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 We should replace all short, int, long, unsigned short, unsigned int,
19 unsigned long with some pre-defined datatypes that really are what
20 we want on all platforms. int16, uint16, int32, uint32 etc. are
21 what we could use or maybe SilcInt16, SilcUInt16 etc. Also, boolean
22 datatype should be defined.
25 TODO In SILC Client Library
26 ===========================
28 o TODO in commands (silc/local_command.c, lib/silcclient/command.c and
29 silc/silclient/command_reply.c):
31 o Local command to handle private message keys is not done
32 o Local command to handle channel private keys is not done
33 o Local command to handle key agreement protocol is not done
34 o RESTART command is not implemented
36 o Client library crashes if for example server timeouts protocol
37 execution and disconnects the client. The client, on the other hand
38 may still assume that the connection is active, even after receiving
39 the EOF. Reason for this is that the clien library does not handle
40 the SilcSocketConnection reference counter at all. This must be
43 o Logic for handling multiple same nicknames for example in private
44 message sending. I guess the logic is done in server side but is
47 o I guess, public key authentication (when connecting to a server)
48 is not working currently. It is just matter of loading the keys
49 from file and using them (see corresponding code in server, it should
50 support public key authentication already).
52 o Connection Authentication request resolving is missing and must be
53 done. This is required by the protocol.
55 o Add client library parameters or options that handle what kind of
56 messages the library should print out (using `say' client operation,
57 for example) and what is left for the application to print. The
58 appliation could for example set that it handles all command printing
59 but all error printing should be handled by the library, etc...
61 o Non-blocking connection on the background must be stopped if some
62 other connection on same window has established. Now it is possible
63 that some non-blocking connection timeouts on the background when
64 we already have a working connection to some other place; things
67 o Input line on UI is buggy. Cursor movement etc bugs. Too lazy to
74 o TODO in commands (command.c and command_reply.c):
76 o RESTART is not implemented
77 o CMODE should be rewritten as it uses a lot duplicated code.
78 Some of the modes may still not be implemented or is implemented
80 o In servers all command reply funtions should still call the
81 pending command reply even if the reply was error. In client
82 it is not called but in server, I think, it must be called.
83 When implementing this check that all commands handle the
84 situation correctly when it is called as pending command
85 (it should most likely check that cmd->pending == TRUE/FALSE).
87 o TODO in notify types (packet_receive.c):
89 o SERVER_SIGNOFF notify type is not implemented
91 o TODO in authentication protocol (protocol.c):
93 o Public key authentication is missing in initiator side. It must
94 be implemented by creating the authentication data.
96 o TODO in general server (server.c)
98 o SILC_PACKET_CONNECTION_AUTH_REQUEST packet type is not
101 o silc_server_connect_to_router_second checks the authentication
102 method to be used in the connection. However, if it does not
103 find it it must resolve it from the responder by sending the
104 SILC_PACKET_CONNECTION_AUTH_REQUEST packet.
106 o Packet processing can be made faster. All packet function in the
107 packet_receive.c has same prototypes. Instead of calling those from
108 huge switch() make a table of callback functions that can be called
109 directly by the packet type.
111 o DNS/IP lookup blocks the server. This must be fixed. Check the
112 resolver stuff (resolver(3), resolver(5)). Either we have to do the
113 own resolver stuff (through scheduler, if possible without writing
114 too much own stuff) or use threads.
116 o Acceptance of incoming connections (client and server connections)
117 should be checked before key exchange protocol. Currently it is
118 checked at the authentication phase after KE, that is ok, but it should
119 be checked before starting KE, as well.
121 o Server says that it is able to listen on multiple ports but currently
122 that is bogus. It can, but internals are for single server.
124 o Protocol execution timeouts are hard coded, should be configurable.
126 o IP address fields in configuration file should accept mask format
127 as well, IP/MASK, and not just plain IP.
129 o Connection classes should be actually implemented in serverconfig.c.
130 They can be defined but they are totally ignored currently.
132 o Connection redirect, if server is full, is not implemented. I also
133 don't know how to do it currently. Maybe it shouldn't be done at all.
136 TODO In SILC Libraries
137 ======================
139 o Implement PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy) flag in SKE (and in client and
140 server, actually). If PFS is set, re-key must cause new key exchange.
141 This is required by the SILC protocol.
143 o Re-key in general is actually missing (from everywhere) and must be done.
145 o Compression routines are missing. The protocol supports packet
146 compression thus it must be implemented. SILC Comp API must be
147 defined. zlib package is already included into the lib dir (in CVS,
148 not in distribution), but it is not used yet, and it requires some
149 tweaking on the Makefiles (we want static lib not shared).
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 SIM support for SILC PKCS API needs to made so that they could be
156 used as SIM's. At the same time some work is required on prime
157 generation as the way it is done now sucks. Read from code for
160 o Random Number Generator needs some tweaking. Reading /dev/random may
161 block resulting slow initialization of RNG. Some other things in the
162 RNG may block as well. Also, I have some pending changes to the RNG
163 that needs to be commited (from Schneier's Yarrow-160 paper). They
164 should make the RNG even better.
166 o Scheduler needs to be analyzed on high load as it might be unfair
167 towards select() because it may run timeout tasks before select() and
168 after select(). If it is found to be unfair the timeout task running
169 before select() should probably be removed.
172 TODO in the protocol before SILC 0.x
173 ====================================
175 o New commands and features in the commands
176 (draft-riikonen-silc-spec-xx.txt):
178 o Define GETKEY command to fetch the public key of an server
179 and/or client in the SILC Network.
180 o Define SENDKEY command to send your public key to a client
181 in the network. Sending to the server must not be done due
182 to various security reasons (the server must not trust the
183 public keys blindly without third party verification; that's
184 why SENDKEY is not for servers).
185 o Define AWAY command to set the indication flag whether the
186 client is present or not. Do not save the away message to the
188 o Define the channel founder property to be permanent locally in
189 the server so that channel founder can regain its rights even
190 if it disconnects from the server. Thus, define a new command
191 or channel user mode that can be used to set the channel founder
192 passphrase or public key that can be used in the authentication
193 when regaining the founder rights.
195 o New packets and features in the packets
196 (draft-riikonen-silc-pp-xx.txt):
198 o Define the Private Message packet to include private message
199 flags and define the flags. The flags could indicate whether
200 the message is, for example autoreply or the receiver should not
201 reply to the private messages. What other flags?
203 o New feature in the KE/auth protocol
204 (draft-riikonen-silc-ke-auth-xx.txt):
206 o Define group exchange support for the SKE so that the SKE
207 could be performed among more than two entities. This is not
208 a showstopper and may be defined later.
214 o Pthreads support. A lot of problems are solved with server (and with
215 client as well) if we add pthread support. We can forget things such
216 as non-blocking connecting etc, and we can do things such as DNS/IP
217 lookups async. The server itself also benefits great deal from
218 threads, especially from performance point of view.
220 But, this is not a small task and almost entire SILC Library has to
221 be made re-entrant. Own API is probably added for the threads support
222 to make changes in the future as painless as possible. So the API
223 would have things like silc_mutex_lock, silc_mutex_unlock and
226 o X.509 certificate support. SILC protocol supports certificates and
227 it would be great to have support for them. This is a big task as
228 support has to be made for ASN.1 as well. I've looked into OpenSSL
229 package as it has X.509 certificate support (and ASN.1 as well).
230 The code does not look very good to my eye but it has some potentials.
231 This should be looked at more closely.
233 Naturally own SILC Certificate API has to be defined regardles what
234 the actual X.509 library is (OpenSSL X.509 or something else). Other
235 choice is to write own X.509 library but I'm not going to do it -
236 I can help to migrate the OpenSSL X.509 into SILC and I can help if
237 someone would like to write the X.509 library - but I'm not going
238 to start writing one myself. Anyhow, the OpenSSL X.509 lib should
241 o SSH2 public keys support. Maybe - not really needed but could be
242 nice as SSH is widely used all over the place. SILC Protocol
243 supports SSH2 public keys.
245 o Cipher optimizations (asm, that this) at least for i386 would be nice.