TODO

TODO List

Hey Emacs, this is -*- org -*- mode!

IMPORTANT!

There was a nine year gap (2009 to 2018) between edits of this file, so it is likely that much of the old information in it is wrong or no longer applicable.

Bugs, feature requests and other development related work will be tracked through the dev.gnupg.org site.

Documentation

Document all the new stuff.

Fix this TODO list.

Clean up the current TODO list. Include properties as relevant (so if someone does make a PDF or HTML version the TOC will work).

Also check to see if some of these ancient things can be removed (e.g. do we really need to fix things that were broken in GPG 1.3.x? I’m thinking not so much).

fix TODO items

Adjust todo items so each can now be referenced by custom-id and checked off as necessary.

Document validity and trust issues.

In gpgme.texi: Register callbacks under the right letter in the index.

Fix the remaining UI Server problems:

VERIFY –silent support.

ENCRYPT/DECRYPT/VERIFY/SIGN reset the engine, shouldn’t be done with UISERVER?

IMPORTANT

When using descriptor passing, we need to set the fd to blocking before

issuing simple commands, because we are mixing synchronous commands into potentially asynchronous operations.

Might want to implement nonblock for w32 native backend!

Right now we block reading the next line with assuan.

Before release:

CANCELLED Some gpg tests fail with gpg 1.3.4-cvs (gpg/t-keylist-sig)

• State “CANCELLED” from “TODO” [2018-03-09 Fri 08:16]
  WON’T FIX — too old or no longer applies.

The test is currently disabled there and in gpg/t-import.

When gpg supports it, write binary subpackets directly,

and parse SUBPACKET status lines.

ABI’s to break:

Old opassuan interface.

Implementation: Remove support for old style error codes in

conversion.c::_gpgme_map_gnupg_error.

gpgme_edit_cb_t: Add “processed” return argument

(see edit.c::command_handler).

I/O and User Data could be made extensible. But this can be done

without breaking the ABI hopefully.

All enums should be replaced by ints and simple macros for

maximum compatibility.

Compatibility interfaces that can be removed in future versions:

gpgme_data_new_from_filepart

gpgme_data_new_from_file

gpgme_data_new_with_read_cb

gpgme_data_rewind

gpgme_op_import_ext

gpgme_get_sig_key

gpgme_get_sig_ulong_attr

gpgme_get_sig_string_attr

GPGME_SIG_STAT_*

gpgme_get_sig_status

gpgme_trust_item_release

gpgme_trust_item_get_string_attr

gpgme_trust_item_get_ulong_attr

gpgme_attr_t

All Gpgme* typedefs.

Thread support:

When GNU Pth supports sendmsg/recvmsg, wrap them properly.

Without timegm (3) support our ISO time parser is not thread safe.

There is a configure time warning, though.

New features:

Flow control for data objects.

Currently, gpgme_data_t objects are assumed to be blocking. To break this assumption, we need either (A) a way for an user I/O callback to store the current operation in a continuation that can be resumed later. While the continuation exists, file descriptors associated with this operation must be removed from their respective event loop. or (B) a way for gpgme data objects to be associated with a waitable object, that can be registered with the user event loop. Neither is particularly simple.

Extended notation support. When gpg supports arbitrary binary

notation data, provide a user interface for that.

notification system

We need a simple notification system, probably a simple callback with a string and some optional arguments. This is for example required to notify an application of a changed smartcard, The application can then do whatever is required. There are other usages too. This notification system should be independent of any contextes of course.

Not sure whether this is still required. GPGME_PROTOCOL_ASSUAN is sufficient for this.

–learn-code support

This might be integrated with import. we still need to work out how to learn a card when gpg and gpgsm have support for smartcards. In GPA we currently invoke gpg directly.

Might need a stat() for data objects and use it for length param to gpg.

Implement support for photo ids.

Allow selection of subkeys

Allow to return time stamps in ISO format

This allows us to handle years later than 2037 properly. With the time_t interface they are all mapped to 2037-12-31

New features requested by our dear users, but rejected or left for

later consideration:

Allow to export secret keys.

Rejected because this is conceptually flawed. Secret keys on a smart card can not be exported, for example. May eventually e supproted with a keywrapping system.

Selecting the key ring, setting the version or comment in output.

Rejected because the naive implementation is engine specific, the configuration is part of the engine’s configuration or readily worked around in a different way

Selecting the symmetric cipher.

Exchanging keys with key servers.

Engines

Do not create/destroy engines, but create engine and then reset it.

Internally the reset operation still spawns a new engine process, but this can be replaced with a reset later. Also, be very sure to release everything properly at a reset and at an error. Think hard about where to guarantee what (ie, what happens if start fails, are the fds unregistered immediately - i think so?) Note that we need support in gpgsm to set include-certs to default as RESET does not reset it, also for no_encrypt_to and probably other options.

Optimize the case where a data object has an underlying fd we can pass

directly to the engine. This will be automatic with socket I/O and descriptor passing.

Move code common to all engines up from gpg to engine.

engine operations can return General Error on unknown protocol

(it’s an internal error, as select_protocol checks already).

When server mode is implemented properly, more care has to be taken to

release all resources on error (for example to free assuan_cmd).

op_import_keys and op_export_keys have a limit in the number of keys.

This is because we pass them in gpg via the command line and gpgsm via an assuan control line. We should pipe them instead and maybe change gpg/gpgsm to not put them in memory.

GPG breakage:

CANCELLED gpg 1.4.2 lacks error reporting if sign/encrypt with revoked key.

• State “CANCELLED” from “TODO” [2018-03-09 Fri 08:19]
  WON’T FIX.

CANCELLED gpg 1.4.2 does crappy error reporting (namely none at all) when

• State “CANCELLED” from “TODO” [2018-03-09 Fri 08:20]
  WON’T FIX.

smart card is missing for sign operation: [GNUPG:] CARDCTRL 4 gpg: selecting openpgp failed: ec=6.110 gpg: signing failed: general error [GNUPG:] BEGIN_ENCRYPTION 2 10 gpg: test: sign+encrypt failed: general error

Without agent and with wrong passphrase, gpg 1.4.2 enters into an

• State “DONE” from “TODO” [2018-03-09 Fri 08:20]
  Must have been fixed in a subsequent release.

infinite loop.

CANCELLED Use correct argv[0]

• State “CANCELLED” from “TODO” [2018-03-09 Fri 08:24]
  WON’T FIX.

  Also, there is no rungpg.c file in GPGME (or in GPG or most, if not all of the rest of the libs and packages; I suspect there hasn’t been for a very long time).

In rungpg.c:build_argv we use argv[argc] = strdup (“gpg”); * argv[0] * This should be changed to take the real file name used in account.

Operations

Include cert values -2, -1, 0 and 1 should be defined as macros.

If an operation failed, make sure that the result functions don’t return

corrupt partial information. !!! NOTE: The EOF status handler is not called in this case !!!

Verify must not fail on NODATA premature if auto-key-retrieval failed.

It should not fail silently if it knows there is an error. !!!

All operations: Better error reporting. !!

Export status handler need much more work. !!!

Import should return a useful error when one happened.

Import does not take notice of NODATA status report.

When GPGSM does issue IMPORT_OK status reports, make sure to check for

them in tests/gpgs m/t-import.c.

Verify can include info about version/algo/class, but currently

this is only available for gpg, not gpgsm.

Return ENC_TO output in verify result. Again, this is not available

for gpgsm.

Genkey should return something more useful than General_Error.

If possible, use –file-setsize to set the file size for proper progress

callback handling. Write data interface for file size.

Optimize the file descriptor list, so the number of open fds is

always known easily.

Encryption: It should be verified that the behaviour for partially untrusted

recipients is correct.

When GPG issues INV_something for invalid signers, catch them.

Error Values

Map ASSUAN/GpgSM ERR error values in a better way than is done now. !!

Some error values should identify the source more correctly (mostly error

values derived from status messages).

In rungpg.c we need to check the version of the engine

This requires a way to get the cached version number from the engine layer.

Tests

Write a fake gpg-agent so that we can supply known passphrases to

gpgsm and setup the configuration files to use the agent. Without this we are testing a currently running gpg-agent which is not a clever idea. !

t-data

Test gpgme_data_release_and_get_mem.

Test gpgme_data_seek for invalid types.

t-keylist

Write a test for ext_keylist.

Test reading key signatures.

Debug

Tracepoints should be added at: Every public interface enter/leave,

before and in every callback, at major decision points, at every internal data point which might easily be observed by the outside (system handles). We also trace handles and I/O support threads in the w32 implementation because that’s fragile code. Files left to do: data-fd.c data-mem.c data-stream.c data-user.c debug.c rungpg.c engine.c engine-gpgsm.c funopen.c w32-glib-io.c wait.c wait-global.c wait-private.c wait-user.c op-support.c decrypt.c decrypt-verify.c delete.c edit.c encrypt.c encrypt-sign.c export.c genkey.c import.c key.c keylist.c passphrase.c progress.c signers.c sig-notation.c trust-item.c trustlist.c verify.c

Handle malloc and vasprintf errors. But decide first if they should be

ignored (and logged with 255?!), or really be assertions. !

Build suite

Make sure everything is cleaned correctly (esp. test area).

Enable AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR and bump up autoconf version requirement.

(To fix “./autogen.sh; ./configure –enable-maintainer-mode; touch configure.ac; make”). Currently worked around with ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS???

Error checking

engine-gpgsm, with-validation

Add error checking some time after releasing a new gpgsm.

Language bindings and related components

Emacs and elisp binding

Currently GNU Emacs uses EPA and EPG to provide GnuPG support. EPG does this by calling the GPG executable and wrapping the commands with elisp functions. A more preferable solution would be to implement an epgme.el which integrated with GPGME, then if it could not to attempt calling the gpgme-tool and only if those failed to fall back to the current epg.el and calling the command line binaries.

API of an API

See the more detailed notes on this in the python TODO.

GPGME installation and package management guide

Write a guide/best practices for maintainers of GPGME packages with third party package management systems.

Copyright 2004, 2005, 2018 g10 Code GmbH

This file is free software; as a special exception the author gives unlimited permission to copy and/or distribute it, with or without modifications, as long as this notice is preserved.

This file is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.