STATUS

   1
   2   OpenSSL STATUS                           Last modified at
   3   ______________                           $Date: 1999/04/27 01:13:19 $
   4
   5   DEVELOPMENT STATE
   6
   7     o  OpenSSL 1.0:    Under development...
   8                        Proposed freeze  date: Mon May  8th, 1999
   9                        Proposed release date: Mon May 17th, 1999
  10     o  OpenSSL 0.9.2b: Released on March    22th, 1999
  11     o  OpenSSL 0.9.1c: Released on December 23th, 1998
  12
  13      [ Proposed new numbering scheme: <major>.<minor>[<patchlevel>]
  14        0.9.1c is   0913
  15        1.0    is 010000
  16        1.0  a is 100001
  17        1.8  z is 01081a ]
  18
  19   RELEASE SHOWSTOPPERS
  20
  21     o Compilation warnings: ctype-related int vs. char
  22     o BSD/OS: assembler functions must not have leading underscores
  23     o exptest and rsa_oaep_test fail with irix64-*
  24       (Don Badrak <dbadrak@geo.census.gov>: "Re: Problems to compile openssl
  25           on IRIX 6.2", openssl-users)
  26     o BN_add test fails on Caldera OpenLinux 1.3
  27       (Marc Christensen <Marc.Christensen@m.cc.utah.edu>
  28           "Compiles but fails big number test?", openssl-users)
  29
  30   AVAILABLE PATCHES
  31
  32     o OCSP (titchenert@certco.com)
  33     o Install prefix for packagers (dharris@drh.net)
  34     o getenv in ca.c and x509_def.c (jaltman@watsun.cc.columbia.edu)
  35     o linux dynamic libs (colin@field.medicine.adelaide.edu.au)
  36     o MingW support (niklas@canit.se)
  37
  38   IN PROGRESS
  39
  40     o Steve is currently working on (in no particular order):
  41         Proper (or at least usable) certificate chain verification.
  42         Documentation on X509 V3 extension code.
  43         PKCS#12 code cleanup and enhancement.
  44         PKCS #8 and PKCS#5 v2.0 support.
  45         Private key, certificate and CRL API and implementation.
  46
  47     o Mark is currently working on:
  48         Folding in any changes that are in the C2Net code base that were
  49         not in the original SSLeay-0.9.1.b release.  Plus other minor
  50         tidying.
  51
  52     o Ralf is currently working on:
  53         1. Support for SSL_set_default_verify_paths(),
  54            SSL_load_verify_locations(), SSL_get_cert_store() and
  55            SSL_set_cert_store() functions which work like their existing
  56            SSL_CTX_xxx() variants but on a per connection basis. That's needed
  57            to let us provide full-featured per-URL client verification in
  58            mod_ssl or Apache-SSL.
  59            => It still dumps core, so I suspend this and investigate
  60               again for OpenSSL 0.9.3.
  61         2. The perl/ stuff to make it really work the first time ;-)
  62            => I'll investigate a few more hours for OpenSSL 0.9.2
  63         3. The new documentation set in POD format under doc/
  64            => I'll investigate a few more hours for OpenSSL 0.9.2
  65         4. More cleanups to get rid of obsolete/old/ugly files in the
  66            source tree which are not really needed.
  67            => Done all which were possible with my personal knowledge
  68
  69     o Ben is currently working on:
  70         1. Function Prototype Thought Police issues.
  71         2. Integrated documentation.
  72         3. New TLS Ciphersuites.
  73         4. Anything else that takes his fancy.
  74
  75   NEEDS PATCH
  76
  77     o  broken demos
  78     o  salzr@certco.com (Rich Salz): Bug in X509_name_print
  79        <29E0A6D39ABED111A36000A0C99609CA2C2BA4@macertco-srv1.ma.certco.com>
  80     o  Jean-Hugues ROYER <jhroyer@joher.com>: rsa_oaep.c with Watcom C
  81     o  $(PERL) in */Makefile.ssl
  82     o  "Sign the certificate?" - "n" creates empty certificate file
  83     o  dubious declaration of crypt() in des.h
  84
  85   OPEN ISSUES
  86
  87     o  The Makefile hierarchy and build mechanism is still not a round thing:
  88
  89        1. The config vs. Configure scripts
  90           It's the same nasty situation as for Apache with APACI vs.
  91           src/Configure. It confuses.
  92           Suggestion: Merge Configure and config into a single configure
  93                       script with a Autoconf style interface ;-) and remove
  94                       Configure and config. Or even let us use GNU Autoconf
  95                       itself. Then we can avoid a lot of those platform checks
  96                       which are currently in Configure.
  97
  98     o  The installation under "make install" produces a very
  99        installation layout: $prefix/certs and $prefix/private dirs.  That's
 100        not nice. Ralf suggests to move the two certs and private dirs either
 101        to $prefix/etc/, $prefix/lib/ or $prefix/share. Alternatively
 102        we could also not install the certs at all.
 103
 104        Status: Ralf +1 for both not installing the certs at all and
 105                        moving it to $prefix/etc/. +0 for $prefix/lib/
 106                        and $prefix/share.
 107                Paul: why is it not nice?
 108                Ralf: because it messes up the install dir when
 109                      $prefix is not a dedicated area like /usr/local/ssl.
 110                      When we move them to a standard subdir like
 111                      etc/ lib/ or share/ we don't mess up things
 112                      when $prefix is /usr or /usr/local, etc.
 113                      Additionally it makes package vendors life
 114                      easier....
 115
 116     o  Support for Shared Libraries has to be added at least
 117        for the major Unix platforms. The details we can rip from the stuff
 118        Ralf has done for the Apache src/Configure script. Ben wants the
 119        solution to be really simple.
 120
 121        Status: Ralf will look how we can easily incorporate the
 122                compiler PIC and linker DSO flags from Apache
 123                into the OpenSSL Configure script.
 124
 125     o  The perl/ stuff needs a major overhaul. Currently it's
 126        totally obsolete. Either we clean it up and enhance it to be up-to-date
 127        with the C code or we also could replace it with the really nice
 128        Net::SSLeay package we can find under
 129        http://www.neuronio.pt/SSLeay.pm.html.  Ralf uses this package for a
 130        longer time and it works fine and is a nice Perl module. Best would be
 131        to convince the author to work for the OpenSSL project and create a
 132        Net::OpenSSL or Crypt::OpenSSL package out of it and maintains it for
 133        us.
 134
 135        Status: Ralf thinks we should both contact the author of Net::SSLeay
 136                and look how much effort it is to bring Eric's perl/ stuff up
 137                to date.
 138                Paul +1
 139
 140     o The EVP and ASN1 stuff is a mess. Currently you have one EVP_CIPHER
 141       structure for each cipher. This may make sense for things like DES but
 142       for variable length ciphers like RC2 and RC4 it is NBG. Need a way to
 143       use the EVP interface and set up the cipher parameters. The ASN1 stuff
 144       is also foo wrt ciphers whose AlgorithmIdentifier has more than just
 145       an IV in it (e.g. RC2, RC5). This also means that EVP_Seal and EVP_Open
 146       don't work unless the key length matches the fixed value (some vendors
 147       use a key length decided by the size of the RSA encrypted key and expect
 148       RC2 to adapt).
 149
 150     o Properly initialize the PRNG in the absence of /dev/random.
 151
 152     o ERR_error_string(..., buf) does not know how large buf is,
 153       there should be ERR_error_string_n(..., buf, bufsize)
 154       or similar.
 155
 156   WISHES
 157
 158     o  Damien Miller:
 159        "How about making the each of the locations compile-time defined. I
 160        would like to (for example) put binaries in /usr/bin, configuration
 161        data, certs and keys in /etc/openssl/certs and /etc/openssl/keys, etc.
 162        This would also be a great boon to binary package makers.  The
 163        SSLeay-0.9.1b RPM already includes some patches which do some of this.
 164        I can forward them if you wish."
 165
 166     o  Mats Nilsson <mats.nilsson@xware.se>:
 167        "Add reference counting to all substructures of X509 etc. For instance,
 168        X509_NAME lacks a reference counter, while EVP_PKEY has one.  I'm
 169        making COM-wrappers for selected parts of SSLeay for a project of ours,
 170        and has found this inconsistency in copy semantics annoying."
 171