Timeline

Timeline

Close to two years, in one table. The first part is the time before the repository, which the repository does not hold: its dates are mine, counted back from October 2026, and marked ≈ where they are approximate. The second part is the repository's own history, and every row links to its commit, page or release.

Before the repository

when	what	chapter
long before	a Sophos XG 330 in my network, running OPNsense - one computer, every port a network card	1
2024-12	the XGS 136 bought, with a two-year Sophos licence, shipped from Japan and delivered ten days later - taken apart on the first day, then reassembled	2
2024-12 to ≈ 2025-04	run as it was sold, on Sophos's own operating system, under its licence	2
≈ 2025-04	the decision, and the start of the project's eighteen months: a strong first-generation desktop whose support is heading for its end, kept alive on open source	2
≈ 2025-04 to 2025-12	eight months and a few weeks of survey, in the evenings: the XGS 136 beside the XG 330; other vendors' appliances compared to understand crypto and network coprocessors; teardowns; the sources	3
≈ 2026-01	the first XGS 3300 - a generation whose support still runs, a different coprocessor family, bought to reach the goal	4
≈ 2026-01 to 2026-09, in this order	the board's service headers; UART, JTAG and SPI adapters bought and tried - a certain failure	4
	reverse engineering from the vendors' open sources, their platform data and the coprocessors' own filesystems	5
	attempts, in stages and with many failures, at a firmware of my own for the coprocessor - and the board's many chips that complete its work	6
	the turn: the host learns the coprocessor's own protocol, and the vendor's firmware stays where it is; the two drivers written	7
2026-09-25	the repository's first commit	7

In the repository

date	what	where
2026-09-25	the XGS 136's coprocessor released from reset; the management link brought up	commits
2026-09-26	every front port its own interface	#28
2026-09-27	the gate on the front ports was a handshake - and the vendor's fast path runs	#48
2026-09-30	the XGS 3300's last hop opens: the output ring granted in the block's own unit	#143
2026-09-30	the XGS 3300's front ports as network interfaces	#144
2026-10-01	one transmit buffer per slot (29% loss to 0.0%), IPv6, the crypto engine answers; the module follows the kernel	the road, #203
2026-10-03	offload switched on - it never had been	#210
2026-10-06	the flow table and its sweep, on the XGS 3300	#255
2026-10-07	IPsec associations from strongSwan on the XGS 3300's crypto engine, both directions	#295
2026-10-08	tunnel connections in the flow table; the receive ring granted above the watermark	#305, #324
2026-10-11	the XGS 136 opened and photographed	#333
2026-10-13	an OPNsense update on the XGS 136: the module rebuilt for the new kernel, all fourteen ports back	armada.md
2026-10-14	the XGS 136: its first offloaded flow, and IPsec in hardware both ways	#388, #400
2026-10-16	the front ports assign themselves at the first boot; an image from xgs-image-builder installed on an XGS 3300; a second XGS 3300 on the bench, with a 4x10G module	#411
2026-10-17	three appliances on one bench, clear text and IPsec measured; the XGS 136's receive at 773 in and 934 out; one menu section, every string in Arabic	#419, #416, #428
2026-10-18	IPv6 flows at 9.24 and 9.27 Gbit/s on the XGS 3300; both tables the size the board states; four transmit queues on the XGS 136; the first release, 0.1.0-alpha.1	release
2026-10-18	0.1.0-alpha.1.1 the same day: the problem reporter tells crashes apart, the chipset's record of why the host last reset kept at every boot, a progress bar on the Updates page	release
2026-10-19	open connections cut by a block list and by a TLS fingerprint; the XGS 3300's coprocessor counts what it forwards, and pf and the interfaces count it too; unusual traffic reported; the coprocessor's DoS commands probed - it drops no address	#508, #511, #516, #518, #519
2026-10-19	the XGS 136 reads its coprocessor's counts into pf and the interfaces; a connection its fast path gives back soon after it was made waits with the host; each cage reports the medium its module carries; every page of the XGS menu renders again on appliances set up by the installer	#528, #532, #535, #537
2026-10-19	0.1.0-alpha.2: eleven fixes and twenty improvements gathered since 0.1.0-alpha.1.1	release
2026-10-19	the three appliances updated to 0.1.0-alpha.2 from their own Updates page, every step photographed; 0.1.0-alpha.2.1 the same evening: a build from a test branch is offered the release, a reboot only when the driver changed	guide, release

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