Re: Available network kernel projects?

[Ryota Ozaki <ozaki-r%netbsd.org@localhost>]

Hi,

On Wed, May 6, 2015 at 6:54 PM, Christopher Humphries
<christopher%sogub.com@localhost> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I was on #netbsd on freenode and Riastradh mentioned that there may be more
> progress made on SMP networking, especially the Virtual Network Stacks
> project (sounded cool and fun), than the project list on the wiki may lead
> one to believe. What is the current state of this?

AFAIK nobody is working on the project now.

>
> If the information is out of date, which of the list of the networking
> projects may be available to work on or help with?
>
> Referencing:
> - http://wiki.netbsd.org/projects/all
> - http://wiki.netbsd.org/projects/project/virtual_network_stacks/
> - http://www.netbsd.org/~matt/smpnet.html

The official list is a bit old and some of them are already done IIUC
(PCB and "Revamped struct protosw" are probably done).
I don't know well about how to process the projects in the community though,
I guess nobody is explicitly assigned to the projects. Some developers may
be working on some of them individually. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong!)

I and my co-workers have been working on SMP networking. We had been working
around network device drivers (including MSI/MSI-X support) and Layer 2
components and we are currently working on Layer 3 (IP forwarding and routing
table). If classifying our tasks into the projects above, we are working on
"Cleanup routing code" mainly and considering tackling "Separate nexthop cache
from the routing table".

We have our own progress page:
https://github.com/IIJ-NetBSD/netbsd-src/wiki/smpnet
We break down tasks towards SMP networking and list up tasks that we plan
to work on.

>
> Looking to get started in netbsd kernel development in either networking or
> filesystem space (if I can choose).

Welcome! If you are interested in improving OS kernel's network stack,
here is a good place; there remain a lot of tasks we have to do :)
I'm now cleaning/refactoring old codes and adding tests to avoid breakages
of existing behaviors, which are not so exciting but important.

We are very welcome you join such quiet tasks, but if you want to do cool
tasks, you can pick up one (some) of the projects. "Virtual Network Stacks"
you mentioned is... maybe premature for now because it requires big code
restructuring and code cleanup/refactoring should be prior to it.
"Implement per-interface interrupt handling" (aka device polling) may be
rewarding for you.

Anyway I'm not an oldie of the community and someone more appropriate
would lead you well.

Regards,
  ozaki-r

>
> I realize 7.0 is right around the corner, so you may be busy; I appreciate
> your help!
>
> -Chris Humphries