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15 This is more or less complete list of tasks that has to be done before
16 SILC 1.0 could ever be released. It is clear that the list does not
17 include all the bugs that exists. At the end of list are tasks that
18 needs to be done but are probably post 1.0.
20 Feel free to contribute if you have the ability and free time - all the
21 help is really appreciated - and needed.
25 [Latest Note: The protocol has changed a bit in some parts which
26 causes that the current implementation violates some requirements.
27 These are not listed here, currently.]
33 o Extended SIM (SILC Module) support. Currently only SILC Cipher API
34 and SILC Hash API may be used as SIM's. What I have in mind is to
35 have extended support for SIM's so that basically any SILC API could
36 be used as SIM's. This would open tremendous possiblities but
37 opens also issues on security that needs to be dealt with.
39 Some sort of SIM compilation environment should be defined so that
40 the SIM's could use SILC specific symbols from the modules (which they
41 cannot do currently). In the future modules could add new features
42 to SILC easily with this support. I'm more thinking this from client's
43 perspective to add new features to client (such as IRC support as SIM)
44 but server should have the support as well. Anyhow, this is an
45 interesting feature...
47 This maybe post 1.0 task - dunno.
49 o SIM support for other platforms than just for Linux. Apache has
50 example code (code that we could use directly pretty easily) for
53 o We should replace all short, int, long, unsigned short, unsigned int,
54 unsigned long with some pre-defined datatypes that really are what
55 we want on all platforms. int16, uint16, int32, uint32 etc. are
56 what we could use or maybe SilcInt16, SilcUInt16 etc. Also, boolean
57 datatype should be defined.
59 o More platform supports should be added. The code is pretty much
60 generic but there are some parts that require porting (SIM). Also,
61 some support for different platforms is needed into configure.in.
63 o SILC requires currently GCC to work because we use GCC specific
64 compilation options. Generally any compiler that supports inline
65 functions and can build shared libraries (for SIMs) should work.
66 These cases should be included into configure.in.
72 o Implement all commands. A lot of commands are still yet to be
73 implemented. Most of them are trivial but some will require some
74 planning. Go see the command.c for unimplemented commands.
76 o Non-blocking connection on the background must be stopped if some
77 other connection on same window has established. Now it is possible
78 that some non-blocking connection timeouts on the background when
79 we already have a working connection to some other place; things
82 o Finish WHOIS, finish JOIN and other commands that are partly
85 o Input line on UI is buggy. Cursor movement etc bugs. Too lazy to
88 o Logic for handling multiple same nicknames for example in private
89 message sending. I guess the logic is done in server side but is
92 o Private message key setting is missing and must be implemented.
93 Currently private messages are encrypted with session keys. This
94 is required by the protocol.
96 o Channel private key setting is missing and must be implemented.
97 Currently there cannot be private keys for channels. Normal channel
98 keys (generated by server) are used. This is required by the protocol.
100 o Public and private key generation is now done everytime the program
101 is run. Now, this is only for testing period as I've been lazy to
102 do it any better for now. This must be fixed.
104 o I guess, public key authentication (when connecting to a server)
105 is not working currently. It is just matter of loading the keys
106 from file and using them (see corresponding code in server, it should
107 support public key authentication already).
109 o Multiple windows support. Basic support for multiple windows already
110 exists but a lot is still missing to get it working. Also, some
111 of the existing stuff probably needs to be tweaked a bit before the
112 multiple windows support could be done. And of course the actual
113 commands that control the windows needs to be written (/WINDDOW).
115 o Implement /KEYMAP (or similiar) command to remap control and function
118 o Implement /ALIAS command to make command aliases.
120 o Implement /set/if/do/while etc as in IRC2. Maybe post 1.0 task.
121 Some scripting would be good.
123 o Connection Authentication request resolving is missing and must be
124 done. This is required by the protocol.
126 o Key Exchange protocol's responder side is missing from client.
127 Generally it is possible for the client to be responder so it should
128 be implemented (See corresponding code from server). Error handling
129 in the KE protocol is also in pretty bad shape in client.
131 o Configuration file loading from global and from local dirs. This
132 is currently missing and I guess the global is only used. Old SILC
133 version (in 1997) had ~./silc directory that I guess should be done
134 now as well. The code for handling those exists but not in current
137 o Configuration file format - could be better.
139 o Write help files for commands. Nice format for the help files should
140 be selected. I'm open for ideas.
142 o All allocations and freeing needs to be checked for memory leaks.
143 Also, return values from various allocations and functions needs to
150 o Implement all commands on server side. A lot of commands are still yet
151 to be implemented. Most of them are trivial but some will require some
152 planning. Go see the command.c for unimplemented commands.
154 o DNS/IP lookup blocks the server. This must be fixed. Check the
155 resolver stuff (resolver(3), resolver(5)). Either we have to do the
156 own resolver stuff (through scheduler, if possible without writing
157 too much own stuff) or use threads.
159 o Lenght of the packet processing timeouts needs to be checked whether
160 they are too short or too long. I haven't really tested whether they
161 are suitable. They should be tested on high load which I haven't done
164 o Public and private key generation is now done everytime the program
165 is run. Now, this is only for testing period as I've been lazy to
166 do it any better for now. This must be fixed.
168 o Server says that it is able to listen on multiple ports but currently
169 that is bogus. It can, but internals are for single server.
171 o Command lagging must implemented. Those commands (all currently) that
172 has the LAG flag set they must not be allowed to be executed more than
173 once, say, in 2 seconds.
175 o Command flag usage in general is not implemented yet.
177 o Client history must be implemented. Protocol says that server must
178 keep history information about clients for some period of time.
180 o Channel flags and user modes on channels are not implemented yet as
181 /MODE command is not implemented yet in client and server.
183 o Protocol execution timeouts are hard coded, should be configurable.
185 o Channel message sending routines uses a lot of common code. Should
186 create a common function for those instead of writing the same code
187 again everytime, as done now.
189 o serverutil.c I guess should be created for util-like functions that
190 now resides in server.c, which is getting too big.
192 o serverconfig.c and the function naming in it is inconsistent. It is
193 not silc_config_server* it should be silc_server_config*. As should
194 all the SilcConfigServer* types be SilcServerConfig*.
196 o Implement DENY_CONNECTION section in serverconfig.c and in server.
198 o Implement REDIRECT_CLIENT section in serverconfig.c and in server.
200 o Configuration file format - could be better.
202 o IP address fields in configuration file should accept mask format
203 as well, IP/MASK, and not just plain IP.
205 o Connection classes should be actually implemented in serverconfig.c.
206 They can be defined but they are totally ignored currently.
208 o Acceptance of incoming connections (client and server connections)
209 should be checked before key exchange protocol. Currently it is
210 checked at the authentication phase after KE, that is ok, but it should
211 be checked before starting KE, as well.
213 o Statistics are totally missing from the server. It would be nice
214 to gather some statistics.
216 o All allocations and freeing needs to be checked for memory leaks.
217 Also, return values from various allocations and functions needs to
221 TODO In SILC Libraries
222 ======================
224 o Public key verification in SKE (SILC Key Exchange) protocol is missing,
225 thus currently we trust on all public keys. This probably doesn't cause
226 bad problems but the mechanism of verifying it from local database
227 (from files) needs to be done (it can open man-in-the-middle-attacks).
229 o Implement PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy) flag in SKE (and in client and
230 server, actually). If PFS is set, re-key must cause new key exchange.
231 This is required by the SILC protocol.
233 o Re-key in general is actually missing (from everywhere) and must be done.
235 o SKE does not send correct status types. Types are defined but not
238 o Connection authentication protocol does not send correct status types.
239 These types are not defined currently at all.
241 o PKCS#1 style RSA public key encryption/decryption/sign/verify is
242 missing, and should be added for interoperability reasons. The thing
243 I've done now is bad and should be removed as soon as possible (or
244 the protocol should then state the method of how they should be done).
246 o SILC public key file type is bad. I'd like to see PEM encoded files.
247 I have public domain code for base64 encoding but it needs to be
250 o Slow ciphers should be removed. I think we don't need more than
251 the AES finalists plus blowfish and RC5.
253 o These slow ciphers actually don't work currently as I've tested
254 only the ones that are worth testing. The CBC mode on these slow
255 ciphers probably don't work. No need to worry, these ciphers should
258 o Scheduler needs to be analyzed on high load as it might be unfair
259 towards select() because it may run timeout tasks before select() and
260 after select(). If it is found to be unfair the timeout task running
261 before select() should probably be removed.
263 o On select() issue; maybe we should use poll() instead if it is
264 available? poll() doesn't have max fd limit...
266 o SIM support for SILC PKCS API needs to made so that they could be
267 used as SIM's. At the same time some work is required on prime
268 generation as the way it is done now sucks. Read from code for
271 o Compression routines are missing. The protocol supports packet
272 compression thus it must be implemented. SILC Comp API must be
273 defined. zlib package is already included into the lib dir (in CVS,
274 not in distribution), but it is not used yet, and it requires some
275 tweaking on the Makefiles (we want static lib not shared).
277 o Cipher API needs to be made more consistent. Some parts of the
278 code generated with current Cipher API looks really bad. Same
279 is with PKCS API, even worse actually. They need to be made
280 cleaner. Introducing silc_cipher_encrypt/decrypt/set_key etc.
281 functions (I actually don't understand why have I left these un-done).
283 o Scheduler should automatically allocate task queues if NULL pointers
284 are passed to the silc_schedule_init. Would make initialization
287 o Packet processing routines in client and server are actually pretty
288 much generic and should be moved from the client/server to the library
289 as generic routines (silc_<client/server>_packet_decrypt_rest* etc).
290 This requires heavy changes to the client and server.
292 o Random Number Generator needs some tweaking. Reading /dev/random may
293 block resulting slow initialization of RNG. Some other things in the
294 RNG may block as well. Also, I have some pending changes to the RNG
295 that needs to be commited (from Schneier's Yarrow-160 paper). They
296 should make the RNG even better.
298 o Logging should be made more generic in a way that application can
299 set to where the logging is destined to. Now, it is always destined
300 to stdout (or stderr) which is a bad thing for client. Ie. some
301 sort of logging registration functions or similiar should be done
302 (silclog.[ch] in core). The actual output of logs should be done
303 by callback function in the application not in lib.
305 o I don't like the ID cache system currenly implemented. Ugly and
306 not so good. Must be rewritten very soon.
308 o All allocations and freeing needs to be checked for memory leaks.
310 o There are also checks missing from allocations whether the allocation
311 returns valid memory or NULL. These are missing in library as well
312 in client and server. Either all checks has to be added or we will
313 have to make sure that silc_*alloc()s always return valid memory
314 and assert()s if the system's memory allocator (*alloc()) fails.
316 o silc_buffer_[un]format() needs to be made more stable as it may
317 crash the SILC if malformed data is sent as argument. There are a
318 lot of places in client and server where we trust directly data coming
319 from network and try to unformat it. The unformatting routine needs
320 to be able handle situations where data sent is malformed, by mistake
321 or intentionally. This is important as it is easy to crash the SILC
322 now by just sending malformed data. Also, in client and server we
323 must start checking the return value from silc_buffer_[un]format.
329 o Write manuals for server.
331 o Write manuals for client.
333 o Write SILC Library Reference manual. This would include all the SILC
334 API's with simple examples how the functions are to be used. This is
335 pretty easy to create by taking all the functions plus their comments
336 from source/header files. However, same sort of reference manual
337 should be written for client and server as well.
343 o Pthreads support. A lot of problems are solved with server (and with
344 client as well) if we add pthread support. We can forget things such
345 as non-blocking connecting etc, and we can do things such as DNS/IP
346 lookups async. The server itself also benefits great deal from
347 threads, especially from performance point of view.
349 But, this is not a small task and almost entire SILC Library has to
350 be made re-entrant. Own API is probably added for the threads support
351 to make changes in the future as painless as possible. So the API
352 would have things like silc_mutex_lock, silc_mutex_unlock and
355 o X.509 certificate support. SILC protocol supports certificates and
356 it would be great to have support for them. This is a big task as
357 support has to be made for ASN.1 as well. I've looked into OpenSSL
358 package as it has X.509 certificate support (and ASN.1 as well).
359 The code does not look very good to my eye but it has some potentials.
360 This should be looked at more closely.
362 Naturally own SILC Certificate API has to be defined regardles what
363 the actual X.509 library is (OpenSSL X.509 or something else). Other
364 choice is to write own X.509 library but I'm not going to do it -
365 I can help to migrate the OpenSSL X.509 into SILC and I can help if
366 someone would like to write the X.509 library - but I'm not going
367 to start writing one myself. Anyhow, the OpenSSL X.509 lib should
370 o SSH2 public keys support. Maybe - not really needed but could be
371 nice as SSH is widely used all over the place. SILC Protocol
372 supports SSH2 public keys.
374 o IRC support for SILC client. This would be nice to have on client
375 as it could be used to connect to SILC and IRC. People wouldn't
376 have to have two different clients when same would work on both.
377 I'd like to see this done as SIM, after the extended SIM support
378 has been added to SILC.
380 o Cipher optimizations (asm, that this) at least for i386 would be nice.
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