Background ========== - Priority scale: High, Medium and Low - Complexity scale: C1, C2, C4 and C8. The complexity scale is exponential, with complexity 1 being the lowest complexity. Complexity is a function of both task 'complexity' and task 'scope'. The general rule of thumb is that a complexity 1 task should take 1-2 weeks for a person very familiar with the codebase. Higher complexity tasks require more time and have higher uncertainty. Higher complexity tasks should be refined into several lower complexity tasks once the task is better understood. mac80211_hwsim ============== - Add support for returning HWSIM_ATTR_RADIO_ID from HWSIM_CMD_CREATE_RADIO The HWSIM_CMD_CREATE_RADIO command should return HWSIM_CMD_CREATE_RADIO on success so that the radio id for the created wiphy can be mapped by test tools or when having to destroy that radio again. Priority: High Complexity: C1 - Add support for client tracking of HWSIM_CMD_CREATE_RADIO When using HWSIM_CMD_CREATE_RADIO command the newly created radio is not bound to the owner of the netlink socket. This means that the radio stays around even after the client quits. For testing tools it would be beneficial if the newly created radio could be bound to the lifetime of the netlink socket. Create a new HWSIM_ATTR_DESTROY_RADIO_ON_CLOSE (netlink flag attribute) that can be given to HWSIM_CMD_CREATE_RADIO to indicate this behavior. Priority: High Complexity: C1 - Rename HWSIM_CMD_CREATE_RADIO into HWSIM_CMD_NEW_RADIO Using the name HWSIM_CMD_NEW_RADIO is more fitting on how other pieces of the wireless system work. Rename the HWSIM_CMD_CREATE_RADIO entry in the enum and provde a define for source level comaptiblity. Priority: Medium Complexity: C1 - Rename HWSIM_CMD_DESTROY_RADIO into HWSIM_CMD_DEL_RADIO Using the name HWSIM_CMD_DEL_RADIO is more fitting on how other pieces of the wireless system work. Rename the HWSIM_CMD_DESTROY_RADIO entry in the enum and provde a define for source level comaptiblity. Priority: Medium Complexity: C1 - Provide multicast events for HWSIM_CMD_NEW_RADIO and HWSIM_CMD_DEL_RADIO When adding new radios via HWSIM_CMD_NEW_RADIO then listeners on the multicast group "config" should be informed. Same as when an existing radio gets removed via HWSIM_CMD_DEL_RADIO, send event to "config" multicast group. The multicast group "config" does not exist at the moment and needs be introduced as well. Priority: Medium Complexity: C1 - Add support for HWSIM_CMD_GET_RADIO command Currently it is not possible to list the existing radio created by mac80211_hwsim. Use the command to dump a list of radios where each radio at minimum containts the HWSIM_ATTR_RADIO_ID. For the result HWSIM_CMD_NEW_RADIO (previously HWSIM_CMD_CREATE_RADIO) should be used. The dump version should not require any attributes and list all radios while otherwise the HWSIM_ATTR_RADIO_ID is required to provide details of a specific radio. Priority: Medium Complexity: C1 - Add support for HWSIM_CMD_SET_RADIO command To allow modifying an existing radio, add the HWSIM_CMD_SET_RADIO. The first possible feature should be to emulate the hardware RFKILL switch. It might be required to add a HWSIM_ATTR_RADIO_HW_RFKILL attribute flag to the HWSIM_CMD_NEW_RADIO to enable virtual radios with a hardware level RFKILL switch. Priority: Medium Complexity: C1 - Allow configuration of MAC address or list of MAC addresses The radios are auto-generating a fake MAC address. It would be useful to allow specifying a MAC address to be used. In certain cases it might be also useful to provide a list of MAC addresses so that for example with secondary interfaces these can be used. Priority: Low Complexity: C2 - Move mac80211_hwsim.h header file to UAPI includes The mac80211_hwsim.h is the public API description of this netlink interface and thus it should be provided via UAPI includes. For this work work the mac80211_hwsim.h header needs to be modified so that it also compiles from userspace. At the moment it throws errors. And it needs to become part of the UAPI headers of the Linux kernel. In addition it should provide HWSIM_GENL_NAME that provides the generic netlink "MAC82011_HWSIM" family string. Priority: Low Complexity: C1 - Provide kernel option to allow defining the number of initial radios By default the mac80211_hwsim modules creates 2 radios by default unless it is overwritten with the radios=x module parameter. To allow loading the mac80211_hwsim by default and even with accidental loading of the module, it would be good to provide a kernel configuration option that allows changing the default value here. For our testing we want to load mac80211_hwsim without any radios. Maybe this should be the default for the new kernel option. If the default of initial radios can be changed to zero, then it is also possible to add MODULE_ALIAS_GENL_FAMILY to support auto-loading of the mac80211_hwsim kernel module. Priority: Low Complexity: C1 - New configuration options for radios At the moment the radios created are all equal and feature rich. However for testing we want to create radios with different emulated hardware capabilities. Provide new attributes or flags that allow enabling or disabling certain mac80211 features. For example AP mode, P2P mode, number of interface combinations, TDLS support, number of Scan SSIDs, supported ciphers and so on. Priority: Low Complexity: C2 cfg80211 / nl80211 ================== - Fix missing NL80211_CMD_NEW_WIPHY and NL80211_CMD_DEL_WIPHY events When new wiphy devices are added or removed ensure that the appropiate events are send to the "config" multicast group. Priority: High Complexity: C1 - Fix missing NL80211_CMD_NEW_INTERFACE and NL80211_CMD_DEL_INTERFACE events When new network interfaces added or removed ensure that the appropiate events are send to the "config" multicast group. Priority: High Complexity: C1 - Bind NL80211_CMD_START_SCHED_SCAN to netlink socket When issuing the NL80211_CMD_START_SCHED_SCAN it should be bound to the executing netlink client socket. If the application closes that netlink socket the scheduled scan operation should be canceled. Maybe a new attribute similar to NL80211_ATTR_IFACE_SOCKET_OWNER should be used for this behavior. Priority: Medium Complexity: C2 - Disconnect from network / station when client crashes When associating or connecting to a network, it should be possible to bind this transaction to a specific netlink client. So that in case this client terminates without, any connection will be also terminated. This should affect NL80211_CMD_ASSOCIATE and NL80211_CMD_CONNECT. It seems that this is not needed for NL80211_CMD_AUTHENTICATE since that command will eventually time out, but it might be a good idea to even support it there. Maybe a new attribute similar to NL80211_ATTR_IFACE_SOCKET_OWNER should be used for this behavior. Priority: High Complexity: C4 - Add missing support for NL80211_CMD_GET_INTERFACE filtering The NL80211_CMD_GET_INTERFACE command description indicates that you can filter results based NL80211_ATTR_WIPHY. This feature has never been implemented. Either remove that feature from the description since it does not exist or actually implemented the filtering on wiphy. Johannes indicated that fixing the description might be the better approach. If the feature is easy to add, then it should be added. However if filtering on wiphy is a rather complicated task, then better just update the description to match the reality. Priority: Low Complexity: C2 Wireless monitor ================ - Add support for Information Element (IE) decoding Several netlink attributes provide binary blobs representing IEs. Add support for decoding them inline using the src/ie.c infrastructure. Priority: Medium Complexity: C1 - Create netlink monitor interface if it does not exist Currently the netlink monitor interface needs to be created manually and also brought up. The iwmon utility could just automate this task by using RTNL to find an existing netlink monitor interface, and in case it does not exist, create a new one. It might be beneficial that when iwmon terminates that it then also removes the netlink monitor interface again (in case it created it). Alternatively a command line option might be used for controlling this behavior of creating and removing netlink monitor interfaces. Priority: Medium Complexity: C1 - Subscribe to all nl80211 multicast groups at startup It seems the nlmon packets are limited to actual subscribed mutlicast groups. To get a complete picture of all the nl80211 commands and events, it is required that iwmon adds membership to all multicast groups that the nl80211 lists. This means that the netlink socket used for resolving nl80211 family name needs to be kept open and actively processed since it will also receive these multicast events. However the event itself can be dropped since the one from nlmon with the proper kernel level timestamps should be taken into account. An alternative is to fix the netlink_deliver_tap() function in the kernel netlink layer to not be affected by the broadcast filtering. Priority: Medium Complexity: C1 - Add support for receiving kernel side timestamps When packets are received from nlmon, they should be marked with an appropiate timestamp. Enable SO_TIMESTAMP socket option. Priority: Medium Complexity: C1 - Colorize the command, response and event packets Use terminal colors to separate command, response and event packets with different colors. Priority: Medium Complexity: C1 - Add support for writing PCAP files The new -w <file> option should allow for writing PCAP files with the Linux SLL link type. When creating PCAP files using tcpdump a lot of extra information from all netlink sockets are written. This write support should only write the information related to nl80211. However parts from the generic netlink control channel from resolving the nl80211 family name must be included as well. It might be also beneficial to include RTNL messages related to the wireless network interfaces. Currently these are all filtered out. Priority: Medium Complexity: C2 - Track RTNL messages for wireless network interface The RTNL messages indicate operation state changes and with are also relevant for a complete picture of the userspace kernel communication. However the complicated part is to identify which network interfaces are wireless related and which are not. Obviously the non-wireless network interfaces need to be filtered out. Priority: Medium Complexity: C2 - Handle netlink core control messages correctly The core control netlink messages for NLMSG_ERROR and NLMSG_DONE are not decoded properly. Add detailed decoding and also decode all the flags that are related to the core control messages. Priority: High Complexity: C1 Wireless simulator ================== - Add support for builtin wireless access point emulator When creating a pair of mac80211_hwsim radios, allow one to operate as access point. The hwsim utility will emulate the access point on the second interface for as long as it is running. Which means that from the first interface it is possible to scan and connect to this access point using standard wireless tools (including iwd and iwctl). Code for the AP mode can be shared from iwd feature for access point operation once that has been implemented. Priority: Medium Complexity: C8 Wireless daemon =============== - Parsing and building of 802.11 management frames Multiple frames types are send around via nl80211 interface. These frames need to be parsed and build via generic infrastructure. Priority: High Complexity: C4 - Add support for 4-way handshake authentication and key generation The 4-way handshake key generation for pre-shared keys (PSK) should be a standalone feature (independent from EAP). It is also important to have extensive unit test support for 4-way handshake messages and key generation itself. Priority: High Complexity: C4 - Add support for EAP based authentication and key generation Provide full EAP support for enterprise wireless. However it should be possible to build wireless daemon without EAP support. It is also intended that this EAP code can be utilized as shared library and be beneficial for systemd-networkd for wired authentication. Priority: Low Complexity: C8