fips/CHANGELOG.md

Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog, and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

[Unreleased]

Added

Platform Support

• Windows platform support: wintun TUN device, TCP control socket on localhost:21210 (in place of the Unix domain socket), Windows Service lifecycle (--install-service, --uninstall-service, --service), ZIP packaging with PowerShell install/uninstall scripts, and CI build/test matrix entry (#45)
• macOS platform support: native utun TUN interface management, raw Ethernet transport via BPF, .pkg packaging with launchd plist and uninstall script, x86_64 cross-compile from arm64, and CI build/unit test jobs
• gateway Cargo feature flag gates the optional Linux-only rustables dependency so macOS and Windows builds never pull in nftables bindings

Outbound LAN Gateway

• New fips-gateway binary that lets unmodified LAN hosts reach FIPS mesh destinations via DNS-allocated virtual IPs and kernel nftables NAT. Virtual-IP pool (fd01::/112 by default) with state-machine lifecycle and TTL-based reclamation; conntrack-backed session tracking; proxy NDP on the LAN interface; control socket at /run/fips/gateway.sock with show_gateway and show_mappings; fipstop Gateway tab with pool gauge and mappings table; design doc at docs/design/fips-gateway.md; integration test harness
• Gateway packaging: systemd service unit with After=fips.service, Debian and AUR package entries, OpenWrt procd init with dnsmasq forwarding, proxy NDP, RA route advertisements, and IPv6 forwarding sysctls. Gateway enabled by default on OpenWrt

Examples

• macOS WireGuard sidecar: run FIPS in a local Docker container and route .fips traffic from the macOS host through a WireGuard tunnel to the container's fips0 interface. Only traffic destined for fd00::/8 transits the sidecar; regular internet traffic continues to use the host network (#51)

Bluetooth Transport

• Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) L2CAP Connection-Oriented Channel transport with per-link MTU negotiation, behind the ble Cargo feature flag (default-on, Linux only, requires BlueZ)
• BLE peer discovery via continuous scan/probe with cooldown-based deduplication (probe_cooldown_secs, default 30s)
• Continuous BLE advertising for reliable L2CAP connectivity
• Cross-probe tie-breaker using deterministic NodeAddr comparison
• Connection pool with configurable capacity and eviction

DNS

• Multi-backend .fips DNS configuration: a detection script configures whichever resolver is available, in priority order: systemd dns-delegate (systemd >= 258), systemd-resolved via resolvectl, standalone dnsmasq, NetworkManager with the dnsmasq plugin. Teardown reads the recorded backend from /run/fips/dns-backend and reverses only what was applied (#58, fixes #52)

Operator Configuration

• node.log_level config field (case-insensitive, default info) replaces the hardcoded RUST_LOG=info previously baked into systemd units and the OpenWrt procd init script. The daemon now loads config before initializing tracing so the configured level takes effect; RUST_LOG still overrides when set

Operator Tooling

• fipsctl show identity-cache lists every cached node identity (npub, IPv6 address, display name, LRU age) alongside the configured cache capacity
• fipsctl show peers extended with per-peer security signals (replay suppression count, consecutive decrypt failures), Noise session counters, session indices, and rekey lifecycle state
• fipsctl show sessions extended with handshake resend count during establishment and rekey/session health fields when established (session start, K-bit epoch, coords warmup remaining, drain state)
• fipsctl show cache now includes individual coordinate cache entries (tree coordinates, depth, path MTU, age). The top-level count field was renamed from entries to count for clarity
• fipsctl show routing expands pending_lookups from a count to per-target detail (attempt, age, last sent), adds pending TUN packet queue depth, and adds per-peer connection retry state (#42, @osh)

Documentation

• Pre-implementation proposal for NAT traversal using Nostr relays as the signaling channel and STUN for reflexive address discovery (docs/proposals/)

Packaging and Deployment

• Linux release artifact workflow: builds x86_64 and aarch64 tarballs and .deb packages on v* tag push, with SHA-256 checksums
• AUR publish workflow for tagged stable releases
• Arch Linux AUR packaging for fips (release) and fips-git (development) packages with sysusers.d/tmpfiles.d integration (#21, @dskvr)

Changed

• MMP link-layer report intervals retuned for constrained transports: steady-state floor raised from 100ms to 1000ms, ceiling from 2000ms to 5000ms. Cold-start uses a 200ms floor for the first 5 SRTT samples before switching to steady-state. Reduces BLE overhead ~10× while keeping reports well above the EWMA convergence threshold. Session-layer intervals unchanged
• 35 info-level log messages demoted to debug (handshake cross-connection mechanics, periodic MMP telemetry, TUN/transport shutdown, retry scheduling). Info output now focuses on operator-relevant state changes: lifecycle events, peer promotions, session establishment, parent switches, transport start/stop
• Breaking (control socket JSON): show_cache response field entries has changed type from a u64 count to an array of entry objects; a new count field carries the previous scalar value. show_routing response field pending_lookups has changed type from a u64 count to an array of per-target lookup objects. External consumers parsing these fields as numbers must be updated. In-tree fipstop is adjusted to the new schema. The control socket interface is still pre-1.0 and not covered by stability guarantees

Fixed

• Control socket path detection in fipsctl and fipstop now checks for the /run/fips/ directory instead of the socket file inside it, so users not yet in the fips group get a clear "Permission denied" error instead of a misleading "No such file" fallback to $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR (#30, reported by @Sebastix)
• OpenWrt ipk build excluded BLE feature that requires D-Bus, which is unavailable on OpenWrt targets
• IPv6 routing policy rule added at TUN setup to protect fd00::/8 from interception by Tailscale's table 52 default route
• Bloom filter routing no longer swallows traffic when no bloom candidate is strictly closer than the current node. find_next_hop now falls through to greedy tree routing in that case instead of returning NoRoute, which previously caused dropped packets in topologies where the tree parent was closer but not a bloom candidate
• Auto-connect peers now reconnect after a graceful Disconnect notification from the remote side. handle_disconnect previously removed the peer without scheduling a reconnect, orphaning the entry on a clean upstream shutdown; the other removal paths (link-dead, decrypt failure, peer restart) already scheduled reconnect (#60, reported by @SwapMarket)
• fipsctl connect now rejects FIPS mesh (fd00::/8) addresses for udp, tcp, and ethernet transports with a clear error message instead of echoing success while the daemon silently failed the bind with EAFNOSUPPORT (#61, reported by @SwapMarket)
• Rekey msg1 on non-accepting transports (e.g. UDP holepunch) was rejected at the top of handle_msg1(), which broke rekey handshakes on established links and produced repeated "dual rekey initiation" log floods. The gate now only blocks truly new inbound handshakes from unknown addresses; rekey and restart msg1s for established peers are processed normally (#47, #49)
• fipstop now uses ratatui::try_init() instead of ratatui::init(), so terminal initialization failures (e.g. Docker on macOS Sequoia, or environments without a usable tty) produce a clean error message instead of a hard crash

[0.2.0] - 2026-03-22

Added

Operator Tooling

• fipsctl connect and disconnect commands for runtime peer management via control socket, with hostname resolution from /etc/fips/hosts

IPv6 Adapter

• Pre-seed identity cache from configured peer npubs at startup, so TUN packets can be dispatched immediately without waiting for handshake completion (@v0l)

Mesh Peer Transports

• New Tor transport with SOCKS5 and directory-mode onion service for anonymous inbound and outbound peering
• DNS hostname support in peer addresses for UDP and TCP transports
• Non-blocking transport connect for connection-oriented transports (TCP, Tor)

Packaging and Deployment

• Reproducible build infrastructure: Rust toolchain pinning via rust-toolchain.toml, SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH in CI and packaging scripts, deterministic archive timestamps
• Top-level packaging Makefile for unified build across formats
• Kubernetes sidecar deployment example with Nostr relay demo
• Nostr release publishing in OpenWrt package workflow
• SHA-256 hash output in CI build and OpenWrt workflows

Testing and CI

• Maelstrom chaos scenario with dynamic topology mutation and ephemeral node identities via connect/disconnect commands
• Consolidated Docker test harness infrastructure

Changed

• Discovery protocol: replace flooding with bloom-filter-guided tree routing. Includes originator retry (T=0/T=5s/T=10s), exponential backoff after timeouts and bloom misses, and transit-side per-target rate limiting. Removed 257-byte visited bloom filter from LookupRequest wire format. This is a breaking change; nodes running versions prior to this release will not be compatible.

Fixed

• DNS responder returned NXDOMAIN for A queries on valid .fips names, causing resolvers to give up without trying AAAA. Now returns NOERROR with empty answers for non-AAAA queries on resolvable names. (#9, reported by @alopatindev)
• Stale end-to-end session left in session table after peer removal blocked session re-establishment on reconnect — remove_active_peer now cleans up self.sessions and self.pending_tun_packets. (#5, @v0l)
• schedule_reconnect reset exponential backoff to zero on each link-dead cycle instead of preserving accumulated retry count. (#5, @v0l)
• FMP/FSP rekey dual-initiation race on high-latency links (Tor): both sides' timers fired simultaneously, both msg1s crossed in flight, each side's responder path destroyed the initiator state. Fixed with deterministic tie-breaker (smaller NodeAddr wins as initiator).
• Parent selection SRTT gate bypass: evaluate_parent used default cost 1.0 for peers filtered out by has_srtt(), defeating the MMP eligibility gate. Now skips unmeasured candidates when any peer has cost data.
• FSP rekey cutover race: initiator cut over before responder received msg3, causing AEAD failures. Fixed by deferring initiator cutover by 2 seconds.
• MMP metric discontinuity after rekey: receiver state carried stale counters across rekey, inflating reorder counts and jitter. Fixed via reset_for_rekey().
• Auto-connect peers exhausted max_retries on initial connection failures and were permanently abandoned. Now retry indefinitely with exponential backoff capped at 300 seconds.
• Control socket permissions: non-root users couldn't connect. Daemon now chowns socket and directory to root:fips group at bind time.
• Post-rekey jitter spikes: old-session frames arriving via the drain window produced 2,000–7,000ms jitter spikes that corrupted the EWMA estimator. Added a 15-second grace period after rekey cutover that suppresses jitter updates until drain-window frames have flushed. (#10)
• ICMPv6 Packet Too Big source was set to the local FIPS address, which Linux ignores (loopback PTB check). Now uses the original packet's destination so the kernel honors the PMTU update. (#16, @v0l)
• Reverse delivery ratio used lifetime cumulative counters instead of per-interval deltas, making ETX unresponsive to recent loss. (#14)
• MMP delta guards used prev_rr > 0 to detect first report, conflating it with a legitimate zero counter. Replaced with has_prev_rr. (#14)

[0.1.0] - 2026-03-12

Added (Initial Release)

Session Layer (FSP)

• End-to-end encrypted datagram service between mesh nodes addressed by Nostr npub
• Noise XK sessions with mutual authentication, replay protection, and forward secrecy
• Automatic session rekeying with configurable time/message thresholds and drain window for in-flight packets
• Port multiplexing for multiple services over a single session
• Session-layer metrics: sender/receiver reports with RTT, jitter, delivery ratio, and burst loss tracking
• Passive RTT measurement via spin bit

IPv6 Adapter

• IPv6 adapter interface allowing tunneling TCP/IPv6 through FIPS mesh for traditional IP applications (TUN interface)
• DNS resolver allowing IP applications to reach nodes by npub.fips name
• Host-to-npub static mappings: resolve hostname.fips via host map populated from peer config aliases and /etc/fips/hosts file

Mesh Layer (FMP)

• Self-organized core mesh routing protocol with adaptive least cost forwarding
• Noise IK hop-by-hop link encryption with mutual authentication and replay protection between peer nodes
• Distributed spanning tree construction with cost-based parent selection and adaptive reconfiguration
• Destination route discovery via bloom filter-based directed search protocol
• Path MTU discovery with per-link MTU tracking and MtuExceeded error signaling
• Link-layer MMP: SRTT, jitter, one-way delay trends, packet loss, and ETX metrics
• Link-layer heartbeat with configurable liveness timeout for dead peer detection
• Epoch-based peer restart detection
• Automatic link rekeying with K-bit epoch coordination and drain window
• Static peer auto-reconnect with exponential backoff
• Multi-address peers with transport priority-based failover
• Msg1 rate limiting for handshake DoS protection

Mesh Peer Transports

• UDP overlay transport with inbound and static outbound peer configuration
• TCP overlay transport with listening port and static outbound peer support
• Ethernet/WiFi transport (MAC address based, no IP stack) with optional automatic peer discovery and auto-connect

Operator Tooling

• Ephemeral or persistent node identity with key file management
• Unix domain control socket for runtime observability
• fipsctl CLI tool for control socket interaction and node management
• Comprehensive node and transport statistics via control socket
• fipstop TUI monitoring tool with real-time session, peer, and transport configuration and metrics display

Packaging and Deployment

• Debian/Ubuntu .deb packaging via cargo-deb
• Systemd service packaging with tarball installer
• OpenWRT package with opkg feed and init script
• Docker sidecar deployment for containerized services
• Build version metadata: git commit hash, dirty flag, and target triple embedded in all binaries via --version

Testing and CI

• Comprehensive unit and integration tests covering all protocol layers and transports
• Docker test harness with static and stochastic topologies
• Chaos testing with simulated severe network conditions: latency, packet loss, reordering, and peer churn
• CI with GitHub Actions: x86_64 and aarch64, integration test matrix, nextest JUnit reporting
• Local CI runner script (testing/ci-local.sh)

Project

• Design documentation suite covering all protocol layers
• CHANGELOG.md following Keep a Changelog format
• Repository mirrored to ngit