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 In servers all command reply funtions should still call the
78 pending command reply even if the reply was error. In client
79 it is not called but in server, I think, it must be called.
80 When implementing this check that all commands handle the
81 situation correctly when it is called as pending command
82 (it should most likely check that cmd->pending == TRUE/FALSE).
84 o TODO in notify types (packet_receive.c):
86 o SERVER_SIGNOFF notify type is not implemented
88 o TODO in authentication protocol (protocol.c):
90 o Public key authentication is missing in initiator side. It must
91 be implemented by creating the authentication data.
93 o TODO in general server (server.c):
95 o SILC_PACKET_CONNECTION_AUTH_REQUEST packet type is not
98 o silc_server_connect_to_router_second checks the authentication
99 method to be used in the connection. However, if it does not
100 find it it must resolve it from the responder by sending the
101 SILC_PACKET_CONNECTION_AUTH_REQUEST packet.
103 o Packet processing can be made faster. All packet function in the
104 packet_receive.c has same prototypes. Instead of calling those from
105 huge switch() make a table of callback functions that can be called
106 directly by the packet type.
108 o DNS/IP lookup blocks the server. This must be fixed. Check the
109 resolver stuff (resolver(3), resolver(5)). Either we have to do the
110 own resolver stuff (through scheduler, if possible without writing
111 too much own stuff) or use threads.
113 o Acceptance of incoming connections (client and server connections)
114 should be checked before key exchange protocol. Currently it is
115 checked at the authentication phase after KE, that is ok, but it should
116 be checked before starting KE, as well.
118 o Server says that it is able to listen on multiple ports but currently
119 that is bogus. It can, but internals are for single server.
121 o Protocol execution timeouts are hard coded, should be configurable.
123 o IP address fields in configuration file should accept mask format
124 as well, IP/MASK, and not just plain IP.
126 o Connection classes should be actually implemented in serverconfig.c.
127 They can be defined but they are totally ignored currently.
129 o Connection redirect, if server is full, is not implemented. I also
130 don't know how to do it currently. Maybe it shouldn't be done at all.
133 TODO In SILC Libraries
134 ======================
136 o Implement PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy) flag in SKE (and in client and
137 server, actually). If PFS is set, re-key must cause new key exchange.
138 This is required by the SILC protocol.
140 o Re-key in general is actually missing (from everywhere) and must be done.
142 o Compression routines are missing. The protocol supports packet
143 compression thus it must be implemented. SILC Comp API must be
144 defined. zlib package is already included into the lib dir (in CVS,
145 not in distribution), but it is not used yet, and it requires some
146 tweaking on the Makefiles (we want static lib not shared).
148 o Rewrite the task system. I made it too complex and too "neat" and
149 it really should be rewritten. We don't need priorities really, one
150 priority is enough. This will simplify a lot the task system.
152 o SIM support for SILC PKCS API needs to made so that they could be
153 used as SIM's. At the same time some work is required on prime
154 generation as the way it is done now sucks. Read from code for
157 o Random Number Generator needs some tweaking. Reading /dev/random may
158 block resulting slow initialization of RNG. Some other things in the
159 RNG may block as well. Also, I have some pending changes to the RNG
160 that needs to be commited (from Schneier's Yarrow-160 paper). They
161 should make the RNG even better.
163 o Scheduler needs to be analyzed on high load as it might be unfair
164 towards select() because it may run timeout tasks before select() and
165 after select(). If it is found to be unfair the timeout task running
166 before select() should probably be removed.
169 TODO in the protocol before SILC 0.x
170 ====================================
172 o New commands and features in the commands
173 (draft-riikonen-silc-spec-xx.txt):
175 o Define GETKEY command to fetch the public key of a server
176 and/or a client in the SILC Network.
177 o Define SENDKEY command to send your public key to a client
178 in the network. Sending to the server must not be done due
179 to various security reasons (the server must not trust the
180 public keys blindly without third party verification; that's
181 why SENDKEY is not for servers).
182 o Define AWAY command to set the indication flag whether the
183 client is present or not. Do not save the away message to the
185 o Define the channel founder property to be permanent locally in
186 the server so that channel founder can regain its rights even
187 if it disconnects from the server. Thus, define a new command
188 or channel user mode that can be used to set the channel founder
189 passphrase or public key that can be used in the authentication
190 when regaining the founder rights.
192 o New packets and features in the packets
193 (draft-riikonen-silc-pp-xx.txt):
195 o Define the Private Message packet to include private message
196 flags and define the flags. The flags could indicate whether
197 the message is, for example autoreply or the receiver should not
198 reply to the private messages. What other flags?
199 o Define the Channel Message packet to include channel message
200 flags and define the flags. Actually the flags should be same
201 as for the private message flags. This way we can implement
202 for example the CTCP style ACTION (/ME command) messages.
204 o New feature in the KE/auth protocol
205 (draft-riikonen-silc-ke-auth-xx.txt):
207 o Define group exchange support for the SKE so that the SKE
208 could be performed among more than two entities. This is not
209 a showstopper and may be defined later.
215 o Pthreads support. A lot of problems are solved with server (and with
216 client as well) if we add pthread support. We can forget things such
217 as non-blocking connecting etc, and we can do things such as DNS/IP
218 lookups async. The server itself also benefits great deal from
219 threads, especially from performance point of view.
221 But, this is not a small task and almost entire SILC Library has to
222 be made re-entrant. Own API is probably added for the threads support
223 to make changes in the future as painless as possible. So the API
224 would have things like silc_mutex_lock, silc_mutex_unlock and
227 o X.509 certificate support. SILC protocol supports certificates and
228 it would be great to have support for them. This is a big task as
229 support has to be made for ASN.1 as well. I've looked into OpenSSL
230 package as it has X.509 certificate support (and ASN.1 as well).
231 The code does not look very good to my eye but it has some potentials.
232 This should be looked at more closely.
234 Naturally own SILC Certificate API has to be defined regardles what
235 the actual X.509 library is (OpenSSL X.509 or something else). Other
236 choice is to write own X.509 library but I'm not going to do it -
237 I can help to migrate the OpenSSL X.509 into SILC and I can help if
238 someone would like to write the X.509 library - but I'm not going
239 to start writing one myself. Anyhow, the OpenSSL X.509 lib should
242 o SSH2 public keys support. Maybe - not really needed but could be
243 nice as SSH is widely used all over the place. SILC Protocol
244 supports SSH2 public keys.
246 o Cipher optimizations (asm, that this) at least for i386 would be nice.