Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2002 13:52:53 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org> To: developers@FreeBSD.org, hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: December 2001, January 2002 Bi-Monthly FreeBSD Status Report Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.96L.1020303135056.52853A-100000@fledge.watson.org>
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Attached below, please find the text version of the bi-monthloy status
report. It's actually been up on the web for a few days. Apologies for
any delays :-). It's worth noting that report submission has dropped
off a bit for this report, and I hope for better on the next report, for
which I'll begin to collect entries in about three weeks.
December 2001 - January 2002 Status Report
Introduction
This bi-monthly report covers development activities on the FreeBSD
Project for December 2001 and January 2002. A variety of accomplishments
have been made over the last couple of months, including strong progress
relating to the KSE project, which brings Scheduler Activations to the
FreeBSD kernel, as well as less visible infrastructure projects such as
improvements to the mount interface, PAM integration work, and translation
efforts. Shortly following the deadline for this status report, the BSD
Conference and FreeBSD Developer Summit were held, and will be covered in
the next bi-monthly report at the end of March. Plans are already under
way for the USENIX Annual Technical Conference in Monterey, CA, later this
year, and all and sundry are encouraged to attend to get further insight
in FreeBSD development.
Robert Watson
* "GEOM" - generalized block storage manipulation
* Bluetooth stack for FreeBSD (Netgraph implementation)
* FreeBSD C99 & POSIX Conformance Project
* FreeBSD in Bulgarian
* FreeBSD Java Project
* jp.FreeBSD.org daily SNAPSHOTs project
* jpman project
* KAME
* KSE Status Report
* Netgraph ATM
* New mount(2) API
* Pluggable Authentication Modules
* Revised {mode,log}page support for camcontrol
* SMPng
* TrustedBSD ACLs
* TrustedBSD Audit
* TrustedBSD MAC Implementation
* USB stack maintenance
"GEOM" - generalized block storage manipulation
URL: http://www.freebsd.org/~phk/Geom/
Contact: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@FreeBSD.org>
This project is now finally underway, thanks to DARPA and NAI getting a
sponsorship lined up. The infrastructure code and data structures are
currently taking form inside a userland simulation harness. Basic MBR and
BSD methods have been written and device attach/taste/dettach algorithms
been implemented and validated.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bluetooth stack for FreeBSD (Netgraph implementation)
Contact: Maksim Yevmenkin <m_evmenkin@yahoo.com>
The project is making progress. The goal is to design and implement Host
Controller Interface (HCI) and Link Layer Control and Adaptation Protocol
(L2CAP) layers using Netgraph framework. More distant goal is to write
support for Service Discovery Protocol (SDP) and RFCOMM protocol (Serial
port emulation over Bluetooth link) . All information was obtained from
Bluetooth Specification Book v1.1.
Project status: In progress. 1) Design: mostly complete, there are some
minor issues to be resolved. 2) Implementation: Kernel - HCI and L2CAP
Netgraph nodes have been implemented; 3) User space (API, library,
utilities) - in progress. 4) Testing: In progress. I do not have real
Bluetooth hardware at this point, so i wrote some tools that allow me to
test the code. Some of them will be used as foundation for future user
space utilities.
Issues: 1) Bluetooth hardware; I do not have real Bluetooth hardware, so
if people can donate hardware/specs it would be great. I promise to write
all required drivers and make them available. I also promise to return
hardware/specs on first request. 2) Project name; I would like to see the
name that reflects the following: it is a Bluetooth stack, implementation
is for FreeBSD and implementation is based on Netgraph framework
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FreeBSD C99 & POSIX Conformance Project
URL: http://people.FreeBSD.org/~mike/c99/
Contact: Mike Barcroft <mike@FreeBSD.org>
Contact: FreeBSD-Standards Mailing List <standards@FreeBSD.org>
A significant amount of progress was made in December and January,
particularly in the area of utility conformance. Several utilities were
updated to conform to SUSv3, they include: at(1), mailx(1), pwd(1),
split(1), and uudecode(1). Several patches have been submitted to increase
conformance in other utilities, they include: fold(1), patch(1), m4(1),
nice(1), pr(1), renice(1), wc(1), and xargs(1). These are in the process
of being reviewed and committed. Two new utilities have been written,
specifically pathchk(1) and tabs(1). These are also being reviewed and
will be committed shortly.
A patch which implements most of the requirements of scanf(3) is being
reviewed and is expected to be committed shortly. This will allow us to
MFC a number of new functions and headers. Additionally, work has started
on wide string and complex number support.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FreeBSD in Bulgarian
URL: http://www.FreeBSD-bg.ringlet.net/
URL: http://people.FreeBSD.org/~roam/bg/
Contact: Peter Pentchev <roam@FreeBSD.org>
The FreeBSD in Bulgarian project aims to bring a more comfortable working
environment to Bulgarian users of the FreeBSD OS. This includes, but is
not limited to, font, keymap and locale support, translation of the
FreeBSD documentation into Bulgarian, local user groups and various forms
of on-line help channels and discussion forums to help Bulgarians adopt
and use FreeBSD.
A guide for using FreeBSD with Bulgarian settings has been put up on the
project's website. The CVS repository will be made public shortly, linked
to on the URL's above.
An independent project for making FreeBSD easier to use by Bulgarians has
appeared, . It also hosts a mailing list for discussions of FreeBSD in
Bulgarian, stable@FreeBSD-bg.org. For more information about the mailing
list, send an e-mail with "help" in the message body to
majordomo@FreeBSD-bg.org.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FreeBSD Java Project
URL: http://www.freebsd.org/java
Contact: Greg Lewis <glewis@eyesbeyond.com>
The past two months have been an exciting time in the FreeBSD Java Project
with the signing of a license between the FreeBSD Foundation and Sun
allowing us access to updated JDK source code and the Java Compatibility
Kit (JCK). This license will also allow the project to release a binary
version of both the JDK and JRE once JCK testing is complete. Work on this
testing is under way with the project hopeful of being able to make a
binary release in the not too distant future.
In lieu of the binary release which was hoped for with FreeBSD 4.5 the
project will release an updated source patchset this weekend. This
patchset will feature further work on the FreeBSD "native" threads
subsystem from Bill Huey. Also, thanks to hard work by Joe Kelsey and
Fuyuhiko Maruyama, the patchset will for the first time feature a working
Java browser plugin!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
jp.FreeBSD.org daily SNAPSHOTs project
URL: http://snapshots.jp.FreeBSD.org/
URL: http://www.jp.FreeBSD.org/snapshots/notes.html
Contact: Makoto Matsushita <matusita@jp.FreeBSD.org>
I've update OS of buildboxes to the latest FreeBSD 5-current and 4-stable.
Everything goes fine. From January 2002, I've started a webzine, SNAPSHOTS
Notes (only Japanese version is available). SNAPSHOTs Notes pickups tips
and information especially for the people living with FreeBSD
5-current/4-stable. Article or idea for SNAPSHOTs notes are always welcome
(you don't need to write in Japanese :-).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
jpman project
URL: http://www.jp.FreeBSD.org/man-jp/
Contact: Kazuo Horikawa <horikawa@FreeBSD.org>
For 4.5-RELEASE, port ja-man-doc-4.5.tgz is in sync with base system
except for OpenSSH pages (OpenSSH 2.3 based instead of 2.9) and perl5
pages (jpman project do not maintain). Section 3 updating has 55%
finished.
OKAZAKI Tetsurou has incorporated changes on base system's groff into port
japanese/groff. MORI Kouji has fixed two bugs of port japanese/man.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
KAME
URL: http://www.kame.net/
Contact: KAME core team <core@kame.net>
The KAME project is currently focusing on the scoped addressing
architecture, the advanced API implementation, NATPT and the mobile ipv6
implementation. Though these stuffs are not stable enough to be merge into
the FreeBSD tree, you can get and try them from the above URL.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
KSE Status Report
URL: http://www.freebsd.org/~julian/
URL: http://www.freebsd.org/~jasone/kse/
Contact: Julian Elischer <julian@FreeBSD.org>
The KSE project (an attempt to support scalable thread in FreeBSD using
kernel support), has reached What I call "milestone 3". At this milestone
it is possible to run a multithreaded program on a single CPU but with
full concurrancy of threads on that CPU. In other words the kernel
supports the fact that one thread can block by allowing another thread to
run in its place. A test program that demonstrates this is available at
the above website.
Milestone 4 will be to allow threads from the same program to run on
multiple CPUS but may require more input from the SMPNG project. I am at
the moment (Feb 6) getting ready to commit a first set of changes for
milestone 3, that have no real effect but serve to drastically reduce the
complexity of the remaining diff so that others can read it mor eeasily.
After changes to libkvm to support this diff have been added it should be
possible to run 'ps' and look at multiple threads in a treaded process. I
will be demonstrating KSE/M3 at BSDcon.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Netgraph ATM
URL: ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/cc/cats/usr/harti/ngatm/
Contact: Harti Brandt <brandt@fokus.gmd.de>
The Netgraph ATM package has been split into a number of smaller packages:
bsnmp is a general-purpose SNMP daemon with support for loadable modules.
Two modules come with it: one implementing the standard network-interface
and IP related parts of MIB-2 and one for interfacing other modules to the
NetGraph sub-system. ngatmbase contains the drivers for the ATM hardware,
the ng_atm netgraph type and a few test tools. This package allows one to
use ATM PVCs. It should be possible, for example, to do PPP over ATM with
this package. Both bsnmp and ngatmbase are available in version 1.0 under
the link above. Two other modules will be released in february: ngatmsig
containing the UNI-4.0 signalling stack as netgraph nodes and ngatmip
containing CLIP and LANE-2.0.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
New mount(2) API
Contact: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@FreeBSD.org>
Contact: Maxime Henrion <mux@sneakerz.org>
Now that the patch has been mailed to the freebsd-arch@freebsd.org mailing
list, and that there were no objections, the commit will happen soon. Poul
is currently testing it in his own tree. After it has been committed, it
will be time to modify the filesystems in the tree to use VFS_NMOUNT
instead of VFS_MOUNT. Mount(8) will also need some modifications. Some new
manpages -- nmount(2) and kernel_vmount(9) -- are being created in the
meantime.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Pluggable Authentication Modules
URL: http://openpam.sourceforge.net/
Contact: Mark Murray <markm@FreeBSD.org>
Contact: Dag-Erling Smo/rgrav <des@FreeBSD.org>
OpenPAM, a new library intended to replace Linux-PAM in FreeBSD, has been
written and is undergoing integration testing. It is available for
download from the URL listed above.
In addition to this, a couple of new modules have been written
(pam_lastlog(8), pam_login_access(8)), and the pam_unix(8) module has been
extended to perform most of the tasks normally performed by login(1),
which is now fully PAMified.
The PAM FDP article has been put on hold until OpenPAM replaces Linux-PAM
in CVS, to avoid wasting effort on soon-to-be obsolete documentation.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Revised {mode,log}page support for camcontrol
Contact: Kelly Yancey <kbyanc@FreeBSD.org>
Extending camcontrol's page definition file format to include both
modepage and logpage definitions; adding support to camcontrol to query
and reset log page parameters. Consideration is being made to possibly
include support for diagnostic and vital product data pages, but that is
outside the current project scope. New page definition file format
includes capability to conditionally include page definitions based on
SCSI INQUIRY results allowing vendor-specific pages to be described also.
Approximately 90% complete.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
SMPng
URL: http://www.FreeBSD.org/smp/
Contact: smp@FreeBSD.org <smp@FreeBSD.org>
Alfred Perlstein commited file descriptor locking code which was definetly
a good push towards trying to lock down some important pieces of global
data. Peter Wemm has made progress on pmap cleanups for x86 SMP TLB
shootdowns. Matt Dillon and John Baldwin have made progress on getting
patches done for moving accesses to ucred's out from under Giant's
protection. John Baldwin has also made some commits in order to get the
alpha port's SMP working. Matt Dillon has plans for hunting down fileops
locking issues in order to continue his previous Giant pushdown work.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
TrustedBSD ACLs
URL: http://www.fxp.org/jedgar/ACL/
Contact: Chris Faulhaber <jedgar@FreeBSD.org>
Patches for cp(1), ls(1), and mv(1) to bring in POSIX.1e-compliant Access
Control List support have been updated to patch against builds of
-CURRENT. Other system utilities are currently being evaluated for ACL
support including install(1) (patch available) and mtree(8). Work is in
progress to verify the native getfacl(1), setfacl(1), and other utilities
build and work correctly on other ACL-enabled systems (e.g. Linux w/ACL
patches) and to help verify POSIX-compliance of the continuing TrustedBSD
work along with other systems. Finally, experimental Perl and PHP modules
are available allowing limited access to native ACLs for languages other
than C.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
TrustedBSD Audit
URL: http://www.TrustedBSD.org/
Contact: trustedbsd-discuss <trustedbsd-discuss@TrustedBSD.org>
Robert Watson created the TrustedBSD audit perforce tree, which is a
branch from the TrustedBSD base tree, in order to start pushing
development efforts towards using a revision control system. Andrew Reiter
started to merge in some framework related code for generation of audit
records, enqueueing writes, and handling data writing. There is a great
deal of work to be done with updates and discussion on the
trustedbsd-discuss@TrustedBSD.org mailing list.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
TrustedBSD MAC Implementation
URL: http://www.TrustedBSD.org/
Contact: Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org>
Substantial progress has been made towards a working MAC implementation.
The focus over the last two months has been moving from a hard-coded
series of MAC policies to a more flexible implementation. A pluggable
policy framework has been created (and is still under development),
supporting Biba, MLS, TE, a "BSD Extended" model, and a sample mac_none
module. Some modules must be compiled in or loaded prior to boot; others
may be introduced at run-time. Support for networking has improved, with
improved handling of IP fragmentation in IPv4, support for various
pseudo-interfaces such as if_tun and if_tap, improved integration into
userland, NFS-related fixes, moving the VFS enforcement out of individual
filesystems, support for a 'multilevel' mount flag, support for explicit
labeling in procfs and devfs, addition of an 'extattrctl lsattr' argument
to list EAs on a filesystem, support for label ranges in the Biba and MAC
policies, and much more.
Targets for the next two months include more universal enforcement of
VFS-related calls, improved support for alternative ABIs, improved
flexibility of in-kernel subject and object labels, support for IPv6 and
IPsec, and improved support for NFS serving.
Development continues in the FreeBSD Perforce repository, which may be
accessed using cvsup.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
USB stack maintenance
Contact: Josef Karthauser <joe@FreeBSD.org>
I've been working to integrate recent improvements in the NetBSD usb stack
to FreeBSD -current. Both NetBSD and OpenBSD currently share the same
source, as FreeBSD did too at once point before it diverged. The goal is
to get back to that state, but there are many improvements on both sides
that need to be merged before this is complete.
I'm currently looking for someone to help maintain usb in -stable. Please
let me know if you're interested.
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