xref: /freebsd/contrib/libpcap/TODO (revision f0a75d274af375d15b97b830966b99a02b7db911)
1 TODO list for libpcap
2=======================
3
4Important stuff (to be done before the next release)
5---------------
6
7General
8
9- configure should not be in the CVS. Most open source projects have an
10  autogen.sh script to run autoconf etc. after checkout. I think we
11  should stick to the standard.
12
13- The source files should be better documented. There is no official
14  design guideline for what is done where. There should be a common coding
15  style (okay, you can guess that by looking at the code) and a guide for
16  what needs to be documented.
17
18Linux kernel interface
19
20- Currently there is a race condition in that a socket is activated at the
21  same time it is opened - before applying a filter. This has to
22  be corrected so that capture starts when pcap_read is called for the
23  first time.
24
25Less urgent items
26-----------------
27
28- Better documentation and cleanup of the interface. I am seeing a few
29  problems at the first glance which needs fixing:
30  + pcap_lookupnet makes little to no sense with protocols != IPv4
31  + not very well suited for interactive programs (think ethereal). There
32    should be a way for the application to get a file descriptor which it
33    has to monitor and a callback in pcap which has to be called on
34    activity (XXX - "pcap_fileno()" handles the first part, although
35    "select()" and "poll()" don't work on BPF devices on most BSDs, and
36    you can call "pcap_dispatch()" as the dispatch routine after putting
37    the descriptor into non-blocking mode)
38  + too many functions. There are a lot of functions for everything which
39    violates the KISS principle. Why do we need pcap_strerror, pcap_perror
40    and pcap_geterr?
41  + the manpage has a brief description of each function but where is the
42    big picture? Seems like you need to buy UNP for that...
43