GSOC Network Configuration Libraries

[Hanwen Gu]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Hanwen Gu <***@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Mar 4, 2024 at 10:50 PM
Subject: GSOC Network Configuration Libraries
To: ***@freebsd.org <***@freebsd.org>
Cc: <***@freebsg.org>


Hi,

I am a second year student at Huazhong University of Science and
Technology (Wuhan, China), and I'm interested in working with FreeBSD
on the Network Configuration Libraries project for GSOC 2024.

FreeBSD has been my daily driver for several months now and I'd really
love to contribute back to the community. I am familiar with C systems
programming and networking, and I've been able to configure ipfw NAT
for my bhyve vms.

I am planning on working on a proposal for this project. If you could
provide me with more guidance or suggestions, I would greatly
appreciate it.

Thanks for reading!

Regards,
Hanwen Gu

[Joseph Mingrone]

Hi Hanwen,

It's great to hear from potential GSoC contributors already running
FreeBSD. And, It sounds like you're on the right track by starting
early and contacting Allan, the proposed mentor. It's important that
you two discuss the project early on to ensure everyone's expectations
align. You should cover key points, such as required skills, project
difficulty, and duration. Allan may also recommend some ways you could
explore the project more, such as investigating some related bugs.

If you both decide that this is something you want to spend your summer
on, this page has some tips for writing a good proposal.

https://google.github.io/gsocguides/student/writing-a-proposal

You probably found it already, but we also have information about
FreeBSD and GSoC at https://www.freebsd.org/projects/summerofcode/.

Feel free to post any technical questions about the project here, or
contact soc-***@FreeBSD.org with any other questions about the
FreeBSD GSoC application process.

Kind regards,

Joe

Post by Hanwen Gu
---------- Forwarded message ---------
Date: Mon, Mar 4, 2024 at 10:50 PM
Subject: GSOC Network Configuration Libraries
Hi,
I am a second year student at Huazhong University of Science and
Technology (Wuhan, China), and I'm interested in working with FreeBSD
on the Network Configuration Libraries project for GSOC 2024.
FreeBSD has been my daily driver for several months now and I'd really
love to contribute back to the community. I am familiar with C systems
programming and networking, and I've been able to configure ipfw NAT
for my bhyve vms.
I am planning on working on a proposal for this project. If you could
provide me with more guidance or suggestions, I would greatly
appreciate it.
Thanks for reading!
Regards,
Hanwen Gu

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[Hanwen Gu]

Hi Joe,

Thank you for the advice. I will try to cover more information in
later communications.


Thanks,

Hanwen

Post by Joseph Mingrone
Hi Hanwen,
It's great to hear from potential GSoC contributors already running
FreeBSD. And, It sounds like you're on the right track by starting
early and contacting Allan, the proposed mentor. It's important that
you two discuss the project early on to ensure everyone's expectations
align. You should cover key points, such as required skills, project
difficulty, and duration. Allan may also recommend some ways you could
explore the project more, such as investigating some related bugs.
If you both decide that this is something you want to spend your summer
on, this page has some tips for writing a good proposal.
https://google.github.io/gsocguides/student/writing-a-proposal
You probably found it already, but we also have information about
FreeBSD and GSoC at https://www.freebsd.org/projects/summerofcode/.
Feel free to post any technical questions about the project here, or
FreeBSD GSoC application process.
Kind regards,
Joe

Post by Hanwen Gu
---------- Forwarded message ---------
Date: Mon, Mar 4, 2024 at 10:50 PM
Subject: GSOC Network Configuration Libraries
Hi,
I am a second year student at Huazhong University of Science and
Technology (Wuhan, China), and I'm interested in working with FreeBSD
on the Network Configuration Libraries project for GSOC 2024.
FreeBSD has been my daily driver for several months now and I'd really
love to contribute back to the community. I am familiar with C systems
programming and networking, and I've been able to configure ipfw NAT
for my bhyve vms.
I am planning on working on a proposal for this project. If you could
provide me with more guidance or suggestions, I would greatly
appreciate it.
Thanks for reading!
Regards,
Hanwen Gu

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[Peter 'PMc' Much]

Hi,

I had noticed that project suggestion by Allan Jude. This is an
interesting matter, as, in fact, ipfw lacks some kind of higher level
interface to configure it.

I was confronted with this lack of tooling a few years ago when I
moved my jails to VIMAGE, And I noticed that combining NAT
functionality with stateful rule behaviour (and possibly other features
like packet forwarding) brings along a couple of gotchas - it is not
really trivial; and also, many of the examples circling on the net were
(are?) kinda sub-optimal.

Finally I decided to just write the necessary code. However, I chose
the approach that appeared most feasible to me (for my needs,
obviousely) which happened to be not a library, but a freestanding
web-application. Also I decided to do a full solution that can handle
any number of interconnected interfaces and networks, and insert any
number of filters into any flow (where filters could be NAT, suricata,
NPTv6, or whatever); so this is not (only) for a laptop.

Then, I asked around if anybody would be interested in the matter,
and found low interest in ipfw in general, and no interest at all in
GUI tools (GUI is apparently un-Berkeley). Consequentially I didn't
bother to write a documentation, or think about a license to publish
the material (because why should I throw stuff after people who aren't
interested?)

Anyway, you might be interested is issues like this PR 269770, and
there is also a few kernel patches I needed, but these are mostly for
IPv6 tunneling and hot reloading.

cheerio,
PMc


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