[WLANware] GSOC 2014 - Greetings

[Gonçalo João Curado Avelar]

Hello all!

I am a CS student from Instituto Superior Técnico -- Lisbon, Portugal 
-- on the last
year of studies. Only my MsC thesis left.

This will be my first GSOC, should I be selected.

I came across Freifunk in the GSOC 2014 page and it captured my 
attention.
After reading your web-page I think I've identified myself the Freifunk 
ideals.
I, myself, consider the infrastructure envisioned by Freifunk as a 
means for a pretty liberating
experience. The whole ad-hoc free mesh concept should be universal and 
its deployment ubiquitous.

As a result, I am very much interested in participating in Google 
Summer of Code as a student,
under the mentorship of Freifunk.

I've found the following project ideas very appealing (specially the 
second one):

1) IPv6 support for Tunneldigger;
2) Linux kernel support for multiple L2TP tunnels on the same server 
port;

My motivation for these two projects, in particular, has to do with the 
fact I would like to be
more cognizant with respect to layer-3 and layer-2 topics. Also because 
I feel quite comfortable
with the programming languages appointed to each one of those projects.

But more in detail,

Regarding the theoretical skills asked for each project:
- IPv4 and IPv6 are something I've studied in the past. However, I must 
confess I will need
   to review them properly, shall I be selected for one of those 
projects.
- L2TP is something I've only read lightly, once I've stumbled upon it, 
in the past.
   But similarly to the cases of IPv4 and IPv6, it will be something I 
will gladly study beforehand.
- The Linux Kernel itself is, probably, the most used teaching example 
in academia, right?
   So, naturally, I already know some of its internals, from the 
Operating Systems classes I took.
   I am not acquainted with the development cycle/process itself, 
however. But to have the chance to
   learn about it is one of the things that motivate me the most 
nonetheless.

Regarding my programming experience:
- I've been programming in C in the past 4/5 years (since I've joined 
college).
   I've done projects consisting in implementing system-level mechanisms 
like schedullers,
   write-invalidate caches, synchronization mechanisms such as 
semaphores and monitors.
   (during my operating systems class).
   I've also done projects where I exercised parallel programming via 
OpenMP and MPI.
   Less related, but maybe relevant from a technical perspective, I've 
programmed in C++
   as well.
- I've been exposed to python in the last year, where I had to 
implement a battery of attacks
   for wi-fi networks, using scapy for packet sniffing and tampering.

I have one question, though: do you think you can give me a little more 
insight on each of those
projects? In particular, since I never had developed any kernel patch, 
could you point some resources
that you find relevant for this particular project?
Also, I could use some insight how to properly test this kind of 
software.

It sounds like I'm trying to put you guys to work instead of me but, 
please, don't take me wrong!
All I want is to maximize my chances of writing a good application.
Any simple hint of what I should look for will certainly suffice.
After all, one of the most valuable things I learnt in college was that 
planning is king.

Besides that, is there any other aspects apart from the application I 
should be aware of?


I will wait your response.

Thank you for your consideration,
Kind regards
:)
--
Gonçalo Avelar