So this week we shall deviate (temporarily) from the usual Dev Update format of walking through all the main libraries, mainly because as @dirvine stated in another thread, the team are completely focused on testing the MVP and having me interrupt this even for a small amount of time is not at all helpful. MVP testing is in full swing and we will be inviting the SAFE community to help us out with this later in the week, with details of how to get involved coming up later in this post. What is the current status with the outstanding TODOs we still have to complete before the MVP is ready?
- NAT Traversal integration into Crust (allows for people behind different types of routers to connect with each other and not just rely on direct connections between nodes in the network);
Routing Integration with Refactored Crust;Churn Handling in the Vault library (showcasing with Routing and Vault examples);Completing the Launcher updates from the client libraries.
So as you can see, only task one is left to be completed, so the Crust guys will now update us with progress on this, the last TODO (I did bug them briefly).
##Crust - uTP / API
The nat_traversal crate has been integrated into Crust for utp connections. However, some bugs in the rust-utp implementation have been uncovered and these will need to be fixed before we support transporting data over udp.
One such bug, involving data occasionally being lost, has already been fixed. Another bug, involving connections disconnecting due to keepalive packets not being sent, has been identified and should be fixed very soon (check the git commits, looks like it has almost landed).
##Roadmap
@scott’s roadmap design is being developed by @shankar and the basic structure is now in place and ready for testing. The team will now start to add the roadmap content which is about 70% complete and the usual refinements will be required to ensure each item is documented in an understandable and approachable way. The guys will then need to complete the work required to make the roadmap responsive, catering for all the various screen sizes. So the roadmap is moving forward, but has been somewhat hampered by the focus on the MVP.
##Community testing Client / MVP
So what can you expect in the next few days? Firstly, and with your help, we will be testing the Launcher and releasing an application that demonstrates key features of the SAFE Network. This will not only represent the largest field test (if as many people as we hope participate) of the SAFE Network to date, it will also provide some essential real world feedback on several key (and some world first) areas:
- Account creation (self authentication) and login;
- Data storage and retrieval;
- Running demo applications against the Launcher API; and
- A demo application enabling the hosting of SAFE websites.
At the request of the engineers this testing phase will not enable the community to run their own vaults at this point, rather they will be able to store and retrieve data via the demo application on our test network. This allows the client to be tested in a stable environment, one without churn (nodes leaving and joining the network). It also enables other projects that people are currently developing or wish to begin development on to progress as we progress, allowing everyone the opportunity to move forward together. The next phase after the development team are happy with the way the network is behaving in this stable environment will be to add churn into the mix and get the MVP into everyone’s hands, enabling you to all run vaults from home. The team do not want to sign off on the MVP until this extensive round of testing has been completed and for this we need large scale participation from the community.
So later this week you will be able to download the Launcher and also a Demo app as binaries from Github that will connect to a network of around one hundred nodes that the Dev team will be closely monitoring. A post to the forum will provide details of where to download the software and a link to documentation outlining how to set up, connect and actively take part in the testing. The documentation will also include a list of limitations that currently exist, some self-imposed and some awaiting features to be added in future iterations. We also want to capture feedback from as many people in the community as possible and details of how to get involved with that will also be included within the forum post.
We expect (hope) that this initial field test will be completed pretty quickly and that adding churn to the network by releasing the MVP to everyone will happen at a brisk pace.
Please keep your eyes peeled for the forum post and we hope many of you guys will get involved - thanks again for all the support, here is a link to the transcript.
the SafeNet is RISING!