1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
|
_ _ ____ _
___| | | | _ \| |
/ __| | | | |_) | |
| (__| |_| | _ <| |___
\___|\___/|_| \_\_____|
Things that could be nice to do in the future
Things to do in project cURL. Please tell us what you think, contribute and
send us patches that improve things!
All bugs documented in the KNOWN_BUGS document are subject for fixing!
1. libcurl
1.2 More data sharing
1.3 struct lifreq
1.4 signal-based resolver timeouts
1.5 get rid of PATH_MAX
1.6 progress callback without doubles
1.7 Happy Eyeball dual stack connect
2. libcurl - multi interface
2.1 More non-blocking
2.2 Fix HTTP Pipelining for PUT
3. Documentation
3.1 More and better
4. FTP
4.1 HOST
4.2 Alter passive/active on failure and retry
4.3 Earlier bad letter detection
4.4 REST for large files
4.5 FTP proxy support
4.6 ASCII support
5. HTTP
5.1 Better persistency for HTTP 1.0
5.2 support FF3 sqlite cookie files
5.3 Rearrange request header order
6. TELNET
6.1 ditch stdin
6.2 ditch telnet-specific select
6.3 feature negotiation debug data
6.4 send data in chunks
7. SSL
7.1 Disable specific versions
7.2 Provide mutex locking API
7.3 Evaluate SSL patches
7.4 Cache OpenSSL contexts
7.5 Export session ids
7.6 Provide callback for cert verification
7.7 Support other SSL libraries
7.9 improve configure --with-ssl
7.10 Support DANE
8. GnuTLS
8.1 SSL engine stuff
8.3 check connection
9. SMTP
9.1 Specify the preferred authentication mechanism
9.2 Initial response
9.3 Pipelining
10. POP3
10.1 auth= in URLs
10.2 Initial response
11. LDAP
11.1 SASL based authentication mechanisms
12. Other protocols
13. New protocols
13.1 RSYNC
14. SASL
14.1 Other authentication mechanisms
15. Client
15.1 sync
15.2 glob posts
15.3 prevent file overwriting
15.4 simultaneous parallel transfers
15.5 provide formpost headers
15.6 url-specific options
15.7 warning when setting an option
15.8 IPv6 addresses with globbing
16. Build
16.1 roffit
17. Test suite
17.1 SSL tunnel
17.2 nicer lacking perl message
17.3 more protocols supported
17.4 more platforms supported
18. Next SONAME bump
18.1 http-style HEAD output for ftp
18.2 combine error codes
18.3 extend CURLOPT_SOCKOPTFUNCTION prototype
19. Next major release
19.1 cleanup return codes
19.2 remove obsolete defines
19.3 size_t
19.4 remove several functions
19.5 remove CURLOPT_FAILONERROR
19.6 remove CURLOPT_DNS_USE_GLOBAL_CACHE
19.7 remove progress meter from libcurl
19.8 remove 'curl_httppost' from public
19.9 have form functions use CURL handle argument
19.10 Add CURLOPT_MAIL_CLIENT option
==============================================================================
1. libcurl
1.2 More data sharing
curl_share_* functions already exist and work, and they can be extended to
share more. For example, enable sharing of the ares channel and the
connection cache.
1.3 struct lifreq
Use 'struct lifreq' and SIOCGLIFADDR instead of 'struct ifreq' and
SIOCGIFADDR on newer Solaris versions as they claim the latter is obsolete.
To support ipv6 interface addresses for network interfaces properly.
1.4 signal-based resolver timeouts
libcurl built without an asynchronous resolver library uses alarm() to time
out DNS lookups. When a timeout occurs, this causes libcurl to jump from the
signal handler back into the library with a sigsetjmp, which effectively
causes libcurl to continue running within the signal handler. This is
non-portable and could cause problems on some platforms. A discussion on the
problem is available at http://curl.haxx.se/mail/lib-2008-09/0197.html
Also, alarm() provides timeout resolution only to the nearest second. alarm
ought to be replaced by setitimer on systems that support it.
1.5 get rid of PATH_MAX
Having code use and rely on PATH_MAX is not nice:
http://insanecoding.blogspot.com/2007/11/pathmax-simply-isnt.html
Currently the SSH based code uses it a bit, but to remove PATH_MAX from there
we need libssh2 to properly tell us when we pass in a too small buffer and
its current API (as of libssh2 1.2.7) doesn't.
1.6 progress callback without doubles
The progress callback was introduced way back in the days and the choice to
use doubles in the arguments was possibly good at the time. Today the doubles
only confuse users and make the amounts less precise. We should introduce
another progress callback option that take precedence over the old one and
have both co-exist for a forseeable time until we can remove the double-using
one.
1.7 Happy Eyeball dual stack connect
In order to make alternative technologies not suffer when transitioning, like
when introducing IPv6 as an alternative to IPv4 and there are more than one
option existing simultaneously there are reasons to reconsider internal
choices.
To make libcurl do blazing fast IPv6 in a dual-stack configuration, this needs
to be addressed:
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6555
2. libcurl - multi interface
2.1 More non-blocking
Make sure we don't ever loop because of non-blocking sockets returning
EWOULDBLOCK or similar. Blocking cases include:
- Name resolves on non-windows unless c-ares is used
- NSS SSL connections
- HTTP proxy CONNECT operations
- SOCKS proxy handshakes
- file:// transfers
- TELNET transfers
- The "DONE" operation (post transfer protocol-specific actions) for the
protocols SFTP, SMTP, FTP. Fixing Curl_done() for this is a worthy task.
2.2 Fix HTTP Pipelining for PUT
HTTP Pipelining can be a way to greatly enhance performance for multiple
serial requests and currently libcurl only supports that for HEAD and GET
requests but it should also be possible for PUT.
3. Documentation
3.1 More and better
Exactly
4. FTP
4.1 HOST
HOST is a suggested command in the works for a client to tell which host name
to use, to offer FTP servers named-based virtual hosting:
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hethmon-mcmurray-ftp-hosts-11
4.2 Alter passive/active on failure and retry
When trying to connect passively to a server which only supports active
connections, libcurl returns CURLE_FTP_WEIRD_PASV_REPLY and closes the
connection. There could be a way to fallback to an active connection (and
vice versa). http://curl.haxx.se/bug/feature.cgi?id=1754793
4.3 Earlier bad letter detection
Make the detection of (bad) %0d and %0a codes in FTP url parts earlier in the
process to avoid doing a resolve and connect in vain.
4.4 REST for large files
REST fix for servers not behaving well on >2GB requests. This should fail if
the server doesn't set the pointer to the requested index. The tricky
(impossible?) part is to figure out if the server did the right thing or not.
4.5 FTP proxy support
Support the most common FTP proxies, Philip Newton provided a list allegedly
from ncftp. This is not a subject without debate, and is probably not really
suitable for libcurl. http://curl.haxx.se/mail/archive-2003-04/0126.html
4.6 ASCII support
FTP ASCII transfers do not follow RFC959. They don't convert the data
accordingly.
5. HTTP
5.1 Better persistency for HTTP 1.0
"Better" support for persistent connections over HTTP 1.0
http://curl.haxx.se/bug/feature.cgi?id=1089001
5.2 support FF3 sqlite cookie files
Firefox 3 is changing from its former format to a a sqlite database instead.
We should consider how (lib)curl can/should support this.
http://curl.haxx.se/bug/feature.cgi?id=1871388
5.3 Rearrange request header order
Server implementors often make an effort to detect browser and to reject
clients it can detect to not match. One of the last details we cannot yet
control in libcurl's HTTP requests, which also can be exploited to detect
that libcurl is in fact used even when it tries to impersonate a browser, is
the order of the request headers. I propose that we introduce a new option in
which you give headers a value, and then when the HTTP request is built it
sorts the headers based on that number. We could then have internally created
headers use a default value so only headers that need to be moved have to be
specified.
6. TELNET
6.1 ditch stdin
Reading input (to send to the remote server) on stdin is a crappy solution for
library purposes. We need to invent a good way for the application to be able
to provide the data to send.
6.2 ditch telnet-specific select
Move the telnet support's network select() loop go away and merge the code
into the main transfer loop. Until this is done, the multi interface won't
work for telnet.
6.3 feature negotiation debug data
Add telnet feature negotiation data to the debug callback as header data.
6.4 send data in chunks
Currently, telnet sends data one byte at a time. This is fine for interactive
use, but inefficient for any other. Sent data should be sent in larger
chunks.
7. SSL
7.1 Disable specific versions
Provide an option that allows for disabling specific SSL versions, such as
SSLv2 http://curl.haxx.se/bug/feature.cgi?id=1767276
7.2 Provide mutex locking API
Provide a libcurl API for setting mutex callbacks in the underlying SSL
library, so that the same application code can use mutex-locking
independently of OpenSSL or GnutTLS being used.
7.3 Evaluate SSL patches
Evaluate/apply Gertjan van Wingerde's SSL patches:
http://curl.haxx.se/mail/lib-2004-03/0087.html
7.4 Cache OpenSSL contexts
"Look at SSL cafile - quick traces look to me like these are done on every
request as well, when they should only be necessary once per ssl context (or
once per handle)". The major improvement we can rather easily do is to make
sure we don't create and kill a new SSL "context" for every request, but
instead make one for every connection and re-use that SSL context in the same
style connections are re-used. It will make us use slightly more memory but
it will libcurl do less creations and deletions of SSL contexts.
7.5 Export session ids
Add an interface to libcurl that enables "session IDs" to get
exported/imported. Cris Bailiff said: "OpenSSL has functions which can
serialise the current SSL state to a buffer of your choice, and recover/reset
the state from such a buffer at a later date - this is used by mod_ssl for
apache to implement and SSL session ID cache".
7.6 Provide callback for cert verification
OpenSSL supports a callback for customised verification of the peer
certificate, but this doesn't seem to be exposed in the libcurl APIs. Could
it be? There's so much that could be done if it were!
7.7 Support other SSL libraries
Make curl's SSL layer capable of using other free SSL libraries. Such as
MatrixSSL (http://www.matrixssl.org/).
7.9 improve configure --with-ssl
make the configure --with-ssl option first check for OpenSSL, then GnuTLS,
then NSS...
7.10 Support DANE
DNS-Based Authentication of Named Entities (DANE) is a way to provide SSL
keys and certs over DNS using DNSSEC as an alternative to the CA model.
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6698.txt
8. GnuTLS
8.1 SSL engine stuff
Is this even possible?
8.3 check connection
Add a way to check if the connection seems to be alive, to correspond to the
SSL_peak() way we use with OpenSSL.
9. SMTP
9.1 Specify the preferred authentication mechanism
Add the ability to specify the preferred authentication mechanism or a list
of mechanisms that should be used. Not only that, but the order that is
returned by the server during the EHLO response should be honored by curl.
9.2 Initial response
Add the ability for the user to specify whether the initial response is
included in the AUTH command. Some email servers, such as Microsoft
Exchange, can work with either whilst others need to have the initial
response sent separately:
http://curl.haxx.se/mail/lib-2012-03/0114.html
9.3 Pipelining
Add support for pipelining emails.
10. POP3
10.1 auth= in URLs
Being able to specify the preferred authentication mechanism in the URL as
per RFC2384.
10.2 Inital response
Add the ability for the user to specify whether the initial response is
included in the AUTH command as per RFC5034.
11. LDAP
11.1 SASL based authentication mechanisms
Currently the LDAP module only supports ldap_simple_bind_s() in order to bind
to an LDAP server. However, this function sends username and password details
using the simple authentication mechanism (as clear text). However, it should
be possible to use ldap_bind_s() instead specifing the security context
information ourselves.
12. Other protocols
13. New protocols
13.1 RSYNC
There's no RFC for the protocol or an URI/URL format. An implementation
should most probably use an existing rsync library, such as librsync.
14. SASL
14.1 Other authentication mechanisms
Add support for gssapi to SMTP, POP3 and IMAP.
15. Client
15.1 sync
"curl --sync http://example.com/feed[1-100].rss" or
"curl --sync http://example.net/{index,calendar,history}.html"
Downloads a range or set of URLs using the remote name, but only if the
remote file is newer than the local file. A Last-Modified HTTP date header
should also be used to set the mod date on the downloaded file.
15.2 glob posts
Globbing support for -d and -F, as in 'curl -d "name=foo[0-9]" URL'.
This is easily scripted though.
15.3 prevent file overwriting
Add an option that prevents cURL from overwriting existing local files. When
used, and there already is an existing file with the target file name
(either -O or -o), a number should be appended (and increased if already
existing). So that index.html becomes first index.html.1 and then
index.html.2 etc.
15.4 simultaneous parallel transfers
The client could be told to use maximum N simultaneous parallel transfers and
then just make sure that happens. It should of course not make more than one
connection to the same remote host. This would require the client to use the
multi interface. http://curl.haxx.se/bug/feature.cgi?id=1558595
15.5 provide formpost headers
Extending the capabilities of the multipart formposting. How about leaving
the ';type=foo' syntax as it is and adding an extra tag (headers) which
works like this: curl -F "coolfiles=@fil1.txt;headers=@fil1.hdr" where
fil1.hdr contains extra headers like
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=KOI8-R"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
X-User-Comment: Please don't use browser specific HTML code
which should overwrite the program reasonable defaults (plain/text,
8bit...)
15.6 url-specific options
Provide a way to make options bound to a specific URL among several on the
command line. Possibly by letting ':' separate options between URLs,
similar to this:
curl --data foo --url url.com : \
--url url2.com : \
--url url3.com --data foo3
(More details: http://curl.haxx.se/mail/archive-2004-07/0133.html)
The example would do a POST-GET-POST combination on a single command line.
15.7 warning when setting an option
Display a warning when libcurl returns an error when setting an option.
This can be useful to tell when support for a particular feature hasn't been
compiled into the library.
15.8 IPv6 addresses with globbing
Currently the command line client needs to get url globbing disabled (with
-g) for it to support IPv6 numerical addresses. This is a rather silly flaw
that should be corrected. It probably involves a smarter detection of the
'[' and ']' letters.
16. Build
16.1 roffit
Consider extending 'roffit' to produce decent ASCII output, and use that
instead of (g)nroff when building src/tool_hugehelp.c
17. Test suite
17.1 SSL tunnel
Make our own version of stunnel for simple port forwarding to enable HTTPS
and FTP-SSL tests without the stunnel dependency, and it could allow us to
provide test tools built with either OpenSSL or GnuTLS
17.2 nicer lacking perl message
If perl wasn't found by the configure script, don't attempt to run the tests
but explain something nice why it doesn't.
17.3 more protocols supported
Extend the test suite to include more protocols. The telnet could just do ftp
or http operations (for which we have test servers).
17.4 more platforms supported
Make the test suite work on more platforms. OpenBSD and Mac OS. Remove
fork()s and it should become even more portable.
18. Next SONAME bump
18.1 http-style HEAD output for ftp
#undef CURL_FTP_HTTPSTYLE_HEAD in lib/ftp.c to remove the HTTP-style headers
from being output in NOBODY requests over ftp
18.2 combine error codes
Combine some of the error codes to remove duplicates. The original
numbering should not be changed, and the old identifiers would be
macroed to the new ones in an CURL_NO_OLDIES section to help with
backward compatibility.
Candidates for removal and their replacements:
CURLE_FILE_COULDNT_READ_FILE => CURLE_REMOTE_FILE_NOT_FOUND
CURLE_FTP_COULDNT_RETR_FILE => CURLE_REMOTE_FILE_NOT_FOUND
CURLE_FTP_COULDNT_USE_REST => CURLE_RANGE_ERROR
CURLE_FUNCTION_NOT_FOUND => CURLE_FAILED_INIT
CURLE_LDAP_INVALID_URL => CURLE_URL_MALFORMAT
CURLE_TFTP_NOSUCHUSER => CURLE_TFTP_ILLEGAL
CURLE_TFTP_NOTFOUND => CURLE_REMOTE_FILE_NOT_FOUND
CURLE_TFTP_PERM => CURLE_REMOTE_ACCESS_DENIED
18.3 extend CURLOPT_SOCKOPTFUNCTION prototype
The current prototype only provides 'purpose' that tells what the
connection/socket is for, but not any protocol or similar. It makes it hard
for applications to differentiate on TCP vs UDP and even HTTP vs FTP and
similar.
10. Next major release
19.1 cleanup return codes
curl_easy_cleanup() returns void, but curl_multi_cleanup() returns a
CURLMcode. These should be changed to be the same.
19.2 remove obsolete defines
remove obsolete defines from curl/curl.h
19.3 size_t
make several functions use size_t instead of int in their APIs
19.4 remove several functions
remove the following functions from the public API:
curl_getenv
curl_mprintf (and variations)
curl_strequal
curl_strnequal
They will instead become curlx_ - alternatives. That makes the curl app
still capable of using them, by building with them from source.
These functions have no purpose anymore:
curl_multi_socket
curl_multi_socket_all
19.5 remove CURLOPT_FAILONERROR
Remove support for CURLOPT_FAILONERROR, it has gotten too kludgy and weird
internally. Let the app judge success or not for itself.
19.6 remove CURLOPT_DNS_USE_GLOBAL_CACHE
Remove support for a global DNS cache. Anything global is silly, and we
already offer the share interface for the same functionality but done
"right".
19.7 remove progress meter from libcurl
The internally provided progress meter output doesn't belong in the library.
Basically no application wants it (apart from curl) but instead applications
can and should do their own progress meters using the progress callback.
The progress callback should then be bumped as well to get proper 64bit
variable types passed to it instead of doubles so that big files work
correctly.
19.8 remove 'curl_httppost' from public
curl_formadd() was made to fill in a public struct, but the fact that the
struct is public is never really used by application for their own advantage
but instead often restricts how the form functions can or can't be modified.
Changing them to return a private handle will benefit the implementation and
allow us much greater freedoms while still maintining a solid API and ABI.
19.9 have form functions use CURL handle argument
curl_formadd() and curl_formget() both currently have no CURL handle
argument, but both can use a callback that is set in the easy handle, and
thus curl_formget() with callback cannot function without first having
curl_easy_perform() (or similar) called - which is hard to grasp and a design
mistake.
19.10 Add CURLOPT_MAIL_CLIENT option
Rather than use the URL to specify the mail client string to present in the
HELO and EHLO commands, libcurl should support a new CURLOPT specifically for
specifing this data as the URL is non-standard and to be honest a bit of a
hack ;-)
Please see the following thread for more information:
http://curl.haxx.se/mail/lib-2012-05/0178.html
|