5.2-RELEASE TODO

From: Robert Watson <rwatson_at_FreeBSD.org>
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 10:00:18 -0400 (EDT)
This is an automated bi-weekly mailing of the FreeBSD 5.2 open issues list.
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FreeBSD 5.2.


                          FreeBSD 5.2 Open Issues

                                Open Issues

 This is a list of open issues that need to be resolved for FreeBSD 5.2. If
 you have any updates for this list, please e-mail re_at_FreeBSD.org.

Must Resolve Issues for 5.2-RELEASE

 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 |        Issue        |  Status   |   Responsible   |    Description     |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | KSE M:N threading  |
 |                     |           |                 | support is         |
 |                     |           |                 | reaching           |
 |                     |           |                 | experimental yet   |
 |                     |           | Julian          | usable status on   |
 | Production-quality  | In        | Elischer, David | i386 for           |
 | M:N threading       | progress  | Xu, Daniel      | 5.1-RELEASE. M:N   |
 |                     |           | Eischen         | threading should   |
 |                     |           |                 | be productionable  |
 |                     |           |                 | and usable on all  |
 |                     |           |                 | platforms by       |
 |                     |           |                 | 5.2-RELEASE.       |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | Kernel bits are    |
 |                     |           |                 | implemented but    |
 | KSE support for     | In        |                 | untested. Userland |
 | sparc64             | progress  | Jake Burkholder | bits are not       |
 |                     |           |                 | implemented.       |
 |                     |           |                 | Required for       |
 |                     |           |                 | 5.2-RELEASE.       |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | Userland bits      |
 |                     |           |                 | implemented,       |
 | KSE support for     | In        | Marcel          | kernel bits not    |
 | alpha               | progress. | Moolenaar       | implemented.       |
 |                     |           |                 | Required for       |
 |                     |           |                 | 5.2-RELEASE.       |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | Kris Kennaway      |
 |                     |           |                 | reports high       |
 |                     |           |                 | instability of     |
 |                     |           |                 | 5-CURRENT on ia64  |
 |                     |           |                 | machines, such as  |
 | ia64 stability      | In        | Marcel          | the pluto*         |
 |                     | Progress  | Moolenaar       | machines. These    |
 |                     |           |                 | problems need to   |
 |                     |           |                 | be fixed in order  |
 |                     |           |                 | to get a           |
 |                     |           |                 | successful package |
 |                     |           |                 | build.             |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | FAST_IPSEC         |
 |                     |           |                 | currently cannot   |
 |                     |           |                 | be used directly   |
 |                     |           |                 | with the KAME IPv6 |
 |                     |           |                 | implementation,    |
 |                     |           |                 | requiring an       |
 |                     |           |                 | additional level   |
 |                     |           |                 | of IP tunnel       |
 |                     |           |                 | indirection to     |
 |                     |           |                 | protect IPv6       |
 |                     |           |                 | packets when using |
 |                     |           |                 | hardware crypto    |
 | FAST_IPSEC and KAME |           |                 | acceleration. This |
 | compatibility       | --        | --              | issue must be      |
 |                     |           |                 | resolved so that   |
 |                     |           |                 | the two services   |
 |                     |           |                 | may more easily be |
 |                     |           |                 | used together.     |
 |                     |           |                 | Among other        |
 |                     |           |                 | things, this will  |
 |                     |           |                 | require a careful  |
 |                     |           |                 | review of the      |
 |                     |           |                 | handling of mbuf   |
 |                     |           |                 | header copying and |
 |                     |           |                 | m_tag support in   |
 |                     |           |                 | the KAME IPv6      |
 |                     |           |                 | code.              |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | The FreeBSD KAME   |
 |                     |           |                 | IPv6 code is now   |
 |                     |           |                 | substantially      |
 |                     |           |                 | dated with respect |
 |                     |           |                 | to the KAME vendor |
 | KAME                | In        | Hajimu UMEMOTO  | source. The        |
 | Synchronization     | progress  |                 | FreeBSD Project    |
 |                     |           |                 | needs to take      |
 |                     |           |                 | initiative in      |
 |                     |           |                 | driving the merge  |
 |                     |           |                 | of new bug fixes,  |
 |                     |           |                 | features, et al.   |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | Almost all process |
 |                     |           |                 | debugging tools    |
 |                     |           |                 | have been updated  |
 |                     |           |                 | to use non-procfs  |
 |                     |           |                 | kernel primitives, |
 |                     |           |                 | with the exception |
 |                     |           |                 | of truss(1). As    |
 |                     |           |                 | procfs is          |
 |                     |           |                 | considered         |
 |                     |           |                 | deprecated due to  |
 |                     |           |                 | its inherent       |
 | truss support for   | In        | Robert Drehmel  | security risks, it |
 | ptrace              | progress  |                 | is highly          |
 |                     |           |                 | desirable to       |
 |                     |           |                 | update truss to    |
 |                     |           |                 | operate in a       |
 |                     |           |                 | post-procfs world. |
 |                     |           |                 | Dag-Erling         |
 |                     |           |                 | Smorgrav had       |
 |                     |           |                 | prototype patches; |
 |                     |           |                 | Robert Drehmel is  |
 |                     |           |                 | developing and     |
 |                     |           |                 | testing patches    |
 |                     |           |                 | now.               |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | Apple's Darwin     |
 |                     |           |                 | operating system   |
 |                     |           |                 | has fairly         |
 |                     |           |                 | extensive          |
 | Merge of Darwin     |           |                 | improvements to    |
 | msdosfs, other      | --        | --              | msdosfs and other  |
 | fixes               |           |                 | kernel services;   |
 |                     |           |                 | these fixes must   |
 |                     |           |                 | be reviewed and    |
 |                     |           |                 | merged to the      |
 |                     |           |                 | FreeBSD tree.      |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | Many systems       |
 |                     |           |                 | supporting         |
 |                     |           |                 | POSIX.1e ACLs      |
 |                     |           |                 | permit a minor     |
 |                     |           |                 | violation to that  |
 |                     |           |                 | specification, in  |
 |                     |           |                 | which the ACL_MASK |
 |                     |           |                 | entry overrides    |
 | ACL_MASK override   | In        |                 | the umask, rather  |
 | of umask support in | progress  | Robert Watson   | than being         |
 | UFS                 |           |                 | intersected with   |
 |                     |           |                 | it. The resulting  |
 |                     |           |                 | semantics can be   |
 |                     |           |                 | useful in          |
 |                     |           |                 | group-oriented     |
 |                     |           |                 | environments, and  |
 |                     |           |                 | as such would be   |
 |                     |           |                 | very helpful on    |
 |                     |           |                 | FreeBSD.           |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | Significant parts  |
 |                     |           |                 | of the network     |
 |                     |           |                 | stack (especially  |
 |                     |           |                 | IPv4 and IPv6) now |
 |                     |           |                 | have fine-grained  |
 |                     |           |                 | locking of their   |
 |                     |           |                 | data structures.   |
 |                     |           |                 | However, it is not |
 |                     |           |                 | yet possible for   |
 |                     |           |                 | the netisr threads |
 |                     |           |                 | to run without     |
 |                     |           |                 | Giant, due to      |
 | Fine-grained        |           |                 | dependencies on    |
 | network stack       | In        | Jeffrey Hsu,    | sockets, routing,  |
 | locking without     | progress  | Seigo Tanimura, | etc. A 5.2-RELEASE |
 | Giant               |           | Sam Leffler     | goal is to have    |
 |                     |           |                 | the network stack  |
 |                     |           |                 | running largely    |
 |                     |           |                 | without Giant,     |
 |                     |           |                 | which should       |
 |                     |           |                 | substantially      |
 |                     |           |                 | improve            |
 |                     |           |                 | performance of the |
 |                     |           |                 | stack, as well as  |
 |                     |           |                 | other system       |
 |                     |           |                 | components by      |
 |                     |           |                 | reducing           |
 |                     |           |                 | contention on      |
 |                     |           |                 | Giant.             |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | Productionable     |
 |                     |           |                 | support for the    |
 |                     |           |                 | AMD64 platform. It |
 |                     |           |                 | currently meets    |
 |                     |           |                 | most of the        |
 | Tier-1 Support for  | In        | Peter Wemm,     | requirements for   |
 | AMD64 Hammer        | progress  | David O'Brien   | the Tier-1         |
 |                     |           |                 | classification,    |
 |                     |           |                 | but a formal       |
 |                     |           |                 | ruling must be     |
 |                     |           |                 | made in time for   |
 |                     |           |                 | 5.2-RELEASE.       |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | Kernel modules are |
 |                     |           |                 | currently built    |
 |                     |           |                 | independently from |
 |                     |           |                 | a kernel           |
 |                     |           |                 | configuration, and |
 |                     |           |                 | independently from |
 |                     |           |                 | one another,       |
 |                     |           |                 | resulting in       |
 |                     |           |                 | substantially      |
 |                     |           |                 | redundant          |
 |                     |           |                 | compilation of     |
 |                     |           |                 | objects, as well   |
 |                     |           |                 | as the inability   |
 |                     |           |                 | to easily manage   |
 |                     |           |                 | compile-time       |
 |                     |           |                 | options for kernel |
 |                     |           |                 | objects (such as   |
 |                     |           |                 | MAC, PAE, etc)     |
 | Revised kld build   | --        | --              | that may require   |
 | infrastructure      |           |                 | conditional        |
 |                     |           |                 | compilation in the |
 |                     |           |                 | kernel modules. In |
 |                     |           |                 | order to improve   |
 |                     |           |                 | build performance  |
 |                     |           |                 | and better support |
 |                     |           |                 | options of this    |
 |                     |           |                 | sort, the KLD      |
 |                     |           |                 | build              |
 |                     |           |                 | infrastructure     |
 |                     |           |                 | needs to be        |
 |                     |           |                 | revamped. Peter    |
 |                     |           |                 | Wemm has done some |
 |                     |           |                 | initial            |
 |                     |           |                 | prototyping, and   |
 |                     |           |                 | should be          |
 |                     |           |                 | contacted before   |
 |                     |           |                 | starting on this   |
 |                     |           |                 | work.              |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | Currently, there   |
 |                     |           |                 | are two classes of |
 |                     |           |                 | interrupt handlers |
 |                     |           |                 | in 5.x: fast       |
 |                     |           |                 | interrupt handlers |
 |                     |           |                 | which run entirely |
 |                     |           |                 | in interrupt       |
 |                     |           |                 | context, and       |
 |                     |           |                 | heavy-weight       |
 |                     |           |                 | handlers which     |
 |                     |           |                 | execute in a       |
 |                     |           |                 | full-weight kernel |
 |                     |           |                 | interrupt thread.  |
 |                     |           |                 | It is possible to  |
 |                     |           |                 | optimize interrupt |
 |                     |           |                 | thread context     |
 |                     |           |                 | management such    |
 |                     |           |                 | that a             |
 |                     |           |                 | light-weight       |
 |                     |           |                 | context switch is  |
 |                     |           |                 | performed to begin |
 |                     |           |                 | execution of the   |
 |                     |           |                 | interrupt thread   |
 |                     |           |                 | in the handler     |
 |                     |           |                 | context, and only  |
 | Light-weight        |           |                 | when a full-weight |
 | interrupt threads,  | --        | --              | context is         |
 | context switches    |           |                 | required (such as  |
 |                     |           |                 | sleeping on a      |
 |                     |           |                 | lock) is that cost |
 |                     |           |                 | required. This     |
 |                     |           |                 | optimization       |
 |                     |           |                 | should             |
 |                     |           |                 | substantially      |
 |                     |           |                 | improve interrupt  |
 |                     |           |                 | latency. There are |
 |                     |           |                 | also additional    |
 |                     |           |                 | kernel thread      |
 |                     |           |                 | context switch     |
 |                     |           |                 | optimizations that |
 |                     |           |                 | can be made to     |
 |                     |           |                 | improve the        |
 |                     |           |                 | performance of     |
 |                     |           |                 | thread workers in  |
 |                     |           |                 | the kernel, such   |
 |                     |           |                 | as found in the    |
 |                     |           |                 | network stack,     |
 |                     |           |                 | crypto worker      |
 |                     |           |                 | threads, and GEOM. |
 |                     |           |                 | Bosko Milekic has  |
 |                     |           |                 | done substantial   |
 |                     |           |                 | prototyping work,  |
 |                     |           |                 | and should be      |
 |                     |           |                 | coordinated with.  |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | The existing APIC  |
 |                     |           |                 | interrupt code     |
 |                     |           |                 | does not support   |
 | Complete the APIC   |           |                 | PCI interrupt      |
 | PCI interrupt       | In        | John Baldwin    | routing properly.  |
 | routing support     | progress  |                 | As a result, PCI   |
 |                     |           |                 | interrupts cannot  |
 |                     |           |                 | be routed either   |
 |                     |           |                 | via ACPI or across |
 |                     |           |                 | PCI-PCI bridges.   |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | Currently, gbde    |
 |                     |           |                 | must be manually   |
 |                     |           |                 | configured at      |
 |                     |           |                 | run-time each time |
 |                     |           |                 | an encrypted disk  |
 |                     |           |                 | device is mounted. |
 |                     |           |                 | This prevents easy |
 | Run-time            |           |                 | integration into   |
 | autoconfiguration   |           |                 | /etc/fstab and     |
 | of GBDE and related | --        | --              | easy automated     |
 | transforms          |           |                 | deployment.        |
 |                     |           |                 | Improved           |
 |                     |           |                 | integration with   |
 |                     |           |                 | the configuration, |
 |                     |           |                 | mounting, and boot |
 |                     |           |                 | process is         |
 |                     |           |                 | required to make   |
 |                     |           |                 | this feature more  |
 |                     |           |                 | easily accessible. |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | Brian Feldman has  |
 |                     |           |                 | submitted patches  |
 |                     |           |                 | to improve the     |
 |                     |           |                 | consistency of the |
 |                     |           |                 | pathnames passed   |
 |                     |           |                 | into the MAC       |
 | MAC Framework devfs | In        | Robert Watson   | Framework devfs    |
 | path fixes          | progress  |                 | labeling entry     |
 |                     |           |                 | points. These      |
 |                     |           |                 | patches need to be |
 |                     |           |                 | thoroughly         |
 |                     |           |                 | reviewed and       |
 |                     |           |                 | tested, then       |
 |                     |           |                 | merged.            |
 |---------------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------|
 |                     |           |                 | A process cannot   |
 |                     |           |                 | be interrupted     |
 |                     |           |                 | while waiting on a |
 |                     |           |                 | lock. Fixing this  |
 | rpc.lockd(8)        | In        | Robert Watson   | requires that the  |
 | stability           | progress  |                 | rpc code be taught |
 |                     |           |                 | how to deal with   |
 |                     |           |                 | lock cancellation  |
 |                     |           |                 | and interruption   |
 |                     |           |                 | events.            |
 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Desired Features for 5.2-RELEASE

 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 |     Issue     |   Status    |  Responsible   |       Description       |
 |---------------+-------------+----------------+-------------------------|
 |               |             |                | Truss appears to        |
 |               |             |                | contain a race          |
 |               |             |                | condition during the    |
 |               |             |                | start-up of debugging,  |
 |               |             |                | which can result in     |
 |               |             |                | truss failing to attach |
 |               |             |                | to the process before   |
 |               |             |                | it exits. The symptom   |
 |               |             |                | is that truss reports   |
 |               |             |                | that it cannot open the |
 |               |             |                | procfs node supporting  |
 |               |             |                | the process being       |
 | Race          |             |                | debugged. A bug also    |
 | conditions in | Errata      | Robert Drehmel | appears to exist where  |
 | truss         | candidate   |                | in truss will hang if   |
 |               |             |                | execve() returns        |
 |               |             |                | ENOENT. A further race  |
 |               |             |                | appears to exist in     |
 |               |             |                | which truss will return |
 |               |             |                | "PIOCWAIT: Input/output |
 |               |             |                | error" occasionally on  |
 |               |             |                | startup. The fix for    |
 |               |             |                | this sufficiently       |
 |               |             |                | changes process         |
 |               |             |                | execution handling that |
 |               |             |                | we will defer the fix   |
 |               |             |                | to post-5.0 and         |
 |               |             |                | consider this errata.   |
 |---------------+-------------+----------------+-------------------------|
 | gdb -k        |             |                | gdb -k doesn't work on  |
 | support for   | --          | Mark Peek      | alpha                   |
 | alpha         |             |                |                         |
 |---------------+-------------+----------------+-------------------------|
 |               |             |                | Currently, MAC          |
 |               |             |                | protections are         |
 |               |             |                | enforced only on        |
 |               |             |                | locally originated file |
 |               |             |                | system operations       |
 |               |             |                | (VOPs), and not on RPCs |
 |               |             |                | generated via the NFS   |
 | MAC support   |             |                | server. Improvements in |
 | for NFS       | --          | Robert Watson  | NFS server credential   |
 | Server        |             |                | handling are required   |
 |               |             |                | to correct this         |
 |               |             |                | problem, as well as the |
 |               |             |                | introduction of new     |
 |               |             |                | entry points to         |
 |               |             |                | properly label NFS      |
 |               |             |                | credentials and perform |
 |               |             |                | enforcement properly.   |
 |---------------+-------------+----------------+-------------------------|
 |               |             |                | All PCI drivers must    |
 |               |             |                | use busdma for DMA; no  |
 | busdma in all |             |                | use of vtophys() will   |
 | PCI drivers   | --          | --             | be permitted for any    |
 |               |             |                | recent device driver.   |
 |               |             |                | ISA drivers may be      |
 |               |             |                | exempt.                 |
 |---------------+-------------+----------------+-------------------------|
 |               |             |                | With improved support   |
 |               |             |                | for threading           |
 |               |             |                | primitives, support is  |
 |               |             |                | now required to ease    |
 | GDB thread    | --          | --             | debugging of threaded   |
 | support       |             |                | applications. Ideally,  |
 |               |             |                | this support will work  |
 |               |             |                | for both libthr and     |
 |               |             |                | libkse threading        |
 |               |             |                | models.                 |
 |---------------+-------------+----------------+-------------------------|
 |               |             |                | Prebinding reduces      |
 |               |             |                | executable startup time |
 |               |             |                | by lowering the expense |
 |               |             |                | of symbol lookup,       |
 |               |             |                | binding and relocation. |
 |               |             |                | This is accomplished by |
 |               |             |                | a prebinding data file  |
 |               |             |                | or ELF segment that     |
 |               |             |                | contains intermediate   |
 |               |             |                | lookup results allowing |
 |               |             |                | fast symbol binding and |
 |               |             |                | relocation, provided    |
 | Per object    |             |                | that dependent objects  |
 | ELF           | In progress | Matthew Dodd   | remain unchanged since  |
 | Prebinding    |             |                | the prebinding          |
 | support       |             |                | information was         |
 |               |             |                | generated.              |
 |               |             |                |                         |
 |               |             |                | The benefits of         |
 |               |             |                | prebinding are realized |
 |               |             |                | when running            |
 |               |             |                | executables that use a  |
 |               |             |                | large (>10) number of   |
 |               |             |                | shared libraries. C++   |
 |               |             |                | applications also       |
 |               |             |                | benefit as they contain |
 |               |             |                | a large number of       |
 |               |             |                | relocations.            |
 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Documentation items that must be resolved for 5.2

 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 |     Issue     | Status |  Responsible  |          Description          |
 |---------------+--------+---------------+-------------------------------|
 | Bluetooth     |        |               | It'd be nice to have some     |
 | documentation | --     | Pav Lucistnik | Bluetooth documentation for   |
 |               |        |               | the Handbook.                 |
 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Testing focuses for 5.2-RELEASE

 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 |     Issue     |  Status  |  Responsible   |        Description         |
 |---------------+----------+----------------+----------------------------|
 |               |          |                | New ATA model has arrived. |
 | ATA driver    |          |                | Much testing is needed to  |
 | structural    | Complete | So/ren Schmidt | ensure no regressions.     |
 | improvements, |          |                | ATAPI-CAM seems especially |
 | MPsafety      |          |                | fragile, more testing is   |
 |               |          |                | encouraged.                |
 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+

   ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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  Last modified: 2003/09/29 14:25:34
Received on Wed Oct 01 2003 - 05:00:57 UTC

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