New stack

This page describes the development of the new network stack for KolibriOS

Since SVN #3556, the code has been merged in trunk and is now available in the english, russian spanish and italian builds of kolibrios!

You can find the latest source code on svn://kolibrios.org/kernel/trunk (websvn)

You can download an image file with pre-compiled library, applications, kernel and drivers on the builds page

All bugs may be reported to KolibriOS bug tracker

Progress

The old kernel functions 52 and 53 have been removed and the New_network_api has been created.
Internally, the stack has been completely rewritten (mostly from scratch)

• Working

  • Attaching multiple network drivers/devices to the kernel
  • Sending and receiving Ethernet/IPv4/UDP/ICMP/ARP/TCP packets
  • Queuing of packets when necessary
  • UDP/TCP/RAW(ICMP/IP..) sockets (POSIX compatible)
  • Blocking sockets
  • IPC/local sockets (needs testing)
  • Dedicated network buffers (need to finish NET_alloc, NET_free)
  • IP address assignment for all network interfaces

• Under construction

  • Link detection for all network drivers (Currently works on RTL8139, RTL8169, forcedeth, mtd80x, i8254x)
  • Improved routing

• TODO

  • TCP: reassembly queue, testing (timestamps, RTT, PAWS, ...), ...
  • PPP (need help developing/testing)

Drivers

In net-branch, the network drivers are external drivers, as described in Writing_drivers_for_KolibriOS.

The specifications of the new network drivers can be found in the article Writing_network_drivers_for_KolibriOS.

Currently supported network hardware

Unsupported PCI card? If you have a PCI/PCI-X/PCI-express ethernet card which is not listed above, and would like to acces the internet in KolibriOS, you may send me the card, and I'll send you one back that is already supported.

Programs

FTPc

CLI FTP client.
Uses console.obj

Also see: Using kolibrios.org with ftpc

FTPd

Full fledged FTP daemon. Fully configureable through ini files.
Status: Basic commands work.
uses libini.obj, libio.obj and console.obj, TODO: STOR command, dont use libio, ...

IRCc

New IRC client. Under construction.
uses network.obj, libini.obj and box_lib.obj

NetCFG

This program is used to load the network drivers.
You can run it with parameter 'F' to silently load first detected card, or parameter 'A' to load all cards.
No parameters will load the GUI.

Netstat

This program allows you to read the status of ethernet, ipv4, icmp, arp udp and tcp.
TODO: allow user to set ARP settings, and save those to .ini file.

nslookup

Commandline DNS client.
This program uses network.obj and console.obj

ping

A program to ping a remote host using the ICMP protocol
Only fixed packet size for now.
uses network.obj, libini.obj and console.obj

SynergyC

Software KM-switch, (Synergy - client) for windows/unix/.. versions, see http://synergy-foss.org
This version is compatible with version 1.3.1
Only mouse events are accepted in the current version.
There is a bug in the loading of libraries which might cause program to crash on loading
uses network.obj, libini.obj and console.obj

Telnet

A simple telnet client
This program uses network.obj and console.obj

TFTPc

A TFTP client with a GUI.
uses libio.obj, network.obj and box_lib.obj

VNCclient

This program allows you to control a remote computer. The remote computer must be running a VNC server that support the RFB 3.3 protocol.
The client currently supports RAW, CopyRect, RRE and TRLE encodings.
Authentication to a password protected VNC server is possible through the "VNC Authentication" algorithm.
There is currently no support for encryption.
TODO: ZRLE, ..

Zeroconf

This program reads settings from network.ini and configures the tcp/ip stack accordingly
You may choose for a manual setup, or dhcp / link-local.
TODO: keep listening for DHCP release packets etc.

NetSurf

Under construction
TODO: Improve front-end, ...

SocketDBG

Program that can be used for printing socket variables, usefull for debugging.

PPPoE

PPPoE dialer - unfinished

TCPserv

TCP server demo program, this program can be used with iperf client to measure performance of the stack.

Libraries

network.obj

Network library for KolibriOS, written by Clevermouse. Primary functions are getaddrinfo, inet_ntoa.

http.obj

HTTP client library, can be used to fetch content from the web.
Currently support HTTP/1.1 GET, POST and HEAD methods. HTTP proxy's are also supported (settings in network.ini).

Applications, old vs new

old	new	remarks
airc	ircc	IRC client (rewritten from scratch)
arpstat	netstat	ARP configuration utility (rewritten)
chess	/	may be ported
dhcp	/	replaced by zeroconf
dnsr	nslookup	Name service lookup (DNS resolver)
downloader	downloader	rewritten
ethstat	/	N/A
ftps	ftpd	FTP daemon (server)
https	/	may be ported, better to rewrite
icq	/	may be ported
ipc	/	may be ported
local	/	may be ported
mp3s	/	may be ported
netsendc	/	may be ported
netsends	/	may be ported
nntpc	/	may be ported
popc	/	may be ported (or replaced with liza?)
ppp	/	N/A (a new utility should be made)
rccc	/	may be ported
rccs	/	may be ported
remote	/	may be ported
smtps	/	may be ported
stackcfg	netstat	not possible to manually set ip yet (and may need better name)
telnet	telnet	rewritten from scratch
terminal	/	N/A
tftpa	/	may be ported
tftpc	tftpc	Trivial File Transer Protocol Client
VNCclient	vncc	ported
ym	/	may be ported
zeroconf	zeroconf	ported

We need your help!

If you think you can help with further development of networking applications, driver or kernel code in any way, please let us know through the forum or IRC channel.