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Ask HN: Project ideas for a Linux kernel module

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Re: Ask HN: Project ideas for a Linux kernel module

#11

Post by whoami_nr »

One of the early projects I worked to teach myself networking was Port Knocking[1]. Think of it like designing a calling bell for your servers where they can smartly understanding who is doing the "knocking" on their ports. Writing it as a linux kernel module, with the low level cryptographic functions would be a great learning tool imo. I also wrote about my progress here[2] when I attempted this about 7-8 years ago.

[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_knocking [2]:https://rnikhil.com/2016/12/12/port-knocking-python.html

Re: Ask HN: Project ideas for a Linux kernel module

#12

Post by whoami_nr »

whoami_nr wrote: post #11

One of the early projects I worked to teach myself networking was Port Knocking[1]. Think of it like designing a calling bell for your servers where they can smartly understanding who is doing the "knocking" on their ports. Writing it as a linux kernel module, with the low level cryptographic functions would be a great learning tool imo. I also wrote about my progress here[2] when I attempted this about 7-8 years ago…

You can also get your hands dirty with writing a proxy or a VPN which in my opinion also exposes you to a lot of low level stuff. My other suggestion would be malware reverse engineering but I don't think you are interested in systems/OS based on your post.

Re: Ask HN: Project ideas for a Linux kernel module

#13

Post by pabs3 »

Probably the most useful thing you could do would be take any Android device (or iOS device with the bootrom exploit) and rebase the patches for it on mainline, clean them up and get them merged into mainline Linux. Same goes for any other device not supported in mainline really, but Android devices are almost always like this.

Along those lines, look at all the dkms modules in any Linux distro and try to talk to the module authors about mainlining, do the work needed if they agree to it.

Also, I have some ideas for Linux kernel things I noticed are needed in my branches of linux.git. I doubt I'll work on them any time soon, so feel free to use the ideas/code I've left in the branches.

  cleanups/bluetooth-magic-numbers
  cleanups/debian
  features/dmesg-richness
  features/hwmon-streaming
  features/in-kernel-cross-fs-copy
  features/lvm-raid-discard
  features/runtime-syscall-lookup
  features/sys-class-storage
  features/tmpfs-o-discard
  features/tmpfs-user-xattr
  features/usbip-flexibility
https://github.com/pabs3/linux/branches/all

Not directly related to your question, but check out the KernelNewbies community and also some of the FOSS internship programs, especially GSoC and LKMP offer paid internships to work on the Linux kernel.

https://kernelnewbies.org/ https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources#internsh...

Re: Ask HN: Project ideas for a Linux kernel module

#16

Post by rsecora »

Some ideas:

* You can select a board with not fully supported peripheral Examples RISC-V or Loongson boards with incomplete or missing drivers.

* or create a higher abstractions over the SPI for a A/D or D/A or pwm chip. The module offers a /dev/ file that hides the SPI communication or the motor position and encoding...

Re: Ask HN: Project ideas for a Linux kernel module

#17

Post by dvh »

I always wanted a module that writes string to syslog. Sometimes it's hard to tell where certain things start, especially during init, so I would add string to kernel log, do the thing, add another string marking the end of my thing and then in the syslog I would find that first string and what's after that is what I need.

Re: Ask HN: Project ideas for a Linux kernel module

#18

Post by amadeusz »

dvh wrote: post #17

I always wanted a module that writes string to syslog. Sometimes it's hard to tell where certain things start, especially during init, so I would add string to kernel log, do the thing, add another string marking the end of my thing and then in the syslog I would find that first string and what's after that is what I need.

Does following work for you? echo test > /dev/kmsg
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