Roadmap 2022

[Martin Stein]

Thanks to the list for all the interesting insights about your work and
plans!

I'll try to keep my contribution short.

2021

At the beginning of 2021 I introduced the Uplink session to Genode as
pendant to the NIC session with swapped roles of server and client. This
allowed me to adapt all network drivers in the next step to no longer
act as NIC server but as Uplink client at a network multiplexer
component. This way, network drivers can be restarted without rendering
the network sessions of other components dead.

Throughout spring and summer, I enhanced the NIC router in several
use-case specific directions (DNS-config forwarding via DHCP,
consideration of fragmented IP, ARP-less mode).

Furthermore, I created the File Vault, a graphical user interface for
the CBE (driver for encrypted and managed block devices) and integrated
it into Sculpt. This work also made me consolidate and enhance several
features of the CBE ecosystem itself.

Another project I quite enjoyed was the introduction of a Main class in
the base-hw kernel and thereby clean up some aspects of base-hw that
were on my TODO list for a long time. This work was motivated by but
also delayed the one project of mine that came a bit short again in
2021: the Spunky kernel. However, Spunky made some steps forward. It has
now its own drivers for interrupt controller and timer as well as an Ada
implementation of the "inter-processor tasks" of base-hw.

At the end of 2021 I started porting the Linux Wireguard-implementation
to Genode. This work was the most challenging for me this year as I
seldomly do porting. The benefit, however, was that I already learned a
lot of stuff regarding the new DDE Linux approach.

2022

I will start the year with continuing my efforts regarding the Wireguard
port. In a next step, I'll work on support for hardware-based
trust-anchors which then can be combined with both Wireguard and the CBE
project.

Speaking of the CBE: The CBE and File Vault project could also use some
further care. The CBE could become much smarter when it comes to
resource management and error handling. And there are also plans for
letting CBE images grow automatically according to their needs. The File
Vault, on the other hand, should reflect all features of the CBE. E.g.,
snapshot handling is still missing.

Another thing I'm looking forward to would be a thorough review and
possible re-implementation of the VFS socket-FS. And, last but not
least, I will proceed with the completion of the Spunky kernel.

Cheers,
Martin