Collaboration and Network Client Apps

What is it?

This roadmap plans a set of network client apps: a VNC remote desktop viewer, an IRC chat client and an RSS and Atom feed reader, plus arp and route diagnostic commands and a stretch VNC server. It deliberately does not re-implement ping, traceroute, ifconfig, netstat or nslookup, which belong to the networking roadmaps. None of the apps exist yet; only the lower network layers and a basic ping ship.

How does it work?

Today. The kernel network stack has Ethernet, ARP, IPv4, ICMP, UDP and DHCP (net.h), with no TCP or sockets. What the diagnostics part can already build on:

• ARP. arp_init(), arp_resolve(), arp_request() and arp_handle() (arp.c) keep the address cache, but nothing can list or delete its entries yet.
• Routing. There is no routing table: IP sends off-link traffic to the single gateway from the network configuration (ip.c).
• ICMP. icmp_send_echo() sends echo requests, and the shell's ping and ifconfig commands live in cmd.c.
• Windows. wm_create_window() and wm_mark_dirty() (wm.h); the capture and input-injection hooks a VNC server needs do not exist.

Planned design.

1. VNC client. The RFB 3.8 handshake, VNC password authentication (DES with the bit-reversed key the protocol uses), the Raw, CopyRect, RRE and Hextile encodings drawn with gfx_blit(), keyboard and mouse forwarding, a Ctrl+Alt+Del button and the last host remembered in the Registry.
2. IRC client. Plain and TLS connections on ports 6667 and 6697, the core commands (NICK, USER, JOIN, PRIVMSG, NOTICE, PART, QUIT, PING and PONG), a channel sidebar, scroll-back, coloured nicknames, Tab completion, slash commands and a toast for private messages.
3. Feed reader. RSS 2.0 and Atom parsed into title, link, date and summary, stored per feed, with unread badges, a reading pane, Open in Browser, feed discovery from a page's <link rel="alternate"> and a refresh every 30 minutes.
4. Shell wrappers for ping and traceroute over the protocol code the networking roadmap owns.
5. arp -a, arp -d, route print, route add and route delete, which need an ARP cache dump and a real routing table first.
6. VNC server (a stretch): capture the compositor's frame buffer, track dirty tiles, and inject received keys and pointer events.

What are its interfaces?

How do I use it?

Only ping runs today:

C:\> ping 10.0.2.2
PING 10.0.2.2
  Sent echo request seq=1

It sends four ICMP echo requests; replies are logged by the kernel rather than printed. None of the apps or the arp and route commands exist yet.

What is not implemented yet?

Nothing in this roadmap has started:

• VNC Client, which needs TCP sockets
• IRC Chat Client and the RSS and News Reader
• ping and traceroute Commands
• arp -a and route print, which need a routing table
• VNC Server, a stretch goal that overlaps the remote-session idea in Long-Term Features

How does it compare with Windows 11 and Linux?

Windows 11 has no inbox VNC client, IRC client or feed reader; it ships Remote Desktop instead of VNC and includes ping, tracert, arp and route. Linux distributions offer Remmina or TigerVNC, HexChat or irssi, Liferea or Newsboat, and x11vnc for serving a desktop, with ip neigh and ip route for diagnostics. The Impossible OS plan puts all three clients and the diagnostic commands in the base system on its own network stack. It does not exist yet.

See also

• Collaboration and Network Client Apps roadmap
• TCP and Network Infrastructure
• DNS and Sockets
• Time Sync, Network Status and Winsock
• Web Browser App