The FreeBSD Project is excited to take part in the Google Summer of Code 2005. This project endeavors to fund students to contribute to an open source project over the summer break.

• Example Proposal Ideas
  • Userland / Installation Tools
  • Filesystem
  • Networking
  • Security
  • Kernel
• Possible Mentors

Example Proposal Ideas

Userland / Installation Tools

• Integrate BSD Installer : Prepare a prototype merge of the BSD Installer as a complete replacement for the venerable FreeBSD sysinstall program. Enough of the groundwork has been laid out now that someone with a few months and some background could do a lot of good work here, especially with adequate mentoring by more senior FreeBSD developers.
• Bundled PXE Installer : It would be great to have a bundled PXE installer. This would allow one to boot an install server from a FreeSBIE live CDROM on one box, set the BIOS on subsequent boxes to PXE boot, and then have the rest happen by magic. This would be very helpful for installing cluster nodes, etc.
• Fully Integrated SNMP monitoring : Plugins for our BSNMP pieces to monitor elements of system state such as load, disk space, VM statistics, entropy, firewall rules and states, sendmail queues and accepts/rejects, and the like. An SNMP client that could pull and centralize the data gathering, render it, etc. &a.philip;, &a.glebius;, and &a.rwatson; are coordinating.
• Integrate Xen Support : Support for the Xen virtual machine monitor is coming into FreeBSD -CURRENT, so the installer could be updated to make it possible to setup a Xen system with several FreeBSD nodes, etc.
• Rewrite CVSup in C : CVSup is the CVS-Optimized General-Purpose Network File Distribution System. It has been used heavily for nearly 10 years to distribute the FreeBSD CVS tree to mirrors around the world. CVSup was written in Modula-3 and a rewrite in C would encourage more users to improve it. CVSup is a multi-threaded application by design so the applicant should have at least some experience with pthreads. Additional requested features include understanding of Subversion fsfs repositories and Perforce depots. Currently part of the work and research has already been completed. &a.mux; is the coordinator.
• Improve our regression testing system : Nik Clayton has written a regression test infrastructure using Perl. More of the regression tests should be made to work with libtap. There are two main parts to it. First, many of the existing tests should be moved from using assert() to using ok() and friends from libtap. Second, more regression tests should be written. Students familiar with scripting languages and software testing are encouraged to work on this. &a.nik; is the coordinator.

Filesystem

• UFS Journalling : Add transaction journalling and playback to the UFS filesystem. The goal is to increase the reliability of the filesystem and greatly reduce the need for a full 'fsck' after a crash or power loss. This is a project that deals with not only the filesystem internals, but also the VM and buffer/cache systems, so it is an excellent opportunity to learn about many fundamental aspects of an operating system.
  Work is already in progress on this task, but more help is always needed and welcome. Candidates should have at least a cursory understanding of filesystem data structures (inodes, free lists, directories) and a strong desire to learn more about such systems. This project would be a major contribution to anyone's resume, but it is not for the faint of heart. &a.scottl; is the coordinator.
• Autofs : Create the autofs filesystem from a specification. Candidates should have some filesystem knowledge and network filesystem knowledge. Most of this work is done, however kernel transport and interaction with the "amd" automounter needs to be completed. &a.alfred; is coordinating.
• Logical Volume Manager

Networking

• Network Disk Device : Add the ability to remotely access devices from one system to another. The goal is to allow remote access to resources such as disks, sound devices, and other miscellaneous pieces of hardware over the network. Prospective candidates should have an understanding or interest in remote procedure call systems, networking (TCP/IP), an interest to learn how Unix device drivers work as well as process management will be required. This project would be a good resume builder, but is not for the faint of heart. &a.alfred; is coordinating.
• NFS Lockd (improve semantics) : Improve the semantics of the NFS lockd in FreeBSD. Apple has made certain enhancements that can be leveraged in our code base. Implement state recovery in the lockd. Candidate would learn how to port code from one kernel to another as well as how to maintain state on the client side. This would be a good resume addition. &a.alfred; is coordinating.
• NFS Lockd (kernel implementation) : Improve the semantics of the NFS lockd in FreeBSD. Moving the lockd implementation into the kernel provides several key performance and semantic improvements. Candidates should have a good understanding of NFS, locking, RPC and kernel networking. This is a great resume addition, providing you want to be saddled with "knowing NFS" for the rest of your career, it is not for the faint of heart. &a.alfred; is coordinating.

Security

• SecureMines : Add meta-data to the system in order to trap intruders and provide and audit log. The goal of this project is to create several means of marking an event as a foreign act (such as opening a trap file) which halts the system and provides as much information as possible, possibilities include using extended attributes to tag such "mines". Candidates should have an understanding of the Unix process model. &a.alfred; is coordinating.

Kernel

• Update the Linuxulator : FreeBSD provides Linux binary compatibility through a Linux system call table that is invoked when Linux ELF binaries are executed. This implementation should be compared with an up-to-date Linux Kernel so that important missing syscalls can be added to ensure that all mainstream applications continue to work on FreeBSD. The student should be able to read and understand foreign C code, write C code, and have a good understanding of how to do a clean room implementation of GPLed code (no copy & paste!).

Mentors

If you are interested in working on a project not explicitly mentioned above, you may want to contact one of the potential mentors below about writing a proposal in one of the following broad categories.

• Networking : &a.sam;, &a.alfred;
• Filesystems : &a.scottl;, &a.alfred;
• GEOM : &a.phk;
• Release Engineering / Integration : re@FreeBSD.org
• TrustedBSD / Security : &a.rwatson;
• Pluggable Disk Schedulers : &a.luigi;.

Additional projects may be found by browsing the FreeBSD Development Projects page or by viewing some of the recent Developer Status Reports.

If your project is not selected for funding by Google, but you still think you have a feasible project proposal, then please email core@FreeBSD.org.