Seeking contributers for reviving MeshAgent development

[schories]

MeshAgent is a crucial part of MeshCentral. With

• some open PRs since weeks,
• some open issues,
• especially also security related ones such as still using the eol-ed OpenSSL 1.1.1

it makes sense to gather & focus some development capacity also on MeshAgent.

Who is willing to actively contribute to MeshAgent and tackle some of the above topics? I'm willing to contribute, but neither I can do it alone nor it would be wise to make lonely design decisions.

Thus I'd highly appreciate replies in this thread, offering support in the above topics - coding, testing, etc.

Thank you all very much!

[si458]

I am currently a maintainer, but I'm only a one man band!

I have already merged a few issues/pr and done a few test builds, I just need people to try the new agent before I release them into meshcentral itself!

I'm taking donations from people to help me carry on supporting the project!

https://www.si458.co.uk/2024/01/05/donation/

[schories]

Thank you very much for your great work & support, Simon! I can confirm first hand how both capable and kind your are.

My hope is to distribute the load - if possible - on a few more shoulders, including mine.

Specifically, this means to start work on switching to OpenSSL 3.0 - I would be happy if a few people would join in, as this would make work easier and faster.

[aloisuz]

Heyy I think I can help out when I have free cycles

[si458]

@aloisuz great! Checkout the meshagent repo/code and can u add any features at all? Like the multi screen mac support, Linux wayland support.

[schories]

Excellent. Personally I've started working on the OpenSSL 3.0 upgrade first. Linux wayland support sounds great as well.

[Serajalhorany]

Hey , am learning C programing language, I went through all the basics. If you want a newbie in your team am here

[schories]

Wonderful, then let's join forces and tackle the open issues bit by bit. Do you have some time this week to discuss & plan? My timezone is CEST. I am quite flexible.

[Serajalhorany]

Yeah I do, we can agree on time for a meeting and you can give me a task because am realy new in genral and I got to look for stuff

[Serajalhorany]

Hey.Iv been waiting for a response from you

[schories]

Hi @Serajalhorany,

Thanks for being patient. There are no full time employees working on MeshCentral, thus everybody also tackles work/business as well as private life.

I'm available tomorrow afternoon. So, how about 1 pm CEST? Please contact me by email at [email protected] so that we may share meeting information. All you need for the meeting is a computer with a modern browser, no client software.

Looking forward to meeting you tomorrow! :-)

[schories]

And, of course, @aloisuz @si458 and everyone else are welcome to attend as well! Please also let us know when would be a good time for 30-60 minutes for a "MeshCentral (Bi-)Weekly" - so we can join forces in a more social, community driven way. :-)

[schories]

@Serajalhorany

Hi, I meanwhile received 3 mails from you and already answered 2 of them. However, you doesn't seem to recognize them as your mails are getting longer, but never answer my question when is a good time for you.

So, please

• kindly check your SPAM folder,
• ditch yahoo (shocked to see they still somehow partially exist in 2024) for a serious email service
• or even better run you own Linux-based mail server, e.g. https://mailcow.email/

Thank you! :-)

[Serajalhorany]

I apologise for the consecutive emails, I thought so too, but I was concerned that you didn't receive my emails. Am available today, if you could at your leisure time.

[schories]

Quick update:

• successful onboarding of @Serajalhorany

  • initial knowledge transfer regarding MeshCentral & MeshAgent (architecture/design, current issues, some pitfalls, etc.)
  • both of us now have a fully working build environment for MeshAgent;

• started adding OpenSSL 3.x.x sources & libs to Meshagent

  • OpenSSL recommends NOT to go with LTS 3.0.x versions, as it's EOL in 2026, but directly migrate to 3.3.x (which may or may not become future LTS: https://github.com/openssl/openssl/discussions/23735#discussioncomment-8664713 )
  • as OpenSSL itself doesn't provide binaries but source only: we haven't any information regarding the actual build environment or binary source(s) of the static libs for dozens operating systems (OS) as well as multiple architectures: https://github.com/schories/MeshAgent/tree/master/openssl/libstatic
  • either all these binaries were gathered from a third party or truly all build inhouse by Bryan (if so, build scripts would be highly appreciated to save time)
  • contacted @krayon007 yesterday to gather more information on this
  • while we want to keep MeshAgent as broadly available on all possible variants, we don't have the ressources to build or even (if possible) cross-compile and test all these variants (e.g. MacOS, certain ARM architectures, etc.)
  • @si458 thus we would start with the most common OS & architectures; in the worst case future versions of MeshAgent would have to drop support for some OS & architectures; what do you think?

• once this can be hopefully sorted out, actual migration will continue

[si458]

@schories, yes, u can start test building if you like!

I would stick to Windows 7+, and server 2012r2+ The only reason include 7 and 2012r2 is because there are people out there (including myself) who still look after 7 embedded machines!

[si458]

@schories, yes, u can start test building if you like!

I would stick to Windows 7+, and server 2012r2+ The only reason include 7 and 2012r2 is because there are people out there (including myself) who still look after 7 embedded machines!

[marclaporte]

when would be a good time for 30-60 minutes for a "MeshCentral (Bi-)Weekly" - so we can join forces in a more social, community driven way. :-)

I support this idea. We are already having some private meetings to coordinate on https://github.com/Ylianst/MeshCentral/issues/6333

I think we should start with one community meeting per month, and see how it goes.

[schories]

@marclaporte Excellent, let's do this.

[marclaporte]

@Ndaboom has volunteered. He'll start with a proposal on a wiki page.

[marclaporte]

@schories @aloisuz @Serajalhorany @krayon007: Going forward, we will have monthly community meetings. 1st meeting is planned for 2024-10-31:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/MeshCentral/comments/1g7xmkh/first_meshcentral_monthly_meeting_coming_this/
• https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7253876245317242880
• https://github.com/Ylianst/MeshCentral/wiki/Community-Monthly-Meetings

I look forward ro meeting all of you!

[marclaporte]

The recording is available: https://github.com/Ylianst/MeshCentral/wiki/Community-Monthly-Meetings

[schories]

@marclaporte I regret not being able to make it last time. Thank you for the link and thank @Ndaboom for the structure. Edit: Found the recording, thank you!

[schories]

Watched the recording of the the meeting. Ylianst was mentioning the scripts to cross-compile OpenSSL libraries for all agent architectures/platforms, he pointed to the repository.

However, I have trouble finding them, sorry. @si458 @Ylianst Can you please point me to them?

[schories]

I think I found them: https://github.com/Ylianst/MeshAgent/tree/105da7dbfae9b32d5be67bbe12b1dee5fda400c9/openssl/libstatic/linux