1 TODO/bugs in Irssi SILC client
2 ==============================
4 o /USERS does not show the user modes on the channel correctly.
6 o Fix the silc_channels_join to parse the command like, with fe.
7 silc_parse_command_line, because currently it ignores all options,
8 including passphrase which makes autojoin impossible to +a channels.
9 Other important options are ignored too.
11 o Add local command to switch the channel's private key when channel has
12 several private keys. Currently sending channel messages with many
13 keys is not possible because changing the key is not possible by the
16 o Add the server/router operator info to the statusbar.
18 o /cumode for unknown nick does not give any error message.
21 TODO/bugs In SILC Client Library
22 ================================
24 o The PRIVATE_MESSAGE_KEY packet is not handled (it is implemented
25 though). This should be added and perhaps new client operation
26 should be added to notify application that it was received and
27 set the key only if application wishes to set (accept the key) it.
29 o Additions to do after protocol version 1.1:
31 o Fix the NICK_CHANGE notify handling not to create new entry
32 for the changed client, but take the nickname from the notify
33 (removes need for resolving as well). Protocol TODO entry 3.
35 o Add support for list of errors in command replies. Protocol
39 TODO/bugs In SILC Server
40 ========================
42 o Configuration file additions:
44 o Add version handling, to allow, disallow certain versions to
47 o Add incoming connection frequency, incoming connection frequency
48 for single IP address, key exchange frequency, key exchange
49 frequency for single IP. Add also frequency base.
51 o Add hashed passwords to config file.
53 o Add rehashing support.
55 o If server send CUMODE_CHANGE notify (like setting founder) to router
56 and router does not have founder on channel (founder is left or there's
57 no founder on channel at all), the router will accept the server's
58 founder mode change, even though it perhaps should not do that.
60 o The router should check for validity of received notify packets from
61 servers (after all buggy servers may send notify that is actually
62 something that should have not been sent).
64 o Add a timeout to handling incoming JOIN commands. It should be
65 enforced that JOIN command is executed only once in a second or two
66 seconds. Now it is possible to accept n incoming JOIN commands
67 and process them without any timeouts. THis must be employed because
68 each JOIN command will create and distribute the new channel key
69 to everybody on the channel.
71 o Backup router related issues
73 o Channel user mode changes are notified unnecessarely when
74 switching to backup router on router crash.
76 o Lots of statistics updating is missing around the server.
78 o If client's public key is saved in the server (and doing public key
79 authentication) then the hostname and the username information could
80 be taken from the public key. Should be a configuration option!
83 TODO/bugs In SILC Libraries
84 ===========================
86 o Fix possible buffer overflows in silc_id_render function.
88 o WIN32 silc_net_create_connection_async does not work the same way
89 than on Unix. Do it with threads on WIN32. The function works but
90 is not actually async currently.
92 o Rewrite the lib/silcsim/silcsim.h. The SilcSimContext should be
93 private and silc_sim_alloc should take necessary arguments.
95 o SILC RNG does not implement random seed files, and they should be
98 o The SilcSocketConnection in the SFTP interface is actually redundant
99 and should perhaps be removed. The application can save it in the
100 context it provides, which is delivered by SFTP libary to all
103 o EPOC specific additions/changes required:
105 o lib/silcutil/epoc routines missing or not completed.
107 o Rewrite the lib/silcutil/silcprotocol.[ch] not to have
108 [un]register functions, but to make it context based all the
109 way. The alloc should take as argument the protocol type and
110 its callback (not only final callback). It is not good that we
111 have now global list of registered protocols.
113 o Global RNG should not be allowed on EPOC, since it won't
114 work. Every function in library that calls the global RNG must
115 also take the RNG context as argument so that application can
116 provide it if it doesn't want to use global RNG.
118 o Think some solution to the global crypto lists in lib/silccrypt.
119 They won't work on EPOC.
121 o Something needs to be thought to the logging globals as well,
122 like silc_debug etc. They won't work on EPOC. Perhaps logging
123 and debugging is to be disabled on EPOC.
126 TODO in Toolkit Documentation
127 =============================
129 Stuff that needs to be done in order to complete the Tooolkit Reference
132 o Lots of ROBOdoc header formatting is undone in lib/silcutil, and
135 o Write "Programming with Toolkit" document, describing how to build
136 Toolkit, how the build system works, where is everything, how
137 new (external) projects can be glued into Toolkit (use irssi as an
138 example), and how external projects can use Toolkit without gluing into
139 it (how to link etc), debugging, architecture, types, etc.
141 o Write "Platform Implementations" document to describe what platforms
142 Toolkit support, what has been implemented, what has not been, what
143 wors differently etc.
146 TODO in SILC Protocol
147 =====================
149 Current protocol version is 1.0. However, it is far from being perfect,
150 and needs to include additional features. Following protocol TODO entries
151 describe new stuff to be added to protocol versions 1.x.
153 1. Re-define the Status Payload: it is now 16 bits, split it into two
154 8 bits fields. First field includes status types from 0 - 9 and
155 10 - n *if* it is not an list of errors. If it is list of errors then
156 the first field includes 1, 2 and/or 3, and the second field includes
157 the error status 10 - n. This way it is possible to send multiple
158 errors (list of errors) and we have a way to tell the receiver that
159 there will be other errors as well. The second field is used only
160 if there is list of errors. If normal status, or normal (single)
161 error status the second field is set to zero, and must be ignored.
162 Hence, the status works same way as now except for list of errors.
163 To be included in protocol version 1.1.
165 2. Define that WHOIS and IDENTIFY commands must send list of errors
166 if multiple Client ID (or Channel ID and Server ID for IDENTIFY) was
167 requested and was not found. Each unfound entry must cause an error
168 command reply to the sender. Also define that errors must be sent
169 *after* sending successfully found entries (this way receiver may
170 ignore them). To be included in protocol version 1.1.
172 3. Define the NICK_CHANGE notify to send the changed nickname as a new
173 third argument. This will make the NICK_CHANGE notify handling easier
174 in the receiver's end (client primarily) since it removes the
175 requirement that receiver must resolve (using IDENTIFY or WHOIS) the
176 new Client ID received in the notify (because of the new nickname is
177 unknown). To be included in protocol version 1.1.
179 4. Add "request parameters" or similar to the WHOIS command, which can
180 be used to request various parameters (something not returned by
181 standard WHOIS command) about clients (info that could be fetched
182 even from clients). Additional specification (or appendix) should
183 be done to define the payload and the parameters. It could be used
184 to make the WHOIS command support various search conditions as well.
185 This would be the way to extend the WHOIS command to support various
186 new features without always making the command incompatible to previous
187 version. To be included in protocol version 1.1.
189 5. Inviting and banning by public key should be made possible. To be
190 included in protocol version 1.x.
192 6. Add perhaps SILENCE_USERS, SILENCE_OPERS channel user modes which
193 can be used to silence (moderate) normal users and opers (this set
194 only by founder). To be included in protocol version 1.1.
196 7. Channel Message Payload needs slight redesining to include the IV
197 field to the MAC generation of the payload. It is authenticated
198 by the packet's MAC but not by the payload's MAC. Since the IV
199 belongs to the payload, its integrity should be protected by the
200 payload MAC and not alone by packet MAC. To be included in protocol
203 8. Remove the administrative commands from the protocol all together.
204 It does not make sense for the protocol to define how a server is
205 reconnected or shutdown, since they are implementation and
206 configuration issues. Besides protocol provides only limited set of
207 administrative commands and cannot define all that one could imagine.
208 To be included in protocol version 1.1.
210 9. Add SILC_MESAGE_FLAG_REPLY for being other side to the
211 SILC_MESSAGE_FLAG_REQUEST. Add generic SILC_MESSAGE_FLAG_DATA, which
212 can include generic payload, which can include generic data. The
213 payload definition is left out for now. To be included in protocol
216 10. Check command reply error status types in various commands,
217 specifically NO_FOPRIV is missing from many commands. To be
218 included in protocol version 1.1.
224 A rough list of stuff that is going to be done to SILC after 1.0 or at
227 o Implement the defined SilcDH API. The definition is in
228 lib/silccrypt/silcdh.h.
230 o X.509 certificate support. SILC protocol supports certificates and
231 it would be great to have support for them. This is a big task as
232 support has to be made for ASN.1 as well. I've looked into OpenSSL
233 package as it has X.509 certificate support (and ASN.1 as well).
234 The code does not look very good to my eye but it has some potentials.
235 This should be looked at more closely.
237 Naturally own SILC Certificate API has to be defined regardles what
238 the actual X.509 library is (OpenSSL X.509 or something else). Other
239 choice is to write own X.509 library but I'm not going to do it -
240 I can help to migrate the OpenSSL X.509 into SILC and I can help if
241 someone would like to write the X.509 library - but I'm not going
242 to start writing one myself. Anyhow, the OpenSSL X.509 lib should
245 Other package that should be checked is the NSS's X509 library,
246 which I like more over OpenSSL package.
248 o SSH2 public keys support, allowing the use of SSH2 public keys in
251 o OpenPGP certificate support, allowing the use of PGP public keys
254 o Compression routines are missing. The protocol supports packet
255 compression thus it must be implemented. SILC Zip API must be
258 o Optimizations in Libraries
260 o There is currently three (3) allocations per packet in the
261 silc_packet_receive_process, which is used to process and
262 dispatch all packets in the packet queue to the parser callback
263 function. First allocation is for parse_ctx, second for the
264 SilcPacketContext, and third for packet->buffer where the actual
267 The parse_ctx allocation can be removed by adding it as a
268 structure to the SilcPacketContext. When the SilcPacketContext
269 is allocated there is space for the parse context already.
271 The silc_packet_context_alloc could have a free list of
272 packet contexts. If free packet context is found from the list
273 it is returned instead of allocating a new one. The library
274 could at first allocate them and save them to the free list
275 until enough contexts for smooth processing exists in the list.
276 This would remove a big allocation since the structure is
277 quite big, and even bigger if it would include the parse_ctx.
279 The packet->buffer can be optimized too if the SilcBuffer
280 interface would support free lists as well. Maybe such could
281 be done in the same way as for SilcPacketContext. The
282 silc_buffer_alloc would check free list before actually
283 allocating new memory. Since the packets in the SILC protocol
284 usually are about the same size (due to padding) it would be
285 easy to find suitable size buffer from the free list very
288 These naturally cause the overal memory consumption to grow
289 but would take away many allocations that can be done several
292 o Move the actual file descriptor task callback (the callback that
293 handles the incoming data, outgoing data etc, that is implemnted
294 in server and client separately (silc_server_packet_process and
295 silc_client_packet_proces)) to the low level socket connection
296 handling routines, and create an interface where the application
297 can register a callbacks for incoming data, outoing data and EOF
298 receiving, which the library will call when necessary. This way
299 we can move the data handling in one place.
301 o Add silc_id_str2id to accept the destination buffer as argument
302 and thus not require any memory allocation. Same will happen
303 with silc_id_payload_* functions.
305 o Remove the `truelen' field from SilcBuffer as it is entirely
306 redundant since we can get the true length of the buffer by
307 doing buffer->end - buffer->header. Add SILC_BUFFER_TRUELEN
308 macro instead. Consider also removing `len' field too since
309 it effectively is buffer->tail - buffer->data, and adding
310 SILC_BUFFER_LEN macro can do the same. These would save
311 totally 8 bytes of memory per buffer.
313 Add also perhaps function silc_buffer_alloc_size that would
316 return silc_buffer_pull_tail(silc_buffer_alloc(size),
319 to not require the user to give the pull_tail anymore.
321 o Optimizations in Server
323 o Remove the big switch statement from the function
324 silc_server_packet_parse_type and replace it with predefined
325 table of function pointers where each of the slot in table
326 represents the packet type value.
328 Same could be done with notify packets which has big switch
329 statement too. Same kind of table of notify callbacks could be
332 o The parser callback in the server will add a timeout task for
333 all packets. It will require registering and allocating a
334 new task to the SilcSchedule. Maybe, at least, for server
335 and router packets the parser would be called immediately
336 instead of adding it to the scheduler with 0 timeout. It
337 should be analyzed too how slow the task registering process
338 actually is, and find out ways to optimize it.
340 o The SERVER_SIGNOFF notify handing is not optimal, because it'll
341 cause sending of multiple SIGNOFF notify's instead of the one
342 SERVER_SIGNOFF notify that the server received. This should be
343 optimized so that the only SERVER_SIGNOFF is sent and not
344 SIGNOFF of notify at all (using SIGNOFF takes the idea about
345 SERVER_SIGNOFF away entirely).
347 o Add SilcAsyncOperation to utility library. Any function that takes
348 callback as an argument must return SilcAsyncOperation.
352 o Cipher optimizations (asm, that this) at least for i386 would be nice.
354 o Add builtin SOCKS and HTTP Proxy support, well the SOCKS at least.
355 SILC currently supports SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 but it needs to be compiled