cvs-src summary for 15/02/04

From: Mark Johnston <mjohnston_at_skyweb.ca>
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 22:42:22 -0600
This is my fourth cvs-src summary, and I'm glad to say that I'm finding
them to be pleasant to write and well worth the time.  Thanks to all
who've sent me words of encouragement and advice.

Before I get to the summary, I have a bit of news.  There is now a
workable (if austere) Web page at http://www.xl0.org/FreeBSD/, rather than
an unfriendly-looking and uselessly-sorted directory index.  It is styled
with CSS, so it will look best in modern graphical browsers like Mozilla
Firefoo, but it's also been tested in IE and Lynx.  I would like to
solicit feedback on the design, especially from non-conventional surfers
(people with vision or mobility problems, mobile or PDA users, and the
like.)  I have also used CSS to beautify the HTML summaries a bit.

I have also changed the format for the fourth time in four issues.  Sorry
for all the instability.  I'm still not sure that this is the best format,
but I do think that it's the best yet.  As I try to achieve my twin goals
of usefulness and advocacy, the format may still shift around a bit.
Please bear with me.

Mark

FreeBSD cvs-src summary for 08/02/04 to 15/02/04
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This is a regular weekly summary of FreeBSD's cutting-edge development.
It is intended to help the FreeBSD community keep up with the fast-paced
work going on in FreeBSD-CURRENT by distilling the deluge of data from
the CVS mailing list into a (hopefully) easy-to-read newsletter.  This
newsletter is marked up in reStructuredText_, so any odd punctuation
that you see is likely intended for the reST parser.

.. _reStructuredText: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html

The mailing list archive is still reported to be down,
but the links seem to be working anyway.  YMMV, but check
http://docs.freebsd.org/mail/ for more information.

You can get old summaries, and an HTML version of this one, at
http://www.xl0.org/FreeBSD/.  Please send any comments to Mark Johnston
(mark at xl0.org).

.. contents::

============
New features
============
Tim Kientzle's libarchive
-------------------------
Tim Kientzle (kientzle) added his libarchive_ library, which reads and
writes various streaming archive formats, especially tar and cpio.  A
streaming archive format is one that can be read from beginning to end,
without having to move around in the file.  Tim has also reimplemented
pkg_add and tar using libarchive, gaining a significant performance
boost and libarchive's other features, but these versions are not yet
part of the base system.

.. _libarchive: http://people.freebsd.org/~kientzle/libarchive/

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200402092322.i19NMtkW066232

TCP MD5 digest support
----------------------
Bruce M. Simpson (bms) added support for `RFC 2385`_ TCP MD5 signatures.
This protocol, intended for use with BGP, allows systems to authenticate
TCP packets without using IPSEC.  The new implementation signs outgoing
TCP packets, but does not try to verify incoming signatures.  It is
designed to allow FreeBSD to interoperate with other routing equipment,
like Cisco's, not to authenticate host-to-host connections.  This
feature requires the FAST_IPSEC option in the kernel, and is enabled
with the TCP_SIGNATURE option.  This code has also been MFC'ed.

.. _`RFC 2385`: http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2385.txt

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200402110426.i1B4Q4fd073321

Sendmail updated to 8.12.11
---------------------------
Gregory Neil Shapiro (gshapiro) imported Sendmail version 8.12.11, which
was released on January 18th.  8.12.11 replaces the old 8.12.10, and
fixes a number of bugs.  See the `Sendmail 8.12.11 release notes`_ for
more information.

.. _`Sendmail 8.12.11 release notes`: http://www.sendmail.org/8.12.11.html

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200402142153.i1ELre7g031228

Broadcom BCM4401 support in 4.x
-------------------------------
Julian Elischer (julian) merged the bfe driver, for Broadcom BCM4401
Ethernet adapters, from -CURRENT.  The BCM4401 chip is found on the `Asus
A7V8X`_ motherboard and on some Dell laptops, among other places.

.. _`Asus A7V8X`: http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socketa/a7v8x/overview.htm

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200402122100.i1CL0sNw092779

Adaptec SCSI driver MFC
-----------------------
Justin T. Gibbs (gibbs) merged the aic7xxx driver from -CURRENT into
-STABLE.  This driver supports cards in the Adaptec AIC-7000 series,
with AIC-7900 broken out into a separate aic79xx driver.

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200402151930.i1FJU34B054611

=================
Committer changes
=================
Bruce M. Simpson (bms) introduced Max Maier (mlaier), a new src
committer.  Max is the maintainer of the FreeBSD port of pf_, OpenBSD's
packet filter.  He will be working on bringing pf into FreeBSD proper,
as well as working on the network stack.

.. _pf: http://www.benzedrine.cx/pf.html

mlaier's introduction: http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200402101557.i1AFvktK081448

=================
Discussion topics
=================
Compiler warnings in system headers
-----------------------------------
As discussed below, Tim Kientzle (kientzle) imported libarchive to
the system this week.  He discovered that the system zlib.h will not
compile using a WARNS (compiler warning sensitivity) setting higher than
3, even though his code causes no warnings.  Some discussion followed
about the problem of warnings in headers, especially since the zlib.h is
stock code from the vendor and changing it would make maintenace more
difficult.  The `zlib developer's position` (see question 33) is that
overly-picky compiler errors are a waste of time to fix, so it may be
difficult to get this warning fixed in the vendor's code.

.. _`zlib developer's position`: http://www.gzip.org/zlib/FAQ.txt

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200402120411.i1C4Bf8U03634

Detecting whether a process is jailed
-------------------------------------
Robert Watson (rwatson) committed code to prevent processes in a jail
from listing all the jails in the system.  Julian Elischer (julian)
asked whether there is a reliable way to tell whether you are running in
a jail or not.  He usually uses the fact that df / returns the size of
another filesystem.  Kris Kennaway (kris) suggested that being unable to ping
or ifconfig suggests that one is jailed.  Poul-Henning Kamp (phk) posted
`a short C program` to detect whether a process is jailed by checking the
process's flags with sysctl.

.. `a short C program`: http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?16173.1076877346

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200402141919.i1EJJmKY089610

===================
Important bug fixes
===================
Panic in pseudofs fixed
-----------------------
Jacques Vidrine (nectar) committed a workaround from Dag-Erling Smorgrav
(des) that fixes a potential panic in pseudofs when doing a large I/O
operation.  Dag-Erling will be committing a better fix to -CURRENT, with
the workaround going into 5.2.1.

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200402102106.i1AL6lfu066204

Panic in VM code fixed
----------------------
Alan Cox (alc) fixed a race condition in the VM code that was causing a
panic with the message "vm_page_cache: caching a dirty page".  He notes
that the race condition has existed for a while.

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200402101834.i1AIYRFn024732

Non-interactive script(1) fixed
-------------------------------
Colin Percival (cperciva) committed code to fix script(1) when the
standard input is closed.  Before, it would exit immediately, returning
success.  One especially dangerous result of this bug was that when
portupgrade was used non-interactively (in the background, for example),
it would remove and not reinstall all out-of-date ports.  This commit
closes PRs 56166_, 57414_, 57415_, and 60534_.

.. _56166: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=56166
.. _57414: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=57414
.. _57415: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=57415
.. _60534: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=60534

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200402151730.i1FHUDFd027289

Problem with creating directories under smbfs corrected
-------------------------------------------------------
Tim J. Robbins (tjr) fixed a bug in smbfs, the code that supports
Windows networked filesystems, that would not allow you to properly
create a directory after you created and deleted a file with the same
name.  This fixes `PR 62342`_, which was discovered and submitted by
Victor Prilipko.

.. _`PR 62342`: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=62342

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200402100553.i1A5r2hi033791

===============
Other bug fixes
===============
Prafulla Deuskar (pdeuskar) modified the em driver for Intel gigabit
Ethernet adapters to keep it from unneccesarily resetting the card.
This should fix the long init time when creating and removing aliases on
em interfaces.  This fix has also been MFC'ed.

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200402102131.i1ALVA50071539

Nate Lawson (njl) corrected a problem with hw.acpi.os_name being
rejected by the loader, causing attempts to override the OS name for
ACPI to fail.  The loader reserves the _name suffix, so the variable has
been renamed to hw.acpi.osname.

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200402140317.i1E3HV6E048159

Bill Paul (wpaul) fixed his NDISulator code to support the AMD Am1771
wireless Ethernet driver.  It no longer crashes during association or
bringing the interface up.

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200402160250.i1G2o4Q9066104

Bruce Evans (bde) committed numerous touchups to indent, which formats
C source code.  These fixes make indent work more consistently and
logically.
Received on Sun Feb 15 2004 - 19:42:07 UTC

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