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diff --git a/doc/todo.txt b/doc/todo.txt index 7d9060fe6..15b08fed2 100644 --- a/doc/todo.txt +++ b/doc/todo.txt @@ -1,57 +1,151 @@ -Here are some notes about various things I should/could/might do. If you're -interested in working on something here (or something else!), drop me an email -and we can coordinate efforts. - -* Algorithms / Related - - ECDSA - - ECDH - -* X.509 / PKCS / ASN.1 - - X.509 code is in need of a major cleanup, both API and internal - - OCSP (RFC 2560) - - Attribute Certificates (RFC 3281) - - Support for Unicode (BMP STRING/UNIVERSAL STRING) strings in ASN1_String - - Support for Unicode/UTF-8 strings everywhere they may show up (certs, etc) - -* New Interfaces / Protocols - - SSL/TLS: Alpha release is available (http://ajisai.randombit.net) - - OpenPGP - - CMS: incomplete sources in misc/cms - - NIST's PKAPI: needs CMS - -* Modules - - EntropySources - z/OS, OS/400, VMS - - Compression: Zip, Gzip - - Dynamic Algorithm Loader - - Maybe, (maybe, maybe) integrate it with the stuff in algolist.cpp - so it can do automatic lookup. I'm rather skeptical of this approach - but it is a possibility. - - mp_asm64: z/Series - - HTTP certificate store access - - Engines - - VIA PadLock - - Broadcom BCM582x: Free Linux drivers are available, but I need a card - to test against. - - CryptoSwift: Rainbow blew me off when I contacted them. I have a card, - I just need drivers and API docs. - - Hifn: Sokretis sells them cheap, but drivers may be an issue. - - IBM 4758 / CCA - - HP / Atalla - - Intel Performance Primitives library - - PKCS #11 - - Other suggestions welcome - -* Configure / Build System - - The build system doesn't handle GCC on Windows well - - Support for new OSes: - - z/OS - - OS/400 - - VMS - - Hurd - - Plan 9 - - Support more packaging systems - - Debian - - Solaris - - MacOS X [Fink?] - - Windows binary installer + +There are many areas where Botan is deficient. This file documents +some of the more interesting ones. If you're thinking about working on +something within Botan, one of these areas might be a good place to +start. Questions or comments can go to the development mailing list. + +Build System / Porting +-------------------- + +The new configure script is fairly flexible in terms of build systems +(though there do remain a few pieces of code tied to the idea of +make-style syntax). No doubt many users would appreciate having Botan +well-integrated into their build environment, so patches to +configure.pl (and new template files for misc/config/makefile/) to add +support for other build systems. The most requested by far is Visual +Studio project files; others that might be of interest would be +autotools, Scons, CMake, and jam/bjam. + +Testing the configure/build/install steps on as many platforms and +compilers as possible is a huge win for us. Builds on some platforms, +like the Motorola 680x0 and Hitachi SH machines, IBM's AIX on any CPU +type, and the Haiku operating system (a BeOS R5 clone) - have *never* +been attempted; the support is based entirely on documentation and +conjecture, and is very unlikely to work. Support for several +operating systems is completely nonexistent - this class includes VMS, +vxWorks, eCos, MINIX, GNU/Hurd, L4, and Coyotos. Others, like IRIX, +HP-UX, QNX, and Tru64, are tested only a few times a year. Similarly, +many commercial compilers are only tested occasionally. + +Setting up a buildbot system would be ideal, if access to enough +machines can be arranged (for the x86 and amd64 operating systems, a +single machine running Xen or VMware could suffice). Even one-shot +tests with the latest sources on a variety of machines would be +incredibly useful. + +A nice but not essential feature for configure.pl would be adding the +ability to generate any needed or requested package-building scripts, +with support for systems like rpm, portage, dpkg, commercial Unix +package systems, and Windows installer systems. + +Modules to allow use of platform-specific features within Botan can +make life significantly better for users on that platform. Generic +Unix/POSIX support is more or less complete, but there are countless +vendor extensions that might be used in Botan in interesting and +useful ways. Windows has the basics (two entropy source modules, and +modules giving access to mutexes and high resolution timers), but +there are probably a number of interesting extensions one could write, +like making Botan's objects callable by DCOM. Other systems probably +have all kinds of interesting system and library calls we can use. + +Self-test / Benchmark System +-------------------- + +The code is not terrible, but it is significantly sloppier than the +library code it is testing. Reporting should be generalized and +encapsulated, so it can easily be extended to produce tests results as +text to the terminal, or HTML with full details, or as an email, or +any of a number of useful formats (which would provide a varying +amount of information about what was tested and what went wrong). +Bonus points for writing a general system that takes in an arbitrary +'template' file and outputs the filled out report. + +Much of the code operates at a very low level of abstraction; this has +caused it to be difficult to add tests that vary much from the simple +known answer tests used for the ciphers and hashes. + +There are significant codepaths that have no tests written for them, +particularly in the X.509 certificate processing code. + +The benchmark code should also have its output formats generalized; it +would be pretty great to have a benchmark run produce a detailed +report as HTML and some gnuplot datasets to generate the images +included from the HTML file. + +Documentation +-------------------- + +This could occupy someone for months. Perhaps even a majority of the +API is undocumented, and while these are the less important pieces (or +at least pieces meant mostly for internal library use), it would be +great to have at least a brief description of each of them, along with +a pointer to the appropriate headers. Text written in either a +tutorial style or as a straight API breakdown could easily be +integrated. + +There are many obvious example programs which have yet to be written, +including encrypting a file with a shared passphrase, and securely +salting and hashing a password for storage. Check the mailing list +archives for ideas. + +ECC +-------------------- + +For a long time, interest in ECC has been minimal, but there are +rumblings indicating user desire for this is starting to become really +active. We don't need anything obscure - ECDSA and ECDH using NIST's +approved GF(p) curves gets us 90% of what users are wanting right now. + +Public Key Engines +-------------------- + +In addition to the fairly low level BigInt optimizations that remain +to be done, Botan provides a plugin system that allows different +implementations of entire algorithms (RSA, DSA, etc) to be included, +which can then be used in a completely transparent manner by +application code. As of this writing one hardware public key +accelerator (AEP's SureWare Runner cards) and two software backends +(GNU MP and OpenSSL's BN library) are supported. There are many others +out there, including Apple's vBigNum AltiVec library, Intel's +Performance Primitives library, OpenBSD's /dev/crypto, and hardware +units like the Broadcom BCM582x and Hi/fn 6500. + +BigInt +-------------------- + +The portable BigInt routines are fairly good, and as of 1.6 we're +using reasonably good algorithms. But well written assembly can often +speed up public key operations by 50% or more. There currently exists +some limited x86 and x86-64 assembly, but implementations for other +architectures (such as Cell's SPU units, PowerPC, SPARCv9, MIPS, and +ARM) could really help, as could further work on the x86 code +(including making use of SSE instructions and VIA's Montgomery +multiplication instruction). The key routines for good performance are +bigint_monty_redc and bigint_mul_add_words; together they make up +30-60% of the runtime of most public key algorithms. + +It is very likely that many of the core algorithms (in src/mp_*) could +be optimized at the C level by anyone has some knowledge or interest +in algorithms. + +Compression Modules +-------------------- + +Botan currently supports the bzip2 and zlib compression +formats. Support for gzip and (less importantly) zip would likely be +appreciated by many users. There are also other interesting algorithms +such as LZO (supposedly very fast, which might make it useful in +custom network protocols), and LZW (a compression algorithm patented +by nCipher; they sell hardware implementations). + +X.509 Attribute Certificates +-------------------- + +Most of the low-level processing code needed, like support for the +ASN.1 SIGNED macro and the DER/BER codec, have already been written +and used sufficiently to be well tested and relatively easy to work +with. However it involves a lot of careful coding and design work to +deal with the semantic issues and provide a good interface to the +user; at this point I don't have the slightest idea what a useful API +for attribute certificates would be like. RFC 3281 and its references +have most of the information you'll need. |