From 85437132a62cc2f01ea073eba612135fc658d50d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Max Laier Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 22:50:46 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Add the Oct - Dec 2006 Status Report. Next reports are due April 7, 2007. Additional proof-reading: brueffer --- en/news/status/Makefile | 3 +- en/news/status/report-2006-10-2005-12.xml | 2546 +++++++++++++++++++ en/news/status/report-2006-10-2006-12.xml | 2546 +++++++++++++++++++ en/news/status/report-oct-2006-dec-2006.xml | 2546 +++++++++++++++++++ en/news/status/status.sgml | 8 +- 5 files changed, 7645 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) create mode 100644 en/news/status/report-2006-10-2005-12.xml create mode 100644 en/news/status/report-2006-10-2006-12.xml create mode 100644 en/news/status/report-oct-2006-dec-2006.xml diff --git a/en/news/status/Makefile b/en/news/status/Makefile index 5b3937f470..2e1063dfc7 100644 --- a/en/news/status/Makefile +++ b/en/news/status/Makefile @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -# $FreeBSD: www/en/news/status/Makefile,v 1.34 2006/08/19 21:20:39 hrs Exp $ +# $FreeBSD: www/en/news/status/Makefile,v 1.35 2006/10/19 06:37:53 brd Exp $ .if exists(../Makefile.conf) .include "../Makefile.conf" @@ -34,6 +34,7 @@ XMLDOCS+= report-oct-2005-dec-2005 XMLDOCS+= report-jan-2006-mar-2006 XMLDOCS+= report-apr-2006-jun-2006 XMLDOCS+= report-june-2006-oct-2006 +XMLDOCS+= report-oct-2006-dec-2006 XSLT.DEFAULT= report.xsl diff --git a/en/news/status/report-2006-10-2005-12.xml b/en/news/status/report-2006-10-2005-12.xml new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..5dd09b8e9b --- /dev/null +++ b/en/news/status/report-2006-10-2005-12.xml @@ -0,0 +1,2546 @@ + + + + + + October-December + + 2006 + + +
+ Introduction + +

Happy New Year. This Report covers the last quarter of a exciting + year 2006 for FreeBSD development. FreeBSD 6.2 is finally out of the + door and work towards FreeBSD 7.0 is gearing up. Some of the projects + in this report will be part of that effort, others are already in the + tree. Many projects need your help with testing and otherwise. Please + see the "Open tasks" sections for more information.

+ +

The BSD crowd will meet at + AsiaBSDCon + March 8-10th in Tokyo and a two day FreeBSD developer summit will be + held at + BSDCan + + May 16-19th in Ottawa. Finally, + EuroBSDCon + + September 14-15th in Copenhagen is already looking for papers.

+ +

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

+
+ + + proj + + Projects + + + + team + + FreeBSD Team Reports + + + + net + + Network Infrastructure + + + + kern + + Kernel + + + + drv + + Hardware Drivers + + + + docs + + Documentation + + + + bin + + Userland Programs + + + + arch + + Architectures + + + + ports + + Ports + + + + misc + + Miscellaneous + + + + GEOM Multipath + + + + + Matthew + + Jacob + + + mjacob@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

A toy implementation of GEOM based active/passive multipath is + now done and in a perforce repository. Seems to work.

+ + + + + FreshPorts + + + + + Dan + + Langille + + + dan@langille.org + + + + + FreshPorts + + FreshPorts News + + + +

There have been a number of improvements to FreshPorts over the + last quarter of 2006. The following are just a few of them. The + links take you to the relevant article within the + FreshPorts News website + + . +

+

+ +

My thanks to the many people who have contributed suggestions, + ideas, and code over the years. Most of you are documented at the + above URLs.

+ + + + FreshPorts/FreshSource as a developer tool + + + + + BSDCan 2007 + + + + + Dan + + Langille + + + dan@langille.org + + + + + BSDCan 2007 + + + +

Folks! +
+ + It is that time of year. You may have missed the + call for papers + + , but please put in your proposal right away. This is often a busy + time of year, but please take the time to consider presenting at + BSDCan.

+ +

Please read the + submission + instructions + + and send in your proposal today!

+ +

You may be interested in our sister conference: PGCon. If you + have an interest in + PostgreSQL + + , a leading relational database, which just happens to be open + source, then we have the conference for you! + PGCon 2007 + + will be held immediately after BSDCan 2007, at the same venue, and + will follow a similar format.

+ + + + Waiting for papers + + + + + FreeSBIE + + + + + Matteo + + Riondato + + + matteo@FreeBSD.org + + + + + FreeSBIE + + Staff + + + staff@FreeSBIE.org + + + + + FreeSBIE + + Mailing List + + + freesbie@gufi.org + + + + + + + FreeSBIE 2.0 + Release Notes Preview + + FreeSBIE 2.0 + Screenshots Preview + + + +

FreeSBIE is approaching the 2.0-RELEASE. The first release + candidate proved to be good enough but a second one will probably + be released. An external developer is working on integrating + BSDInstaller in FreeSBIE 2.0 and this may cause a little delay of + the release date. Release Notes were written and need to be updated + with the current list of packages. A script which allows to switch + Tor+Privoxy on and off was added and its usage was documented. The + 2.0-RELEASE is near, hopefully near the end of January but this + will also depend on when FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE will be released.

+ + + + + MPT LSI-Logic Host Adapters: mpt + + + + + Matthew + + Jacob + + + mjacob@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

The 'mpt' project is support for the MPT LSI-Logic Host Adapters + (SCSI, Fibre Channel, SAS).

+ +

The last quarter saw a lot of change supported by Yahoo! and + LSI-Logic and many others as things settled out for better support + for U320. Some initial Big Endian support was offered by John + Birrel and Scott Long.

+ + + + Finish SAS Integrated RAID support. + + Try and get U320 RAID working better than it currently + does. + + Finish Big Endian support, including that for target + mode. + + + + + QLogic SCSI and Fibre Channel: isp + + + + + Matthew + + Jacob + + + mjacob@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

This project is for support for QLogic SCSI and Fibre Channel + host adapters.

+ +

The last quarter saw the addition of 4Gb Fibre Channel support + and a complete rewrite of fabric management (which is still + settling out).

+ + + + + Bt878 Audio Driver (aka FusionHDTV 5 Lite driver) + + + + + John-Mark + + Gurney + + + jmg@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Perforce source repository + + + +

Basic audio capture is working. All of the parameters are set by + userland, while the RISC program generation is by kernel. No real + audio has been captured as there are no drivers for the NTSC tuner + yet. Someone with a real Bt878 NTSC card that is supported by + bktr(4) could use this to capture audio without using the sound + card.

+ +

Due to lack of documentation from DViCO and LG, I have copied + magic values from the Linux driver and managed to get ATSC + capturing working. There was a bug in the capture driver that was + releasing buffers to userland early causing what appeared to be + reception issues. Now that we use the RISC status bits as buffer + completion bits, capture works cleanly. This does mean that even if + you provide more than 4 buffers to the driver, the buffers will be + divided into four segments, and returned in segments.

+ +

A Python module is available, along with a sample capture + application using it. The module is now known to work well with + threads so that tuning (expensive due to i2c ioctls) can happen in + another thread without causing program slow down. The module is + working well with a custom PVR backend.

+ +

Additional ioctls have been added to get sibling devices. This + allows one to open a bktrau device, and get the correct bktr(4) + device that is in the same slot. This is necessary so that when + adjusting GPIO pins or sending i2c commands, they are to the + correct device.

+ + + + Provide support for NTSC and FM tuning. + + Add support for other cards and tuners that use the Bt878 + chip. + + + + + Past and Future PR Closing Events + + + + + Florent + + Thoumie + + + flz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + +

Following the example of our NetBSD friends, we organized a + couple of Bugathons to help decreasing the open PR count. At first, + it was decided to make it a monthly event focused on both src, + ports and doc. Audience decreased with each Bugathon organized and + less non-ports committers attended the events. So from now on, we + will focus on ports (making it a Portathon) and organize a new + event after the end of each ports freeze (that should be twice a + year, at most).

+ + + + + Updating X.org FreeBSD Ports to 7.2 + + + + + Florent + + Thoumie + + + flz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Eric + + Anholt + + + anholt@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Dejan + + Lesjak + + + lesi@FreeBSD.org + + + + + X.org Official + Website + + + Experimental X.org Ports Tree + + Latest news about FreeBSD X.org + Porting Efforts + + + FreeBSD-X11 Mailing List Archives + + + +

X.org 7.2 release has been delayed more than a month, which gave + us more time to fix build failures, to work on a few runtime issues + and to determine the easiest way to upgrade from 6.9 to 7.2 (mostly + with the help of people on the + + freebsd-x11@ mailing list + + ). Everything is in a rather good shape but there's still a little + amount of work to do. The merge of new ports is most likely to + happen before the end of January.

+ + + + Do a global review of the diff between the original tree and + the experimental one (git-diff origin xorg for git users) + + Fix the remaining (9 I think, 3 being lang/jdk's) build + errors + + Continue testing + + Do another experimental build on pointyhat + + + + + New USB Stack + + + + + Hans Petter + + Sirevaag Selasky + + + hselasky@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Current USB files + + My USB + homepage + + + +

During the last three months there has not been so much activity + in the USB project. Some regression issues have been reported and + fixed. Bernd Walter reports that he has got the new USB stack + working on ARM processors with some minor tweaks. Markus Brueffer + reports that he is working on the USB HID parser and support. A + current issue with the new USB stack is that the EHCI driver does + not work on the Sparc64 architecture. If someone has got a Sparc64 + with FreeBSD 7-CURRENT on and can lend the USB project the root + password, a serial console and a USB test device, for example a USB + memory stick, that would be much appreciated. Another unresolved + issue is that the ural(4) USB device driver does not always work. + This is currently being worked on.

+ +

If you want to test the new USB stack, check out the USB + perforce tree or download the SVN version of the USB driver from my + USB 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 + + .

+ + + + + Multi-link PPP daemon (MPD) + + + + + Alexander + + Motin + + + mav@alkar.net + + + + + Archie + + Cobbs + + + archie@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Project home + + + ChangeLog + + + +

MPD is moving to the next major release - mpd4_0. At the end of + October one more beta version (4_0b5) was released and first RC is + planned soon.

+ +

Since 3_18 and 4_0b4 numerous bugs and cases of incorrect + internal handling have been fixed. Performance has been increased + and system requirements reduced.

+ +

Many new features have been implemented: +

    +
  • IPv6 support
    • + +
  • NAT (using the ng_nat(4) node)
    • + +
  • integrated web server
    • + +
  • Deflate and Predictor-1 CCP compression
    • +
+

+ +

Some historically broken features have been reimplemented: +

    +
  • TCP and UDP link types
    • + +
  • CCP compression
    • + +
  • ECP encryption
    • +
+

+ +

To support compression, two new Netgraph nodes ng_deflate and + ng_pred1 have been created and the ng_ppp node has been + modified.

+ + + + ng_ppp node refactoring. + + Implement packet loss notification in related Netgraph nodes + (ng_ppp, ng_pptp, ng_async, ng_deflate, ng_pred1, ng_vjc, ...) to + reduce recovery time and probability of incorrect packet + decompression. + + MPD auth subsystem refactoring. + + + + + 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. + + + +

Since the last status report we made good progress in improving + the compatibility environment. We fixed more than 30 testcases on + i386 (130 testcases = 16% still failing) and more than 60 testcases + on amd64 (140 testcases = 17% still failing) in the Linux 2.4 + compatibility. These numbers compare FreeBSD 6.2 with -CURRENT. + Some of those fixes are edge cases in the error handling, and some + of them fix real issues -- e.g. hangs -- and improve the stability + and correctness of the emulation.

+ +

Regarding the Linux 2.6 compatibility there are 140 testcases + (17%) on i386 and 150 testcases (18%) on amd64 still failing in + -CURRENT. After fixing some showstopper problems with real + applications, we should be able to give the 2.6 emulation a more + widespread exposure "soon" to find more bugs and to determine the + importance of those Linux syscalls which we did not implement + yet.

+ +

The severity of the broken testcases varies, and some of them + will never be fixed, e.g., we will never be able to load Linux + kernel modules into a FreeBSD kernel, being able to add swap with a + Linux command has very low priority, and fixing stuff which is used + by applications like IPC type 17 has high priority.

+ +

Some differences in the 2.6 compatibility are because not all + i386 changes are merged into the amd64 code, and some testcases are + already fixed in our perforce repository but need more review + before they can be committed to -CURRENT.

+ +

We need some more testers and bug reporters. So if you have a + little bit of time and a favorite Linux application, please play + around with it on -CURRENT. If there is a problem, have a look at + the wiki if we already know about it and report on + + emulation@ + + . We are especially interested in reports about the 2.6 + compatibility (sysctl compat.linux.osversion=2.6.16), but only with + the most recent -CURRENT and maybe with some patches we have in the + perforce repository (mandatory on amd64).

+ +

We thank all people who tested the changes / submitted patches + and thus helped improving the Linux compatibility environment.

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

Since the last status report there were improvements to the + emu10kx driver for High Definition Audio (HDA) compatible chips. + Some more chips are supported now and already supported chips + should provide a better zero-configuration experience.

+ +

The generic sound code got some very nice low latency changes, + and fixes which make it multichannel/endian/format safe. We do not + support multichannel operation yet, but this work is a prerequisite + to work on implementing multichannel operation. This work also + fixed some bugs which people may experience as clicks, hickups, + truncation or similar behavior in the sound-output.

+ +

So far there is no merge to 5.x or 6.x planned for this code, + especially because there are API/ABI changes, e.g., several sysctls + changed. People who do not care about this can download binary + sound modules from Ariff's download page for 6.x and 5.x.

+ +

We thank all people who tested the changes / submitted patches + and thus helped improving the sound system.

+ + + + Have a look at the sound related entries on the ideas + list. + + Add multichannel support. + + sndctl(1): tool to control non-mixer parts of the sound + system (e.g. spdif switching, virtual-3D effects) by a 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. + + + + + Hungarian Translation of the Webpages + + + + + Gábor + + Kövesdán + + + gabor@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Giorgos + + Keramidas + + + keramida@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Hungarian webpages + + + +

Gábor Kövesdán (gabor@) has submitted the Hungarian translation + of the webpages and Giorgos Keramidas (keramida@) has reviewed and + committed the pages. The initial rendering issues have also been + fixed and the webpage is in a pretty good shape now.

+ +

As usual, this translation does not contain every part of the + English version, but the most important and useful parts are there. + Gábor will maintain this translation and regularly sync the content + with the English version and add new translations if such become + available.

+ + + + Fix typos and mistakes that will be revealed after a deeper + review by the public + + Get more people involved + + + + + Intel 3945ABG Wireless LAN Driver: wpi + + + + + Benjamin + + Close + + + benjsc@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + + + +

An initial port of the NetBSD wpi driver has been done and + development is happening fast to get this driver ready for the + tree. At present basic functionality works. The driver can + associate with a non encrypted peer and pass data in 11b and 11g + modes. There is still lots to do and testing is welcome.

+ +

Many thanks have to go to Sam, Max and Kip for helping the + driver reach this point.

+ + + + Solve bus dma alignment issues + + Support WEP and WPA + + Testing and more testing + + + + + iSCSI Initiator + + + + + Daniel + + Braniss + + + danny@cs.huji.ac.il + + + + + + + + +

Though it is still a work in progress, it now supports more + targets, has login CHAP authentication and header/data digest. It + will also recover from a lost connection - most of the time.

+ + + + instrumentation + + task management support + + improve the error recovery + + + + + FreeBSD/powerpc on Freescale MPC8555 + + + + + Rafal + + Jaworowski + + + raj@semihalf.com + + + + + Marcel + + Moolenaar + + + xcllnt@mac.com + + + + + + + +

Platform summary: +

    +
  • PowerQuiccIII integrated controller
    • + +
  • e500 CPU core
    • + +
  • compliant with PowerPC BookE specification (significantly + different from the 'traditional' PowerPC architecture the current + FreeBSD/powerpc supports, particularly in the areas of MMU + design, exceptions model, specific e500 machine instructions + etc.)
    • +
+

+ +

Currently the machine is booting FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE-p10 and + operating both single- and multi-user modes; below are highlights + of available functionality: +

    +
  1. Low-level support
    2. + +
      +
    • booting from U-Boot bootloader
      • + +
    • locore machine initialization
      • + +
    • e500 exceptions
      • + +
    • VM: a new pmap module developed
      • +
    + +
  2. On-chip peripherals
    3. + +
      +
    • introduced ocpbus hierarchy (nexus and descendants)
      • + +
    • interrupt controller: using generic OpenPIC driver
      • + +
    • serial console: using uart(4) driver
      • + +
    • barebones serial support using the QUICC's SCC
      • + +
    • host/PCI bridge: a new driver developed for the built-in + bridge
      • + +
    • networking: a new driver developed for TSEC (3-speed + Ethernet)
      • +
    + +
  3. Booting
    4. + +
      +
    • from ATA disk and USB memory stick (both through a + secondary PCI VIA82C686B controller)
      • + +
    • from network (NFS-mounted rootfs)
      • +
    + +
  4. Basic TCP/IP protocols and apps work (DHCP, NFS, SSH, FTP, + Telnet etc.)
    5. + +
  5. Userland
    6. + +
      +
    • integrated SoftFloat emulation lib (required due to e500 + not being equipped with the old-style PowerPC FPU)
      • + +
    • almost all applications seem to work
      • +
    +
+

+ + + + Work out extensible layout for sys/powerpc architecture + directory so we can easily add support for new core variations and + platforms to come in the future. + + Integrate with FreeBSD source tree. + + Release and tinderbox related options and settings. + + + + + Network Stack Virtualization + + + + + Marko + + Zec + + + zec@fer.hr + + + + + + + + +

The network stack virtualization project aims at extending the + FreeBSD kernel to maintain multiple independent instances of + networking state. This will allow for complete networking + independence between jails on a system, including giving each jail + its own firewall, virtual network interfaces, rate limiting, + routing tables, and IPSEC configuration.

+ +

The prototype currently virtualizes the basic INET and INET6 + kernel structures and subsystems, including the TCP machinery and + the IPFW firewall. The focus is currently being kept on resolving + bugs and sporadic lockups, and defining the internal and management + APIs. It is expected that within the next month the code will + become sufficiently complete and stable for testing by early + adopters.

+ + + + + BSNMP Bridge Module + + + + + Shteryana + + Shopova + + + syrinx@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + +

The BSNMP bridge module for FreeBSD's BSNMP daemon, which was + implemented during SoC 2006, was committed to HEAD. In addition to + RFC 4188 single bridge support it also supports monitoring multiple + bridges via a private MIB. Since SoC 2006 Rapid Spanning Tree + (RSTP) support (RSTP-MIB defined in RFC4318 and additions to the + private MIB) was added to the module as well.

+ +

A patch for RELENG_6 is available and will be merged to STABLE + the next weeks.

+ + + + MFC to RELENG_6. + + More feedback from users is always welcome. + + + + + BSNMP Client Tools + + + + + Shteryana + + Shopova + + + syrinx@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Bjoern A. + + Zeeb + + + bz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Wiki Page + + + Shteryana's P4 tree + + + Bjoern's P4 tree (rewrite) + + + +

During SoC 2005 BSNMP client tools (bsnmptools) were implemented + and have since then been available via Shteryana's P4 tree or port + net-mgmt/bsnmptools.

+ +

In order to finally get the code committed some cleanup was + needed which ended in a partly rewrite to minimize duplicate code + and to reduce the size of the binaries. This ongoing work is + available via Bjoern's P4 tree and will be merged back to upstream + trees before it will be committed to HEAD.

+ + + + Update Wiki Page to reflect latest work. + + Finish cleanup and have it reviewed. + + User feedback is always welcome. + + + + + BSNMP - More Ongoing and Upcoming Work + + + + + Shteryana + + Shopova + + + syrinx@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Harti + + Brandt + + + harti@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Bjoern A. + + Zeeb + + + bz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + BSNMP TODO Wiki + page + + + +

In addition to other more detailed reports this is intended to + give a summary about other ongoing or upcoming BSNMP related work. + To collect some ideas from users and coordinate work a BSNMP TODO + Wiki page was created. Feel free to add your ideas or let us know + about them.

+ +

+

    +
  • A contributor, Tsvetan Erenditsov, has volunteered to + implement a VLAN module for BSNMP. Shteryana is helping + him.
    • + +
  • Sam Leffler has asked for a wireless networking monitoring + module, which will most likely be the next module to be + implemented.
    • + +
  • Some major work is currently going on in the main BSNMP + tree: +
      +
    • SNMP transports have been factored out into loadable + modules. The old port tables are still there and will remain + at least for the next release. Later they will be removed. + The following modules and transports are already implemented + as loadable modules: +
        +
      • snmp_trans_udp: SNMP over UDP over IPv4, IPv6 and + scoped IPv6
        • + +
      • snmp_trans_tcp: SNMP over TCP over IPv4, IPv6 and + scoped IPv6
        • + +
      • snmp_trans_ldgram: SNMP over local datagram + sockets
        • + +
      • snmp_trans_lstream: SNMP over local stream sockets
        • +
      +
      • + +
    • Some I/O functions have been moved from the daemon to + libbsnmp.
      • + +
    • libisa has been imported into the bsnmp tree. This + library aims at easy implementation of command line tools for + remote and local system administration with a special focus + on administration via SNMP. The library contains command line + parsing functions, a function for automatically handling help + text. Actual administration modules are implemented as + loadable modules. The atmconfig tool in the FreeBSD tree + contains some old parts of this library.
      • + +
    • lisa_snmp is a module which implements SNMP functionality + for libisa.
      • + +
    • lisa_snmpd is a module for remote administration of the + bsnmpd.
      • + +
    • The config file parser of bsnmpd has been rewritten so + that each section of the file is handled as a transaction (in + contrast to the previous behavior where the entire file was + one transaction).
      • +
    +
    • +
+

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

The recent activities of the Release Engineering team have + centered around FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE, which is now available for + downloading. This is the latest release from the RELENG_6 branch, + and includes many new performance and stability improvements, bug + fixes, and new features. The release notes and errata notes for + FreeBSD 6.2 contain more specific information about what's new in + this version. We thank the FreeBSD developer and user community for + their efforts towards making this release possible.

+ +

The Release Engineering Team also produced snapshots of FreeBSD + CURRENT in November 2006 and January 2007. These snapshots have not + received extensive testing, and should not be used in production + environments. However, they can be used for testing or + experimentation, and show the kinds of functionality that can be + expected in future FreeBSD releases.

+ + + + + 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: The library is now in -CURRENT. Work continues + on its test suite and tutorial, and on deploying it in + PmcTools.

+ + + + + The FreeBSD Dutch Documentation Project + + + + + Remko + + Lodder + + + remko@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

The FreeBSD Dutch Documentation Project is an ongoing project to + translate the FreeBSD Handbook to the Dutch Language.

+ +

Currently we almost translated the entire handbook, and we + translated parts of the website, sadly the project went into a + slush lately, so we seek out for fresh and new translators that are + willing to join the team to continue the effort.

+ + + + Translate the rest of the handbook + + Make the documentation up to date + + Translate the rest of the website + + + + + FreeBSD GNOME Project + + + + + FreeBSD + + GNOME Project + + + gnome@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + +

Where have we been?! Not doing status reports, that's for sure. + But the FreeBSD GNOME project has been very busy with regular GNOME + releases, and other side projects. We are currently shipping GNOME + 2.16.2 in the ports tree, and we are testing GNOME 2.17.5 in the + + MarcusCom + + tree.

+ +

Most recently, work has completed on a cleanup of the FreeBSD + backend to libgtop. This module has needed a lot of work, and + should now be reporting correct system statistics. The cleaned up + version is currently being tested in the MarcusCom tree, and will + make it into the FreeBSD ports tree along with GNOME 2.18.

+ +

The GStreamer framework has been taken out of direct + + gnome@ + + maintainership, and put under a new + + multimedia@ + + umbrella. This will give multimedia-savvy developers a chance to + collaborate on this important piece of the GNOME Desktop along with + other important audio and video components.

+ +

The biggest accomplishment of 2006 for the FreeBSD GNOME team + had to have been the port of + HAL + + . This effort was started to give FreeBSD users a richer desktop + experience. Since the initial FreeBSD release of HAL with GNOME + 2.16, it has been incorporated into the FreeBSD release of KDE + 3.5.5 as well as PC-BSD 1.3. The FreeBSD backend has also made it + upstream into the HAL git repository so future releases of HAL will + have FreeBSD support out-of-the-box.

+ +

Finally, it is with sadness that we say good-bye to one of our + team members. Adam Weinberger stepped down from the FreeBSD GNOME + team to save lives instead (priorities, man!). His splash screens + and grammar nit-picking will be missed.

+ + + + Now that HAL has been ported to FreeBSD, there is a strong + desire to see + + NetworkManager + + ported. The big parts will be porting NM to use our 80211 + framework, and extending some of the base utilities such as + ifconfig. Contact + marcus@FreeBSD.org + + if you are interested in helping. + + Our system-tools-backends module needs some attention. This + module is responsible for system configuration tasks in GNOME such + as user management, network shares administration, etc. A knowledge + of Perl is highly recommended. Contact + marcus@FreeBSD.org + + if you are interested in helping. + + We need good documentation writers to help update our + FAQ + + and other documentation. If you would like to take on the + responsibility full-time, or just contribute some pieces, please + notify + gnome@FreeBSD.org + + . + + We are always in need of GNOME development testers. See our + + development branch FAQ + + for ways on how you can help make the next release of GNOME the + best release. + + + + + ipfw NAT and libalias + + + + + Paolo + + Pisati + + + piso@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

Support for in-kernel NAT, redirect and LSNAT for ipfw was + committed to HEAD, and i encourage people to test it so we can + quickly discover/fix bugs.

+ +

To add these features to ipfw, compile a new kernel adding + "options IPFIREWALL_NAT" to your kernel config or, in case you use + modules, add "CFLAGS += -DIPFIREWALL_NAT" to your make.conf.

+ + + + Teach libalias to handle mbufs (this will fix TSO-capable + NICs). + + Add support for hardware checksum offloading. + + + + + Interrupt Filtering + + + + + Paolo + + Pisati + + + piso@FreeBSD.org + + + + + John + + Baldwin + + + jhb@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Scott + + Long + + + scottl@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + +

Interrupt filtering is a new method to handle interrupts in + FreeBSD that retains backward compatibility with the previous + models (FAST and ITHREAD), while improving over them in some + aspects. With interrupt filtering, the interrupt handler is divided + into 2 parts: the filter (that checks if the actual interrupt + belongs to a device) and a private per-handler ithread (that is + scheduled in case some blocking work has to be done). The main + benefits of this work are: +

    +
  • Feedback from filters (the operating system finally knows + what's the state of an event 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 in some + cases.
    • + +
  • General shrink of the machine dependent code - part of the + interrupting handling code was turned into machine independent + code.
    • +
+

+ +

During the last quarter many improvements were made up to the + point where 3 archs (i386, amd64 and arm) are reported to work, and + the project can be considered feature complete.

+ +

I definitely want to make it part of the 7.0 release.

+ + + + Define a road map to commit the code into the tree. + + Rethink the interrupt stray handling (?!?!). + + Finish off support for powerpc, sparc64 and ia64 (sun4v + support is known to be broken now). + + + + + FreeBSD Bugbusting Team + + + + + Mark + + Linimon + + + linimon@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Ceri + + Davis + + + ceri@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Remko + + Lodder + + + remko@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + + + +

The FreeBSD Bugbusting team is a team of volunteers keeping + track of various PR tickets in the GNATS application. Currently the + Bugbusting team is investigating old PR tickets, checking whether + they are still accurate, checking what needs to be done to fix the + issues reported and make sure that the developers team can focus on + the latest releases.

+ +

The team is always in need of volunteers willing to give a hand + to resolve the old tickets and get the best feedback that is needed + for the open tickets.

+ +

Please contact + + FreeBSD-bugbusters@FreeBSD.org + + if you want more information about the things that need to be + done.

+ + + + Checkout old PR tickets, getting the proper feedback and + finally fix and/or resolve the tickets. + + + + + The FreeBSD Foundation + + + + + Deb + + Goodkin + + + deb@FreeBSD.org + + + + + The FreeBSD + Foundation + + + +

The FreeBSD Foundation ended 2006 raising over $100,000. We + received commitments for another $55,000 in donations for the Fall + Fundraiser. We fell short of our goal of raising $200,000. But, we + are working hard to fill this gap, early in 2007, so we can + continue with the same level of support for the project and + community. Please go to + + http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/ + + to find out how to make a donation to the foundation.

+ +

We added a donors page to our website to acknowledge our + generous donors. We negotiated and are now actively managing a + joint technology project with NLNet and the University of Zagreb to + develop virtualized network stack support for FreeBSD. We sponsored + AsiaBSDCon and are now accepting travel grant applications for this + conference.

+ +

We are working to upgrade the project's network testbed with + 10Gigabit interconnects. Cisco has generously donated a 10Gigabit + switch and we have received network adapters from Myricom, + Neterion, Intel, and Chelsio. Adapters from other vendors are being + solicited so that we can do interoperability testing.

+ +

For more information on what we've been up to, check out our + end-of-year newsletter at + + http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/press/2006Dec-newsletter.shtml + + .

+ + + + + 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 count has jumped to 16347. The PR count, despite a + jump, has gone back down to around 700.

+ +

Not much work has been committed on the ports infrastructure due + to the long 6.2 release cycle. However, many test runs have been + done for several upcoming features, such as making sure that ports + will work with the new release of gcc (4.1), and do not have + /usr/X11R6 hard-coded into them. The intention of the latter is to + move all ports to $LOCALBASE, which can then be selected by the + user. This should help consistency going forwards, albeit at the + cost of a one-time conversion.

+ +

GNOME was updated to 2.16 during the release cycle.

+ +

In addition, we are in the process of moving the FORTRAN default + from f77 to gfortran. See the ports mailing list for details.

+ +

The new xorg ports are still being worked on as well; they are + intended to all live in $LOCALBASE. Hopefully this can get done in + the early 6.3 development cycle. See the wiki for more + information.

+ +

A new version of the ports Tinderbox code is available, which is + mostly a bugfix release.

+ +

We have also added Pav Lucistnik as a new portmgr member, who we + hope will help us work on the portmgr PR backlog. Welcome!

+ +

We have also added 8 new committers since the last report.

+ +

linimon continues to work on resetting committers who are no + longer interested in their ports; as well, several ports commit + bits have been stored for safekeeping. This is part of an attempt + to keep the best match between volunteers and work to be done.

+ + + + Most of the remaining ports PRs are "existing port/PR + assigned to committer". Although the maintainer-timeout policy is + helping to keep the backlog down, we are going to need to do more + to get the ports in the shape they really need to be in. + + Although we have added many maintainers, we still have many + unmaintained ports. As well, the packages on amd64 and sparc64 are + lagging behind. + + + + + 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, four security + advisories have been issued concerning problems in the base system + of FreeBSD (three in 2006 and one in 2007); of these, one problem + was in "contributed" code, while the remaining three were 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, 55 + new entries have been added, bringing the total up to 869.

+ +

In order to streamline security team operations and ensure that + incoming emails are promptly acknowledged, Remko Lodder has been + appointed the security team secretary.

+ +

The following FreeBSD releases are supported by the FreeBSD + Security Team: FreeBSD 4.11, FreeBSD 5.5, FreeBSD 6.0, FreeBSD 6.1, + and FreeBSD 6.2. The respective End of Life dates of supported + releases are listed on the web site; of particular note, FreeBSD + 4.11 and FreeBSD 6.0 will cease to be supported at the end of + January 2007.

+ + + + + Cryptographic Subsystem + + + + + Sam + + Leffler + + + sam@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

Michael Richardson has been spearheading work to improve the + crypto subsystem used by various parts of the kernel including Fast + IPSec and geli. This work is sponsored by Hifn and has been + happening outside the CVS repository. A main focus of this work is + to add support for higher-level hardware operations that can + significantly improve the performance of IPSec and SSL + protocols.

+ +

Results of this work are now being readied for CVS. These + redesign the core/driver APIs to use the kobj facilities and recast + software crypto drivers as pseudo devices. The changes greatly + improve the system and permit new functionality such as specifying + which crypto device to use when multiple are available. The + redesign will also enable load balancing of crypto work across + multiple devices and the addition of virtual crypto sessions by + which small operations can be done in software when the overhead to + set up a hardware device is too costly.

+ +

In addition to the changes to the core crypto system several + crypto drivers have been updated to improve their operation. Top of + this list is the hifn(4) driver where many longstanding bugs have + been fixed for 7955/756 parts.

+ + + + + ARM/XScale Port + + + + + Olivier + + Houchard + + + cognet@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Sam + + Leffler + + + sam@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

FreeBSD is running multi-user on a variety of Gateworks Avila + boards with most of the on-board devices supported. These include + the compact flash/IDE slot, wired network interfaces, realtime + clock, and environmental sensors. Several different minipci cards + have been tested including those supported by the ath(4) and + hifn(4) drivers. Remaining devices that need support are the + onboard flash, optional 4-port network switch, and optional USB + interface. Crypto acceleration for IXP425 parts is planned but will + likely be done at a later time.

+ +

The Network Processor Engine (NPE) support is done with an + entirely new replacement for the Intel Access Layer (IAL). The most + important hardware facilities are supported (e.g. the hardware Q + manager) and the wired NIC driver was also done from scratch. The + resulting code is approximately 1/10th the number of lines of the + equivalent IAL code.

+ + + + Bootstrap support needs work to enable booting from the + compact flash device. + + + + + Porting ZFS to FreeBSD + + + + + Pawel Jakub + + Dawidek + + + pjd@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Source code. + + + ZFS porting site. + + + ZFS port announce. + + + +

The ZFS file system works quite well on FreeBSD now. The first + patchset has already been published on the + + freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.org mailing list + + .

+ +

All file system methods are already implemented (except + ACL-related). Basically all stress tests I tried work, even under + very high load. There is still a problem with memory allocation, + which can get out of control, but from what I know the SUN guys + also work on this.

+ +

Recently I have been working on a file system regression test + suite. From what I found, there are no such test suites for free. + I've already more than 3000 tests and I'm testing correctness of + most file system related syscalls (chflags, chmod, chown, link, + mkdir, mkfifo, open, rename, rmdir, symlink, truncate, unlink). I'm + also working to make it usable on other operating systems (like + Solaris, where it already works and Linux).

+ +

Few days ago I also (almost) finished NFS support. You can't use + the 'zfs share' command yet, but you can export file systems via + /etc/exports and you can also access snapshots. It was quite hard, + because snapshots are separate file systems and after exporting the + main file system, we need to also serve data from snapshots under + it.

+ +

The one big thing which is missing is ACL support. This is not + an easy task, because we first have to make some decisions. + Currently we use POSIX ACLs in our UFS, but the market is moving + slowly to NTFS/NFSv4-type ACLs. In Solaris they use POSIX ACLs for + UFS and NFSv4-type ACLs for ZFS and we probably also want to use + NFSv4-type ACLs in our ZFS, which requires some work outside + ZFS.

+ + + + + TrustedBSD priv(9) + + + + + Robert + + Watson + + + rwatson@FreeBSD.org + + + + + TrustedBSD Project + + + +

TrustedBSD priv(9) replaces suser(9) as an in-kernel interface + for checking privilege in FreeBSD 7.x. Each privilege check now + takes a specific named privilege. This allows both centralization + of jail logic relating to privilege, which is currently distributed + around the kernel at the point of each call to suser(9), and allows + instrumentation of the privilege logic by the MAC Framework. Two + new MAC Framework entry points, one to grant and the other to limit + privilege, are now available, providing fine-grained control of + kernel privilege by policy modules. This lays the kernel + infrastructure groundwork for further refinement and extension of + the kernel privilege model. The priv(9) implementation has been + committed to FreeBSD 7-CURRENT.

+ +

This software was developed by Robert N. M. Watson for the + TrustedBSD Project under contract to nCircle Network Security, + Inc.

+ + + + Complete review of kernel privilege checks, removal of + suser(9) jail flag now that checks are centralized. + + Explore possible changes to kernel privilege model along + lines of POSIX.1e privileges, the Solaris privilege interface, etc. + This has been explored previously as part of the TrustedBSD + Capabilities project also. + + + + + TrustedBSD MAC Framework + + + + + Robert + + Watson + + + rwatson@FreeBSD.org + + + + trustedbsd-discuss@TrustedBSD.org + + + + + TrustedBSD + Project + + + +

Most work on the MAC Framework during this period, other than as + relates to the priv(9) project described in a separate status + report, has been in refinement of the structure of the framework. +

    +
  • Add two new entry points allowing MAC Framework policy + modules to grant or limit fine-grained system privileges.
    • + +
  • A sample mac_priv(4) policy module has been created + demonstrating how a MAC Framework policy module can grant + specific system privileges to specific users.
    • + +
  • Commenting throughout the MAC Framework significantly + extended.
    • + +
  • Correct a bug in which the original ifnet label was copied to + user space via ioctl, rather than the thread-local copy.
    • + +
  • mac_enforce_subsystem debugging sysctls removed, as some + policies rely on access control checks being called even when + non-enforcing (specifically, information flow related + policies).
    • + +
  • Break out mac.h include file into mac.h (user API, system + calls) and mac_framework.h (in-kernel interface to the MAC + Framework). Move non-user MAC include files from src/sys to + src/sys/security/mac. Move and break out kern_mac.c into + mac_framework.c and mac_syscalls.c. The MAC Framework is now + entirely located in src/sys/security/mac.
    • + +
  • Export the MAC Framework version via a read-only sysctl and + provide a #define version usable by policies.
    • + +
  • MAC Framework locking optimized to optimistically expect no + write lock contention during read locking.
    • +
+

+ + + + Now that the MAC Framework has been fully moved to + src/sys/security/mac, embark on the 'mac2' interface cleanup, in + which many MAC Framework entry points are renamed for consistency. + This will require most MAC Framework policy modules to be modified + between FreeBSD 6.x and FreeBSD 7.x, although in a way that can be + largely done using sed. + + Add accessor functions for policies retrieving per-policy + label data from labels, so that policy modules do not compile in + the binary layout of struct label. This will allow future + optimization of the label layout. + + Complete integration of audit and MAC support, allowing MAC + policy modules to control access to audit interfaces, and allowing + them to annotate audit records. + + + + + TrustedBSD Audit + + + + + Robert + + Watson + + + rwatson@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Christian + + Peron + + + csjp@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Wayne + + Salamon + + + wsalamon@FreeBSD.org + + + + + TrustedBSD Audit + Page + + OpenBSM Page + + + +

FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE, the first release of FreeBSD with + experimental audit support is now available. The plan is to make + audit a full production feature as of FreeBSD 6.3-RELEASE, with + "options AUDIT" compiled in by default. A TODO list has been posted + to trustedbsd-audit.

+ +

OpenBSM 1.0 alpha 13, which includes support for XML record + printing, additional 64-bit token types, additional audit events, + and more cross-platform build support, has been released. OpenBSM + 1.0 alpha 14, which adds support for warnings clean building with + gcc 4.1, will be released shortly. The new OpenBSM release will be + merged to FreeBSD CVS in late January or early February.

+ + + + Complete assignment of audit events to non-native and a few + remaining native system calls. Add additional system call argument + auditing. + + Merge MAC Framework hooks allowing MAC modules to control + access to kernel audit services. Refine and merge MAC labeling + support in audit, including support for MAC annotations in the + audit trail. + + Complete pass through user space services adding audit + support to system management tools (and ftpd). Work with third + party software maintainers to add audit support for applications + like xdm/kdm/gdm. + + Merge latest OpenBSM, including XML output support. + + + + + FAST_IPSEC Upgrade + + + + + George + + Neville-Neil + + + gnn@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Bjoern + + Zeeb + + + bz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Host only + patch + + gnn's networking + blog + + + +

Just this week I got routing working for the FAST_IPSEC and IPv6 + code. Now there are memory smash problems, and then we need to + remove the old GIANT lock. I hope to produce another patch with the + routing code working in the next week.

+ + + + Test the patch!!!! + + + + + Automatic TCP Send and Receive Socket Buffer Sizing + + + + + Andre + + Oppermann + + + andre@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Patch against 7-CURRENT + + + Patch against RELENG_6 + + + +

Normally the socket buffers are static (either derived from + global defaults or set with setsockopt) and do not adapt to real + network conditions. Two things happen: a) your socket buffers are + too small and you can't reach the full potential of the network + between both hosts; b) your socket buffers are too big and you + waste a lot of kernel memory for data just sitting around.

+ +

With automatic TCP send and receive socket buffers we can start + with a small buffer and quickly grow it in parallel with the TCP + congestion window to match real network conditions.

+ +

FreeBSD has a default 32K send socket buffer. This supports a + maximal transfer rate of only slightly more than 2Mbit/s on a 100ms + RTT trans-continental link. Or at 200ms just above 1Mbit/s. With + TCP send buffer auto scaling and the default values below it + supports 20Mbit/s at 100ms and 10Mbit/s at 200ms. That's an + improvement of factor 10, or 1000%. For the receive side it looks + slightly better with a default of 64K buffer size.

+ +

The automatic send buffer sizing patch is currently running on + one half of the FTP.FreeBSD.ORG cluster w/o any problems so far. + Against this machine with the automatic receive buffer sizing patch + I can download at 5.7 MBytes per second. Without patch it maxed out + at 1.6 MBytes per second as the delay bandwidth product became + equal to the static socket buffer size without hitting the limits + of the physical link between the machines. My test machine is about + 35ms from that FTP.FreeBSD.ORG and connected through a moderately + loaded 100Mbit Internet link.

+ +

New sysctls are: +

    +
  • net.inet.tcp.sendbuf_auto=1 (enabled)
    • + +
  • net.inet.tcp.sendbuf_inc=8192 (8K, step size)
    • + +
  • net.inet.tcp.sendbuf_max=262144 (256K, growth limit)
    • + +
  • net.inet.tcp.recvbuf_auto=1 (enabled)
    • + +
  • net.inet.tcp.recvbuf_inc=16384 (16K, step size)
    • + +
  • net.inet.tcp.recvbuf_max=262144 (256K, growth limit)
    • +
+

+ + + + + Wireless Networking + + + + + Sam + + Leffler + + + sam@errno.com + + + + + + + +

Work on wireless support has continued to evolve in the public + CVS tree while other work has been going on behind the scenes in + the developer's perforce repository.

+ +

Support was recently added to HEAD for half- and quarter-rate + channels as found in the 4.9 GHz FCC Public Safety Band. This work + was a prerequisite to adding similar support in the 900 MHz band as + found in Ubiquiti's SR9 cards. Adding this functionality was + straightforward due to the design of the net80211 layer, requiring + only some additions to handle the unusual mapping between + frequencies and IEEE channel numbers. The ath(4) driver currently + supports hardware capable of operating on half- and quarter-rate + channels.

+ +

Kip Macy recently made significant advances preparing legacy + drivers for the re-architected net80211 layer that has been + languishing in perforce. With his efforts this code is nearly ready + for public testing after which it can be merged into CVS. Our goal + is to complete this merge in time for the 7.x branch (otherwise it + will be forced to wait for 8.0 before it appears in a public + release). This revised net80211 layer includes advanced station + mode facilities such as background scanning and roaming and support + for Atheros' SuperG extensions. Getting the revised scanning work + into CVS will greatly simplify public distribution of the Virtual + AP (VAP) code as a patch as well as enable addition of 802.11n + support.

+ +

Benjamin Close is working on support for the Intel 3945 parts + commonly found in laptops. The work is going on in the perforce + repository with public code drops for testing.

+ +

Atheros PCI/Cardbus support was updated with a new HAL that + fixes a few minor issues and corrects a problem that kept AR2424 + parts from working. The new HAL also enables more efficient use of + the hardware keycache for TKIP keys; on newer hardware you can now + support up to 57 stations without faulting keys into the cache. + Support for the latest 802.11n parts found in the new Lenovo and + Apple laptops (among others) is in development; initial release + will support only legacy operation.

+ +

Support for Atheros USB devices is coming. Atheros has agreed to + license their firmware with the same license applied to the HAL + which means it can be committed to the tree and distributed as part + of releases. The driver is still in development.

+ +

wpa_supplicant and hostapd were updated to the latest stable + build releases from Jouni Malinen. Shortly the in-tree code base + will switch to the 0.5.x tree which will bring in much new + functionality including dynamic VLAN tagging that will be + especially useful once the multi-bss support is available.

+ +

The support for injection of raw 802.11 frames was committed to + HEAD. This work was done in collaboration with Andrea Bittau. At + this point there are no plans to commit this to the STABLE branch + as it requires API changes.

+ + + + + EuroBSDCon 2007 + + + + + Sidsel + + Jensen + + + info@EuroBSDCon.dk + + + + + + + + + + +

The sixth EuroBSDCon will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark on + Friday the 14th and Saturday 15th of September + 2007 + + . The conference will be held at + Symbion Science Park + + . Sunday the 16th there will be an optional tour to LEGOland.

+ +

The + call for papers + + was sent out right after EuroBSDCon 2006 in Milan in November and + abstracts are due February 1st! So hurry up and send in all your + fantastic and amazing papers to papers at eurobsdcon dot dk.

+ + + + diff --git a/en/news/status/report-2006-10-2006-12.xml b/en/news/status/report-2006-10-2006-12.xml new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..5dd09b8e9b --- /dev/null +++ b/en/news/status/report-2006-10-2006-12.xml @@ -0,0 +1,2546 @@ + + + + + + October-December + + 2006 + + +
+ Introduction + +

Happy New Year. This Report covers the last quarter of a exciting + year 2006 for FreeBSD development. FreeBSD 6.2 is finally out of the + door and work towards FreeBSD 7.0 is gearing up. Some of the projects + in this report will be part of that effort, others are already in the + tree. Many projects need your help with testing and otherwise. Please + see the "Open tasks" sections for more information.

+ +

The BSD crowd will meet at + AsiaBSDCon + March 8-10th in Tokyo and a two day FreeBSD developer summit will be + held at + BSDCan + + May 16-19th in Ottawa. Finally, + EuroBSDCon + + September 14-15th in Copenhagen is already looking for papers.

+ +

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

+
+ + + proj + + Projects + + + + team + + FreeBSD Team Reports + + + + net + + Network Infrastructure + + + + kern + + Kernel + + + + drv + + Hardware Drivers + + + + docs + + Documentation + + + + bin + + Userland Programs + + + + arch + + Architectures + + + + ports + + Ports + + + + misc + + Miscellaneous + + + + GEOM Multipath + + + + + Matthew + + Jacob + + + mjacob@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

A toy implementation of GEOM based active/passive multipath is + now done and in a perforce repository. Seems to work.

+ + + + + FreshPorts + + + + + Dan + + Langille + + + dan@langille.org + + + + + FreshPorts + + FreshPorts News + + + +

There have been a number of improvements to FreshPorts over the + last quarter of 2006. The following are just a few of them. The + links take you to the relevant article within the + FreshPorts News website + + . +

+

+ +

My thanks to the many people who have contributed suggestions, + ideas, and code over the years. Most of you are documented at the + above URLs.

+ + + + FreshPorts/FreshSource as a developer tool + + + + + BSDCan 2007 + + + + + Dan + + Langille + + + dan@langille.org + + + + + BSDCan 2007 + + + +

Folks! +
+ + It is that time of year. You may have missed the + call for papers + + , but please put in your proposal right away. This is often a busy + time of year, but please take the time to consider presenting at + BSDCan.

+ +

Please read the + submission + instructions + + and send in your proposal today!

+ +

You may be interested in our sister conference: PGCon. If you + have an interest in + PostgreSQL + + , a leading relational database, which just happens to be open + source, then we have the conference for you! + PGCon 2007 + + will be held immediately after BSDCan 2007, at the same venue, and + will follow a similar format.

+ + + + Waiting for papers + + + + + FreeSBIE + + + + + Matteo + + Riondato + + + matteo@FreeBSD.org + + + + + FreeSBIE + + Staff + + + staff@FreeSBIE.org + + + + + FreeSBIE + + Mailing List + + + freesbie@gufi.org + + + + + + + FreeSBIE 2.0 + Release Notes Preview + + FreeSBIE 2.0 + Screenshots Preview + + + +

FreeSBIE is approaching the 2.0-RELEASE. The first release + candidate proved to be good enough but a second one will probably + be released. An external developer is working on integrating + BSDInstaller in FreeSBIE 2.0 and this may cause a little delay of + the release date. Release Notes were written and need to be updated + with the current list of packages. A script which allows to switch + Tor+Privoxy on and off was added and its usage was documented. The + 2.0-RELEASE is near, hopefully near the end of January but this + will also depend on when FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE will be released.

+ + + + + MPT LSI-Logic Host Adapters: mpt + + + + + Matthew + + Jacob + + + mjacob@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

The 'mpt' project is support for the MPT LSI-Logic Host Adapters + (SCSI, Fibre Channel, SAS).

+ +

The last quarter saw a lot of change supported by Yahoo! and + LSI-Logic and many others as things settled out for better support + for U320. Some initial Big Endian support was offered by John + Birrel and Scott Long.

+ + + + Finish SAS Integrated RAID support. + + Try and get U320 RAID working better than it currently + does. + + Finish Big Endian support, including that for target + mode. + + + + + QLogic SCSI and Fibre Channel: isp + + + + + Matthew + + Jacob + + + mjacob@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

This project is for support for QLogic SCSI and Fibre Channel + host adapters.

+ +

The last quarter saw the addition of 4Gb Fibre Channel support + and a complete rewrite of fabric management (which is still + settling out).

+ + + + + Bt878 Audio Driver (aka FusionHDTV 5 Lite driver) + + + + + John-Mark + + Gurney + + + jmg@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Perforce source repository + + + +

Basic audio capture is working. All of the parameters are set by + userland, while the RISC program generation is by kernel. No real + audio has been captured as there are no drivers for the NTSC tuner + yet. Someone with a real Bt878 NTSC card that is supported by + bktr(4) could use this to capture audio without using the sound + card.

+ +

Due to lack of documentation from DViCO and LG, I have copied + magic values from the Linux driver and managed to get ATSC + capturing working. There was a bug in the capture driver that was + releasing buffers to userland early causing what appeared to be + reception issues. Now that we use the RISC status bits as buffer + completion bits, capture works cleanly. This does mean that even if + you provide more than 4 buffers to the driver, the buffers will be + divided into four segments, and returned in segments.

+ +

A Python module is available, along with a sample capture + application using it. The module is now known to work well with + threads so that tuning (expensive due to i2c ioctls) can happen in + another thread without causing program slow down. The module is + working well with a custom PVR backend.

+ +

Additional ioctls have been added to get sibling devices. This + allows one to open a bktrau device, and get the correct bktr(4) + device that is in the same slot. This is necessary so that when + adjusting GPIO pins or sending i2c commands, they are to the + correct device.

+ + + + Provide support for NTSC and FM tuning. + + Add support for other cards and tuners that use the Bt878 + chip. + + + + + Past and Future PR Closing Events + + + + + Florent + + Thoumie + + + flz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + +

Following the example of our NetBSD friends, we organized a + couple of Bugathons to help decreasing the open PR count. At first, + it was decided to make it a monthly event focused on both src, + ports and doc. Audience decreased with each Bugathon organized and + less non-ports committers attended the events. So from now on, we + will focus on ports (making it a Portathon) and organize a new + event after the end of each ports freeze (that should be twice a + year, at most).

+ + + + + Updating X.org FreeBSD Ports to 7.2 + + + + + Florent + + Thoumie + + + flz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Eric + + Anholt + + + anholt@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Dejan + + Lesjak + + + lesi@FreeBSD.org + + + + + X.org Official + Website + + + Experimental X.org Ports Tree + + Latest news about FreeBSD X.org + Porting Efforts + + + FreeBSD-X11 Mailing List Archives + + + +

X.org 7.2 release has been delayed more than a month, which gave + us more time to fix build failures, to work on a few runtime issues + and to determine the easiest way to upgrade from 6.9 to 7.2 (mostly + with the help of people on the + + freebsd-x11@ mailing list + + ). Everything is in a rather good shape but there's still a little + amount of work to do. The merge of new ports is most likely to + happen before the end of January.

+ + + + Do a global review of the diff between the original tree and + the experimental one (git-diff origin xorg for git users) + + Fix the remaining (9 I think, 3 being lang/jdk's) build + errors + + Continue testing + + Do another experimental build on pointyhat + + + + + New USB Stack + + + + + Hans Petter + + Sirevaag Selasky + + + hselasky@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Current USB files + + My USB + homepage + + + +

During the last three months there has not been so much activity + in the USB project. Some regression issues have been reported and + fixed. Bernd Walter reports that he has got the new USB stack + working on ARM processors with some minor tweaks. Markus Brueffer + reports that he is working on the USB HID parser and support. A + current issue with the new USB stack is that the EHCI driver does + not work on the Sparc64 architecture. If someone has got a Sparc64 + with FreeBSD 7-CURRENT on and can lend the USB project the root + password, a serial console and a USB test device, for example a USB + memory stick, that would be much appreciated. Another unresolved + issue is that the ural(4) USB device driver does not always work. + This is currently being worked on.

+ +

If you want to test the new USB stack, check out the USB + perforce tree or download the SVN version of the USB driver from my + USB 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 + + .

+ + + + + Multi-link PPP daemon (MPD) + + + + + Alexander + + Motin + + + mav@alkar.net + + + + + Archie + + Cobbs + + + archie@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Project home + + + ChangeLog + + + +

MPD is moving to the next major release - mpd4_0. At the end of + October one more beta version (4_0b5) was released and first RC is + planned soon.

+ +

Since 3_18 and 4_0b4 numerous bugs and cases of incorrect + internal handling have been fixed. Performance has been increased + and system requirements reduced.

+ +

Many new features have been implemented: +

    +
  • IPv6 support
    • + +
  • NAT (using the ng_nat(4) node)
    • + +
  • integrated web server
    • + +
  • Deflate and Predictor-1 CCP compression
    • +
+

+ +

Some historically broken features have been reimplemented: +

    +
  • TCP and UDP link types
    • + +
  • CCP compression
    • + +
  • ECP encryption
    • +
+

+ +

To support compression, two new Netgraph nodes ng_deflate and + ng_pred1 have been created and the ng_ppp node has been + modified.

+ + + + ng_ppp node refactoring. + + Implement packet loss notification in related Netgraph nodes + (ng_ppp, ng_pptp, ng_async, ng_deflate, ng_pred1, ng_vjc, ...) to + reduce recovery time and probability of incorrect packet + decompression. + + MPD auth subsystem refactoring. + + + + + 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. + + + +

Since the last status report we made good progress in improving + the compatibility environment. We fixed more than 30 testcases on + i386 (130 testcases = 16% still failing) and more than 60 testcases + on amd64 (140 testcases = 17% still failing) in the Linux 2.4 + compatibility. These numbers compare FreeBSD 6.2 with -CURRENT. + Some of those fixes are edge cases in the error handling, and some + of them fix real issues -- e.g. hangs -- and improve the stability + and correctness of the emulation.

+ +

Regarding the Linux 2.6 compatibility there are 140 testcases + (17%) on i386 and 150 testcases (18%) on amd64 still failing in + -CURRENT. After fixing some showstopper problems with real + applications, we should be able to give the 2.6 emulation a more + widespread exposure "soon" to find more bugs and to determine the + importance of those Linux syscalls which we did not implement + yet.

+ +

The severity of the broken testcases varies, and some of them + will never be fixed, e.g., we will never be able to load Linux + kernel modules into a FreeBSD kernel, being able to add swap with a + Linux command has very low priority, and fixing stuff which is used + by applications like IPC type 17 has high priority.

+ +

Some differences in the 2.6 compatibility are because not all + i386 changes are merged into the amd64 code, and some testcases are + already fixed in our perforce repository but need more review + before they can be committed to -CURRENT.

+ +

We need some more testers and bug reporters. So if you have a + little bit of time and a favorite Linux application, please play + around with it on -CURRENT. If there is a problem, have a look at + the wiki if we already know about it and report on + + emulation@ + + . We are especially interested in reports about the 2.6 + compatibility (sysctl compat.linux.osversion=2.6.16), but only with + the most recent -CURRENT and maybe with some patches we have in the + perforce repository (mandatory on amd64).

+ +

We thank all people who tested the changes / submitted patches + and thus helped improving the Linux compatibility environment.

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

Since the last status report there were improvements to the + emu10kx driver for High Definition Audio (HDA) compatible chips. + Some more chips are supported now and already supported chips + should provide a better zero-configuration experience.

+ +

The generic sound code got some very nice low latency changes, + and fixes which make it multichannel/endian/format safe. We do not + support multichannel operation yet, but this work is a prerequisite + to work on implementing multichannel operation. This work also + fixed some bugs which people may experience as clicks, hickups, + truncation or similar behavior in the sound-output.

+ +

So far there is no merge to 5.x or 6.x planned for this code, + especially because there are API/ABI changes, e.g., several sysctls + changed. People who do not care about this can download binary + sound modules from Ariff's download page for 6.x and 5.x.

+ +

We thank all people who tested the changes / submitted patches + and thus helped improving the sound system.

+ + + + Have a look at the sound related entries on the ideas + list. + + Add multichannel support. + + sndctl(1): tool to control non-mixer parts of the sound + system (e.g. spdif switching, virtual-3D effects) by a 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. + + + + + Hungarian Translation of the Webpages + + + + + Gábor + + Kövesdán + + + gabor@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Giorgos + + Keramidas + + + keramida@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Hungarian webpages + + + +

Gábor Kövesdán (gabor@) has submitted the Hungarian translation + of the webpages and Giorgos Keramidas (keramida@) has reviewed and + committed the pages. The initial rendering issues have also been + fixed and the webpage is in a pretty good shape now.

+ +

As usual, this translation does not contain every part of the + English version, but the most important and useful parts are there. + Gábor will maintain this translation and regularly sync the content + with the English version and add new translations if such become + available.

+ + + + Fix typos and mistakes that will be revealed after a deeper + review by the public + + Get more people involved + + + + + Intel 3945ABG Wireless LAN Driver: wpi + + + + + Benjamin + + Close + + + benjsc@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + + + +

An initial port of the NetBSD wpi driver has been done and + development is happening fast to get this driver ready for the + tree. At present basic functionality works. The driver can + associate with a non encrypted peer and pass data in 11b and 11g + modes. There is still lots to do and testing is welcome.

+ +

Many thanks have to go to Sam, Max and Kip for helping the + driver reach this point.

+ + + + Solve bus dma alignment issues + + Support WEP and WPA + + Testing and more testing + + + + + iSCSI Initiator + + + + + Daniel + + Braniss + + + danny@cs.huji.ac.il + + + + + + + + +

Though it is still a work in progress, it now supports more + targets, has login CHAP authentication and header/data digest. It + will also recover from a lost connection - most of the time.

+ + + + instrumentation + + task management support + + improve the error recovery + + + + + FreeBSD/powerpc on Freescale MPC8555 + + + + + Rafal + + Jaworowski + + + raj@semihalf.com + + + + + Marcel + + Moolenaar + + + xcllnt@mac.com + + + + + + + +

Platform summary: +

    +
  • PowerQuiccIII integrated controller
    • + +
  • e500 CPU core
    • + +
  • compliant with PowerPC BookE specification (significantly + different from the 'traditional' PowerPC architecture the current + FreeBSD/powerpc supports, particularly in the areas of MMU + design, exceptions model, specific e500 machine instructions + etc.)
    • +
+

+ +

Currently the machine is booting FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE-p10 and + operating both single- and multi-user modes; below are highlights + of available functionality: +

    +
  1. Low-level support
    2. + +
      +
    • booting from U-Boot bootloader
      • + +
    • locore machine initialization
      • + +
    • e500 exceptions
      • + +
    • VM: a new pmap module developed
      • +
    + +
  2. On-chip peripherals
    3. + +
      +
    • introduced ocpbus hierarchy (nexus and descendants)
      • + +
    • interrupt controller: using generic OpenPIC driver
      • + +
    • serial console: using uart(4) driver
      • + +
    • barebones serial support using the QUICC's SCC
      • + +
    • host/PCI bridge: a new driver developed for the built-in + bridge
      • + +
    • networking: a new driver developed for TSEC (3-speed + Ethernet)
      • +
    + +
  3. Booting
    4. + +
      +
    • from ATA disk and USB memory stick (both through a + secondary PCI VIA82C686B controller)
      • + +
    • from network (NFS-mounted rootfs)
      • +
    + +
  4. Basic TCP/IP protocols and apps work (DHCP, NFS, SSH, FTP, + Telnet etc.)
    5. + +
  5. Userland
    6. + +
      +
    • integrated SoftFloat emulation lib (required due to e500 + not being equipped with the old-style PowerPC FPU)
      • + +
    • almost all applications seem to work
      • +
    +
+

+ + + + Work out extensible layout for sys/powerpc architecture + directory so we can easily add support for new core variations and + platforms to come in the future. + + Integrate with FreeBSD source tree. + + Release and tinderbox related options and settings. + + + + + Network Stack Virtualization + + + + + Marko + + Zec + + + zec@fer.hr + + + + + + + + +

The network stack virtualization project aims at extending the + FreeBSD kernel to maintain multiple independent instances of + networking state. This will allow for complete networking + independence between jails on a system, including giving each jail + its own firewall, virtual network interfaces, rate limiting, + routing tables, and IPSEC configuration.

+ +

The prototype currently virtualizes the basic INET and INET6 + kernel structures and subsystems, including the TCP machinery and + the IPFW firewall. The focus is currently being kept on resolving + bugs and sporadic lockups, and defining the internal and management + APIs. It is expected that within the next month the code will + become sufficiently complete and stable for testing by early + adopters.

+ + + + + BSNMP Bridge Module + + + + + Shteryana + + Shopova + + + syrinx@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + +

The BSNMP bridge module for FreeBSD's BSNMP daemon, which was + implemented during SoC 2006, was committed to HEAD. In addition to + RFC 4188 single bridge support it also supports monitoring multiple + bridges via a private MIB. Since SoC 2006 Rapid Spanning Tree + (RSTP) support (RSTP-MIB defined in RFC4318 and additions to the + private MIB) was added to the module as well.

+ +

A patch for RELENG_6 is available and will be merged to STABLE + the next weeks.

+ + + + MFC to RELENG_6. + + More feedback from users is always welcome. + + + + + BSNMP Client Tools + + + + + Shteryana + + Shopova + + + syrinx@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Bjoern A. + + Zeeb + + + bz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Wiki Page + + + Shteryana's P4 tree + + + Bjoern's P4 tree (rewrite) + + + +

During SoC 2005 BSNMP client tools (bsnmptools) were implemented + and have since then been available via Shteryana's P4 tree or port + net-mgmt/bsnmptools.

+ +

In order to finally get the code committed some cleanup was + needed which ended in a partly rewrite to minimize duplicate code + and to reduce the size of the binaries. This ongoing work is + available via Bjoern's P4 tree and will be merged back to upstream + trees before it will be committed to HEAD.

+ + + + Update Wiki Page to reflect latest work. + + Finish cleanup and have it reviewed. + + User feedback is always welcome. + + + + + BSNMP - More Ongoing and Upcoming Work + + + + + Shteryana + + Shopova + + + syrinx@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Harti + + Brandt + + + harti@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Bjoern A. + + Zeeb + + + bz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + BSNMP TODO Wiki + page + + + +

In addition to other more detailed reports this is intended to + give a summary about other ongoing or upcoming BSNMP related work. + To collect some ideas from users and coordinate work a BSNMP TODO + Wiki page was created. Feel free to add your ideas or let us know + about them.

+ +

+

    +
  • A contributor, Tsvetan Erenditsov, has volunteered to + implement a VLAN module for BSNMP. Shteryana is helping + him.
    • + +
  • Sam Leffler has asked for a wireless networking monitoring + module, which will most likely be the next module to be + implemented.
    • + +
  • Some major work is currently going on in the main BSNMP + tree: +
      +
    • SNMP transports have been factored out into loadable + modules. The old port tables are still there and will remain + at least for the next release. Later they will be removed. + The following modules and transports are already implemented + as loadable modules: +
        +
      • snmp_trans_udp: SNMP over UDP over IPv4, IPv6 and + scoped IPv6
        • + +
      • snmp_trans_tcp: SNMP over TCP over IPv4, IPv6 and + scoped IPv6
        • + +
      • snmp_trans_ldgram: SNMP over local datagram + sockets
        • + +
      • snmp_trans_lstream: SNMP over local stream sockets
        • +
      +
      • + +
    • Some I/O functions have been moved from the daemon to + libbsnmp.
      • + +
    • libisa has been imported into the bsnmp tree. This + library aims at easy implementation of command line tools for + remote and local system administration with a special focus + on administration via SNMP. The library contains command line + parsing functions, a function for automatically handling help + text. Actual administration modules are implemented as + loadable modules. The atmconfig tool in the FreeBSD tree + contains some old parts of this library.
      • + +
    • lisa_snmp is a module which implements SNMP functionality + for libisa.
      • + +
    • lisa_snmpd is a module for remote administration of the + bsnmpd.
      • + +
    • The config file parser of bsnmpd has been rewritten so + that each section of the file is handled as a transaction (in + contrast to the previous behavior where the entire file was + one transaction).
      • +
    +
    • +
+

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

The recent activities of the Release Engineering team have + centered around FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE, which is now available for + downloading. This is the latest release from the RELENG_6 branch, + and includes many new performance and stability improvements, bug + fixes, and new features. The release notes and errata notes for + FreeBSD 6.2 contain more specific information about what's new in + this version. We thank the FreeBSD developer and user community for + their efforts towards making this release possible.

+ +

The Release Engineering Team also produced snapshots of FreeBSD + CURRENT in November 2006 and January 2007. These snapshots have not + received extensive testing, and should not be used in production + environments. However, they can be used for testing or + experimentation, and show the kinds of functionality that can be + expected in future FreeBSD releases.

+ + + + + 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: The library is now in -CURRENT. Work continues + on its test suite and tutorial, and on deploying it in + PmcTools.

+ + + + + The FreeBSD Dutch Documentation Project + + + + + Remko + + Lodder + + + remko@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

The FreeBSD Dutch Documentation Project is an ongoing project to + translate the FreeBSD Handbook to the Dutch Language.

+ +

Currently we almost translated the entire handbook, and we + translated parts of the website, sadly the project went into a + slush lately, so we seek out for fresh and new translators that are + willing to join the team to continue the effort.

+ + + + Translate the rest of the handbook + + Make the documentation up to date + + Translate the rest of the website + + + + + FreeBSD GNOME Project + + + + + FreeBSD + + GNOME Project + + + gnome@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + +

Where have we been?! Not doing status reports, that's for sure. + But the FreeBSD GNOME project has been very busy with regular GNOME + releases, and other side projects. We are currently shipping GNOME + 2.16.2 in the ports tree, and we are testing GNOME 2.17.5 in the + + MarcusCom + + tree.

+ +

Most recently, work has completed on a cleanup of the FreeBSD + backend to libgtop. This module has needed a lot of work, and + should now be reporting correct system statistics. The cleaned up + version is currently being tested in the MarcusCom tree, and will + make it into the FreeBSD ports tree along with GNOME 2.18.

+ +

The GStreamer framework has been taken out of direct + + gnome@ + + maintainership, and put under a new + + multimedia@ + + umbrella. This will give multimedia-savvy developers a chance to + collaborate on this important piece of the GNOME Desktop along with + other important audio and video components.

+ +

The biggest accomplishment of 2006 for the FreeBSD GNOME team + had to have been the port of + HAL + + . This effort was started to give FreeBSD users a richer desktop + experience. Since the initial FreeBSD release of HAL with GNOME + 2.16, it has been incorporated into the FreeBSD release of KDE + 3.5.5 as well as PC-BSD 1.3. The FreeBSD backend has also made it + upstream into the HAL git repository so future releases of HAL will + have FreeBSD support out-of-the-box.

+ +

Finally, it is with sadness that we say good-bye to one of our + team members. Adam Weinberger stepped down from the FreeBSD GNOME + team to save lives instead (priorities, man!). His splash screens + and grammar nit-picking will be missed.

+ + + + Now that HAL has been ported to FreeBSD, there is a strong + desire to see + + NetworkManager + + ported. The big parts will be porting NM to use our 80211 + framework, and extending some of the base utilities such as + ifconfig. Contact + marcus@FreeBSD.org + + if you are interested in helping. + + Our system-tools-backends module needs some attention. This + module is responsible for system configuration tasks in GNOME such + as user management, network shares administration, etc. A knowledge + of Perl is highly recommended. Contact + marcus@FreeBSD.org + + if you are interested in helping. + + We need good documentation writers to help update our + FAQ + + and other documentation. If you would like to take on the + responsibility full-time, or just contribute some pieces, please + notify + gnome@FreeBSD.org + + . + + We are always in need of GNOME development testers. See our + + development branch FAQ + + for ways on how you can help make the next release of GNOME the + best release. + + + + + ipfw NAT and libalias + + + + + Paolo + + Pisati + + + piso@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

Support for in-kernel NAT, redirect and LSNAT for ipfw was + committed to HEAD, and i encourage people to test it so we can + quickly discover/fix bugs.

+ +

To add these features to ipfw, compile a new kernel adding + "options IPFIREWALL_NAT" to your kernel config or, in case you use + modules, add "CFLAGS += -DIPFIREWALL_NAT" to your make.conf.

+ + + + Teach libalias to handle mbufs (this will fix TSO-capable + NICs). + + Add support for hardware checksum offloading. + + + + + Interrupt Filtering + + + + + Paolo + + Pisati + + + piso@FreeBSD.org + + + + + John + + Baldwin + + + jhb@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Scott + + Long + + + scottl@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + +

Interrupt filtering is a new method to handle interrupts in + FreeBSD that retains backward compatibility with the previous + models (FAST and ITHREAD), while improving over them in some + aspects. With interrupt filtering, the interrupt handler is divided + into 2 parts: the filter (that checks if the actual interrupt + belongs to a device) and a private per-handler ithread (that is + scheduled in case some blocking work has to be done). The main + benefits of this work are: +

    +
  • Feedback from filters (the operating system finally knows + what's the state of an event 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 in some + cases.
    • + +
  • General shrink of the machine dependent code - part of the + interrupting handling code was turned into machine independent + code.
    • +
+

+ +

During the last quarter many improvements were made up to the + point where 3 archs (i386, amd64 and arm) are reported to work, and + the project can be considered feature complete.

+ +

I definitely want to make it part of the 7.0 release.

+ + + + Define a road map to commit the code into the tree. + + Rethink the interrupt stray handling (?!?!). + + Finish off support for powerpc, sparc64 and ia64 (sun4v + support is known to be broken now). + + + + + FreeBSD Bugbusting Team + + + + + Mark + + Linimon + + + linimon@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Ceri + + Davis + + + ceri@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Remko + + Lodder + + + remko@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + + + +

The FreeBSD Bugbusting team is a team of volunteers keeping + track of various PR tickets in the GNATS application. Currently the + Bugbusting team is investigating old PR tickets, checking whether + they are still accurate, checking what needs to be done to fix the + issues reported and make sure that the developers team can focus on + the latest releases.

+ +

The team is always in need of volunteers willing to give a hand + to resolve the old tickets and get the best feedback that is needed + for the open tickets.

+ +

Please contact + + FreeBSD-bugbusters@FreeBSD.org + + if you want more information about the things that need to be + done.

+ + + + Checkout old PR tickets, getting the proper feedback and + finally fix and/or resolve the tickets. + + + + + The FreeBSD Foundation + + + + + Deb + + Goodkin + + + deb@FreeBSD.org + + + + + The FreeBSD + Foundation + + + +

The FreeBSD Foundation ended 2006 raising over $100,000. We + received commitments for another $55,000 in donations for the Fall + Fundraiser. We fell short of our goal of raising $200,000. But, we + are working hard to fill this gap, early in 2007, so we can + continue with the same level of support for the project and + community. Please go to + + http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/ + + to find out how to make a donation to the foundation.

+ +

We added a donors page to our website to acknowledge our + generous donors. We negotiated and are now actively managing a + joint technology project with NLNet and the University of Zagreb to + develop virtualized network stack support for FreeBSD. We sponsored + AsiaBSDCon and are now accepting travel grant applications for this + conference.

+ +

We are working to upgrade the project's network testbed with + 10Gigabit interconnects. Cisco has generously donated a 10Gigabit + switch and we have received network adapters from Myricom, + Neterion, Intel, and Chelsio. Adapters from other vendors are being + solicited so that we can do interoperability testing.

+ +

For more information on what we've been up to, check out our + end-of-year newsletter at + + http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/press/2006Dec-newsletter.shtml + + .

+ + + + + 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 count has jumped to 16347. The PR count, despite a + jump, has gone back down to around 700.

+ +

Not much work has been committed on the ports infrastructure due + to the long 6.2 release cycle. However, many test runs have been + done for several upcoming features, such as making sure that ports + will work with the new release of gcc (4.1), and do not have + /usr/X11R6 hard-coded into them. The intention of the latter is to + move all ports to $LOCALBASE, which can then be selected by the + user. This should help consistency going forwards, albeit at the + cost of a one-time conversion.

+ +

GNOME was updated to 2.16 during the release cycle.

+ +

In addition, we are in the process of moving the FORTRAN default + from f77 to gfortran. See the ports mailing list for details.

+ +

The new xorg ports are still being worked on as well; they are + intended to all live in $LOCALBASE. Hopefully this can get done in + the early 6.3 development cycle. See the wiki for more + information.

+ +

A new version of the ports Tinderbox code is available, which is + mostly a bugfix release.

+ +

We have also added Pav Lucistnik as a new portmgr member, who we + hope will help us work on the portmgr PR backlog. Welcome!

+ +

We have also added 8 new committers since the last report.

+ +

linimon continues to work on resetting committers who are no + longer interested in their ports; as well, several ports commit + bits have been stored for safekeeping. This is part of an attempt + to keep the best match between volunteers and work to be done.

+ + + + Most of the remaining ports PRs are "existing port/PR + assigned to committer". Although the maintainer-timeout policy is + helping to keep the backlog down, we are going to need to do more + to get the ports in the shape they really need to be in. + + Although we have added many maintainers, we still have many + unmaintained ports. As well, the packages on amd64 and sparc64 are + lagging behind. + + + + + 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, four security + advisories have been issued concerning problems in the base system + of FreeBSD (three in 2006 and one in 2007); of these, one problem + was in "contributed" code, while the remaining three were 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, 55 + new entries have been added, bringing the total up to 869.

+ +

In order to streamline security team operations and ensure that + incoming emails are promptly acknowledged, Remko Lodder has been + appointed the security team secretary.

+ +

The following FreeBSD releases are supported by the FreeBSD + Security Team: FreeBSD 4.11, FreeBSD 5.5, FreeBSD 6.0, FreeBSD 6.1, + and FreeBSD 6.2. The respective End of Life dates of supported + releases are listed on the web site; of particular note, FreeBSD + 4.11 and FreeBSD 6.0 will cease to be supported at the end of + January 2007.

+ + + + + Cryptographic Subsystem + + + + + Sam + + Leffler + + + sam@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

Michael Richardson has been spearheading work to improve the + crypto subsystem used by various parts of the kernel including Fast + IPSec and geli. This work is sponsored by Hifn and has been + happening outside the CVS repository. A main focus of this work is + to add support for higher-level hardware operations that can + significantly improve the performance of IPSec and SSL + protocols.

+ +

Results of this work are now being readied for CVS. These + redesign the core/driver APIs to use the kobj facilities and recast + software crypto drivers as pseudo devices. The changes greatly + improve the system and permit new functionality such as specifying + which crypto device to use when multiple are available. The + redesign will also enable load balancing of crypto work across + multiple devices and the addition of virtual crypto sessions by + which small operations can be done in software when the overhead to + set up a hardware device is too costly.

+ +

In addition to the changes to the core crypto system several + crypto drivers have been updated to improve their operation. Top of + this list is the hifn(4) driver where many longstanding bugs have + been fixed for 7955/756 parts.

+ + + + + ARM/XScale Port + + + + + Olivier + + Houchard + + + cognet@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Sam + + Leffler + + + sam@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

FreeBSD is running multi-user on a variety of Gateworks Avila + boards with most of the on-board devices supported. These include + the compact flash/IDE slot, wired network interfaces, realtime + clock, and environmental sensors. Several different minipci cards + have been tested including those supported by the ath(4) and + hifn(4) drivers. Remaining devices that need support are the + onboard flash, optional 4-port network switch, and optional USB + interface. Crypto acceleration for IXP425 parts is planned but will + likely be done at a later time.

+ +

The Network Processor Engine (NPE) support is done with an + entirely new replacement for the Intel Access Layer (IAL). The most + important hardware facilities are supported (e.g. the hardware Q + manager) and the wired NIC driver was also done from scratch. The + resulting code is approximately 1/10th the number of lines of the + equivalent IAL code.

+ + + + Bootstrap support needs work to enable booting from the + compact flash device. + + + + + Porting ZFS to FreeBSD + + + + + Pawel Jakub + + Dawidek + + + pjd@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Source code. + + + ZFS porting site. + + + ZFS port announce. + + + +

The ZFS file system works quite well on FreeBSD now. The first + patchset has already been published on the + + freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.org mailing list + + .

+ +

All file system methods are already implemented (except + ACL-related). Basically all stress tests I tried work, even under + very high load. There is still a problem with memory allocation, + which can get out of control, but from what I know the SUN guys + also work on this.

+ +

Recently I have been working on a file system regression test + suite. From what I found, there are no such test suites for free. + I've already more than 3000 tests and I'm testing correctness of + most file system related syscalls (chflags, chmod, chown, link, + mkdir, mkfifo, open, rename, rmdir, symlink, truncate, unlink). I'm + also working to make it usable on other operating systems (like + Solaris, where it already works and Linux).

+ +

Few days ago I also (almost) finished NFS support. You can't use + the 'zfs share' command yet, but you can export file systems via + /etc/exports and you can also access snapshots. It was quite hard, + because snapshots are separate file systems and after exporting the + main file system, we need to also serve data from snapshots under + it.

+ +

The one big thing which is missing is ACL support. This is not + an easy task, because we first have to make some decisions. + Currently we use POSIX ACLs in our UFS, but the market is moving + slowly to NTFS/NFSv4-type ACLs. In Solaris they use POSIX ACLs for + UFS and NFSv4-type ACLs for ZFS and we probably also want to use + NFSv4-type ACLs in our ZFS, which requires some work outside + ZFS.

+ + + + + TrustedBSD priv(9) + + + + + Robert + + Watson + + + rwatson@FreeBSD.org + + + + + TrustedBSD Project + + + +

TrustedBSD priv(9) replaces suser(9) as an in-kernel interface + for checking privilege in FreeBSD 7.x. Each privilege check now + takes a specific named privilege. This allows both centralization + of jail logic relating to privilege, which is currently distributed + around the kernel at the point of each call to suser(9), and allows + instrumentation of the privilege logic by the MAC Framework. Two + new MAC Framework entry points, one to grant and the other to limit + privilege, are now available, providing fine-grained control of + kernel privilege by policy modules. This lays the kernel + infrastructure groundwork for further refinement and extension of + the kernel privilege model. The priv(9) implementation has been + committed to FreeBSD 7-CURRENT.

+ +

This software was developed by Robert N. M. Watson for the + TrustedBSD Project under contract to nCircle Network Security, + Inc.

+ + + + Complete review of kernel privilege checks, removal of + suser(9) jail flag now that checks are centralized. + + Explore possible changes to kernel privilege model along + lines of POSIX.1e privileges, the Solaris privilege interface, etc. + This has been explored previously as part of the TrustedBSD + Capabilities project also. + + + + + TrustedBSD MAC Framework + + + + + Robert + + Watson + + + rwatson@FreeBSD.org + + + + trustedbsd-discuss@TrustedBSD.org + + + + + TrustedBSD + Project + + + +

Most work on the MAC Framework during this period, other than as + relates to the priv(9) project described in a separate status + report, has been in refinement of the structure of the framework. +

    +
  • Add two new entry points allowing MAC Framework policy + modules to grant or limit fine-grained system privileges.
    • + +
  • A sample mac_priv(4) policy module has been created + demonstrating how a MAC Framework policy module can grant + specific system privileges to specific users.
    • + +
  • Commenting throughout the MAC Framework significantly + extended.
    • + +
  • Correct a bug in which the original ifnet label was copied to + user space via ioctl, rather than the thread-local copy.
    • + +
  • mac_enforce_subsystem debugging sysctls removed, as some + policies rely on access control checks being called even when + non-enforcing (specifically, information flow related + policies).
    • + +
  • Break out mac.h include file into mac.h (user API, system + calls) and mac_framework.h (in-kernel interface to the MAC + Framework). Move non-user MAC include files from src/sys to + src/sys/security/mac. Move and break out kern_mac.c into + mac_framework.c and mac_syscalls.c. The MAC Framework is now + entirely located in src/sys/security/mac.
    • + +
  • Export the MAC Framework version via a read-only sysctl and + provide a #define version usable by policies.
    • + +
  • MAC Framework locking optimized to optimistically expect no + write lock contention during read locking.
    • +
+

+ + + + Now that the MAC Framework has been fully moved to + src/sys/security/mac, embark on the 'mac2' interface cleanup, in + which many MAC Framework entry points are renamed for consistency. + This will require most MAC Framework policy modules to be modified + between FreeBSD 6.x and FreeBSD 7.x, although in a way that can be + largely done using sed. + + Add accessor functions for policies retrieving per-policy + label data from labels, so that policy modules do not compile in + the binary layout of struct label. This will allow future + optimization of the label layout. + + Complete integration of audit and MAC support, allowing MAC + policy modules to control access to audit interfaces, and allowing + them to annotate audit records. + + + + + TrustedBSD Audit + + + + + Robert + + Watson + + + rwatson@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Christian + + Peron + + + csjp@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Wayne + + Salamon + + + wsalamon@FreeBSD.org + + + + + TrustedBSD Audit + Page + + OpenBSM Page + + + +

FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE, the first release of FreeBSD with + experimental audit support is now available. The plan is to make + audit a full production feature as of FreeBSD 6.3-RELEASE, with + "options AUDIT" compiled in by default. A TODO list has been posted + to trustedbsd-audit.

+ +

OpenBSM 1.0 alpha 13, which includes support for XML record + printing, additional 64-bit token types, additional audit events, + and more cross-platform build support, has been released. OpenBSM + 1.0 alpha 14, which adds support for warnings clean building with + gcc 4.1, will be released shortly. The new OpenBSM release will be + merged to FreeBSD CVS in late January or early February.

+ + + + Complete assignment of audit events to non-native and a few + remaining native system calls. Add additional system call argument + auditing. + + Merge MAC Framework hooks allowing MAC modules to control + access to kernel audit services. Refine and merge MAC labeling + support in audit, including support for MAC annotations in the + audit trail. + + Complete pass through user space services adding audit + support to system management tools (and ftpd). Work with third + party software maintainers to add audit support for applications + like xdm/kdm/gdm. + + Merge latest OpenBSM, including XML output support. + + + + + FAST_IPSEC Upgrade + + + + + George + + Neville-Neil + + + gnn@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Bjoern + + Zeeb + + + bz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Host only + patch + + gnn's networking + blog + + + +

Just this week I got routing working for the FAST_IPSEC and IPv6 + code. Now there are memory smash problems, and then we need to + remove the old GIANT lock. I hope to produce another patch with the + routing code working in the next week.

+ + + + Test the patch!!!! + + + + + Automatic TCP Send and Receive Socket Buffer Sizing + + + + + Andre + + Oppermann + + + andre@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Patch against 7-CURRENT + + + Patch against RELENG_6 + + + +

Normally the socket buffers are static (either derived from + global defaults or set with setsockopt) and do not adapt to real + network conditions. Two things happen: a) your socket buffers are + too small and you can't reach the full potential of the network + between both hosts; b) your socket buffers are too big and you + waste a lot of kernel memory for data just sitting around.

+ +

With automatic TCP send and receive socket buffers we can start + with a small buffer and quickly grow it in parallel with the TCP + congestion window to match real network conditions.

+ +

FreeBSD has a default 32K send socket buffer. This supports a + maximal transfer rate of only slightly more than 2Mbit/s on a 100ms + RTT trans-continental link. Or at 200ms just above 1Mbit/s. With + TCP send buffer auto scaling and the default values below it + supports 20Mbit/s at 100ms and 10Mbit/s at 200ms. That's an + improvement of factor 10, or 1000%. For the receive side it looks + slightly better with a default of 64K buffer size.

+ +

The automatic send buffer sizing patch is currently running on + one half of the FTP.FreeBSD.ORG cluster w/o any problems so far. + Against this machine with the automatic receive buffer sizing patch + I can download at 5.7 MBytes per second. Without patch it maxed out + at 1.6 MBytes per second as the delay bandwidth product became + equal to the static socket buffer size without hitting the limits + of the physical link between the machines. My test machine is about + 35ms from that FTP.FreeBSD.ORG and connected through a moderately + loaded 100Mbit Internet link.

+ +

New sysctls are: +

    +
  • net.inet.tcp.sendbuf_auto=1 (enabled)
    • + +
  • net.inet.tcp.sendbuf_inc=8192 (8K, step size)
    • + +
  • net.inet.tcp.sendbuf_max=262144 (256K, growth limit)
    • + +
  • net.inet.tcp.recvbuf_auto=1 (enabled)
    • + +
  • net.inet.tcp.recvbuf_inc=16384 (16K, step size)
    • + +
  • net.inet.tcp.recvbuf_max=262144 (256K, growth limit)
    • +
+

+ + + + + Wireless Networking + + + + + Sam + + Leffler + + + sam@errno.com + + + + + + + +

Work on wireless support has continued to evolve in the public + CVS tree while other work has been going on behind the scenes in + the developer's perforce repository.

+ +

Support was recently added to HEAD for half- and quarter-rate + channels as found in the 4.9 GHz FCC Public Safety Band. This work + was a prerequisite to adding similar support in the 900 MHz band as + found in Ubiquiti's SR9 cards. Adding this functionality was + straightforward due to the design of the net80211 layer, requiring + only some additions to handle the unusual mapping between + frequencies and IEEE channel numbers. The ath(4) driver currently + supports hardware capable of operating on half- and quarter-rate + channels.

+ +

Kip Macy recently made significant advances preparing legacy + drivers for the re-architected net80211 layer that has been + languishing in perforce. With his efforts this code is nearly ready + for public testing after which it can be merged into CVS. Our goal + is to complete this merge in time for the 7.x branch (otherwise it + will be forced to wait for 8.0 before it appears in a public + release). This revised net80211 layer includes advanced station + mode facilities such as background scanning and roaming and support + for Atheros' SuperG extensions. Getting the revised scanning work + into CVS will greatly simplify public distribution of the Virtual + AP (VAP) code as a patch as well as enable addition of 802.11n + support.

+ +

Benjamin Close is working on support for the Intel 3945 parts + commonly found in laptops. The work is going on in the perforce + repository with public code drops for testing.

+ +

Atheros PCI/Cardbus support was updated with a new HAL that + fixes a few minor issues and corrects a problem that kept AR2424 + parts from working. The new HAL also enables more efficient use of + the hardware keycache for TKIP keys; on newer hardware you can now + support up to 57 stations without faulting keys into the cache. + Support for the latest 802.11n parts found in the new Lenovo and + Apple laptops (among others) is in development; initial release + will support only legacy operation.

+ +

Support for Atheros USB devices is coming. Atheros has agreed to + license their firmware with the same license applied to the HAL + which means it can be committed to the tree and distributed as part + of releases. The driver is still in development.

+ +

wpa_supplicant and hostapd were updated to the latest stable + build releases from Jouni Malinen. Shortly the in-tree code base + will switch to the 0.5.x tree which will bring in much new + functionality including dynamic VLAN tagging that will be + especially useful once the multi-bss support is available.

+ +

The support for injection of raw 802.11 frames was committed to + HEAD. This work was done in collaboration with Andrea Bittau. At + this point there are no plans to commit this to the STABLE branch + as it requires API changes.

+ + + + + EuroBSDCon 2007 + + + + + Sidsel + + Jensen + + + info@EuroBSDCon.dk + + + + + + + + + + +

The sixth EuroBSDCon will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark on + Friday the 14th and Saturday 15th of September + 2007 + + . The conference will be held at + Symbion Science Park + + . Sunday the 16th there will be an optional tour to LEGOland.

+ +

The + call for papers + + was sent out right after EuroBSDCon 2006 in Milan in November and + abstracts are due February 1st! So hurry up and send in all your + fantastic and amazing papers to papers at eurobsdcon dot dk.

+ + + + diff --git a/en/news/status/report-oct-2006-dec-2006.xml b/en/news/status/report-oct-2006-dec-2006.xml new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..5dd09b8e9b --- /dev/null +++ b/en/news/status/report-oct-2006-dec-2006.xml @@ -0,0 +1,2546 @@ + + + + + + October-December + + 2006 + + +
+ Introduction + +

Happy New Year. This Report covers the last quarter of a exciting + year 2006 for FreeBSD development. FreeBSD 6.2 is finally out of the + door and work towards FreeBSD 7.0 is gearing up. Some of the projects + in this report will be part of that effort, others are already in the + tree. Many projects need your help with testing and otherwise. Please + see the "Open tasks" sections for more information.

+ +

The BSD crowd will meet at + AsiaBSDCon + March 8-10th in Tokyo and a two day FreeBSD developer summit will be + held at + BSDCan + + May 16-19th in Ottawa. Finally, + EuroBSDCon + + September 14-15th in Copenhagen is already looking for papers.

+ +

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

+
+ + + proj + + Projects + + + + team + + FreeBSD Team Reports + + + + net + + Network Infrastructure + + + + kern + + Kernel + + + + drv + + Hardware Drivers + + + + docs + + Documentation + + + + bin + + Userland Programs + + + + arch + + Architectures + + + + ports + + Ports + + + + misc + + Miscellaneous + + + + GEOM Multipath + + + + + Matthew + + Jacob + + + mjacob@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

A toy implementation of GEOM based active/passive multipath is + now done and in a perforce repository. Seems to work.

+ + + + + FreshPorts + + + + + Dan + + Langille + + + dan@langille.org + + + + + FreshPorts + + FreshPorts News + + + +

There have been a number of improvements to FreshPorts over the + last quarter of 2006. The following are just a few of them. The + links take you to the relevant article within the + FreshPorts News website + + . +

+

+ +

My thanks to the many people who have contributed suggestions, + ideas, and code over the years. Most of you are documented at the + above URLs.

+ + + + FreshPorts/FreshSource as a developer tool + + + + + BSDCan 2007 + + + + + Dan + + Langille + + + dan@langille.org + + + + + BSDCan 2007 + + + +

Folks! +
+ + It is that time of year. You may have missed the + call for papers + + , but please put in your proposal right away. This is often a busy + time of year, but please take the time to consider presenting at + BSDCan.

+ +

Please read the + submission + instructions + + and send in your proposal today!

+ +

You may be interested in our sister conference: PGCon. If you + have an interest in + PostgreSQL + + , a leading relational database, which just happens to be open + source, then we have the conference for you! + PGCon 2007 + + will be held immediately after BSDCan 2007, at the same venue, and + will follow a similar format.

+ + + + Waiting for papers + + + + + FreeSBIE + + + + + Matteo + + Riondato + + + matteo@FreeBSD.org + + + + + FreeSBIE + + Staff + + + staff@FreeSBIE.org + + + + + FreeSBIE + + Mailing List + + + freesbie@gufi.org + + + + + + + FreeSBIE 2.0 + Release Notes Preview + + FreeSBIE 2.0 + Screenshots Preview + + + +

FreeSBIE is approaching the 2.0-RELEASE. The first release + candidate proved to be good enough but a second one will probably + be released. An external developer is working on integrating + BSDInstaller in FreeSBIE 2.0 and this may cause a little delay of + the release date. Release Notes were written and need to be updated + with the current list of packages. A script which allows to switch + Tor+Privoxy on and off was added and its usage was documented. The + 2.0-RELEASE is near, hopefully near the end of January but this + will also depend on when FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE will be released.

+ + + + + MPT LSI-Logic Host Adapters: mpt + + + + + Matthew + + Jacob + + + mjacob@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

The 'mpt' project is support for the MPT LSI-Logic Host Adapters + (SCSI, Fibre Channel, SAS).

+ +

The last quarter saw a lot of change supported by Yahoo! and + LSI-Logic and many others as things settled out for better support + for U320. Some initial Big Endian support was offered by John + Birrel and Scott Long.

+ + + + Finish SAS Integrated RAID support. + + Try and get U320 RAID working better than it currently + does. + + Finish Big Endian support, including that for target + mode. + + + + + QLogic SCSI and Fibre Channel: isp + + + + + Matthew + + Jacob + + + mjacob@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

This project is for support for QLogic SCSI and Fibre Channel + host adapters.

+ +

The last quarter saw the addition of 4Gb Fibre Channel support + and a complete rewrite of fabric management (which is still + settling out).

+ + + + + Bt878 Audio Driver (aka FusionHDTV 5 Lite driver) + + + + + John-Mark + + Gurney + + + jmg@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Perforce source repository + + + +

Basic audio capture is working. All of the parameters are set by + userland, while the RISC program generation is by kernel. No real + audio has been captured as there are no drivers for the NTSC tuner + yet. Someone with a real Bt878 NTSC card that is supported by + bktr(4) could use this to capture audio without using the sound + card.

+ +

Due to lack of documentation from DViCO and LG, I have copied + magic values from the Linux driver and managed to get ATSC + capturing working. There was a bug in the capture driver that was + releasing buffers to userland early causing what appeared to be + reception issues. Now that we use the RISC status bits as buffer + completion bits, capture works cleanly. This does mean that even if + you provide more than 4 buffers to the driver, the buffers will be + divided into four segments, and returned in segments.

+ +

A Python module is available, along with a sample capture + application using it. The module is now known to work well with + threads so that tuning (expensive due to i2c ioctls) can happen in + another thread without causing program slow down. The module is + working well with a custom PVR backend.

+ +

Additional ioctls have been added to get sibling devices. This + allows one to open a bktrau device, and get the correct bktr(4) + device that is in the same slot. This is necessary so that when + adjusting GPIO pins or sending i2c commands, they are to the + correct device.

+ + + + Provide support for NTSC and FM tuning. + + Add support for other cards and tuners that use the Bt878 + chip. + + + + + Past and Future PR Closing Events + + + + + Florent + + Thoumie + + + flz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + +

Following the example of our NetBSD friends, we organized a + couple of Bugathons to help decreasing the open PR count. At first, + it was decided to make it a monthly event focused on both src, + ports and doc. Audience decreased with each Bugathon organized and + less non-ports committers attended the events. So from now on, we + will focus on ports (making it a Portathon) and organize a new + event after the end of each ports freeze (that should be twice a + year, at most).

+ + + + + Updating X.org FreeBSD Ports to 7.2 + + + + + Florent + + Thoumie + + + flz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Eric + + Anholt + + + anholt@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Dejan + + Lesjak + + + lesi@FreeBSD.org + + + + + X.org Official + Website + + + Experimental X.org Ports Tree + + Latest news about FreeBSD X.org + Porting Efforts + + + FreeBSD-X11 Mailing List Archives + + + +

X.org 7.2 release has been delayed more than a month, which gave + us more time to fix build failures, to work on a few runtime issues + and to determine the easiest way to upgrade from 6.9 to 7.2 (mostly + with the help of people on the + + freebsd-x11@ mailing list + + ). Everything is in a rather good shape but there's still a little + amount of work to do. The merge of new ports is most likely to + happen before the end of January.

+ + + + Do a global review of the diff between the original tree and + the experimental one (git-diff origin xorg for git users) + + Fix the remaining (9 I think, 3 being lang/jdk's) build + errors + + Continue testing + + Do another experimental build on pointyhat + + + + + New USB Stack + + + + + Hans Petter + + Sirevaag Selasky + + + hselasky@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Current USB files + + My USB + homepage + + + +

During the last three months there has not been so much activity + in the USB project. Some regression issues have been reported and + fixed. Bernd Walter reports that he has got the new USB stack + working on ARM processors with some minor tweaks. Markus Brueffer + reports that he is working on the USB HID parser and support. A + current issue with the new USB stack is that the EHCI driver does + not work on the Sparc64 architecture. If someone has got a Sparc64 + with FreeBSD 7-CURRENT on and can lend the USB project the root + password, a serial console and a USB test device, for example a USB + memory stick, that would be much appreciated. Another unresolved + issue is that the ural(4) USB device driver does not always work. + This is currently being worked on.

+ +

If you want to test the new USB stack, check out the USB + perforce tree or download the SVN version of the USB driver from my + USB 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 + + .

+ + + + + Multi-link PPP daemon (MPD) + + + + + Alexander + + Motin + + + mav@alkar.net + + + + + Archie + + Cobbs + + + archie@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Project home + + + ChangeLog + + + +

MPD is moving to the next major release - mpd4_0. At the end of + October one more beta version (4_0b5) was released and first RC is + planned soon.

+ +

Since 3_18 and 4_0b4 numerous bugs and cases of incorrect + internal handling have been fixed. Performance has been increased + and system requirements reduced.

+ +

Many new features have been implemented: +

    +
  • IPv6 support
    • + +
  • NAT (using the ng_nat(4) node)
    • + +
  • integrated web server
    • + +
  • Deflate and Predictor-1 CCP compression
    • +
+

+ +

Some historically broken features have been reimplemented: +

    +
  • TCP and UDP link types
    • + +
  • CCP compression
    • + +
  • ECP encryption
    • +
+

+ +

To support compression, two new Netgraph nodes ng_deflate and + ng_pred1 have been created and the ng_ppp node has been + modified.

+ + + + ng_ppp node refactoring. + + Implement packet loss notification in related Netgraph nodes + (ng_ppp, ng_pptp, ng_async, ng_deflate, ng_pred1, ng_vjc, ...) to + reduce recovery time and probability of incorrect packet + decompression. + + MPD auth subsystem refactoring. + + + + + 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. + + + +

Since the last status report we made good progress in improving + the compatibility environment. We fixed more than 30 testcases on + i386 (130 testcases = 16% still failing) and more than 60 testcases + on amd64 (140 testcases = 17% still failing) in the Linux 2.4 + compatibility. These numbers compare FreeBSD 6.2 with -CURRENT. + Some of those fixes are edge cases in the error handling, and some + of them fix real issues -- e.g. hangs -- and improve the stability + and correctness of the emulation.

+ +

Regarding the Linux 2.6 compatibility there are 140 testcases + (17%) on i386 and 150 testcases (18%) on amd64 still failing in + -CURRENT. After fixing some showstopper problems with real + applications, we should be able to give the 2.6 emulation a more + widespread exposure "soon" to find more bugs and to determine the + importance of those Linux syscalls which we did not implement + yet.

+ +

The severity of the broken testcases varies, and some of them + will never be fixed, e.g., we will never be able to load Linux + kernel modules into a FreeBSD kernel, being able to add swap with a + Linux command has very low priority, and fixing stuff which is used + by applications like IPC type 17 has high priority.

+ +

Some differences in the 2.6 compatibility are because not all + i386 changes are merged into the amd64 code, and some testcases are + already fixed in our perforce repository but need more review + before they can be committed to -CURRENT.

+ +

We need some more testers and bug reporters. So if you have a + little bit of time and a favorite Linux application, please play + around with it on -CURRENT. If there is a problem, have a look at + the wiki if we already know about it and report on + + emulation@ + + . We are especially interested in reports about the 2.6 + compatibility (sysctl compat.linux.osversion=2.6.16), but only with + the most recent -CURRENT and maybe with some patches we have in the + perforce repository (mandatory on amd64).

+ +

We thank all people who tested the changes / submitted patches + and thus helped improving the Linux compatibility environment.

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

Since the last status report there were improvements to the + emu10kx driver for High Definition Audio (HDA) compatible chips. + Some more chips are supported now and already supported chips + should provide a better zero-configuration experience.

+ +

The generic sound code got some very nice low latency changes, + and fixes which make it multichannel/endian/format safe. We do not + support multichannel operation yet, but this work is a prerequisite + to work on implementing multichannel operation. This work also + fixed some bugs which people may experience as clicks, hickups, + truncation or similar behavior in the sound-output.

+ +

So far there is no merge to 5.x or 6.x planned for this code, + especially because there are API/ABI changes, e.g., several sysctls + changed. People who do not care about this can download binary + sound modules from Ariff's download page for 6.x and 5.x.

+ +

We thank all people who tested the changes / submitted patches + and thus helped improving the sound system.

+ + + + Have a look at the sound related entries on the ideas + list. + + Add multichannel support. + + sndctl(1): tool to control non-mixer parts of the sound + system (e.g. spdif switching, virtual-3D effects) by a 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. + + + + + Hungarian Translation of the Webpages + + + + + Gábor + + Kövesdán + + + gabor@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Giorgos + + Keramidas + + + keramida@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Hungarian webpages + + + +

Gábor Kövesdán (gabor@) has submitted the Hungarian translation + of the webpages and Giorgos Keramidas (keramida@) has reviewed and + committed the pages. The initial rendering issues have also been + fixed and the webpage is in a pretty good shape now.

+ +

As usual, this translation does not contain every part of the + English version, but the most important and useful parts are there. + Gábor will maintain this translation and regularly sync the content + with the English version and add new translations if such become + available.

+ + + + Fix typos and mistakes that will be revealed after a deeper + review by the public + + Get more people involved + + + + + Intel 3945ABG Wireless LAN Driver: wpi + + + + + Benjamin + + Close + + + benjsc@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + + + +

An initial port of the NetBSD wpi driver has been done and + development is happening fast to get this driver ready for the + tree. At present basic functionality works. The driver can + associate with a non encrypted peer and pass data in 11b and 11g + modes. There is still lots to do and testing is welcome.

+ +

Many thanks have to go to Sam, Max and Kip for helping the + driver reach this point.

+ + + + Solve bus dma alignment issues + + Support WEP and WPA + + Testing and more testing + + + + + iSCSI Initiator + + + + + Daniel + + Braniss + + + danny@cs.huji.ac.il + + + + + + + + +

Though it is still a work in progress, it now supports more + targets, has login CHAP authentication and header/data digest. It + will also recover from a lost connection - most of the time.

+ + + + instrumentation + + task management support + + improve the error recovery + + + + + FreeBSD/powerpc on Freescale MPC8555 + + + + + Rafal + + Jaworowski + + + raj@semihalf.com + + + + + Marcel + + Moolenaar + + + xcllnt@mac.com + + + + + + + +

Platform summary: +

    +
  • PowerQuiccIII integrated controller
    • + +
  • e500 CPU core
    • + +
  • compliant with PowerPC BookE specification (significantly + different from the 'traditional' PowerPC architecture the current + FreeBSD/powerpc supports, particularly in the areas of MMU + design, exceptions model, specific e500 machine instructions + etc.)
    • +
+

+ +

Currently the machine is booting FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE-p10 and + operating both single- and multi-user modes; below are highlights + of available functionality: +

    +
  1. Low-level support
    2. + +
      +
    • booting from U-Boot bootloader
      • + +
    • locore machine initialization
      • + +
    • e500 exceptions
      • + +
    • VM: a new pmap module developed
      • +
    + +
  2. On-chip peripherals
    3. + +
      +
    • introduced ocpbus hierarchy (nexus and descendants)
      • + +
    • interrupt controller: using generic OpenPIC driver
      • + +
    • serial console: using uart(4) driver
      • + +
    • barebones serial support using the QUICC's SCC
      • + +
    • host/PCI bridge: a new driver developed for the built-in + bridge
      • + +
    • networking: a new driver developed for TSEC (3-speed + Ethernet)
      • +
    + +
  3. Booting
    4. + +
      +
    • from ATA disk and USB memory stick (both through a + secondary PCI VIA82C686B controller)
      • + +
    • from network (NFS-mounted rootfs)
      • +
    + +
  4. Basic TCP/IP protocols and apps work (DHCP, NFS, SSH, FTP, + Telnet etc.)
    5. + +
  5. Userland
    6. + +
      +
    • integrated SoftFloat emulation lib (required due to e500 + not being equipped with the old-style PowerPC FPU)
      • + +
    • almost all applications seem to work
      • +
    +
+

+ + + + Work out extensible layout for sys/powerpc architecture + directory so we can easily add support for new core variations and + platforms to come in the future. + + Integrate with FreeBSD source tree. + + Release and tinderbox related options and settings. + + + + + Network Stack Virtualization + + + + + Marko + + Zec + + + zec@fer.hr + + + + + + + + +

The network stack virtualization project aims at extending the + FreeBSD kernel to maintain multiple independent instances of + networking state. This will allow for complete networking + independence between jails on a system, including giving each jail + its own firewall, virtual network interfaces, rate limiting, + routing tables, and IPSEC configuration.

+ +

The prototype currently virtualizes the basic INET and INET6 + kernel structures and subsystems, including the TCP machinery and + the IPFW firewall. The focus is currently being kept on resolving + bugs and sporadic lockups, and defining the internal and management + APIs. It is expected that within the next month the code will + become sufficiently complete and stable for testing by early + adopters.

+ + + + + BSNMP Bridge Module + + + + + Shteryana + + Shopova + + + syrinx@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + +

The BSNMP bridge module for FreeBSD's BSNMP daemon, which was + implemented during SoC 2006, was committed to HEAD. In addition to + RFC 4188 single bridge support it also supports monitoring multiple + bridges via a private MIB. Since SoC 2006 Rapid Spanning Tree + (RSTP) support (RSTP-MIB defined in RFC4318 and additions to the + private MIB) was added to the module as well.

+ +

A patch for RELENG_6 is available and will be merged to STABLE + the next weeks.

+ + + + MFC to RELENG_6. + + More feedback from users is always welcome. + + + + + BSNMP Client Tools + + + + + Shteryana + + Shopova + + + syrinx@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Bjoern A. + + Zeeb + + + bz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Wiki Page + + + Shteryana's P4 tree + + + Bjoern's P4 tree (rewrite) + + + +

During SoC 2005 BSNMP client tools (bsnmptools) were implemented + and have since then been available via Shteryana's P4 tree or port + net-mgmt/bsnmptools.

+ +

In order to finally get the code committed some cleanup was + needed which ended in a partly rewrite to minimize duplicate code + and to reduce the size of the binaries. This ongoing work is + available via Bjoern's P4 tree and will be merged back to upstream + trees before it will be committed to HEAD.

+ + + + Update Wiki Page to reflect latest work. + + Finish cleanup and have it reviewed. + + User feedback is always welcome. + + + + + BSNMP - More Ongoing and Upcoming Work + + + + + Shteryana + + Shopova + + + syrinx@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Harti + + Brandt + + + harti@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Bjoern A. + + Zeeb + + + bz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + BSNMP TODO Wiki + page + + + +

In addition to other more detailed reports this is intended to + give a summary about other ongoing or upcoming BSNMP related work. + To collect some ideas from users and coordinate work a BSNMP TODO + Wiki page was created. Feel free to add your ideas or let us know + about them.

+ +

+

    +
  • A contributor, Tsvetan Erenditsov, has volunteered to + implement a VLAN module for BSNMP. Shteryana is helping + him.
    • + +
  • Sam Leffler has asked for a wireless networking monitoring + module, which will most likely be the next module to be + implemented.
    • + +
  • Some major work is currently going on in the main BSNMP + tree: +
      +
    • SNMP transports have been factored out into loadable + modules. The old port tables are still there and will remain + at least for the next release. Later they will be removed. + The following modules and transports are already implemented + as loadable modules: +
        +
      • snmp_trans_udp: SNMP over UDP over IPv4, IPv6 and + scoped IPv6
        • + +
      • snmp_trans_tcp: SNMP over TCP over IPv4, IPv6 and + scoped IPv6
        • + +
      • snmp_trans_ldgram: SNMP over local datagram + sockets
        • + +
      • snmp_trans_lstream: SNMP over local stream sockets
        • +
      +
      • + +
    • Some I/O functions have been moved from the daemon to + libbsnmp.
      • + +
    • libisa has been imported into the bsnmp tree. This + library aims at easy implementation of command line tools for + remote and local system administration with a special focus + on administration via SNMP. The library contains command line + parsing functions, a function for automatically handling help + text. Actual administration modules are implemented as + loadable modules. The atmconfig tool in the FreeBSD tree + contains some old parts of this library.
      • + +
    • lisa_snmp is a module which implements SNMP functionality + for libisa.
      • + +
    • lisa_snmpd is a module for remote administration of the + bsnmpd.
      • + +
    • The config file parser of bsnmpd has been rewritten so + that each section of the file is handled as a transaction (in + contrast to the previous behavior where the entire file was + one transaction).
      • +
    +
    • +
+

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

The recent activities of the Release Engineering team have + centered around FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE, which is now available for + downloading. This is the latest release from the RELENG_6 branch, + and includes many new performance and stability improvements, bug + fixes, and new features. The release notes and errata notes for + FreeBSD 6.2 contain more specific information about what's new in + this version. We thank the FreeBSD developer and user community for + their efforts towards making this release possible.

+ +

The Release Engineering Team also produced snapshots of FreeBSD + CURRENT in November 2006 and January 2007. These snapshots have not + received extensive testing, and should not be used in production + environments. However, they can be used for testing or + experimentation, and show the kinds of functionality that can be + expected in future FreeBSD releases.

+ + + + + 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: The library is now in -CURRENT. Work continues + on its test suite and tutorial, and on deploying it in + PmcTools.

+ + + + + The FreeBSD Dutch Documentation Project + + + + + Remko + + Lodder + + + remko@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

The FreeBSD Dutch Documentation Project is an ongoing project to + translate the FreeBSD Handbook to the Dutch Language.

+ +

Currently we almost translated the entire handbook, and we + translated parts of the website, sadly the project went into a + slush lately, so we seek out for fresh and new translators that are + willing to join the team to continue the effort.

+ + + + Translate the rest of the handbook + + Make the documentation up to date + + Translate the rest of the website + + + + + FreeBSD GNOME Project + + + + + FreeBSD + + GNOME Project + + + gnome@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + +

Where have we been?! Not doing status reports, that's for sure. + But the FreeBSD GNOME project has been very busy with regular GNOME + releases, and other side projects. We are currently shipping GNOME + 2.16.2 in the ports tree, and we are testing GNOME 2.17.5 in the + + MarcusCom + + tree.

+ +

Most recently, work has completed on a cleanup of the FreeBSD + backend to libgtop. This module has needed a lot of work, and + should now be reporting correct system statistics. The cleaned up + version is currently being tested in the MarcusCom tree, and will + make it into the FreeBSD ports tree along with GNOME 2.18.

+ +

The GStreamer framework has been taken out of direct + + gnome@ + + maintainership, and put under a new + + multimedia@ + + umbrella. This will give multimedia-savvy developers a chance to + collaborate on this important piece of the GNOME Desktop along with + other important audio and video components.

+ +

The biggest accomplishment of 2006 for the FreeBSD GNOME team + had to have been the port of + HAL + + . This effort was started to give FreeBSD users a richer desktop + experience. Since the initial FreeBSD release of HAL with GNOME + 2.16, it has been incorporated into the FreeBSD release of KDE + 3.5.5 as well as PC-BSD 1.3. The FreeBSD backend has also made it + upstream into the HAL git repository so future releases of HAL will + have FreeBSD support out-of-the-box.

+ +

Finally, it is with sadness that we say good-bye to one of our + team members. Adam Weinberger stepped down from the FreeBSD GNOME + team to save lives instead (priorities, man!). His splash screens + and grammar nit-picking will be missed.

+ + + + Now that HAL has been ported to FreeBSD, there is a strong + desire to see + + NetworkManager + + ported. The big parts will be porting NM to use our 80211 + framework, and extending some of the base utilities such as + ifconfig. Contact + marcus@FreeBSD.org + + if you are interested in helping. + + Our system-tools-backends module needs some attention. This + module is responsible for system configuration tasks in GNOME such + as user management, network shares administration, etc. A knowledge + of Perl is highly recommended. Contact + marcus@FreeBSD.org + + if you are interested in helping. + + We need good documentation writers to help update our + FAQ + + and other documentation. If you would like to take on the + responsibility full-time, or just contribute some pieces, please + notify + gnome@FreeBSD.org + + . + + We are always in need of GNOME development testers. See our + + development branch FAQ + + for ways on how you can help make the next release of GNOME the + best release. + + + + + ipfw NAT and libalias + + + + + Paolo + + Pisati + + + piso@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

Support for in-kernel NAT, redirect and LSNAT for ipfw was + committed to HEAD, and i encourage people to test it so we can + quickly discover/fix bugs.

+ +

To add these features to ipfw, compile a new kernel adding + "options IPFIREWALL_NAT" to your kernel config or, in case you use + modules, add "CFLAGS += -DIPFIREWALL_NAT" to your make.conf.

+ + + + Teach libalias to handle mbufs (this will fix TSO-capable + NICs). + + Add support for hardware checksum offloading. + + + + + Interrupt Filtering + + + + + Paolo + + Pisati + + + piso@FreeBSD.org + + + + + John + + Baldwin + + + jhb@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Scott + + Long + + + scottl@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + +

Interrupt filtering is a new method to handle interrupts in + FreeBSD that retains backward compatibility with the previous + models (FAST and ITHREAD), while improving over them in some + aspects. With interrupt filtering, the interrupt handler is divided + into 2 parts: the filter (that checks if the actual interrupt + belongs to a device) and a private per-handler ithread (that is + scheduled in case some blocking work has to be done). The main + benefits of this work are: +

    +
  • Feedback from filters (the operating system finally knows + what's the state of an event 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 in some + cases.
    • + +
  • General shrink of the machine dependent code - part of the + interrupting handling code was turned into machine independent + code.
    • +
+

+ +

During the last quarter many improvements were made up to the + point where 3 archs (i386, amd64 and arm) are reported to work, and + the project can be considered feature complete.

+ +

I definitely want to make it part of the 7.0 release.

+ + + + Define a road map to commit the code into the tree. + + Rethink the interrupt stray handling (?!?!). + + Finish off support for powerpc, sparc64 and ia64 (sun4v + support is known to be broken now). + + + + + FreeBSD Bugbusting Team + + + + + Mark + + Linimon + + + linimon@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Ceri + + Davis + + + ceri@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Remko + + Lodder + + + remko@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + + + + +

The FreeBSD Bugbusting team is a team of volunteers keeping + track of various PR tickets in the GNATS application. Currently the + Bugbusting team is investigating old PR tickets, checking whether + they are still accurate, checking what needs to be done to fix the + issues reported and make sure that the developers team can focus on + the latest releases.

+ +

The team is always in need of volunteers willing to give a hand + to resolve the old tickets and get the best feedback that is needed + for the open tickets.

+ +

Please contact + + FreeBSD-bugbusters@FreeBSD.org + + if you want more information about the things that need to be + done.

+ + + + Checkout old PR tickets, getting the proper feedback and + finally fix and/or resolve the tickets. + + + + + The FreeBSD Foundation + + + + + Deb + + Goodkin + + + deb@FreeBSD.org + + + + + The FreeBSD + Foundation + + + +

The FreeBSD Foundation ended 2006 raising over $100,000. We + received commitments for another $55,000 in donations for the Fall + Fundraiser. We fell short of our goal of raising $200,000. But, we + are working hard to fill this gap, early in 2007, so we can + continue with the same level of support for the project and + community. Please go to + + http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/ + + to find out how to make a donation to the foundation.

+ +

We added a donors page to our website to acknowledge our + generous donors. We negotiated and are now actively managing a + joint technology project with NLNet and the University of Zagreb to + develop virtualized network stack support for FreeBSD. We sponsored + AsiaBSDCon and are now accepting travel grant applications for this + conference.

+ +

We are working to upgrade the project's network testbed with + 10Gigabit interconnects. Cisco has generously donated a 10Gigabit + switch and we have received network adapters from Myricom, + Neterion, Intel, and Chelsio. Adapters from other vendors are being + solicited so that we can do interoperability testing.

+ +

For more information on what we've been up to, check out our + end-of-year newsletter at + + http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/press/2006Dec-newsletter.shtml + + .

+ + + + + 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 count has jumped to 16347. The PR count, despite a + jump, has gone back down to around 700.

+ +

Not much work has been committed on the ports infrastructure due + to the long 6.2 release cycle. However, many test runs have been + done for several upcoming features, such as making sure that ports + will work with the new release of gcc (4.1), and do not have + /usr/X11R6 hard-coded into them. The intention of the latter is to + move all ports to $LOCALBASE, which can then be selected by the + user. This should help consistency going forwards, albeit at the + cost of a one-time conversion.

+ +

GNOME was updated to 2.16 during the release cycle.

+ +

In addition, we are in the process of moving the FORTRAN default + from f77 to gfortran. See the ports mailing list for details.

+ +

The new xorg ports are still being worked on as well; they are + intended to all live in $LOCALBASE. Hopefully this can get done in + the early 6.3 development cycle. See the wiki for more + information.

+ +

A new version of the ports Tinderbox code is available, which is + mostly a bugfix release.

+ +

We have also added Pav Lucistnik as a new portmgr member, who we + hope will help us work on the portmgr PR backlog. Welcome!

+ +

We have also added 8 new committers since the last report.

+ +

linimon continues to work on resetting committers who are no + longer interested in their ports; as well, several ports commit + bits have been stored for safekeeping. This is part of an attempt + to keep the best match between volunteers and work to be done.

+ + + + Most of the remaining ports PRs are "existing port/PR + assigned to committer". Although the maintainer-timeout policy is + helping to keep the backlog down, we are going to need to do more + to get the ports in the shape they really need to be in. + + Although we have added many maintainers, we still have many + unmaintained ports. As well, the packages on amd64 and sparc64 are + lagging behind. + + + + + 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, four security + advisories have been issued concerning problems in the base system + of FreeBSD (three in 2006 and one in 2007); of these, one problem + was in "contributed" code, while the remaining three were 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, 55 + new entries have been added, bringing the total up to 869.

+ +

In order to streamline security team operations and ensure that + incoming emails are promptly acknowledged, Remko Lodder has been + appointed the security team secretary.

+ +

The following FreeBSD releases are supported by the FreeBSD + Security Team: FreeBSD 4.11, FreeBSD 5.5, FreeBSD 6.0, FreeBSD 6.1, + and FreeBSD 6.2. The respective End of Life dates of supported + releases are listed on the web site; of particular note, FreeBSD + 4.11 and FreeBSD 6.0 will cease to be supported at the end of + January 2007.

+ + + + + Cryptographic Subsystem + + + + + Sam + + Leffler + + + sam@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

Michael Richardson has been spearheading work to improve the + crypto subsystem used by various parts of the kernel including Fast + IPSec and geli. This work is sponsored by Hifn and has been + happening outside the CVS repository. A main focus of this work is + to add support for higher-level hardware operations that can + significantly improve the performance of IPSec and SSL + protocols.

+ +

Results of this work are now being readied for CVS. These + redesign the core/driver APIs to use the kobj facilities and recast + software crypto drivers as pseudo devices. The changes greatly + improve the system and permit new functionality such as specifying + which crypto device to use when multiple are available. The + redesign will also enable load balancing of crypto work across + multiple devices and the addition of virtual crypto sessions by + which small operations can be done in software when the overhead to + set up a hardware device is too costly.

+ +

In addition to the changes to the core crypto system several + crypto drivers have been updated to improve their operation. Top of + this list is the hifn(4) driver where many longstanding bugs have + been fixed for 7955/756 parts.

+ + + + + ARM/XScale Port + + + + + Olivier + + Houchard + + + cognet@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Sam + + Leffler + + + sam@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + + +

FreeBSD is running multi-user on a variety of Gateworks Avila + boards with most of the on-board devices supported. These include + the compact flash/IDE slot, wired network interfaces, realtime + clock, and environmental sensors. Several different minipci cards + have been tested including those supported by the ath(4) and + hifn(4) drivers. Remaining devices that need support are the + onboard flash, optional 4-port network switch, and optional USB + interface. Crypto acceleration for IXP425 parts is planned but will + likely be done at a later time.

+ +

The Network Processor Engine (NPE) support is done with an + entirely new replacement for the Intel Access Layer (IAL). The most + important hardware facilities are supported (e.g. the hardware Q + manager) and the wired NIC driver was also done from scratch. The + resulting code is approximately 1/10th the number of lines of the + equivalent IAL code.

+ + + + Bootstrap support needs work to enable booting from the + compact flash device. + + + + + Porting ZFS to FreeBSD + + + + + Pawel Jakub + + Dawidek + + + pjd@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Source code. + + + ZFS porting site. + + + ZFS port announce. + + + +

The ZFS file system works quite well on FreeBSD now. The first + patchset has already been published on the + + freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.org mailing list + + .

+ +

All file system methods are already implemented (except + ACL-related). Basically all stress tests I tried work, even under + very high load. There is still a problem with memory allocation, + which can get out of control, but from what I know the SUN guys + also work on this.

+ +

Recently I have been working on a file system regression test + suite. From what I found, there are no such test suites for free. + I've already more than 3000 tests and I'm testing correctness of + most file system related syscalls (chflags, chmod, chown, link, + mkdir, mkfifo, open, rename, rmdir, symlink, truncate, unlink). I'm + also working to make it usable on other operating systems (like + Solaris, where it already works and Linux).

+ +

Few days ago I also (almost) finished NFS support. You can't use + the 'zfs share' command yet, but you can export file systems via + /etc/exports and you can also access snapshots. It was quite hard, + because snapshots are separate file systems and after exporting the + main file system, we need to also serve data from snapshots under + it.

+ +

The one big thing which is missing is ACL support. This is not + an easy task, because we first have to make some decisions. + Currently we use POSIX ACLs in our UFS, but the market is moving + slowly to NTFS/NFSv4-type ACLs. In Solaris they use POSIX ACLs for + UFS and NFSv4-type ACLs for ZFS and we probably also want to use + NFSv4-type ACLs in our ZFS, which requires some work outside + ZFS.

+ + + + + TrustedBSD priv(9) + + + + + Robert + + Watson + + + rwatson@FreeBSD.org + + + + + TrustedBSD Project + + + +

TrustedBSD priv(9) replaces suser(9) as an in-kernel interface + for checking privilege in FreeBSD 7.x. Each privilege check now + takes a specific named privilege. This allows both centralization + of jail logic relating to privilege, which is currently distributed + around the kernel at the point of each call to suser(9), and allows + instrumentation of the privilege logic by the MAC Framework. Two + new MAC Framework entry points, one to grant and the other to limit + privilege, are now available, providing fine-grained control of + kernel privilege by policy modules. This lays the kernel + infrastructure groundwork for further refinement and extension of + the kernel privilege model. The priv(9) implementation has been + committed to FreeBSD 7-CURRENT.

+ +

This software was developed by Robert N. M. Watson for the + TrustedBSD Project under contract to nCircle Network Security, + Inc.

+ + + + Complete review of kernel privilege checks, removal of + suser(9) jail flag now that checks are centralized. + + Explore possible changes to kernel privilege model along + lines of POSIX.1e privileges, the Solaris privilege interface, etc. + This has been explored previously as part of the TrustedBSD + Capabilities project also. + + + + + TrustedBSD MAC Framework + + + + + Robert + + Watson + + + rwatson@FreeBSD.org + + + + trustedbsd-discuss@TrustedBSD.org + + + + + TrustedBSD + Project + + + +

Most work on the MAC Framework during this period, other than as + relates to the priv(9) project described in a separate status + report, has been in refinement of the structure of the framework. +

    +
  • Add two new entry points allowing MAC Framework policy + modules to grant or limit fine-grained system privileges.
    • + +
  • A sample mac_priv(4) policy module has been created + demonstrating how a MAC Framework policy module can grant + specific system privileges to specific users.
    • + +
  • Commenting throughout the MAC Framework significantly + extended.
    • + +
  • Correct a bug in which the original ifnet label was copied to + user space via ioctl, rather than the thread-local copy.
    • + +
  • mac_enforce_subsystem debugging sysctls removed, as some + policies rely on access control checks being called even when + non-enforcing (specifically, information flow related + policies).
    • + +
  • Break out mac.h include file into mac.h (user API, system + calls) and mac_framework.h (in-kernel interface to the MAC + Framework). Move non-user MAC include files from src/sys to + src/sys/security/mac. Move and break out kern_mac.c into + mac_framework.c and mac_syscalls.c. The MAC Framework is now + entirely located in src/sys/security/mac.
    • + +
  • Export the MAC Framework version via a read-only sysctl and + provide a #define version usable by policies.
    • + +
  • MAC Framework locking optimized to optimistically expect no + write lock contention during read locking.
    • +
+

+ + + + Now that the MAC Framework has been fully moved to + src/sys/security/mac, embark on the 'mac2' interface cleanup, in + which many MAC Framework entry points are renamed for consistency. + This will require most MAC Framework policy modules to be modified + between FreeBSD 6.x and FreeBSD 7.x, although in a way that can be + largely done using sed. + + Add accessor functions for policies retrieving per-policy + label data from labels, so that policy modules do not compile in + the binary layout of struct label. This will allow future + optimization of the label layout. + + Complete integration of audit and MAC support, allowing MAC + policy modules to control access to audit interfaces, and allowing + them to annotate audit records. + + + + + TrustedBSD Audit + + + + + Robert + + Watson + + + rwatson@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Christian + + Peron + + + csjp@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Wayne + + Salamon + + + wsalamon@FreeBSD.org + + + + + TrustedBSD Audit + Page + + OpenBSM Page + + + +

FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE, the first release of FreeBSD with + experimental audit support is now available. The plan is to make + audit a full production feature as of FreeBSD 6.3-RELEASE, with + "options AUDIT" compiled in by default. A TODO list has been posted + to trustedbsd-audit.

+ +

OpenBSM 1.0 alpha 13, which includes support for XML record + printing, additional 64-bit token types, additional audit events, + and more cross-platform build support, has been released. OpenBSM + 1.0 alpha 14, which adds support for warnings clean building with + gcc 4.1, will be released shortly. The new OpenBSM release will be + merged to FreeBSD CVS in late January or early February.

+ + + + Complete assignment of audit events to non-native and a few + remaining native system calls. Add additional system call argument + auditing. + + Merge MAC Framework hooks allowing MAC modules to control + access to kernel audit services. Refine and merge MAC labeling + support in audit, including support for MAC annotations in the + audit trail. + + Complete pass through user space services adding audit + support to system management tools (and ftpd). Work with third + party software maintainers to add audit support for applications + like xdm/kdm/gdm. + + Merge latest OpenBSM, including XML output support. + + + + + FAST_IPSEC Upgrade + + + + + George + + Neville-Neil + + + gnn@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Bjoern + + Zeeb + + + bz@FreeBSD.org + + + + + Host only + patch + + gnn's networking + blog + + + +

Just this week I got routing working for the FAST_IPSEC and IPv6 + code. Now there are memory smash problems, and then we need to + remove the old GIANT lock. I hope to produce another patch with the + routing code working in the next week.

+ + + + Test the patch!!!! + + + + + Automatic TCP Send and Receive Socket Buffer Sizing + + + + + Andre + + Oppermann + + + andre@FreeBSD.org + + + + + + Patch against 7-CURRENT + + + Patch against RELENG_6 + + + +

Normally the socket buffers are static (either derived from + global defaults or set with setsockopt) and do not adapt to real + network conditions. Two things happen: a) your socket buffers are + too small and you can't reach the full potential of the network + between both hosts; b) your socket buffers are too big and you + waste a lot of kernel memory for data just sitting around.

+ +

With automatic TCP send and receive socket buffers we can start + with a small buffer and quickly grow it in parallel with the TCP + congestion window to match real network conditions.

+ +

FreeBSD has a default 32K send socket buffer. This supports a + maximal transfer rate of only slightly more than 2Mbit/s on a 100ms + RTT trans-continental link. Or at 200ms just above 1Mbit/s. With + TCP send buffer auto scaling and the default values below it + supports 20Mbit/s at 100ms and 10Mbit/s at 200ms. That's an + improvement of factor 10, or 1000%. For the receive side it looks + slightly better with a default of 64K buffer size.

+ +

The automatic send buffer sizing patch is currently running on + one half of the FTP.FreeBSD.ORG cluster w/o any problems so far. + Against this machine with the automatic receive buffer sizing patch + I can download at 5.7 MBytes per second. Without patch it maxed out + at 1.6 MBytes per second as the delay bandwidth product became + equal to the static socket buffer size without hitting the limits + of the physical link between the machines. My test machine is about + 35ms from that FTP.FreeBSD.ORG and connected through a moderately + loaded 100Mbit Internet link.

+ +

New sysctls are: +

    +
  • net.inet.tcp.sendbuf_auto=1 (enabled)
    • + +
  • net.inet.tcp.sendbuf_inc=8192 (8K, step size)
    • + +
  • net.inet.tcp.sendbuf_max=262144 (256K, growth limit)
    • + +
  • net.inet.tcp.recvbuf_auto=1 (enabled)
    • + +
  • net.inet.tcp.recvbuf_inc=16384 (16K, step size)
    • + +
  • net.inet.tcp.recvbuf_max=262144 (256K, growth limit)
    • +
+

+ + + + + Wireless Networking + + + + + Sam + + Leffler + + + sam@errno.com + + + + + + + +

Work on wireless support has continued to evolve in the public + CVS tree while other work has been going on behind the scenes in + the developer's perforce repository.

+ +

Support was recently added to HEAD for half- and quarter-rate + channels as found in the 4.9 GHz FCC Public Safety Band. This work + was a prerequisite to adding similar support in the 900 MHz band as + found in Ubiquiti's SR9 cards. Adding this functionality was + straightforward due to the design of the net80211 layer, requiring + only some additions to handle the unusual mapping between + frequencies and IEEE channel numbers. The ath(4) driver currently + supports hardware capable of operating on half- and quarter-rate + channels.

+ +

Kip Macy recently made significant advances preparing legacy + drivers for the re-architected net80211 layer that has been + languishing in perforce. With his efforts this code is nearly ready + for public testing after which it can be merged into CVS. Our goal + is to complete this merge in time for the 7.x branch (otherwise it + will be forced to wait for 8.0 before it appears in a public + release). This revised net80211 layer includes advanced station + mode facilities such as background scanning and roaming and support + for Atheros' SuperG extensions. Getting the revised scanning work + into CVS will greatly simplify public distribution of the Virtual + AP (VAP) code as a patch as well as enable addition of 802.11n + support.

+ +

Benjamin Close is working on support for the Intel 3945 parts + commonly found in laptops. The work is going on in the perforce + repository with public code drops for testing.

+ +

Atheros PCI/Cardbus support was updated with a new HAL that + fixes a few minor issues and corrects a problem that kept AR2424 + parts from working. The new HAL also enables more efficient use of + the hardware keycache for TKIP keys; on newer hardware you can now + support up to 57 stations without faulting keys into the cache. + Support for the latest 802.11n parts found in the new Lenovo and + Apple laptops (among others) is in development; initial release + will support only legacy operation.

+ +

Support for Atheros USB devices is coming. Atheros has agreed to + license their firmware with the same license applied to the HAL + which means it can be committed to the tree and distributed as part + of releases. The driver is still in development.

+ +

wpa_supplicant and hostapd were updated to the latest stable + build releases from Jouni Malinen. Shortly the in-tree code base + will switch to the 0.5.x tree which will bring in much new + functionality including dynamic VLAN tagging that will be + especially useful once the multi-bss support is available.

+ +

The support for injection of raw 802.11 frames was committed to + HEAD. This work was done in collaboration with Andrea Bittau. At + this point there are no plans to commit this to the STABLE branch + as it requires API changes.

+ + + + + EuroBSDCon 2007 + + + + + Sidsel + + Jensen + + + info@EuroBSDCon.dk + + + + + + + + + + +

The sixth EuroBSDCon will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark on + Friday the 14th and Saturday 15th of September + 2007 + + . The conference will be held at + Symbion Science Park + + . Sunday the 16th there will be an optional tour to LEGOland.

+ +

The + call for papers + + was sent out right after EuroBSDCon 2006 in Milan in November and + abstracts are due February 1st! So hurry up and send in all your + fantastic and amazing papers to papers at eurobsdcon dot dk.

+ + + + diff --git a/en/news/status/status.sgml b/en/news/status/status.sgml index 666861fd55..2f15cf86fd 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: January 14 2007

+

Next submission due: April 7 2007

Use the xml generator or download and edit the @@ -41,8 +41,10 @@

2006