From 511eff4efe041a5fca3de40a71dd41da1e3b7177 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Brad Davis Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 06:37:53 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Add the June - Oct 2006 Status Report. Next reports are due Jan 06, 2007. --- en/news/status/Makefile | 3 +- en/news/status/report-2006-06-2006-10.xml | 2626 ++++++++++++++++++ en/news/status/report-june-2006-oct-2006.xml | 2626 ++++++++++++++++++ en/news/status/status.sgml | 6 +- 4 files changed, 5258 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) create mode 100644 en/news/status/report-2006-06-2006-10.xml create mode 100644 en/news/status/report-june-2006-oct-2006.xml diff --git a/en/news/status/Makefile b/en/news/status/Makefile index ff792bb9a6..5b3937f470 100644 --- a/en/news/status/Makefile +++ b/en/news/status/Makefile @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -# $FreeBSD: www/en/news/status/Makefile,v 1.33 2006/07/11 22:16:49 mlaier Exp $ +# $FreeBSD: www/en/news/status/Makefile,v 1.34 2006/08/19 21:20:39 hrs Exp $ .if exists(../Makefile.conf) .include "../Makefile.conf" @@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ XMLDOCS+= report-july-2005-oct-2005 XMLDOCS+= report-oct-2005-dec-2005 XMLDOCS+= report-jan-2006-mar-2006 XMLDOCS+= report-apr-2006-jun-2006 +XMLDOCS+= report-june-2006-oct-2006 XSLT.DEFAULT= report.xsl diff --git a/en/news/status/report-2006-06-2006-10.xml b/en/news/status/report-2006-06-2006-10.xml new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..7f6f0ed820 --- /dev/null +++ b/en/news/status/report-2006-06-2006-10.xml @@ -0,0 +1,2626 @@ + + + + + + July-September + + 2006 + + +
+ Introduction + +

This report covers FreeBSD related projects between June and + October 2006. This includes the conclusion of this year's Google + Summer of Code with 13 successful students. Some of last year's and + the current SoC participants have meanwhile joined the committer + ranks, kept working on their projects, and improving FreeBSD in + general.

+ +

This year's + EuroBSDCon + + in Milan, Italy has meanwhile published an exciting program. Many + developers will be there to discuss these current and future projects + at the Developer Summit prior the conference. Next year's + conference calendar has a new entry - in addition to the now well + established + BSDCan + + in Ottawa - + AsiaBSDCon + + will take place in Tokyo at the begining of March.

+ +

As we are closing in on FreeBSD 6.2 release many bugs are being + fixed and new features have been MFCed. On the other hand a lot of + the projects below already are focusing on FreeBSD 7.0 and promise + a lot of exciting news and features to come.

+ +

Thanks to all the reporters for the excellent work! We hope you + enjoy reading.

+
+ + + soc + + Google Summer of Code + + + + proj + + Projects + + + + team + + FreeBSD Team Reports + + + + net + + Network Infrastructure + + + + kern + + Kernel + + + + docs + + Documentation + + + + bin + + Userland Programs + + + + arch + + Architectures + + + + ports + + Ports + + + + misc + + Miscellaneous + + + + OpenBSD dhclient + + + + + Brooks + + Davis + + + brooks@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

Most dhclient changes in HEAD have been merged to 6-STABLE for + 6.2-RELEASE. The highlight of these changes is a fix for runaway + dhclient processes when packets are not 4 byte aligned. Further + changes including always sending client identifiers are scheduled + for merge before the release. Work is ongoing to improve dhclient's + interaction with alternate methods of setting interface + addresses.

+ + + + + FreeBSD/arm on Atmel AT91RM9200 + + + + + Warner + + Losh + + + imp@freebsd.org + + + + + Olivier + + Houchard + + + cognet@freebsd.org + + + + + + + +

The FreeBSD/arm port has grown support for the Atmel AT91RM9200. + Boards based on this machine are booting to multiuser off either + NFS or an SD card. The onboard serial ports, PIO, ethernet and + SD/MMC card controllers are well supported. Support for the SSC, + IIC and SPI flash parts in the kernel will be forthcoming + shortly.

+ +

In addition to normal kernel support, the port includes a boot + loader that can initialize memory and boot off IIC eeprom, SPI + DataFlash, BOOTP/TFTP and SD memory cards.

+ +

The port will be included in forth coming commercial + products.

+ + + + Add support for other members of the AT91 family of arm9 + processors. + + Finish support for AT45D* flash parts. + + Finish support for USB ports + + Write support for USB Device functionality + + + + + Summer of Code Summary + + + + + Murray + + Stokely + + + murray@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + FreeBSD Summer of Code 2006 + + SoC 2006 + Student wiki + + + SoC 2006 Perforce trees + + + +

We had another successful summer taking part in the Google + Summer of Code. By all accounts, the FreeBSD participation in this + program was an unqualified success. We received over 150 + applications for student projects, amongst which 13 were selected + for funding. All successful students received the full $4,500.

+ +

These student projects included security research, improved + installation tools, new utilities, and more. Many of the students + have continued working on their FreeBSD projects even after the + official close of the program. At least 2 of our FreeBSD mentors + will be meeting with Google organizers in Mountain View this month + to discuss the program at the Mentor Summit.

+ + + + + Release Engineering + + + + + Release Engineering Team + + + re@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + + + + + +

The FreeBSD Release Engineering team is currently working on + FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE, which is scheduled for release in early + November 2006. Some notable features of this release include the + debut of security event auditing as an experimental feature, Xbox + support, the FreeBSD Update binary updating utility, and of course + many fixes and updates for existing programs. Pre-release images + for all Tier-1 architectures are available for testing now; + feedback on these builds is greatly appreciated. More information + about release engineering activities can be found at the links + above.

+ + + + + IPv6 Stack Vulnerabilities + + + + + George + + Neville-Neil + + + gnn@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Clement + + Lecigne + + + clem1@FreeBSD.org + + + + + SoC Student + Wiki + + PCS Library + + + +

The focus of this project was to review past vulnerabilities, + create vulnerability testing tools and to discover new + vulnerabilities in the FreeBSD IPv6 stack which is derived from the + KAME project code. During the summer Clement took two libraries, + the popular libnet, and his mentor's Packet Construction Set (PCS) + and created tools to find security problems in the IPv6 code. + Several issues were found, bugs filed, and patches created. At the + moment Clement and George are editing a 50 page paper that + describes the project which will be submitted for conference + publication.

+ +

All of the code from the project, including the tools, is on + line and is described in the paper.

+ +

By all measures, this was a successful project. Both student and + mentor gained valuable insight into a previously externally + maintained set of code. In addition to the new tools development in + this effort, the FreeBSD Project has gained a new developer to help + work on the code.

+ + + + + Analyze and Improve the Interrupt Handling + Infrastructure + + + + + Paolo + + Pisati + + + pisati@FreeBSD.org + + + + + John + + Baldwin + + + jhb@FreeBSD.org + + + + + SoC Student + Wiki + + + +

This project consisted in the improvement of the Interrupt + Handling System in FreeBSD: while retaining backward compatibility + with the previous models (FAST and ITHREAD), a new method called + 'Interrupt filtering' was added. With interrupt filtering, the + interrupt handler is divided into 2 parts: the filter (that checks + if the actual interrupt belong to this device) and the ithread + (that is scheduled in case some blocking work has to be done). The + main benefits of interrupt filtering are:

+ +
    +
  • Feedback from filters (the system finally knows if any + handler has serviced an interrupt or not, and can react + consequently).
    • + +
  • Lower latency/overhead for shared interrupt line.
    • + +
  • Previous experiments with interrupt filtering showed an + increase in performance against the plain ithread model
    • +
+ +

Moreover, during the development of interrupt filtering, some MD + dependent code was converted into MI code, PPC was fixed to support + multiple FAST handlers per line and an interrupt stray storm + detection logic was added. While the framework is done, there are + still machine dependent bits to be written (the support for ppc, + sparc64, arm and itanium has to be written/reviewed) and a serious + analysis of the performance of this model against the previous one + is a work-in-progress

+ + + + + Jail Resource Limits + + + + + Chris + + Jones + + + cdjones@freebsd.org + + + + + Kip + + Macy + + + kmacy@freebsd.org + + + + + SoC + Student Wiki + + + +

We now have support for limiting CPU and memory use in jails. + This allows fairer sharing of a systems' resources between divergent + uses by preventing one jail from monopolizing the available memory + and CPU time, if other users and jails have processes to run.

+ +

The code is currently available as patches against RELENG_6, and + Chris is in the process of applying it to -CURRENT. More details + can be found at JailResourceLimits on the wiki.

+ + + + Port patches against -CURRENT. + + + + + Bundled PXE Installer + + + + + Markus + + Boelter + + + m@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Paul + + Saab + + + ps@FreeBSD.org + + + + + SoC Student + Wiki + + + +

For me, the Google Summer of Code was a new and very exciting + experience. I got actively involved in doing Open Source Software + and giving something back to the community. Facing some + challenges within the project forced me to look behind the scenery + of FreeBSD. The result was a better understanding of the overall + project. Working with a lot of developers directly also + gave a very special spirit to the Google Summer of Code.

+ +

I really enjoyed the time and will continue to work on the + project after the deadline. For me, it was a great chance to get + involved in active development and not just some scripts and hacks + at home. Getting paid for the work was just a small part of the + overall feeling.

+ +

Thanks to the people at the FreeBSD Project and Google for the + really, really great time!

+ + + + + Nss-LDAP importing and nsswitch subsystem improvement + + + + + Michael + + Bushkov + + + bushman@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Hajimu + + UMEMOTO + + + ume@FreeBSD.org + + + + + SoC Student + Wiki + + + Original Project Proposal + + + Detailed Description of the Completed Project + + + +

The Project consisted of five parts:

+ +
    +
  1. Nsswitch modules and libc separation. The idea was to move + the source code for different nsswitch sources (such as "files", + "dns", "nis") out of the libc into the separate shared libraries. + This task was successfully finished and the patch is + available.
    2. + +
  2. Regression tests for nsswitch. A set of regression tests to + test the correctness of all nsswitch-related functions and the + invariance of their behavior between system upgrades. The task + can be considered successfully completed, the patch is + available.
    3. + +
  3. Rewriting nss_ldap. Though, this task was not clearly + mentioned in the original proposal, during the SoC we found + it would be easier, not to simply import PADL's nss_ldap, but + to rewrite it from scratch (licensing issues were among the + basic reasons for this). The resulting module behaves similarly + to PADL's module, but has a different architecture that is more + flexiable. Though it's basically finished, several useful + features from the PADL's nss_ldap still need to be implemented. + Despite the lack of some features, this task can be considered + successfully completed. Missing features will be implemented as + soon as possible, hopefully during September.
    4. + +
  4. Importing nss_ldap into the Base System. The task was to + prepare a patch, that will allow users to use nss_ldap from the + base system. The task was successfully completed (the patch is + available), but required importing OpenLDAP into the base in + order for nss_ldap to work properly, and it had led to a long + discussion in the mailing list. This discussion, however, have + concluded with mostly positive opinions about nss_ldap and + OpenLDAP importing.
    5. + +
  5. Cached performance optimization. The caching daemon + performance needs to be as high as possible in order for cached + to be as close (in terms of speed) to "files" nsswitch source as + possible. Cached's performance analysis was made and nsswitch + database pre-caching was introduced as the optimization. This + task was completed (the patch is available). However there is + room for improvement. More precise and extensive performance + analysis should be made and more optimizations need to be + introduces. This will be done in the near future.
    6. +
+ +

Though none of the code was committed yet into the official + FreeBSD tree, my experience from the previous year makes me think + that this situation is normal. I hope, that the code will be + reviewed and committed in the coming months.

+ + + + + Porting the seref policy and setools to SEBSD + + + + + Dongmei + + Liu + + + dongmei@freebsd.org + + + + + Christian + + Peron + + + csjp@FreeBSD.org + + + + + SoC Student + Wiki + + + +

Dongmei Liu spent the summer working on the basic footwork + required to port the SEREF policy to SEBSD. This work has been + submitted and can be viewed in the soc2006/dongmei_sebsd Perforce + branch. This work was originated from the SEBSD branch: + //depot/projects/trustedbsd/sebsd. Additionally setools-2.3 was + ported from Linux and can be found in contrib/sebsd/setools + directory. It is hoped that this work will be merged into the main + SEBSD development branch.

+ + + + + SCTP Integration + + + + + Randall + + Stewart + + + randall@freebsd.org + + + + + George + + Neville-Neil + + + gnn@freebsd.org + + + + + + + + +

There are currently patches available for testing. A planned + integration to HEAD is set to happen in October.

+ + + + The code still needs plenty of testing. See patches on + sctp.org + + and in -CURRENT soon. + + + + + Embedded FreeBSD + + + + + George + + Neville-Neil + + + gnn@freebsd.org + + + + + + + + +

Moved the HTML pages into the project CVS tree.

+ + + + Setup the web site to be served from projects CVS so that it + can be updated by others. + + Complete the ARM port. + + Work on the MIPS port. + + Update the documentation to include common tasks for embedded + engineers. + + + + + FAST_IPSEC Upgrade + + + + + George + + Neville-Neil + + + gnn@freebsd.org + + + + + Bjoern + + Zeeb + + + bz@freebsd.org + + + + + CURRENT patch to + enable FAST_IPSEC and IPv6 + + + +

First working version of code. Does not pass all TAHI tests, but + does pass packets correctly and does not panic.

+ + + + More testing of the patch needed. + + + + + USB + + + + + Hans Petter + + Sirevaag Selasky + + + hselasky@freebsd.org + + + + + + Current USB files + + My USB + homepage + + + +

During the last three months I have finished reworking nearly + all USB device drivers found in FreeBSD-7-CURRENT. Only two USB + drivers are left and that is ubser(4) and slhci. Some still use + Giant, but most have been brought out of Giant. At the moment I am + looking for testers that can test the various USB device drivers. + Some have already been tested, and confirmed to work, while others + have problems which need to be fixed. If you want to test, checkout + the USB perforce tree or download the SVN version of the USB driver + that is available on my homepage. At the moment the tarballs are a + little out of date.

+ +

Ideas and comments with regard to the new USB API are welcome + at: + + + freebsd-usb@freebsd.org.

+ + + + + iSCSI Initiator + + + + + Damiel + + Braniss + + + danny@cs.huji.ac.il + + + + + + + + +

This iSCSI initiator kernel module and its companion control + program are still under development, but the main parts are + working.

+ + + + Network Disconnect Recovery. + + Sysctl Interface and Instrumentation. + + Rewrite the userland side of iscontrol. + + + + + GJournal + + + + + Pawel Jakub + + Dawidek + + + pjd@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Patches against HEAD. + + + Patches against RELENG_6. + + + +

GJournal seems to be finished. I fixed the last serious bug and + it is now stable and reliable in our tests. I'm planning to commit + it really soon now.

+ +

The work was sponsored by home.pl

+ + + + + AsiaBSDCon 2007 + + + + + Hiroki + + Sato + + + hrs@freebsd.org + + + + + George + + Neville-Neil + + + gnn@freebsd.org + + + + secretary@asiabsdcon.org + + + + + Conference Web Site + + + +

Web site is up and we're soliciting papers and presentations. + Some tutorials are already scheduled. Email + + secretary@asibsdcon.org + + if you have questions or submissions.

+ + + + Send in more papers! + + + + + Chinese (Simplified) Project + + + + + Xin + + LI + + + delphij@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Latest snapshot for + translated website + + Latest + snapshot for translated documentation + + + +

+

In the previous quarter we primarily focused on overall + quality of the translation rather than just increasing the number + of translations, and we have strived to make sure that these + translated stuff are up-to-date with their English revisions. + Also, we have merged the translated website into the central + repository.

+ +

In the next quarter we will focus on developing + documentation that will help to attract more developers.

+

+ + + + Translate more development related documentation. + + Review more of the currently translated documentation. + + + + + EuroBSDCon 2006 + + + + + EuroBSDCon Organizing Committee + + + + + + info@eurobsdcon.org + + + + + EuroBSDCon Home Page + + Registration + Page + + + +

EuroBSDCon 2006 is taking place in Milan (Italy), from the 10th + to the 12th of November.

+ +

EuroBSDCon represents the biggest gathering for BSD developers + from the old continent, as well as users and passionates from + around the World. It is also a chance to share experiences, + know-how, and cultures.

+ +

The program is rich in talks about FreeBSD, with topics ranging + from "How the FreeBSD ports collection works" to "Interrupt + Filtering in FreeBSD". This means that both the novice and the + hacker can enjoy the conference.

+ +

Registration is open. The EuroBSDCon Organizing Committee hopes + to see you in Milan.

+ + + + + Hungarian translation of the webpages + + + + + Gábor + + Kövesdán + + + gabor@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Snapshot + + + +

Since the last status report, there has been a lot of progress. + I investigated a lot of charset issues and found out that HTML tidy + breaks some entities when using iso-8859-2, so HTML tidy had to be + disabled for Hungarian pages.

+ + + + Translate 4 pages. + + Review, fix typos and improve the wording where + necessary. + + + + + FreeBSD Security Officer and Security Team + + + + + Security + + Officer + + + security-officer@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Security + + Team + + + security-team@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + + + + + +

In the time since the last status report, six security + advisories have been issued concerning problems in the base system + of FreeBSD; of these, five problems were in "contributed" code, + while one was in code maintained within FreeBSD. The + Vulnerabilities and Exposures Markup Language (VuXML) document has + continued to be updated by the Security Team and Ports Committers + documenting new vulnerabilities in the FreeBSD Ports Collection; + since the last status report, 57 new entries have been added, + bringing the total up to 814.

+ +

The following FreeBSD releases are supported by the FreeBSD + Security Team: FreeBSD 4.11, FreeBSD 5.3, FreeBSD 5.4, FreeBSD 5.5, + FreeBSD 6.0, and FreeBSD 6.1. The respective End of Life dates of + supported releases are listed on the web site; of particular note, + FreeBSD 5.3 and FreeBSD 5.4 will cease to be supported at the end + of October 2006, while FreeBSD 6.0 will cease to be supported at + the end of November 2006 (or possibly a short time thereafter in + order to allow time for upgrades to the upcoming FreeBSD 6.2).

+ + + + + Summer of FreeBSD security development + + + + + Colin + + Percival + + + cperciva@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + + + +

I spent the months of May through August working on improving + Portsnap, FreeBSD Update, and devoting more time to my (continuing) + role as Security Officer. FreeBSD Update is now part of the FreeBSD + base system and is fully supported by the FreeBSD Security Team; + updates are currently only being built for the i386 architecture, + but AMD64 updates will become available soon.

+ +

In an attempt to reduce the number of people running out of date + (and unsupported) FreeBSD releases, I wrote an automatic binary + upgrade script for upgrading systems from FreeBSD 6.0 to FreeBSD + 6.1; I will be releasing a new script for upgrading to FreeBSD + 6.2-(RC*|RELEASE) soon (possibly before this status report is + published).

+ +

Further improvements to Portsnap are still ongoing.

+ + + + + Porting ZFS to FreeBSD + + + + + Pawel Jakub + + Dawidek + + + pjd@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Source code. + + + ZFS porting site. + + + ZFS port announce. + + + +

My work is moving slowly forward. ZVOL is, I believe, fully + functional (I recently fixed snapshots and clones on zvols), which + means you can put UFS on top of RAID-Z volume, take a snapshot of + the volume, clone it if needed, etc. Very cool. The hardest part is + the ZPL layer, I'm still working on it. Most file system methods + work, but probably need detailed review and many fixes. Most of the + time these days I'm spending on implementing mmap(2) correctly. It + works more or less in simple tests but fails under fsx program. On + the other hand, 'fsx -RW' works very stable and reliable. Other + test programs (those that don't use mmap(2)) also work quite well. + There is still a lot of work to do, mostly in ZPL area, many + clean-ups, etc. Some functionality (like ACLs) I haven't even tried + to touch yet.

+ + + + + TSO - TCP Segmentation Offload committed + + + + + Andre + + Oppermann + + + andre@freebsd.org + + + + + + TSO commit to tcp_output.c + + + TSO em(4) hardware support + + + Enhanced em(4) TSO hw setup for IPv6 and future protocols + + + +

TSO - TCP Segmentation Offload support has been committed to the + network stack of FreeBSD-current in September 2006. With TSO, TCP + can send data in the send socket buffer in bulk down to the network + card which then does the splitting into MTU sized packets. On bulk + high speed sending the performance is increased by 25% (normal + writes) to 108% (sendfile). Jack Vogel and Prafulla Deuskar of + Intel committed the driver changes for TSO hardware support of + em(4) based network cards.

+ +

These changes are scheduled to be backported to FreeBSD 6-STABLE + shortly after FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE is published to appear in + upcoming FreeBSD 6.3 early next year.

+ +

This work was sponsored by the TCP/IP Optimization Fundraiser + 2005.

+ + + + + + + + Highly improved implementations of sendfile(2), sosend_*() and + soreceive_stream() + + + + + Andre + + Oppermann + + + andre@freebsd.org + + + + + + sendfile(2) patch with detailed performance figures + + + sosend_*() patch with detailed performance figures + + + Combined sendfile(2), sosend_*() and soreceive_stream() patch + + + +

The addition of TSO (TCP Segmentation Offload) has highlighted + some shortcomings in the sendfile(2) and sosend_*() kernel + implementations.

+ +

The current sendfile(2) code simply loops over the file, turns + each 4K page into an mbuf and sends it off. This has the effect + that TSO can only generate 2 packets per send instead of up to 44 + at its maximum of 64K. kern_sendfile() has been rewritten to work + in two loops, the inner which turns as many pages into mbufs as it + can -- up to the free send socket buffer space. The outer loop then + drops the whole mbuf chain into the send socket buffer, calls + tcp_output() on it and then waits until 50% of the socket buffer + are free again to repeat the cycle. This way tcp_output() gets the + full amount of data to work with and can issue up to 64K sends for + TSO to chop up in the network adapter without using any CPU cycles. + Thus it gets very efficient especially with the readahead the VM + and I/O system do.

+ +

Looking at the benchmarks we see some very nice improvements: + 181% faster with new sendfile vs. old sendfile (non-TSO), 570% + faster with new sendfile vs. old sendfile (TSO).

+ +

The current sosend_*() code uses a sosend_copyin() function that + loops over the supplied struct uio and does interleaved mbuf + allocations and uiomove() calls. m_getm() has been rewritten to be + simpler and to allocate PAGE_SIZE sized jumbo mbuf clusters (4k on + most architectures). m_uiotombuf() has been rewritten to use the + new m_getm() to obtain all mbuf space in one go. It then loops over + it and copies the data into the mbufs by using uiomove(). + sosend_dgram() and sosend_generic() have been changed to use + m_uiotombuf() instead of sosend_copyin().

+ +

Looking at the benchmarks we see some very nice improvements: + 290% faster with new sosend vs. old sosend (non-TSO), 280% faster + with new sosend vs. old sosend (TSO).

+ +

Newly written is a specific soreceive_stream() function for + stream protocols (primarily TCP) that does only one socket buffer + lock per socket read instead of one per data mbuf copied to + userland. When doing netperf tests with WITNESS (full lock tracking + and validation enabled) the receive performance increases from + ~360Mbit/s to ~520Mbit/s. Without WITNESS I could not measure any + statistically significant improvement on a otherwise unloaded + machine. The reason is two-fold: 1) per packet we do a wakeup and + readv() is pretty much as many times as packets come it, thus the + general overhead dominates; 2) the packet input path has a pretty + high overhead too. On heavily loaded machines which do a lot of + high speed receives a performance increase should be + measureable.

+ +

The patches are scheduled to be committed to FreeBSD-current at + end of October or early November 2006.

+ +

This work was sponsored by the TCP/IP Optimization Fundraiser + 2005.

+ + + + + Porting Xen to FreeBSD + + + + + Jue + + Yuan + + + yuanjue@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Step-by-step + tutorial for installing and using FreeBSD as domU + + Wiki page for this + project + + + +

As a participant of Google's Summer of Code 2006, I am focusing + on porting + Xen + + to FreeBSD these months. The result of this summer's work include a + domU kernel that could be used for installation, a + + guide + + for getting started with FreeBSD on Xen, and some other trivial + improvements. But there are still a lot of work needing to be done + in this area, e.g, the long-expeted dom0 support. So I will + continue my work here and try to keep up with the update of Xen + itself.

+ + + + dom0 support is the most urgent + + + + + Gvirstor + + + + + Ivan + + Voras + + + ivoras@freebsd.org + + + + + gvirstor home + page + + + +

Gvirstor is a GEOM class providing virtual ("overcommit") + storage devices larger than physical available storage, with + possibility to add physical storage on-line when the need arises. + Current status is that it's done and waiting commit to HEAD, + scheduled for some time after 6.2 is released.

+ + + + The project is in need of testing! If you have the equipment + and time, please give it a try so possible bugs can be fixed before + it goes into -CURRENT. + + + + + Ports Collection + + + + + Mark + + Linimon + + + linimon@FreeBSD.org + + + + + The FreeBSD Ports + Collection + + + Contributing to the FreeBSD Ports Collection + + FreeBSD + ports unfetchable distfile survey (Bill Fenner's report) + + FreeBSD ports + monitoring system + + The FreeBSD + Ports Management Team + + marcuscom + tinderbox + + + +

The ports PRs surged (especially due to a large number of new + port submissions), but with some hard work we have been able to get + back down to around 900. We are rapidly approaching 16,000 + ports.

+ +

Due to this acceleration in adding new ports, portmgr is now + very concerned that we are outstripping the capacity of both the + build infrastructure and our volunteers to keep up with build + errors and port updates. Accordingly, we've added a guideline (not + a rule) that ports should be of more than just theoretical use to + be added to the Ports Collection (e.g. we can't support all of CPAN + + all of Sourceforge + everything else). Basically, use common + sense as a guideline; certainly no one wants to see any kind of + "gateway" procedure to get incoming ports approved.

+ +

Seven sets of changes have been added to the infrastructure, + mostly refactoring and bugfixing.

+ +

As part of a Summer of Code project, we have also incorporated + some of gabor@'s changes to incorporate better DESTDIR support. + However, due to some unanticipated side-effects, more work is going + to be needed in this area. gabor@ is continuing to work on the + changes.

+ +

netchild@ and bsam@ have been doing a great deal of work to + bring the linux emulator ports closer to sanity, including bringing + up a regression-test suite.

+ +

The long-anticipated import of X.Org 7 has stalled due to + developer time, mostly to deal with documentation and upgrade + instructions. Hopefully this can get done in the early 6.3 + development cycle. See the wiki for more information.

+ +

As a part of that work, the decision has been made to move away + from using X11BASE and just put everything into LOCALBASE; + /usr/X11R6 is simply an artifact at this point. A plan for a + transition process is underway; a great deal of testing will need + to be done, but in the end the ports tree will be much cleaner. The + GNOME team has already done the work to move all of their ports + over, and it will be incorporated after the 6.2 release is + shipped.

+ +

tmclaugh@ is looking for someone to take over the C# ports. He + has maintained them for over a year and wants more time to be able + to work on other projects.

+ +

Some work has been done to get rid of FreeBSD 2.X cruft in + ports. Further work is needed to get the 3.X cruft removed.

+ +

linimon@ did another pass through resetting inactive + maintainers. Another list is waiting in the wings.

+ +

linimon@ is also working on adding the ability for portsmon to + analyze successful packages (not just failed ones), so that queries + such as "show me packages that build on i386 but not amd64" and + "show me why dependent package foo was not built on bar". This is + currently in alpha testing.

+ +

We have added 4 new committers since the last report.

+ + + + We still need help getting back to our modern low of 500 + PRs. + + We have nearly 4400 unmaintained ports (see, for instance, + + the list on portsmon + + ). Although there has been a welcome upsurge in new maintainers + recently which has dropped the percentage down below 28%, we still + need much more help. + + A test run of gcc4.1 on the ports tree showed around 1000 new + build errors. Kris@ has posted some results so that people can + start working on the problems now. In particular, it seems that + certain older versions of GCC cannot be built with GCC 4.1, so + ports that depend on those older versions are going to have to be + fixed as well. Although the import of GCC 4.1 to -CURRENT is not + imminent, the time to start planning is now. + + The state of the packages on AMD64 and sparc64 significantly + lags that of i386. In many of these cases, packages are not + attempted because NOT_FOR_ARCH is used instead of more accurately + only setting BROKEN based on ARCH. (pointyhat can be forced to + build packages that are marked BROKEN, but not NOT_FOR_ARCH). + NOT_FOR_ARCH is supposed to denote only "will never work on this + ARCH". Although we have volunteers who have expressed interest in + sparc64 (and ia64), we need more people who are running amd64 + (especially as a desktop) to help us get more packages + working. + + + + + CScout on the FreeBSD Source Code Base + + + + + Diomidis + + Spinellis + + + dds@FreeBSD.org + + + + + The CScout project + page on the FreeBSD wiki. + + + +

CScout is a refactoring editor and source code browser for + collections of C code. The aim of the project is to make it easy + for FreeBSD developers to use CScout and to improve the FreeBSD + source code quality through CScout-based queries and + refactorings.

+ +

CScout was first applied to the FreeBSD kernel in 2003. Its + application at that point involved substantial tinkering with the + build system. The version released in October 2006 makes the + running of CScout on the three Tier-1 architectures a fairly + straightforward procedure. The current version can also draw a + number of call graphs; this might help developers better understand + foreign code.

+ + + + Use CScout to locate problematic code areas (for example + unused or too liberaly visible objects). + + Use CScout to globaly rename identifiers in a more consistent + fashion. + + Apply CScout to the userland code. + + Identify CScout extensions that would help us improve the + quality of our code. + + Arrange for the continous availability of a live CScout + kernel session on the current version of the source code. + + + + + Libelf + + + + + Joseph + + Koshy + + + jkoshy@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Wiki page tracking + LibELF + + Wiki page for + PmcTools + + + PMC Tools Project + + + +

Libelf is a BSD-licensed library for ELF parsing & + manipulation implementing the SysV/SVR4 (g)ELF[3] API.

+ +

Current status: Implementation of the library is nearly + complete. A TET-based test suite for the API is being worked + on.

+ + + + Reviewers are needed for the code and the test suite. If you + have extensions to the stock SysV/SVR4 ELF(3) API that you would + like to see in -lelf, please send Joseph an email. + + + + + DTrace + + + + + John + + Birrell + + + jb@freebsd.org + + + + + + + +

Progress this month has been limited due to my sea-change, + moving house to the country.

+ +

Sun's OpenSolaris developers have followed through and released + the DTrace test suite as part of the OpenSolaris distribution.

+ +

jkoshy@'s work on libbsdelf is nearing feature completion for + DTrace and will make life easier in FreeBSD for DTrace, given that + we have more architectures to support than Sun has.

+ +

The FreeBSD project has made available a dual processor AMD64 + machine for DTrace porting.

+ +

I am currently working through the diffs between the DTrace + project in P4 and -current, committing files to -current if they + are ready,

+ + + + + TrustedBSD Audit + + + + + Robert + + Watson + + + rwatson@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Christian + + Peron + + + csjp@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Wayne + + Salamon + + + wsalamon@FreeBSD.org + + + + + TrustedBSD Audit + Page + + OpenBSM Page + + + +

+

The TrustedBSD audit implementation provides fine-grained + security event logging throughout the FreeBSD operating system. + The big news for the last quarter is that the TrustedBSD audit + implementation has been merged into RELENG_6 branch, and appeared + in 6.2-BETA2. Over the past few months, work has also occurred in + the following areas:

+ +
    +
  • OpenBSM 1.0 alpha 8 through alpha 12 have been released and + merged into FreeBSD CVS. Changes include significant numbers of + bug fixes, documentation improvements, and feature + enhancements. These include regular expression based matching + for auditreduce, auditd management of kernel audit policy (such + as maximum trail file size), improvements in printing support + for a variety of tokens including execve argument support.
    • + +
  • Significant enhancements to the FreeBSD Handbook chapter on + Audit.
    • + +
  • Full audit support for execve events, including optional + auditing of command line arguments and environmental variables, + as well as audit support for a broad range of other additional + kernel events.
    • + +
  • Kqueue support for audit pipes.
    • + +
  • Robustness improvements in the presence of low disk space + conditions.
    • + +
  • Support for system call capture on additional platforms, + such as ppc and ia64.
    • + +
  • Improved support for very large audit record sizes (as + required for extensive execve support).
    • + +
  • id(1) now supports a -A argument to query audit state for + the process.
    • + +
  • An audit_warn(5) event for trail rotation, which can be + used for archiving, reduction, and other administrative + activities.
    • +
+ +

Lots of testing as part of the 6.2-BETA cycle would be much + appreciated. Audit support will be considered an experimental + feature in FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE, but we hope that it will be a + production feature in 6.3-RELEASE.

+

+ + + + Continue expanding auditing of syscall arguments. + + Continue expanding auditing of administrative tools. + + More testing! + + Continue to explore improvements of the administrative model + for audit trails, etc. + + + + + MMC/SD Support + + + + + Warner + + Losh + + + imp@freebsd.org + + + + + Bernd + + Walter + + + tisco@freebsd.org + + + + + + + +

The MMC/SD stack got a significant boost this quarter. Warner + Losh and Bernd Walter have written a generic MMC/SD flash card + stack for FreeBSD, and have implemented a host controller for the + AT91RM9200 embedded ARM controller they are each using in separate + projects.

+ +

The stack is presently experimental in quality. It is being used + as the root file system for these embedded projects. There's been + no work done to support hot insertion and removal of cards (neither + board wires up the pins necessary, and besides, / disappearing is + very bad). There are still many rough edges.

+ +

This is a freshly written stack. It has been written using the + SD 1.0 (and recently 2.0) simplified specification, with the + SanDisk MMC application notes supplementing. The Linux stack looks + good, although not entirely standards conforming (there's work in + progress that I've not seen that is supposed to fix this) and it + is contaminated with the GPL. The OpenBSD stack also looks + interesting, but Warner's experience porting NEWCARD over from + NetBSD suggested that a fresh rewrite may be faster, at least for + the bus and driver level. Since MMC is fairly simple, a port of the + sdhci driver might be possible.

+ +

Please see the open tasks list.

+ + + + Write sdhci driver, and integrate it into the current + stack. + + Add support for hot plugging of cards. + + Add support for MMC cards (SD cards were the first + target). + + Expand SD support to include SDIO cards as well as the new + SDHC standard cards. + + Export stats via sysctl for each of the cards that are found + as a debugging and usage monitoring aid. + + Add support for reading/writing multiple blocks at a time to + improve performance. + + Implement any other host controller. + + Add proper support for timeouts. + + + + + Sun Niagara port + + + + + Kip + + Macy + + + kmacy@FreeBSD.org + + + + +

Support for the UltraSparc T1 (Niagara) continues to improve. + The code has recently been checked into public CVS under + sys/sun4v.

+ +

It isn't clear whether or not I will have time to implement full + logical domaining support before the APIs become publicly + available. Testing indicates that substantial work will be needed + before FreeBSD can take full advantage of all 32 threads.

+ + + + Random testing and bug fixes. + + Import and extend improved mutex profiling support. + + Virtual network and virtual disk device drivers for logical + domains. + + + + + Xen Port + + + + + Kip + + Macy + + + kmacy@FreeBSD.org + + + + +

Work on Xen support has slowly been continuing in perforce. The + SOC student fixed several bugs and is continuing to work on it. + Someone is needed who has the time to complete dom0 support and + shepherd it production level stability.

+ +

Sufficient interest has been expressed in it that it probably + makes sense to check it in to public CVS so that more people can + try it out. Time permitting, I will bring it up to date and check + it in the next month.

+ + + + dom0 support. + + General testing and bug fixing. + + + + + FreeSBIE + + + + + FreeSBIE + + Staff + + + staff@FreeSBIE.org + + + + + Matteo + + Riondato + + + matteo@FreeBSD.org + + + + + FreeSBIE Website + + + FreeSBIE ML Subscription Form + + + FreeSBIE GMV Announcement + + + +

FreeSBIE is a FreeBSD based LiveCD.

+ +

On August 19th, Matteo Riondato, a member of the FreeSBIE staff, + released an unofficial ISO, codename FreeSBIE GMV, based on FreeBSD + -CURRENT (read the Announcement to download it). This is supposed + to be the first in a series of four ISOs that will end up with the + release of FreeSBIE 2.0. Matteo is now working on another ISO, + codename FreeSBIE LVC, which is scheduled to be released October 12th.

+ +

FreeSBIE 2.0 will be based on FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE and will + hopefully be released at EuroBSDCon 2006 in Milan. It will be + available for the i386 and AMD64 platforms.

+ + + + Test the released ISO in preparation for the release. + + Suggest software to include in the ISO. + + Submit a simple and clear but complete fluxbox + configuration. + + + + + Update of the Linux compatibility environment in the + kernel + + + + + Alexander + + Leidinger + + + netchild@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Roman + + Divacky + + + rdivacky@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Emulation + + Mailinglist + + + emulation@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Wiki page about + the linux compatibility environment. + + + +

Roman Divacky participated in the Google Summer of Code 2006 and + implemented a major part of the syscall compatibility to the 2.6.16 + Linux kernel. The work has been committed to -CURRENT (the default + compatibility still being a 2.4.2 Linux kernel) and we are working + on fixing the remaining bugs as time permits.

+ +

"Intron" submitted an implementation for the linux aio syscalls. + His work has been committed to the Perforce repository.

+ +

We also started to consolidate a list of known bugs, open issues + and helpful stuff (e.g. regression tests and their status) in + -CURRENT on a page in the FreeBSD wiki (see the links-section). It + also contains a link to a more or less up-to-date patch with stuff + we have in the Perforce repository so that interested people can + help with testing. Thanks to the help of Marcin Cieslak we already + fixed some bugs (some of the fixes are already MFCed to + -STABLE).

+ +

Thanks to the nice regression tests of the Linux Test Project + (LTP) we have a list of small (and not so small) things which need + to be looked at. This list makes up for a quick start into kernel + hacking. So if you have a little bit of knowledge about C + programming, and if you want to help us a little bit in improving + FreeBSD, feel free to have a look at the list and to try to fix a + problem or two. Sometimes it is as easy as "if (error condition) + return Esomething;" (but you should coordinate with the emulation + mailinglist, so that nobody does some work someone else just did + too). Even if you do not know how to program, you can help. Have a + look at the wiki page and tell us about things which should get + mentioned there too. Or download the patch and test it.

+ + + + + Sound Subsystem Improvements + + + + + Ariff + + Abdullah + + + ariff@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Alexander + + Leidinger + + + netchild@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Ryan + + Beasley + + + ryanb@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Multimedia + + Mailinglist + + + multimedia@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Some patches. + + The FreeBSD + Project Ideas List. + + Wiki page about the + sound system. + + + +

Since the last status report we added basic support for envy24ht + chips, imported the emu10kx driver into the base system and added + support for High Definition Audio (HDA) compatible chips.

+ +

Additionally the work of Ryan Beasley as part of his Google + Summer of Code 2006 participation is committed. It adds + compatibility to the Open Sound System (OSS) v4 API as far as this + was possible. This allows for more sophisticated programs to be + written. For example it is now possible to synchronize the start of + multiple sound channels. It is also possible for a driver to + support more than the AC97 mixer devices, but so far no driver has + been extended to support this yet. More about it can be found in + the wiki and in the official OSS documentation.

+ +

The wiki page about the sound system was started to describe + the current status of the sound system and to provide some + information about where we are heading. But more work needs to be + done to reach this goal. So far we collected some information about + the status of the most recent work in the soundsystem. So if you + have a look at it and you think that something important is + missing, just tell us about it. While fully prepared content is + very welcome, we are even happy about some ideas what we should + list on the wiki page.

+ + + + Have a look at the sound related entries on the ideas + list. + + sndctl(1): tool to control non-mixer parts of the sound + system (e.g. spdif switching, virtual-3D effects) by an user + (instead of the sysctl approach in -current); pcmplay(1), + pcmrec(1), pcmutil(1). + + Plugable FEEDER infrastructure. For ease of debugging various + feeder stuff and/or as userland library and test suite. + + Extend the wiki page. + + + + + Bridge Spanning Tree Protocol Improvements + + + + + Andrew + + Thompson + + + thompsa@FreeBSD.org + + + + +

Work is almost finished to implement the Rapid Spanning Tree + Protocol (RSTP) which supersedes Spanning Tree Protocol (STP). + RSTP has a much faster link failover time of around one second + compared to 30-60 seconds for STP, this is very important on + modern networks. The code will be posted shortly for testing and + feedback.

+ + + + + OCaml language support in ports + + + + + Stanislav + + Sedov + + + stas@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Framework include file + + + +

There were a number of OCaml ports in our tree, and each of them + was doing the same work by maintaining OCaml ld.conf in the correct + state, installing/removing their files/entries etc. To simplify the + task of OCaml-language ports creationm the special framework + (bsd.ocamk.mk) was developed and most of the ports was converted to + use this framework. This allowed a lot of duplicate code to be + removed. This new framework handles all the things required to + install an OCaml-language library and properly register it. + bsd.ocaml.mk also contains knobs to deal with findlib-powered + libraries, modify ld.conf in the proper way, etc. Also, a lot of + new Ocaml-related ports were added.

+ + + + + Enlightenment DR17 support in the ports tree + + + + + Stanislav + + Sedov + + + stas@FreeBSD.org + + + + +

Integration of the new innovative e17 window manager into the + ports tree is almost completed. A lot of new e17-related + applications was ported, all old ports were updated to the latest + stable cvs snapshot. The special framework (bsd.efl.mk) was created + to support the whole thing and simplify the creation of dependent + ports. I'll commit the changes in the days before the ports + freeze.

+ +

Thanks to Sergey Matveychuk (sem@) for providing a machine to + place CVS snapshots on. Without his help it will be impossible.

+ + + + Port Entrance (xdm-like app, but very appealing). + + Port Net and Wlan e17 module. + + Develop FreeBSD-specific e17 apps/modules to use The + Ports Collection, system configs, etc. + + + + + CPU Microcode Update Software + + + + + Stanislav + + Sedov + + + stas@FreeBSD.org + + + + +

Last month I was working on a driver/module to update the + microcode of Intel or AMD CPUs that support having their + microcode updated. As you might know these processors are + microcode-driven and this firmware can be updated. Intel(R) + often releases microcode updates, and AMD(R) updates can be + found in BIOS programs. The work is almost finished now, I just + need to find a bit of time to test it on AMD64 systems and + perform some code cleanup. The driver also provide a way for + userland programs to access the Machine Specific Registers (MSR) + and CPUID info for a certain cpu. This will allow some programs + like x86info to provide more accurate information about cpus in + SMP systems and make assumptions based on the contents of the + MSR.

+ +

Thanks to John Baldwin, Kostik Belousov, John-Mark Gurney and + Divacky Roman for helping during development.

+ + + + Perform testing on the AMD64-based systems. + + Write manpage. + + Code cleanup/checks. + + + + + Improving FreeBSD Ports Collection Infrastructure + + + + + Gábor + + Kövesdán + + + gabor@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + Erwin + + Lansing + + + erwin@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Gábors wiki page. + + + +

During the Google Summer of Code 2006, Gábor worked on several + ideas to improve the ports infrastructure:

+ +
    +
  1. New handling for i386 binary ports.
    2. + +
  2. Cleanup: use ECHO_CMD and ECHO_MSG in bsd.port.mk + properly.
    3. + +
  3. Add a basic infrastructure support for debugging.
    4. + +
  4. Installing ports with different destination (DESTDIR + macro).
    5. + +
  5. Cleanup: Move fetch shell scripts out of bsd.port.mk.
    6. + +
  6. Make ports respect CC and CFLAGS.
    7. + +
  7. Cross-compiling Ports.
    8. + +
  8. Plist generator tool.
    9. +
+ +

The first three items have been completed and the next two + items are being worked on. The DESTDIR support was more + complicated than presumed and took more time than expected to + complete. Gábor will continue working to finish these tasks and + other ports related tasks. FreeBSD is happy to have interested + him to keep working on ports and ports infrastructure.

+ + + + + Gvinum improvements + + + + + Ulf + + Lilleengen + + + lulf@pvv.ntnu.no + + + + + + + + +

I thought that since I sent a status report the last time, I + might as well send one now.

+ +

Since the last status report I have done work on several of the + remaining commands as attach, detach, and finally the concat + command to be able to create concatenated volumes with one easy + command. The mirror and stripe commands are the next step after + this.

+ +

The most important thing I've been working on is maybe the + implementation of drivegroups. I have posted a bit information on + this mailinglists, but basically, it's a way to group drives with + the same configuration. This way, you can make many commands + operate on groups instead of drives, and the group-abstraction will + handle how the underlying subdisks are created on the drives. + In the future one will be able to move groups to different + machines, etc.

+ +

I've created a patch of all my work that is not in HEAD yet here + (this is a snapshot of my developement branch, so how thing's are + done might be changed quite fast): + + http://folk.ntnu.no/lulf/patches/freebsd/gvinum/gvinum_all_current.diff +

+ +

Be aware that a there will probably be bugs in the code, + so don't use it in production yet!

+ +

Thanks to Greg Lehey for offering to help me on getting this + into CVS, and all feedback on this has been good.

+ + + + Remaining components, mirror, stripe and some info + commands. + + + + + FreeBSD Multimedia Resources List + + + + + Edwin + + Groothuis + + + edwin@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + RSS + version + + + +

I have setup the FreeBSD Multimedia Resources List, a + one-stop-shop for FreeBSD related podcasts, vodcasts and + audio/video resources. Hopefully this list will make it easier for + people to find and keep up to date with these recordings. The + overview is available as a normal HTML page and as an XML/RSS + feed.

+ +

The ultimate goal is to have this list to reside under the + www.FreeBSD.org umbrella.

+ + + + + SNMP monitoring (BSNMP) + + + + + Shteryana + + Shopova + + + shteryana@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + Bjoern A. + + Zeeb + + + bz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + P4 workspace + + SNMP-related + pages on FreeBSD Wiki + + A wiki page on + if_bridge(4) monitoring module + + + bsnmptools port + + + +

A BRIDGE monitoring module for FreeBSD's BSNMP daemon has been + implemented. In addition to RFC 4188 single bridge support and + extending the kernel to get access to all the information, a + private MIB was designed in order to be able to monitor multiple + bridges supported by FreeBSD. The kernel part has already been + committed to -CURRENT (thanks to thompsa@), for -STABLE a patch is + available (see the wiki), code has already been reviewed.

+ +

SoC 2005 work on SNMP client tools is now available too via port + (net-mgmt/bsnmptools), thanks to Andrew Pantyukhin for the port.

+ + + + More testing is very welcome. + + if_vlan(4) monitoring module. + + jail(8) monitoring module. + + + + + BSDCan 2007 + + + + + Dan + + Langille + + + dan@langille.org + + + + + + + + +

The dates for + BSDCan 2007 + + has been set: 11-12 May 2007. As is usual, BSDCan will be held at + University of Ottawa, with two days of tutorials prior to the + conference starting.

+ +

The + call for papers + + will go out in mid December. Start thinking about your submissions + now!

+ + + + + FreshPorts + + + + + Dan + + Langille + + + dan@langille.org + + + + + FreshPorts - The Place For + Ports + + + +

The new 2U server mentioned in the last report now has a + collection of Raptor drives in a RAID-10 configuration. Thanks to + very generous donations from the community, I purchased eight of + these drives at very good prices. The server will be deployed in + the next few weeks.

+ +

There has been quite a bit of work since the last report in + June. Some highlights include:

+ +
    +
  • New news feed + formats, + + including newsfeeds for your watch list.
    • + +
  • Better pages caching for faster response.
    • + +
  • Sanity Test Failures now available + + online. +
    • + +
  • Ability to + + search for all commits + + (ports, doc, src, etc) under a given point in the tree.
    • +
+ +

For more detail, please review the + FreshPorts Blog + + .

+ + + + + The FreeBSD Foundation + + + + + Deb + + Goodkin + + + deb@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + +

The FreeBSD Foundation continued to support the FreeBSD project + and community through various activities. These activities include + creating strategies for fund development and actively seeking + funding for the FreeBSD community, coordinating a new IBM + Bladeserver project, and protecting the image and integrity of + FreeBSD by governing the use of the trademarks. We are pleased to + be a sponsor of EuroBSDCon and will be sponsoring a few developers + to attend the conference through our travel grant program. And + finally, we have secured funds for a major project that will be + announced later this month.

+ + + + diff --git a/en/news/status/report-june-2006-oct-2006.xml b/en/news/status/report-june-2006-oct-2006.xml new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..7f6f0ed820 --- /dev/null +++ b/en/news/status/report-june-2006-oct-2006.xml @@ -0,0 +1,2626 @@ + + + + + + July-September + + 2006 + + +
+ Introduction + +

This report covers FreeBSD related projects between June and + October 2006. This includes the conclusion of this year's Google + Summer of Code with 13 successful students. Some of last year's and + the current SoC participants have meanwhile joined the committer + ranks, kept working on their projects, and improving FreeBSD in + general.

+ +

This year's + EuroBSDCon + + in Milan, Italy has meanwhile published an exciting program. Many + developers will be there to discuss these current and future projects + at the Developer Summit prior the conference. Next year's + conference calendar has a new entry - in addition to the now well + established + BSDCan + + in Ottawa - + AsiaBSDCon + + will take place in Tokyo at the begining of March.

+ +

As we are closing in on FreeBSD 6.2 release many bugs are being + fixed and new features have been MFCed. On the other hand a lot of + the projects below already are focusing on FreeBSD 7.0 and promise + a lot of exciting news and features to come.

+ +

Thanks to all the reporters for the excellent work! We hope you + enjoy reading.

+
+ + + soc + + Google Summer of Code + + + + proj + + Projects + + + + team + + FreeBSD Team Reports + + + + net + + Network Infrastructure + + + + kern + + Kernel + + + + docs + + Documentation + + + + bin + + Userland Programs + + + + arch + + Architectures + + + + ports + + Ports + + + + misc + + Miscellaneous + + + + OpenBSD dhclient + + + + + Brooks + + Davis + + + brooks@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

Most dhclient changes in HEAD have been merged to 6-STABLE for + 6.2-RELEASE. The highlight of these changes is a fix for runaway + dhclient processes when packets are not 4 byte aligned. Further + changes including always sending client identifiers are scheduled + for merge before the release. Work is ongoing to improve dhclient's + interaction with alternate methods of setting interface + addresses.

+ + + + + FreeBSD/arm on Atmel AT91RM9200 + + + + + Warner + + Losh + + + imp@freebsd.org + + + + + Olivier + + Houchard + + + cognet@freebsd.org + + + + + + + +

The FreeBSD/arm port has grown support for the Atmel AT91RM9200. + Boards based on this machine are booting to multiuser off either + NFS or an SD card. The onboard serial ports, PIO, ethernet and + SD/MMC card controllers are well supported. Support for the SSC, + IIC and SPI flash parts in the kernel will be forthcoming + shortly.

+ +

In addition to normal kernel support, the port includes a boot + loader that can initialize memory and boot off IIC eeprom, SPI + DataFlash, BOOTP/TFTP and SD memory cards.

+ +

The port will be included in forth coming commercial + products.

+ + + + Add support for other members of the AT91 family of arm9 + processors. + + Finish support for AT45D* flash parts. + + Finish support for USB ports + + Write support for USB Device functionality + + + + + Summer of Code Summary + + + + + Murray + + Stokely + + + murray@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + FreeBSD Summer of Code 2006 + + SoC 2006 + Student wiki + + + SoC 2006 Perforce trees + + + +

We had another successful summer taking part in the Google + Summer of Code. By all accounts, the FreeBSD participation in this + program was an unqualified success. We received over 150 + applications for student projects, amongst which 13 were selected + for funding. All successful students received the full $4,500.

+ +

These student projects included security research, improved + installation tools, new utilities, and more. Many of the students + have continued working on their FreeBSD projects even after the + official close of the program. At least 2 of our FreeBSD mentors + will be meeting with Google organizers in Mountain View this month + to discuss the program at the Mentor Summit.

+ + + + + Release Engineering + + + + + Release Engineering Team + + + re@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + + + + + +

The FreeBSD Release Engineering team is currently working on + FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE, which is scheduled for release in early + November 2006. Some notable features of this release include the + debut of security event auditing as an experimental feature, Xbox + support, the FreeBSD Update binary updating utility, and of course + many fixes and updates for existing programs. Pre-release images + for all Tier-1 architectures are available for testing now; + feedback on these builds is greatly appreciated. More information + about release engineering activities can be found at the links + above.

+ + + + + IPv6 Stack Vulnerabilities + + + + + George + + Neville-Neil + + + gnn@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Clement + + Lecigne + + + clem1@FreeBSD.org + + + + + SoC Student + Wiki + + PCS Library + + + +

The focus of this project was to review past vulnerabilities, + create vulnerability testing tools and to discover new + vulnerabilities in the FreeBSD IPv6 stack which is derived from the + KAME project code. During the summer Clement took two libraries, + the popular libnet, and his mentor's Packet Construction Set (PCS) + and created tools to find security problems in the IPv6 code. + Several issues were found, bugs filed, and patches created. At the + moment Clement and George are editing a 50 page paper that + describes the project which will be submitted for conference + publication.

+ +

All of the code from the project, including the tools, is on + line and is described in the paper.

+ +

By all measures, this was a successful project. Both student and + mentor gained valuable insight into a previously externally + maintained set of code. In addition to the new tools development in + this effort, the FreeBSD Project has gained a new developer to help + work on the code.

+ + + + + Analyze and Improve the Interrupt Handling + Infrastructure + + + + + Paolo + + Pisati + + + pisati@FreeBSD.org + + + + + John + + Baldwin + + + jhb@FreeBSD.org + + + + + SoC Student + Wiki + + + +

This project consisted in the improvement of the Interrupt + Handling System in FreeBSD: while retaining backward compatibility + with the previous models (FAST and ITHREAD), a new method called + 'Interrupt filtering' was added. With interrupt filtering, the + interrupt handler is divided into 2 parts: the filter (that checks + if the actual interrupt belong to this device) and the ithread + (that is scheduled in case some blocking work has to be done). The + main benefits of interrupt filtering are:

+ +
    +
  • Feedback from filters (the system finally knows if any + handler has serviced an interrupt or not, and can react + consequently).
    • + +
  • Lower latency/overhead for shared interrupt line.
    • + +
  • Previous experiments with interrupt filtering showed an + increase in performance against the plain ithread model
    • +
+ +

Moreover, during the development of interrupt filtering, some MD + dependent code was converted into MI code, PPC was fixed to support + multiple FAST handlers per line and an interrupt stray storm + detection logic was added. While the framework is done, there are + still machine dependent bits to be written (the support for ppc, + sparc64, arm and itanium has to be written/reviewed) and a serious + analysis of the performance of this model against the previous one + is a work-in-progress

+ + + + + Jail Resource Limits + + + + + Chris + + Jones + + + cdjones@freebsd.org + + + + + Kip + + Macy + + + kmacy@freebsd.org + + + + + SoC + Student Wiki + + + +

We now have support for limiting CPU and memory use in jails. + This allows fairer sharing of a systems' resources between divergent + uses by preventing one jail from monopolizing the available memory + and CPU time, if other users and jails have processes to run.

+ +

The code is currently available as patches against RELENG_6, and + Chris is in the process of applying it to -CURRENT. More details + can be found at JailResourceLimits on the wiki.

+ + + + Port patches against -CURRENT. + + + + + Bundled PXE Installer + + + + + Markus + + Boelter + + + m@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Paul + + Saab + + + ps@FreeBSD.org + + + + + SoC Student + Wiki + + + +

For me, the Google Summer of Code was a new and very exciting + experience. I got actively involved in doing Open Source Software + and giving something back to the community. Facing some + challenges within the project forced me to look behind the scenery + of FreeBSD. The result was a better understanding of the overall + project. Working with a lot of developers directly also + gave a very special spirit to the Google Summer of Code.

+ +

I really enjoyed the time and will continue to work on the + project after the deadline. For me, it was a great chance to get + involved in active development and not just some scripts and hacks + at home. Getting paid for the work was just a small part of the + overall feeling.

+ +

Thanks to the people at the FreeBSD Project and Google for the + really, really great time!

+ + + + + Nss-LDAP importing and nsswitch subsystem improvement + + + + + Michael + + Bushkov + + + bushman@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Hajimu + + UMEMOTO + + + ume@FreeBSD.org + + + + + SoC Student + Wiki + + + Original Project Proposal + + + Detailed Description of the Completed Project + + + +

The Project consisted of five parts:

+ +
    +
  1. Nsswitch modules and libc separation. The idea was to move + the source code for different nsswitch sources (such as "files", + "dns", "nis") out of the libc into the separate shared libraries. + This task was successfully finished and the patch is + available.
    2. + +
  2. Regression tests for nsswitch. A set of regression tests to + test the correctness of all nsswitch-related functions and the + invariance of their behavior between system upgrades. The task + can be considered successfully completed, the patch is + available.
    3. + +
  3. Rewriting nss_ldap. Though, this task was not clearly + mentioned in the original proposal, during the SoC we found + it would be easier, not to simply import PADL's nss_ldap, but + to rewrite it from scratch (licensing issues were among the + basic reasons for this). The resulting module behaves similarly + to PADL's module, but has a different architecture that is more + flexiable. Though it's basically finished, several useful + features from the PADL's nss_ldap still need to be implemented. + Despite the lack of some features, this task can be considered + successfully completed. Missing features will be implemented as + soon as possible, hopefully during September.
    4. + +
  4. Importing nss_ldap into the Base System. The task was to + prepare a patch, that will allow users to use nss_ldap from the + base system. The task was successfully completed (the patch is + available), but required importing OpenLDAP into the base in + order for nss_ldap to work properly, and it had led to a long + discussion in the mailing list. This discussion, however, have + concluded with mostly positive opinions about nss_ldap and + OpenLDAP importing.
    5. + +
  5. Cached performance optimization. The caching daemon + performance needs to be as high as possible in order for cached + to be as close (in terms of speed) to "files" nsswitch source as + possible. Cached's performance analysis was made and nsswitch + database pre-caching was introduced as the optimization. This + task was completed (the patch is available). However there is + room for improvement. More precise and extensive performance + analysis should be made and more optimizations need to be + introduces. This will be done in the near future.
    6. +
+ +

Though none of the code was committed yet into the official + FreeBSD tree, my experience from the previous year makes me think + that this situation is normal. I hope, that the code will be + reviewed and committed in the coming months.

+ + + + + Porting the seref policy and setools to SEBSD + + + + + Dongmei + + Liu + + + dongmei@freebsd.org + + + + + Christian + + Peron + + + csjp@FreeBSD.org + + + + + SoC Student + Wiki + + + +

Dongmei Liu spent the summer working on the basic footwork + required to port the SEREF policy to SEBSD. This work has been + submitted and can be viewed in the soc2006/dongmei_sebsd Perforce + branch. This work was originated from the SEBSD branch: + //depot/projects/trustedbsd/sebsd. Additionally setools-2.3 was + ported from Linux and can be found in contrib/sebsd/setools + directory. It is hoped that this work will be merged into the main + SEBSD development branch.

+ + + + + SCTP Integration + + + + + Randall + + Stewart + + + randall@freebsd.org + + + + + George + + Neville-Neil + + + gnn@freebsd.org + + + + + + + + +

There are currently patches available for testing. A planned + integration to HEAD is set to happen in October.

+ + + + The code still needs plenty of testing. See patches on + sctp.org + + and in -CURRENT soon. + + + + + Embedded FreeBSD + + + + + George + + Neville-Neil + + + gnn@freebsd.org + + + + + + + + +

Moved the HTML pages into the project CVS tree.

+ + + + Setup the web site to be served from projects CVS so that it + can be updated by others. + + Complete the ARM port. + + Work on the MIPS port. + + Update the documentation to include common tasks for embedded + engineers. + + + + + FAST_IPSEC Upgrade + + + + + George + + Neville-Neil + + + gnn@freebsd.org + + + + + Bjoern + + Zeeb + + + bz@freebsd.org + + + + + CURRENT patch to + enable FAST_IPSEC and IPv6 + + + +

First working version of code. Does not pass all TAHI tests, but + does pass packets correctly and does not panic.

+ + + + More testing of the patch needed. + + + + + USB + + + + + Hans Petter + + Sirevaag Selasky + + + hselasky@freebsd.org + + + + + + Current USB files + + My USB + homepage + + + +

During the last three months I have finished reworking nearly + all USB device drivers found in FreeBSD-7-CURRENT. Only two USB + drivers are left and that is ubser(4) and slhci. Some still use + Giant, but most have been brought out of Giant. At the moment I am + looking for testers that can test the various USB device drivers. + Some have already been tested, and confirmed to work, while others + have problems which need to be fixed. If you want to test, checkout + the USB perforce tree or download the SVN version of the USB driver + that is available on my homepage. At the moment the tarballs are a + little out of date.

+ +

Ideas and comments with regard to the new USB API are welcome + at: + + + freebsd-usb@freebsd.org.

+ + + + + iSCSI Initiator + + + + + Damiel + + Braniss + + + danny@cs.huji.ac.il + + + + + + + + +

This iSCSI initiator kernel module and its companion control + program are still under development, but the main parts are + working.

+ + + + Network Disconnect Recovery. + + Sysctl Interface and Instrumentation. + + Rewrite the userland side of iscontrol. + + + + + GJournal + + + + + Pawel Jakub + + Dawidek + + + pjd@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Patches against HEAD. + + + Patches against RELENG_6. + + + +

GJournal seems to be finished. I fixed the last serious bug and + it is now stable and reliable in our tests. I'm planning to commit + it really soon now.

+ +

The work was sponsored by home.pl

+ + + + + AsiaBSDCon 2007 + + + + + Hiroki + + Sato + + + hrs@freebsd.org + + + + + George + + Neville-Neil + + + gnn@freebsd.org + + + + secretary@asiabsdcon.org + + + + + Conference Web Site + + + +

Web site is up and we're soliciting papers and presentations. + Some tutorials are already scheduled. Email + + secretary@asibsdcon.org + + if you have questions or submissions.

+ + + + Send in more papers! + + + + + Chinese (Simplified) Project + + + + + Xin + + LI + + + delphij@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Latest snapshot for + translated website + + Latest + snapshot for translated documentation + + + +

+

In the previous quarter we primarily focused on overall + quality of the translation rather than just increasing the number + of translations, and we have strived to make sure that these + translated stuff are up-to-date with their English revisions. + Also, we have merged the translated website into the central + repository.

+ +

In the next quarter we will focus on developing + documentation that will help to attract more developers.

+

+ + + + Translate more development related documentation. + + Review more of the currently translated documentation. + + + + + EuroBSDCon 2006 + + + + + EuroBSDCon Organizing Committee + + + + + + info@eurobsdcon.org + + + + + EuroBSDCon Home Page + + Registration + Page + + + +

EuroBSDCon 2006 is taking place in Milan (Italy), from the 10th + to the 12th of November.

+ +

EuroBSDCon represents the biggest gathering for BSD developers + from the old continent, as well as users and passionates from + around the World. It is also a chance to share experiences, + know-how, and cultures.

+ +

The program is rich in talks about FreeBSD, with topics ranging + from "How the FreeBSD ports collection works" to "Interrupt + Filtering in FreeBSD". This means that both the novice and the + hacker can enjoy the conference.

+ +

Registration is open. The EuroBSDCon Organizing Committee hopes + to see you in Milan.

+ + + + + Hungarian translation of the webpages + + + + + Gábor + + Kövesdán + + + gabor@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Snapshot + + + +

Since the last status report, there has been a lot of progress. + I investigated a lot of charset issues and found out that HTML tidy + breaks some entities when using iso-8859-2, so HTML tidy had to be + disabled for Hungarian pages.

+ + + + Translate 4 pages. + + Review, fix typos and improve the wording where + necessary. + + + + + FreeBSD Security Officer and Security Team + + + + + Security + + Officer + + + security-officer@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Security + + Team + + + security-team@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + + + + + +

In the time since the last status report, six security + advisories have been issued concerning problems in the base system + of FreeBSD; of these, five problems were in "contributed" code, + while one was in code maintained within FreeBSD. The + Vulnerabilities and Exposures Markup Language (VuXML) document has + continued to be updated by the Security Team and Ports Committers + documenting new vulnerabilities in the FreeBSD Ports Collection; + since the last status report, 57 new entries have been added, + bringing the total up to 814.

+ +

The following FreeBSD releases are supported by the FreeBSD + Security Team: FreeBSD 4.11, FreeBSD 5.3, FreeBSD 5.4, FreeBSD 5.5, + FreeBSD 6.0, and FreeBSD 6.1. The respective End of Life dates of + supported releases are listed on the web site; of particular note, + FreeBSD 5.3 and FreeBSD 5.4 will cease to be supported at the end + of October 2006, while FreeBSD 6.0 will cease to be supported at + the end of November 2006 (or possibly a short time thereafter in + order to allow time for upgrades to the upcoming FreeBSD 6.2).

+ + + + + Summer of FreeBSD security development + + + + + Colin + + Percival + + + cperciva@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + + + +

I spent the months of May through August working on improving + Portsnap, FreeBSD Update, and devoting more time to my (continuing) + role as Security Officer. FreeBSD Update is now part of the FreeBSD + base system and is fully supported by the FreeBSD Security Team; + updates are currently only being built for the i386 architecture, + but AMD64 updates will become available soon.

+ +

In an attempt to reduce the number of people running out of date + (and unsupported) FreeBSD releases, I wrote an automatic binary + upgrade script for upgrading systems from FreeBSD 6.0 to FreeBSD + 6.1; I will be releasing a new script for upgrading to FreeBSD + 6.2-(RC*|RELEASE) soon (possibly before this status report is + published).

+ +

Further improvements to Portsnap are still ongoing.

+ + + + + Porting ZFS to FreeBSD + + + + + Pawel Jakub + + Dawidek + + + pjd@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Source code. + + + ZFS porting site. + + + ZFS port announce. + + + +

My work is moving slowly forward. ZVOL is, I believe, fully + functional (I recently fixed snapshots and clones on zvols), which + means you can put UFS on top of RAID-Z volume, take a snapshot of + the volume, clone it if needed, etc. Very cool. The hardest part is + the ZPL layer, I'm still working on it. Most file system methods + work, but probably need detailed review and many fixes. Most of the + time these days I'm spending on implementing mmap(2) correctly. It + works more or less in simple tests but fails under fsx program. On + the other hand, 'fsx -RW' works very stable and reliable. Other + test programs (those that don't use mmap(2)) also work quite well. + There is still a lot of work to do, mostly in ZPL area, many + clean-ups, etc. Some functionality (like ACLs) I haven't even tried + to touch yet.

+ + + + + TSO - TCP Segmentation Offload committed + + + + + Andre + + Oppermann + + + andre@freebsd.org + + + + + + TSO commit to tcp_output.c + + + TSO em(4) hardware support + + + Enhanced em(4) TSO hw setup for IPv6 and future protocols + + + +

TSO - TCP Segmentation Offload support has been committed to the + network stack of FreeBSD-current in September 2006. With TSO, TCP + can send data in the send socket buffer in bulk down to the network + card which then does the splitting into MTU sized packets. On bulk + high speed sending the performance is increased by 25% (normal + writes) to 108% (sendfile). Jack Vogel and Prafulla Deuskar of + Intel committed the driver changes for TSO hardware support of + em(4) based network cards.

+ +

These changes are scheduled to be backported to FreeBSD 6-STABLE + shortly after FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE is published to appear in + upcoming FreeBSD 6.3 early next year.

+ +

This work was sponsored by the TCP/IP Optimization Fundraiser + 2005.

+ + + + + + + + Highly improved implementations of sendfile(2), sosend_*() and + soreceive_stream() + + + + + Andre + + Oppermann + + + andre@freebsd.org + + + + + + sendfile(2) patch with detailed performance figures + + + sosend_*() patch with detailed performance figures + + + Combined sendfile(2), sosend_*() and soreceive_stream() patch + + + +

The addition of TSO (TCP Segmentation Offload) has highlighted + some shortcomings in the sendfile(2) and sosend_*() kernel + implementations.

+ +

The current sendfile(2) code simply loops over the file, turns + each 4K page into an mbuf and sends it off. This has the effect + that TSO can only generate 2 packets per send instead of up to 44 + at its maximum of 64K. kern_sendfile() has been rewritten to work + in two loops, the inner which turns as many pages into mbufs as it + can -- up to the free send socket buffer space. The outer loop then + drops the whole mbuf chain into the send socket buffer, calls + tcp_output() on it and then waits until 50% of the socket buffer + are free again to repeat the cycle. This way tcp_output() gets the + full amount of data to work with and can issue up to 64K sends for + TSO to chop up in the network adapter without using any CPU cycles. + Thus it gets very efficient especially with the readahead the VM + and I/O system do.

+ +

Looking at the benchmarks we see some very nice improvements: + 181% faster with new sendfile vs. old sendfile (non-TSO), 570% + faster with new sendfile vs. old sendfile (TSO).

+ +

The current sosend_*() code uses a sosend_copyin() function that + loops over the supplied struct uio and does interleaved mbuf + allocations and uiomove() calls. m_getm() has been rewritten to be + simpler and to allocate PAGE_SIZE sized jumbo mbuf clusters (4k on + most architectures). m_uiotombuf() has been rewritten to use the + new m_getm() to obtain all mbuf space in one go. It then loops over + it and copies the data into the mbufs by using uiomove(). + sosend_dgram() and sosend_generic() have been changed to use + m_uiotombuf() instead of sosend_copyin().

+ +

Looking at the benchmarks we see some very nice improvements: + 290% faster with new sosend vs. old sosend (non-TSO), 280% faster + with new sosend vs. old sosend (TSO).

+ +

Newly written is a specific soreceive_stream() function for + stream protocols (primarily TCP) that does only one socket buffer + lock per socket read instead of one per data mbuf copied to + userland. When doing netperf tests with WITNESS (full lock tracking + and validation enabled) the receive performance increases from + ~360Mbit/s to ~520Mbit/s. Without WITNESS I could not measure any + statistically significant improvement on a otherwise unloaded + machine. The reason is two-fold: 1) per packet we do a wakeup and + readv() is pretty much as many times as packets come it, thus the + general overhead dominates; 2) the packet input path has a pretty + high overhead too. On heavily loaded machines which do a lot of + high speed receives a performance increase should be + measureable.

+ +

The patches are scheduled to be committed to FreeBSD-current at + end of October or early November 2006.

+ +

This work was sponsored by the TCP/IP Optimization Fundraiser + 2005.

+ + + + + Porting Xen to FreeBSD + + + + + Jue + + Yuan + + + yuanjue@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Step-by-step + tutorial for installing and using FreeBSD as domU + + Wiki page for this + project + + + +

As a participant of Google's Summer of Code 2006, I am focusing + on porting + Xen + + to FreeBSD these months. The result of this summer's work include a + domU kernel that could be used for installation, a + + guide + + for getting started with FreeBSD on Xen, and some other trivial + improvements. But there are still a lot of work needing to be done + in this area, e.g, the long-expeted dom0 support. So I will + continue my work here and try to keep up with the update of Xen + itself.

+ + + + dom0 support is the most urgent + + + + + Gvirstor + + + + + Ivan + + Voras + + + ivoras@freebsd.org + + + + + gvirstor home + page + + + +

Gvirstor is a GEOM class providing virtual ("overcommit") + storage devices larger than physical available storage, with + possibility to add physical storage on-line when the need arises. + Current status is that it's done and waiting commit to HEAD, + scheduled for some time after 6.2 is released.

+ + + + The project is in need of testing! If you have the equipment + and time, please give it a try so possible bugs can be fixed before + it goes into -CURRENT. + + + + + Ports Collection + + + + + Mark + + Linimon + + + linimon@FreeBSD.org + + + + + The FreeBSD Ports + Collection + + + Contributing to the FreeBSD Ports Collection + + FreeBSD + ports unfetchable distfile survey (Bill Fenner's report) + + FreeBSD ports + monitoring system + + The FreeBSD + Ports Management Team + + marcuscom + tinderbox + + + +

The ports PRs surged (especially due to a large number of new + port submissions), but with some hard work we have been able to get + back down to around 900. We are rapidly approaching 16,000 + ports.

+ +

Due to this acceleration in adding new ports, portmgr is now + very concerned that we are outstripping the capacity of both the + build infrastructure and our volunteers to keep up with build + errors and port updates. Accordingly, we've added a guideline (not + a rule) that ports should be of more than just theoretical use to + be added to the Ports Collection (e.g. we can't support all of CPAN + + all of Sourceforge + everything else). Basically, use common + sense as a guideline; certainly no one wants to see any kind of + "gateway" procedure to get incoming ports approved.

+ +

Seven sets of changes have been added to the infrastructure, + mostly refactoring and bugfixing.

+ +

As part of a Summer of Code project, we have also incorporated + some of gabor@'s changes to incorporate better DESTDIR support. + However, due to some unanticipated side-effects, more work is going + to be needed in this area. gabor@ is continuing to work on the + changes.

+ +

netchild@ and bsam@ have been doing a great deal of work to + bring the linux emulator ports closer to sanity, including bringing + up a regression-test suite.

+ +

The long-anticipated import of X.Org 7 has stalled due to + developer time, mostly to deal with documentation and upgrade + instructions. Hopefully this can get done in the early 6.3 + development cycle. See the wiki for more information.

+ +

As a part of that work, the decision has been made to move away + from using X11BASE and just put everything into LOCALBASE; + /usr/X11R6 is simply an artifact at this point. A plan for a + transition process is underway; a great deal of testing will need + to be done, but in the end the ports tree will be much cleaner. The + GNOME team has already done the work to move all of their ports + over, and it will be incorporated after the 6.2 release is + shipped.

+ +

tmclaugh@ is looking for someone to take over the C# ports. He + has maintained them for over a year and wants more time to be able + to work on other projects.

+ +

Some work has been done to get rid of FreeBSD 2.X cruft in + ports. Further work is needed to get the 3.X cruft removed.

+ +

linimon@ did another pass through resetting inactive + maintainers. Another list is waiting in the wings.

+ +

linimon@ is also working on adding the ability for portsmon to + analyze successful packages (not just failed ones), so that queries + such as "show me packages that build on i386 but not amd64" and + "show me why dependent package foo was not built on bar". This is + currently in alpha testing.

+ +

We have added 4 new committers since the last report.

+ + + + We still need help getting back to our modern low of 500 + PRs. + + We have nearly 4400 unmaintained ports (see, for instance, + + the list on portsmon + + ). Although there has been a welcome upsurge in new maintainers + recently which has dropped the percentage down below 28%, we still + need much more help. + + A test run of gcc4.1 on the ports tree showed around 1000 new + build errors. Kris@ has posted some results so that people can + start working on the problems now. In particular, it seems that + certain older versions of GCC cannot be built with GCC 4.1, so + ports that depend on those older versions are going to have to be + fixed as well. Although the import of GCC 4.1 to -CURRENT is not + imminent, the time to start planning is now. + + The state of the packages on AMD64 and sparc64 significantly + lags that of i386. In many of these cases, packages are not + attempted because NOT_FOR_ARCH is used instead of more accurately + only setting BROKEN based on ARCH. (pointyhat can be forced to + build packages that are marked BROKEN, but not NOT_FOR_ARCH). + NOT_FOR_ARCH is supposed to denote only "will never work on this + ARCH". Although we have volunteers who have expressed interest in + sparc64 (and ia64), we need more people who are running amd64 + (especially as a desktop) to help us get more packages + working. + + + + + CScout on the FreeBSD Source Code Base + + + + + Diomidis + + Spinellis + + + dds@FreeBSD.org + + + + + The CScout project + page on the FreeBSD wiki. + + + +

CScout is a refactoring editor and source code browser for + collections of C code. The aim of the project is to make it easy + for FreeBSD developers to use CScout and to improve the FreeBSD + source code quality through CScout-based queries and + refactorings.

+ +

CScout was first applied to the FreeBSD kernel in 2003. Its + application at that point involved substantial tinkering with the + build system. The version released in October 2006 makes the + running of CScout on the three Tier-1 architectures a fairly + straightforward procedure. The current version can also draw a + number of call graphs; this might help developers better understand + foreign code.

+ + + + Use CScout to locate problematic code areas (for example + unused or too liberaly visible objects). + + Use CScout to globaly rename identifiers in a more consistent + fashion. + + Apply CScout to the userland code. + + Identify CScout extensions that would help us improve the + quality of our code. + + Arrange for the continous availability of a live CScout + kernel session on the current version of the source code. + + + + + Libelf + + + + + Joseph + + Koshy + + + jkoshy@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Wiki page tracking + LibELF + + Wiki page for + PmcTools + + + PMC Tools Project + + + +

Libelf is a BSD-licensed library for ELF parsing & + manipulation implementing the SysV/SVR4 (g)ELF[3] API.

+ +

Current status: Implementation of the library is nearly + complete. A TET-based test suite for the API is being worked + on.

+ + + + Reviewers are needed for the code and the test suite. If you + have extensions to the stock SysV/SVR4 ELF(3) API that you would + like to see in -lelf, please send Joseph an email. + + + + + DTrace + + + + + John + + Birrell + + + jb@freebsd.org + + + + + + + +

Progress this month has been limited due to my sea-change, + moving house to the country.

+ +

Sun's OpenSolaris developers have followed through and released + the DTrace test suite as part of the OpenSolaris distribution.

+ +

jkoshy@'s work on libbsdelf is nearing feature completion for + DTrace and will make life easier in FreeBSD for DTrace, given that + we have more architectures to support than Sun has.

+ +

The FreeBSD project has made available a dual processor AMD64 + machine for DTrace porting.

+ +

I am currently working through the diffs between the DTrace + project in P4 and -current, committing files to -current if they + are ready,

+ + + + + TrustedBSD Audit + + + + + Robert + + Watson + + + rwatson@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Christian + + Peron + + + csjp@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Wayne + + Salamon + + + wsalamon@FreeBSD.org + + + + + TrustedBSD Audit + Page + + OpenBSM Page + + + +

+

The TrustedBSD audit implementation provides fine-grained + security event logging throughout the FreeBSD operating system. + The big news for the last quarter is that the TrustedBSD audit + implementation has been merged into RELENG_6 branch, and appeared + in 6.2-BETA2. Over the past few months, work has also occurred in + the following areas:

+ +
    +
  • OpenBSM 1.0 alpha 8 through alpha 12 have been released and + merged into FreeBSD CVS. Changes include significant numbers of + bug fixes, documentation improvements, and feature + enhancements. These include regular expression based matching + for auditreduce, auditd management of kernel audit policy (such + as maximum trail file size), improvements in printing support + for a variety of tokens including execve argument support.
    • + +
  • Significant enhancements to the FreeBSD Handbook chapter on + Audit.
    • + +
  • Full audit support for execve events, including optional + auditing of command line arguments and environmental variables, + as well as audit support for a broad range of other additional + kernel events.
    • + +
  • Kqueue support for audit pipes.
    • + +
  • Robustness improvements in the presence of low disk space + conditions.
    • + +
  • Support for system call capture on additional platforms, + such as ppc and ia64.
    • + +
  • Improved support for very large audit record sizes (as + required for extensive execve support).
    • + +
  • id(1) now supports a -A argument to query audit state for + the process.
    • + +
  • An audit_warn(5) event for trail rotation, which can be + used for archiving, reduction, and other administrative + activities.
    • +
+ +

Lots of testing as part of the 6.2-BETA cycle would be much + appreciated. Audit support will be considered an experimental + feature in FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE, but we hope that it will be a + production feature in 6.3-RELEASE.

+

+ + + + Continue expanding auditing of syscall arguments. + + Continue expanding auditing of administrative tools. + + More testing! + + Continue to explore improvements of the administrative model + for audit trails, etc. + + + + + MMC/SD Support + + + + + Warner + + Losh + + + imp@freebsd.org + + + + + Bernd + + Walter + + + tisco@freebsd.org + + + + + + + +

The MMC/SD stack got a significant boost this quarter. Warner + Losh and Bernd Walter have written a generic MMC/SD flash card + stack for FreeBSD, and have implemented a host controller for the + AT91RM9200 embedded ARM controller they are each using in separate + projects.

+ +

The stack is presently experimental in quality. It is being used + as the root file system for these embedded projects. There's been + no work done to support hot insertion and removal of cards (neither + board wires up the pins necessary, and besides, / disappearing is + very bad). There are still many rough edges.

+ +

This is a freshly written stack. It has been written using the + SD 1.0 (and recently 2.0) simplified specification, with the + SanDisk MMC application notes supplementing. The Linux stack looks + good, although not entirely standards conforming (there's work in + progress that I've not seen that is supposed to fix this) and it + is contaminated with the GPL. The OpenBSD stack also looks + interesting, but Warner's experience porting NEWCARD over from + NetBSD suggested that a fresh rewrite may be faster, at least for + the bus and driver level. Since MMC is fairly simple, a port of the + sdhci driver might be possible.

+ +

Please see the open tasks list.

+ + + + Write sdhci driver, and integrate it into the current + stack. + + Add support for hot plugging of cards. + + Add support for MMC cards (SD cards were the first + target). + + Expand SD support to include SDIO cards as well as the new + SDHC standard cards. + + Export stats via sysctl for each of the cards that are found + as a debugging and usage monitoring aid. + + Add support for reading/writing multiple blocks at a time to + improve performance. + + Implement any other host controller. + + Add proper support for timeouts. + + + + + Sun Niagara port + + + + + Kip + + Macy + + + kmacy@FreeBSD.org + + + + +

Support for the UltraSparc T1 (Niagara) continues to improve. + The code has recently been checked into public CVS under + sys/sun4v.

+ +

It isn't clear whether or not I will have time to implement full + logical domaining support before the APIs become publicly + available. Testing indicates that substantial work will be needed + before FreeBSD can take full advantage of all 32 threads.

+ + + + Random testing and bug fixes. + + Import and extend improved mutex profiling support. + + Virtual network and virtual disk device drivers for logical + domains. + + + + + Xen Port + + + + + Kip + + Macy + + + kmacy@FreeBSD.org + + + + +

Work on Xen support has slowly been continuing in perforce. The + SOC student fixed several bugs and is continuing to work on it. + Someone is needed who has the time to complete dom0 support and + shepherd it production level stability.

+ +

Sufficient interest has been expressed in it that it probably + makes sense to check it in to public CVS so that more people can + try it out. Time permitting, I will bring it up to date and check + it in the next month.

+ + + + dom0 support. + + General testing and bug fixing. + + + + + FreeSBIE + + + + + FreeSBIE + + Staff + + + staff@FreeSBIE.org + + + + + Matteo + + Riondato + + + matteo@FreeBSD.org + + + + + FreeSBIE Website + + + FreeSBIE ML Subscription Form + + + FreeSBIE GMV Announcement + + + +

FreeSBIE is a FreeBSD based LiveCD.

+ +

On August 19th, Matteo Riondato, a member of the FreeSBIE staff, + released an unofficial ISO, codename FreeSBIE GMV, based on FreeBSD + -CURRENT (read the Announcement to download it). This is supposed + to be the first in a series of four ISOs that will end up with the + release of FreeSBIE 2.0. Matteo is now working on another ISO, + codename FreeSBIE LVC, which is scheduled to be released October 12th.

+ +

FreeSBIE 2.0 will be based on FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE and will + hopefully be released at EuroBSDCon 2006 in Milan. It will be + available for the i386 and AMD64 platforms.

+ + + + Test the released ISO in preparation for the release. + + Suggest software to include in the ISO. + + Submit a simple and clear but complete fluxbox + configuration. + + + + + Update of the Linux compatibility environment in the + kernel + + + + + Alexander + + Leidinger + + + netchild@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Roman + + Divacky + + + rdivacky@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Emulation + + Mailinglist + + + emulation@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Wiki page about + the linux compatibility environment. + + + +

Roman Divacky participated in the Google Summer of Code 2006 and + implemented a major part of the syscall compatibility to the 2.6.16 + Linux kernel. The work has been committed to -CURRENT (the default + compatibility still being a 2.4.2 Linux kernel) and we are working + on fixing the remaining bugs as time permits.

+ +

"Intron" submitted an implementation for the linux aio syscalls. + His work has been committed to the Perforce repository.

+ +

We also started to consolidate a list of known bugs, open issues + and helpful stuff (e.g. regression tests and their status) in + -CURRENT on a page in the FreeBSD wiki (see the links-section). It + also contains a link to a more or less up-to-date patch with stuff + we have in the Perforce repository so that interested people can + help with testing. Thanks to the help of Marcin Cieslak we already + fixed some bugs (some of the fixes are already MFCed to + -STABLE).

+ +

Thanks to the nice regression tests of the Linux Test Project + (LTP) we have a list of small (and not so small) things which need + to be looked at. This list makes up for a quick start into kernel + hacking. So if you have a little bit of knowledge about C + programming, and if you want to help us a little bit in improving + FreeBSD, feel free to have a look at the list and to try to fix a + problem or two. Sometimes it is as easy as "if (error condition) + return Esomething;" (but you should coordinate with the emulation + mailinglist, so that nobody does some work someone else just did + too). Even if you do not know how to program, you can help. Have a + look at the wiki page and tell us about things which should get + mentioned there too. Or download the patch and test it.

+ + + + + Sound Subsystem Improvements + + + + + Ariff + + Abdullah + + + ariff@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Alexander + + Leidinger + + + netchild@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Ryan + + Beasley + + + ryanb@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Multimedia + + Mailinglist + + + multimedia@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Some patches. + + The FreeBSD + Project Ideas List. + + Wiki page about the + sound system. + + + +

Since the last status report we added basic support for envy24ht + chips, imported the emu10kx driver into the base system and added + support for High Definition Audio (HDA) compatible chips.

+ +

Additionally the work of Ryan Beasley as part of his Google + Summer of Code 2006 participation is committed. It adds + compatibility to the Open Sound System (OSS) v4 API as far as this + was possible. This allows for more sophisticated programs to be + written. For example it is now possible to synchronize the start of + multiple sound channels. It is also possible for a driver to + support more than the AC97 mixer devices, but so far no driver has + been extended to support this yet. More about it can be found in + the wiki and in the official OSS documentation.

+ +

The wiki page about the sound system was started to describe + the current status of the sound system and to provide some + information about where we are heading. But more work needs to be + done to reach this goal. So far we collected some information about + the status of the most recent work in the soundsystem. So if you + have a look at it and you think that something important is + missing, just tell us about it. While fully prepared content is + very welcome, we are even happy about some ideas what we should + list on the wiki page.

+ + + + Have a look at the sound related entries on the ideas + list. + + sndctl(1): tool to control non-mixer parts of the sound + system (e.g. spdif switching, virtual-3D effects) by an user + (instead of the sysctl approach in -current); pcmplay(1), + pcmrec(1), pcmutil(1). + + Plugable FEEDER infrastructure. For ease of debugging various + feeder stuff and/or as userland library and test suite. + + Extend the wiki page. + + + + + Bridge Spanning Tree Protocol Improvements + + + + + Andrew + + Thompson + + + thompsa@FreeBSD.org + + + + +

Work is almost finished to implement the Rapid Spanning Tree + Protocol (RSTP) which supersedes Spanning Tree Protocol (STP). + RSTP has a much faster link failover time of around one second + compared to 30-60 seconds for STP, this is very important on + modern networks. The code will be posted shortly for testing and + feedback.

+ + + + + OCaml language support in ports + + + + + Stanislav + + Sedov + + + stas@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Framework include file + + + +

There were a number of OCaml ports in our tree, and each of them + was doing the same work by maintaining OCaml ld.conf in the correct + state, installing/removing their files/entries etc. To simplify the + task of OCaml-language ports creationm the special framework + (bsd.ocamk.mk) was developed and most of the ports was converted to + use this framework. This allowed a lot of duplicate code to be + removed. This new framework handles all the things required to + install an OCaml-language library and properly register it. + bsd.ocaml.mk also contains knobs to deal with findlib-powered + libraries, modify ld.conf in the proper way, etc. Also, a lot of + new Ocaml-related ports were added.

+ + + + + Enlightenment DR17 support in the ports tree + + + + + Stanislav + + Sedov + + + stas@FreeBSD.org + + + + +

Integration of the new innovative e17 window manager into the + ports tree is almost completed. A lot of new e17-related + applications was ported, all old ports were updated to the latest + stable cvs snapshot. The special framework (bsd.efl.mk) was created + to support the whole thing and simplify the creation of dependent + ports. I'll commit the changes in the days before the ports + freeze.

+ +

Thanks to Sergey Matveychuk (sem@) for providing a machine to + place CVS snapshots on. Without his help it will be impossible.

+ + + + Port Entrance (xdm-like app, but very appealing). + + Port Net and Wlan e17 module. + + Develop FreeBSD-specific e17 apps/modules to use The + Ports Collection, system configs, etc. + + + + + CPU Microcode Update Software + + + + + Stanislav + + Sedov + + + stas@FreeBSD.org + + + + +

Last month I was working on a driver/module to update the + microcode of Intel or AMD CPUs that support having their + microcode updated. As you might know these processors are + microcode-driven and this firmware can be updated. Intel(R) + often releases microcode updates, and AMD(R) updates can be + found in BIOS programs. The work is almost finished now, I just + need to find a bit of time to test it on AMD64 systems and + perform some code cleanup. The driver also provide a way for + userland programs to access the Machine Specific Registers (MSR) + and CPUID info for a certain cpu. This will allow some programs + like x86info to provide more accurate information about cpus in + SMP systems and make assumptions based on the contents of the + MSR.

+ +

Thanks to John Baldwin, Kostik Belousov, John-Mark Gurney and + Divacky Roman for helping during development.

+ + + + Perform testing on the AMD64-based systems. + + Write manpage. + + Code cleanup/checks. + + + + + Improving FreeBSD Ports Collection Infrastructure + + + + + Gábor + + Kövesdán + + + gabor@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + Erwin + + Lansing + + + erwin@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Gábors wiki page. + + + +

During the Google Summer of Code 2006, Gábor worked on several + ideas to improve the ports infrastructure:

+ +
    +
  1. New handling for i386 binary ports.
    2. + +
  2. Cleanup: use ECHO_CMD and ECHO_MSG in bsd.port.mk + properly.
    3. + +
  3. Add a basic infrastructure support for debugging.
    4. + +
  4. Installing ports with different destination (DESTDIR + macro).
    5. + +
  5. Cleanup: Move fetch shell scripts out of bsd.port.mk.
    6. + +
  6. Make ports respect CC and CFLAGS.
    7. + +
  7. Cross-compiling Ports.
    8. + +
  8. Plist generator tool.
    9. +
+ +

The first three items have been completed and the next two + items are being worked on. The DESTDIR support was more + complicated than presumed and took more time than expected to + complete. Gábor will continue working to finish these tasks and + other ports related tasks. FreeBSD is happy to have interested + him to keep working on ports and ports infrastructure.

+ + + + + Gvinum improvements + + + + + Ulf + + Lilleengen + + + lulf@pvv.ntnu.no + + + + + + + + +

I thought that since I sent a status report the last time, I + might as well send one now.

+ +

Since the last status report I have done work on several of the + remaining commands as attach, detach, and finally the concat + command to be able to create concatenated volumes with one easy + command. The mirror and stripe commands are the next step after + this.

+ +

The most important thing I've been working on is maybe the + implementation of drivegroups. I have posted a bit information on + this mailinglists, but basically, it's a way to group drives with + the same configuration. This way, you can make many commands + operate on groups instead of drives, and the group-abstraction will + handle how the underlying subdisks are created on the drives. + In the future one will be able to move groups to different + machines, etc.

+ +

I've created a patch of all my work that is not in HEAD yet here + (this is a snapshot of my developement branch, so how thing's are + done might be changed quite fast): + + http://folk.ntnu.no/lulf/patches/freebsd/gvinum/gvinum_all_current.diff +

+ +

Be aware that a there will probably be bugs in the code, + so don't use it in production yet!

+ +

Thanks to Greg Lehey for offering to help me on getting this + into CVS, and all feedback on this has been good.

+ + + + Remaining components, mirror, stripe and some info + commands. + + + + + FreeBSD Multimedia Resources List + + + + + Edwin + + Groothuis + + + edwin@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + RSS + version + + + +

I have setup the FreeBSD Multimedia Resources List, a + one-stop-shop for FreeBSD related podcasts, vodcasts and + audio/video resources. Hopefully this list will make it easier for + people to find and keep up to date with these recordings. The + overview is available as a normal HTML page and as an XML/RSS + feed.

+ +

The ultimate goal is to have this list to reside under the + www.FreeBSD.org umbrella.

+ + + + + SNMP monitoring (BSNMP) + + + + + Shteryana + + Shopova + + + shteryana@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + Bjoern A. + + Zeeb + + + bz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + P4 workspace + + SNMP-related + pages on FreeBSD Wiki + + A wiki page on + if_bridge(4) monitoring module + + + bsnmptools port + + + +

A BRIDGE monitoring module for FreeBSD's BSNMP daemon has been + implemented. In addition to RFC 4188 single bridge support and + extending the kernel to get access to all the information, a + private MIB was designed in order to be able to monitor multiple + bridges supported by FreeBSD. The kernel part has already been + committed to -CURRENT (thanks to thompsa@), for -STABLE a patch is + available (see the wiki), code has already been reviewed.

+ +

SoC 2005 work on SNMP client tools is now available too via port + (net-mgmt/bsnmptools), thanks to Andrew Pantyukhin for the port.

+ + + + More testing is very welcome. + + if_vlan(4) monitoring module. + + jail(8) monitoring module. + + + + + BSDCan 2007 + + + + + Dan + + Langille + + + dan@langille.org + + + + + + + + +

The dates for + BSDCan 2007 + + has been set: 11-12 May 2007. As is usual, BSDCan will be held at + University of Ottawa, with two days of tutorials prior to the + conference starting.

+ +

The + call for papers + + will go out in mid December. Start thinking about your submissions + now!

+ + + + + FreshPorts + + + + + Dan + + Langille + + + dan@langille.org + + + + + FreshPorts - The Place For + Ports + + + +

The new 2U server mentioned in the last report now has a + collection of Raptor drives in a RAID-10 configuration. Thanks to + very generous donations from the community, I purchased eight of + these drives at very good prices. The server will be deployed in + the next few weeks.

+ +

There has been quite a bit of work since the last report in + June. Some highlights include:

+ +
    +
  • New news feed + formats, + + including newsfeeds for your watch list.
    • + +
  • Better pages caching for faster response.
    • + +
  • Sanity Test Failures now available + + online. +
    • + +
  • Ability to + + search for all commits + + (ports, doc, src, etc) under a given point in the tree.
    • +
+ +

For more detail, please review the + FreshPorts Blog + + .

+ + + + + The FreeBSD Foundation + + + + + Deb + + Goodkin + + + deb@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + +

The FreeBSD Foundation continued to support the FreeBSD project + and community through various activities. These activities include + creating strategies for fund development and actively seeking + funding for the FreeBSD community, coordinating a new IBM + Bladeserver project, and protecting the image and integrity of + FreeBSD by governing the use of the trademarks. We are pleased to + be a sponsor of EuroBSDCon and will be sponsoring a few developers + to attend the conference through our travel grant program. And + finally, we have secured funds for a major project that will be + announced later this month.

+ + + + diff --git a/en/news/status/status.sgml b/en/news/status/status.sgml index 58a476d8d4..62fc270a71 100644 --- a/en/news/status/status.sgml +++ b/en/news/status/status.sgml @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ - + ]> @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ &header; -

Next submission due: October 6 2006

+

Next submission due: January 6 2007

Use the xml generator or download and edit the @@ -41,6 +41,8 @@

2006