[OpenAFS-devel] GSoC 2025 Application: Netcat-Like Tool for Rx

[Michael Meffie]

On Fri, 14 Mar 2025 20:37:21 -0400
Peter Chang <peter.yaochen.chang@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear OpenAFS team,
> 
> I'm Peter Chang, a student at Georgia Tech pursuing a MSCS with a focus on
> distributed systems and cloud-native architectures. I have experience in
> network programming, distributed file systems, and custom protocol
> development, including work on caching and gRPC-based projects.
> 
> Google Summer of Code brought me here, and I find the idea of enhancing Rx
> debugging and tooling in OpenAFS very interesting. I have a few questions
> regarding potential areas where I could contribute:
> 
>    - Could you provide more details on the current challenges with Rx
>    debugging in OpenAFS, and how tools like rxdebug are used in practice?
>    - Are there specific pain points or missing features in the existing Rx
>    tooling that the team is prioritizing?
>    - For projects like a netcat-like tool for Rx, are there any particular
>    design guidelines or integration requirements I should be aware of?
> 
> Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hello Peter,

Thank you for your interest in OpenAFS!

The existing 'rxdebug' tool is currently a low level tool to extract some
detailed information about clients and servers.  The current version of rxdeug
works by sending special connectionless packets.  The 'netcat-like' project
idea is intended to create a new tool for interacting with Rx-based connection
oriented services that can be used for testing and scripting.

For project guidelines, see the OpenAFS Contributor Guide[1].

Best regards,
Mike

[1]: https://github.com/openafs/openafs/blob/master/doc/process/01-contributor-guide.md
-- 
Michael Meffie <mmeffie@sinenomine.net>