iwd/TODO

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 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
==================

- 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
  Owner: Jukka Rissanen <jukka.rissanen@linux.intel.com>

- 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
  Owner: Patrik Flykt <patrik.flykt@linux.intel.com>

- Add support for PACKET_RECV_OUTPUT socket option of AF_PACKET

  Instead of having to switch every interface manually into promiscuous
  mode, it would be useful to set PACKET_RECV_OUTPUT to receive also
  the traffic that leaves the system.

  This would make tracing PAE / EAPoL traffic easy and provides better
  sniffing capabilities.

  Priority: High
  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
  Owner: Ravi kumar Veeramally <ravikumar.veeramally@linux.intel.com>


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 802.11 authentications management frames

  Parse authentication and deauthentication managements frames: its
  header and content. Provide a core API to decode such frame into
  some easily handled structure, keeping in mind other type of frames
  will come so it has to provide a generic infrastructure which can be
  extended for future use. Focus on open and PSK based authentication
  networks first.

  Priority: High
  Complexity: C2
  Owner: Tomasz Bursztyka <tomasz.bursztyka@linux.intel.com>

- Building 802.11 authentications management frames

  The other way round, provide a core API to encode an authentication
  or deauthentication frame from a generic structure representing the
  MPDU.

  Priority: High
  Complexity: C2
  Owner: Tomasz Bursztyka <tomasz.bursztyka@linux.intel.com>

- Handle the relevant logic of the authentication management frames

  When an authentication management frame is received, such frame needs
  to be understood and handled properly.

  Priority: High
  Complexity: C2

- 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
  Owner: Denis Kenzior <denkenz@gmail.com>

- 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

- Create a document to doc describing general architecture and relation
  between different objects.

  Current understanding is that diffrent relation between elements
  looks probably like this:
      Manager->Wiphy->NetDevice->AvailableNetwork

  Wiphy is the actual physical device, NetDevice is the network interface
  and AvailableNetwork is {SSID, security} combo. Each network can have
  a list of BSSs.
  Consider also multi-wifi device scenarios. If user has multiple USB
  WiFi dongles and switches between those cards, all previously configured
  networks should still be available.

  Priority: High
  Complexity: C2

- Fix SSID handling in source files to be of type uint8_t[32], also
  add the SSID length as the SSID is not a string but can contain any
  characters.

  Priority: Medium
  Complexity: C1

- SSIDs are actually an array of bytes, not printable characters.  These days
  most SSIDs are UTF8 compliant.  There are several possible approaches to
  solve this issue.  One way would be to use bytearrays to represent SSIDs in
  the DBus APIs.  Alternatively, SSIDs that are not UTF8 compliant should be
  ignored or transformed into a UTF8 string, perhaps by using replacement
  UTF8 characters.

  Priority: Medium
  Complexity: C1

- Centralize scanning logic and handling into scan.c.

  There can be passive, active, listening (P2P) scanning to handle.
  We need to handle background scan for roaming. Also scheduled scan
  might need to be simulated when hw does not support it.
  All scanning operations should be cancellable.

  Priority: High
  Complexity: C4

- Implement agent support in iwd.

  If something needs to be asked from user, like passphrase etc.
  a DBus agent interface can be registered by the user.
  This is similar as what is implemented in ConnMan and BlueZ.

  Priority: Medium
  Complexity: C2

Client
======

- Remove kdbus left-overs, and implement the client properly with ell
  library.

  Priority: Low
  Complexity: C1