing (from everywhere) and must be done.
161 o ID Cache expiry does not work.
163 o Compression routines are missing. The protocol supports packet
164 compression thus it must be implemented. SILC Comp API must be
165 defined. zlib package is already included into the lib dir (in CVS,
166 not in distribution), but it is not used yet, and it requires some
167 tweaking on the Makefiles (we want static lib not shared).
169 o SIM support for SILC PKCS API needs to made so that they could be
170 used as SIM's. At the same time some work is required on prime
171 generation as the way it is done now sucks. Read from code for
174 o Random Number Generator needs some tweaking. Reading /dev/random may
175 block resulting slow initialization of RNG. Some other things in the
176 RNG may block as well. Also, I have some pending changes to the RNG
177 that needs to be commited (from Schneier's Yarrow-160 paper). They
178 should make the RNG even better.
180 o Scheduler needs to be analyzed on high load as it might be unfair
181 towards select() because it may run timeout tasks before select() and
182 after select(). If it is found to be unfair the timeout task running
183 before select() should probably be removed.
189 o Write manuals for server.
191 o Write manuals for client.
193 o Write SILC Library Reference manual. This would include all the SILC
194 API's with simple examples how the functions are to be used. This is
195 pretty easy to create by taking all the functions plus their comments
196 from source/header files. However, same sort of reference manual
197 should be written for client and server as well.
203 o Pthreads support. A lot of problems are solved with server (and with
204 client as well) if we add pthread support. We can forget things such
205 as non-blocking connecting etc, and we can do things such as DNS/IP
206 lookups async. The server itself also benefits great deal from
207 threads, especially from performance point of view.
209 But, this is not a small task and almost entire SILC Library has to
210 be made re-entrant. Own API is probably added for the threads support
211 to make changes in the future as painless as possible. So the API
212 would have things like silc_mutex_lock, silc_mutex_unlock and
215 o X.509 certificate support. SILC protocol supports certificates and
216 it would be great to have support for them. This is a big task as
217 support has to be made for ASN.1 as well. I've looked into OpenSSL
218 package as it has X.509 certificate support (and ASN.1 as well).
219 The code does not look very good to my eye but it has some potentials.
220 This should be looked at more closely.
222 Naturally own SILC Certificate API has to be defined regardles what
223 the actual X.509 library is (OpenSSL X.509 or something else). Other
224 choice is to write own X.509 library but I'm not going to do it -
225 I can help to migrate the OpenSSL X.509 into SILC and I can help if
226 someone would like to write the X.509 library - but I'm not going
227 to start writing one myself. Anyhow, the OpenSSL X.509 lib should
230 o SSH2 public keys support. Maybe - not really needed but could be
231 nice as SSH is widely used all over the place. SILC Protocol
232 supports SSH2 public keys.
234 o Cipher optimizations (asm, that this) at least for i386 would be nice.