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402 lines
23 KiB
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---
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title: Jackline, a secure terminal-based XMPP client
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author: hannes
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tags: UI, security
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abstract: implement it once to know you can do it. implement it a second time and you get readable code. implementing it a third time from scratch may lead to useful libraries.
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---
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Back in 2014, when we implemented [TLS](https://nqsb.io) in OCaml, at some point
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I was bored with TLS. I usually need at least two projects at the same time to
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procrastinate the one I should do with the other one - it is always more fun to
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do what you're not supposed to do. I started to implement another security
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protocol ([Off-the-record](https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/), resulted in
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[ocaml-otr](https://hannesm.github.io/ocaml-otr/doc/Otr.html)) on my own,
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applying what I learned while co-developing TLS with David. I was eager to
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actually deploy our TLS stack: using it with a web server (see [this
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post](https://hannes.nqsb.io/Posts/nqsbWebsite)) is fun, but only using one half
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of the state machine (server side) and usually short-lived connections
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(discovers lots of issues with connection establishment) - not the client side
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and no long living connection (which may discover other kinds of issues, such as
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leaking memory).
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To use the stack, I needed to find an application I use on a daily basis (thus
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I'm eager to get it up and running if it fails to work). Mail client or web
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client are just a bit too big for a spare time project (maybe not ;). Another
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communication protocol I use daily is jabber, or
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[XMPP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmpp). Back then I used
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[mcabber](https://mcabber.com) inside a terminal, which is a curses based client
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written in C.
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I started to develop [jackline](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline) (first
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commit is 13th November 2014), a terminal based XMPP client in
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[OCaml](https://hannes.nqsb.io/Posts/OCaml). This is a report of a
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work-in-progress (unreleased, but publicly available!) software project. I'm
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not happy with the code base, but neverthelss consider it to be a successful
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project: dozens of friends are using it (no exact numbers), I got [contributions
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from other people](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/graphs/contributors)
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(more than 25 commits from more than 8 individuals), I use it on a daily basis
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for lots of personal communication.
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## What is XMPP?
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The eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (previously known as Jabber)
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describes (these days as [RFC 6120](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6120)) a
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communication protocol based on XML fragments, which enables near real-time
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exchange of structured (and extensible) data between two network entities.
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The landscape of instant messaging used to contain ICQ, AOL instant messenger,
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and MSN messenger. In 1999, people defined a completely open protocol standard,
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then named Jabber, since 2011 official RFCs. It is a federated (similar to
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eMail) near-real time extensible messaging system (including presence
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information) used for instant messaging. Extensions include end-to-end
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encryption, multi-user chat, audio transport, ... Unicode support is builtin,
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everything is UTF8 encoded.
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There are various open jabber servers where people can register accounts, as
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well as closed ones. Google Talk used to federate (until 2014) into XMPP,
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Facebook chat used to be based on XMPP. Those big companies wanted something
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"more usable" (where they're more in control, reliable message delivery via
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caching in the server and mandatory delivery receipts, multiple devices all
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getting the same messages), and thus moved away from the open standard.
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### XMPP Security
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Authentication is done via a TLS channel (where your client should authenticate
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the server), and SASL that the server authenticates your client. I
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[investigated in
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2008](https://berlin.ccc.de/~hannes/secure-instant-messaging.pdf) (in German)
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which clients and servers use which authentication methods (I hope the state of
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certificate verification improved in the last decade).
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End-to-end encryption is achievable using OpenPGP (rarely used in my group of
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friends) via XMPP, or [Off-the-record](https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/), which was
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pioneered over XMPP, and is still in wide use - it gave rise to forward secrecy:
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if your long-term (stored on disk) asymmetric keys get seized or stolen, they
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are not sufficient to decrypt recorded sessions (you can't derive the session
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key from the asymmetric keys) -- but the encrypted channel is still
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authenticated (once you verified the public key via a different channel or a
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shared secret (using the [Socialist millionaires
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problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_millionaire))).
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OTR does not support offline messages (the session keys may already be destroyed
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by the time the communication partner reconnects and receives the stored
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messages), and thus recently [omemo](https://conversations.im/omemo/) was
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developed. Other messaging protocols (Signal, Threema) are not really open,
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support no federation, but have good support for group encryption and offline
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messaging. (There is a [nice overview over secure messaging and
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threats.](https://www.cypherpunks.ca/~iang/pubs/secmessaging-oakland15.pdf))
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There is (AFAIK) no encrypted group messaging via XMPP; also the XMPP server
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contains lots of sensible data: your address book (buddy list), together with
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offline messages, nicknames you gave to your buddies, subscription information,
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and information every time you connect (research of privacy preserving presence
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protocols has been done, but is not widely used AFAIK,
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e.g. [DP5](http://cacr.uwaterloo.ca/techreports/2014/cacr2014-10.pdf)).
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### XMPP client landscape
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See [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_XMPP_clients) for an
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extensive comparison (which does not mention jackline :P).
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A more opinionated analysis is that you were free to choose between C - where
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all code has to do manual memory management and bounds checking - with ncurses
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(or GTK) and OpenSSL (or GnuTLS) using libpurple (or some other barely
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maintained library which tries to unify all instant messaging protocols), or
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Python - where you barely know upfront what it will do at runtime - with GTK and
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some OpenSSL, or even JavaScript - where external scripts can dynamically modify
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the prototype of everything at runtime (and thus modify code arbitrarily,
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violating invariants) - calling out to C libraries (NSS, maybe libpurple, who
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knows?).
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Due to complex APIs of transport layer security, certificate verification is
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[still not always done correctly](https://pidgin.im/news/security/?id=91) (that's just
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one example, you'll find more) - even if, it may not allow custom trust anchors
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or certificate fingerprint based verification - which are crucial for a
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federated operations without a centralised trust authority.
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Large old code basis usually gather dust and getting bitrot - and if you add
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patch by patch from random people on the Internet, you've to deal with the most
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common bug: insufficient checking of input (or output data, [if you encrypt only
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the plain body, but not the marked up
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one](https://dev.gajim.org/gajim/gajim-plugins/issues/145)). In some
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programming languages this easily [leads to execution of remote code](
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https://pidgin.im/news/security/?id=64), other programming languages steal the
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work from programmers by deploying automated memory management (finally machines
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take our work away! :)) - also named garbage collection, often used together
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with automated bounds checking -- this doesn't mean that you're safe - there are
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still logical flaws, and integer overflows (and funny things which happen at
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resource starvation), etc.
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### Goals and non-goals
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My upfront motivation was to write and use an XMPP client tailored to my needs.
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I personally don't use many graphical applications (coding in emacs, mail via
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thunderbird, firefox, mplayer, mupdf), but stick mostly to terminal
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applications. I additionally don't use any terminal multiplexer (saw too many
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active `screen` sessions on remote servers where people left root shells open).
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The [goal was from the
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beginning](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/commit/9322ceefa9a331fa92a6bf253e8d8f010da2229c)
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to write a "minimalistic graphical user interface for a secure (fail hard)
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and trustworthy XMPP client". By *fail hard* I mean exactly that: if it can't
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authenticate the server, don't send the password. If there is no
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end-to-end encrypted session, don't send the message.
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As a user of (unreleased) software, there is a single property which I like to
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preserve: continue to support all data written to persistent storage. Even
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during large refactorings, ensure that data on the user's disk will also be
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correctly parsed. There is nothing worse than having to manually configure an
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application after update. The solution is straightforward: put a version in
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every file you write, and keep readers for all versions ever written around.
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My favourite marshalling format (human readable, structured) are still
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S-expressions - luckily there is a
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[sexplib](https://github.com/janestreet/sexplib) in OCaml for handling these.
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I also appreciate another property of software: don't ever transmit any data or
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open a network connection unless initiated by the user. Don't be obviously
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fingerprintable. A more mainstream demand is surely that software should not
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phone home - that's why I don't know how many people are using jackline, reports
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based on friends opinions are hundreds of users, I personally know at least
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several dozens.
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As written [earlier](https://hannes.nqsb.io/Posts/OperatingSystem), I often take
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a look at the trusted computing base of a computer system. Jackline's trusted
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computing base consists of the client software itself, its OCaml dependencies
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(including OTR, TLS, tty library, ...), then the OCaml runtime system, which
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uses some parts of libc, and a whole UNIX kernel underneath -- one goal is to
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have jackline running as a unikernel (then you connect via SSH or telnet and
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TLS).
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There are only a few features I need in an XMPP client: single account, strict
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validation, delivery receipts, notification callback, being able to deal with
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friends logged in multiple times with wrongly set priorities - and end-to-end
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encryption. I don't need inline HTML, avatar images, my currently running
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music, leaking timezone information, etc. I explicitly don't want to import any
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private key material from other clients and libraries, because I want to ensure
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that the key was generated by a good random number generator (read [David's blog
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article](https://mirage.io/blog/mirage-entropy) on randomness and entropy).
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The security story is crucial: always do strict certificate validation, fail
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hard, make it noticable by the user if they're doing insecure communication.
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Only few people are into reading out loud their OTR public key fingerprint, and
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SMP is not trivial -- thus jackline records the known public keys together with
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a set of resources used, a session count, and blurred timestamps (accuracy: day)
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when the publickey was initially used and when it was used the last time.
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I'm pragmatic - if there is some server (or client) deployed out there which
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violates (my interpretation of) the specification, I'm happy to [implement
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workarounds](https://github.com/hannesm/ocaml-otr/issues/10). Initially I
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worked roughly one day a week on jackline.
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To not release the software for some years was something I learned from the
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[slime](https://common-lisp.net/project/slime/) project ([watch Luke's
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presentation from 2013](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZDWJfB9XY4)) - if
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there's someone complaining about an issue, fix it within 10 minutes and ask
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them to update. This only works if each user compiles the git version anyways.
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## User interface
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Stated goal is *minimalistic*. No heavy use of colours. Visibility on
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both black and white background (btw, as a Unix process there is no way to find
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out your background colour (or is there?)). The focus is also *security* - and
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that's where I used colours from the beginning: red is unencrypted (non
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end-to-end, there's always the transport layer encryption) communication, green
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is encrypted communication. Verification status of the public key uses the same
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colours: red for not verified, green for verified. Instead of colouring each
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message individually, I use the encryption status of the active contact
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(highlighted in the contact list, where messages you type now will be sent to)
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to colour the entire frame. This results in a remarkable visual indication and
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(at least I) think twice before presssing `return` in a red terminal. Messages
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were initially white/black, but got a bit fancier over time: incoming messages
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are bold, multi user messages mentioning your nick are underlined.
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The graphical design is mainly inspired by mcabber, as mentioned earlier. There
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are four components: the contact list in the upper left, chat window upper
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right, log window on the bottom (surrounded by two status bars), and a readline
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input. The sizes are configurable (via commands and key shortcuts). A
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different view is having the chat window fullscreen (or only the received
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messages) - useful for copy and pasting fragments. Navigation is done in the
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contact list. There is a single active contact (colours are inverted in the
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contact list, and the contact is mentioned in the status bar), whose chat
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messages are displayed.
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There is not much support for customisation - some people demanded to have a
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7bit ASCII version (I output some unicode characters for layout). Recently I
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added support to customise the colours. I tried to ensure it looks fine on both
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black and white background.
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## Code
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Initially I targeted GTK with OCaml, but that excursion only lasted [two
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weeks](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/commit/17b674130f7b1fcf2542eb5e0911a40b81fc724e),
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when I switched to a [lambda-term](https://github.com/diml/lambda-term) terminal
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interface.
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### UI
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The lambda-term interface survived for a good year (until [26th Jan
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2016](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/commit/47ae690eb720cbb89323d98b0f7af17bfaea26e7)),
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when I started to use [notty](https://github.com/pqwy/notty) - developed by
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David - using a decent [unicode library](http://erratique.ch/software/uutf).
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Notty back then was under heavy development, I spend several hours rebasing
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jackline to updates in notty. What I got out of it is proper unicode support:
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the symbol 茶 gets two characters width (see screenshot at top of page), and the layouting keeps track
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how many characters are already written on the terminal.
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I recommend to look into [notty](https://github.com/pqwy/notty) if you want to
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do terminal graphics in OCaml!
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### Application logic
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Stepping back, an XMPP client reacts to two input sources: the user input
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(including terminal resize), and network input (or failure). The output is a
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screen (80x25 characters) image. Each input event can trigger output events on
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the display and the network.
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I used to use multiple threads and locking between shared data for these kinds
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of applications: there can go something wrong when network and user input
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happens at the same time, or what if the output is interrupted by more input
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(which happens e.g. during copy and paste).
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Initially I used lots of shared data and had hope, but this was clearly not a
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good solution. Nowadays I use mailboxes, and separate tasks which wait for
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receiving a message: one task which writes persistent data (session counts,
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verified fingerprints) periodically to ask, another which writes on change to
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disk, an error handler
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([`init_system`](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/blob/ec8f8c01d6503bf52be263cd319ef21f2b62ff2e/bin/jackline.ml#L3-L25))
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which resets the state upon a connection failure, another task which waits for
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user input
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([`read_terminal`](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/blob/ec8f8c01d6503bf52be263cd319ef21f2b62ff2e/cli/cli_input.ml#L169)),
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one waiting for network input ([`Connect`, including reconnecting
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timers](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/blob/ec8f8c01d6503bf52be263cd319ef21f2b62ff2e/cli/cli_state.ml#L202)),
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one to call out the notification hooks
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([`Notify`](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/blob/ec8f8c01d6503bf52be263cd319ef21f2b62ff2e/cli/cli_state.ml#L100)),
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etc. The main task is simple: wait for input, process input (producing a new
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state), render the state, and recursively call itself
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([`loop`](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/blob/ec8f8c01d6503bf52be263cd319ef21f2b62ff2e/cli/cli_client.ml#L371)).
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Only recently I solved the copy and paste issue by [delaying all redraws by
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40ms](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/commit/cab34acab004023911997ec9aee8b00a976af7e4),
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and canceling if another redraw is scheduled.
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The whole
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[`state`](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/blob/ec8f8c01d6503bf52be263cd319ef21f2b62ff2e/cli/cli_state.ml#L29-L58)
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contains some user interface parameters (`/buddywith`, `/logheight`, ..), as
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well as the contact map, which contain users, which have sessions, each
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containing chat messages.
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The code base is just below 6000 lines of code (way too big ;), and nowadays
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supports multi-user chat, sane multi-resource interaction (press `enter` to show
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all available resources of a contact and message each individually in case you
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need to), configurable colours, tab completions for nicknames and commands,
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per-user input history, emacs keybindings. It even works with the XMPP gateway
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provided by slack (some startup doing a centralised groupchat with picture embedding and
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animated cats).
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### Road ahead
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Common feature requests are: [omemo
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support](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/issues/153), [IRC
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support](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/issues/104), [support for multiple
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accounts](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/issues/115) (TBH, these are all
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things I'd like to have as well).
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But there's some mess to clean up:
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1. The [XMPP library](https://github.com/ermine/xmpp) makes heavy use of
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functors (to abstract over the concrete IO, etc.), and embeds IO deep inside it.
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I do prefer (see e.g. [our TLS paper](https://usenix15.nqsb.io), or [my ARP
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post](https://hannes.nqsb.io/Posts/ARP)) these days to have a pure interface for
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the protocol implementation, providing explicit input (state, event, data), and
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output (state, action, potentially data to send on network, potentially data to
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process by the application). The [sasl
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implementation](https://github.com/hannesm/xmpp/blob/eee18bd3dd343550169969c0b45548eafd51cfe1/src/sasl.ml)
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is partial and deeply embedded. The XML parser is as well deeply embedded (and [has
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some
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issues](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/issues/8#issuecomment-67773044)).
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The library needs to be torn apart (something I procrastinate since more than
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a year). Once it is pure, the application can have full control over when to
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call IO (and esp use the same protocol implementation as well for registering a
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new account - [currently not
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supported](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/issues/12)).
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2. On the frontend side (the `cli` subfolder), there is too much knowledge of
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XMPP. It should be more general, and be reusable (some bits and pieces are
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notty utilities, such as wrapping a string to fit into a text box of specific
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width (see
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[`split_unicode`](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/blob/ec8f8c01d6503bf52be263cd319ef21f2b62ff2e/cli/cli_support.ml#L22)).
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3. The command processing engine itself is 1300 lines (including ad-hoc string
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parsing)
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([`Cli_commands`](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/blob/ec8f8c01d6503bf52be263cd319ef21f2b62ff2e/cli/cli_commands.ml)),
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best to replaced by a more decent command abstraction.
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4. A big record of functions
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([`user_data`](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/blob/ec8f8c01d6503bf52be263cd319ef21f2b62ff2e/src/xmpp_callbacks.ml#L46))
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is passed (during `/connect` in
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[`handle_connect`](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/blob/ec8f8c01d6503bf52be263cd319ef21f2b62ff2e/cli/cli_commands.ml#L221-L582))
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from the UI to the XMPP task to inject messages and errors.
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5. The global variable
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[`xmpp_session`](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/blob/ec8f8c01d6503bf52be263cd319ef21f2b62ff2e/cli/cli_state.ml#L200)
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should be part of the earlier mentioned `cli_state`.
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6. Having jackline self-hosted as a MirageOS unikernel. I've implemented a a
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[telnet](https://github.com/hannesm/telnet) server, there is a [notty
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branch](https://github.com/pqwy/notty/tree/mirage) be used with the telnet
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server. But there is (right now) no good story for persistent mutable storage.
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7. Jackline predates some very elegant libraries, such as
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[logs](http://erratique.ch/software/logs) and
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[astring](http://erratique.ch/software/astring), even
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[result](http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/Pervasives.html#TYPEresult) - since 4.03 part of Pervasives - is not used.
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Clearly, other libraries (such as TLS) do not yet use result.
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8. After looking in more depths at the logs library, and at user interfaces - I
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envision the graphical parts to be (mostly!?) a viewer of logs, and a command
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shell (using a control interface, maybe
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[9p](https://github.com/mirage/ocaml-9p/)): Multiple layers (of a protocol),
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slightly related (by [tags](http://erratique.ch/software/logs/doc/Logs.Tag.html) - such as the OTR session), and have the layers be visible to users (see also
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[tlstools](https://github.com/mirleft/tlstools)), a slightly different interface
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of similarly structured data. In jackline I'd like to e.g. see all messages of
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|
a single OTR session (see [issue](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/issues/111)), or hide the presence messages in a multi-user chat,
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investigate the high-level message, its XML encoded stanza, TLS encrypted
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frames, the TCP flow, all down to the ethernet frames send over the wire - also
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viewable as sequence diagram and other suitable (terminal) presentations (TCP
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|
window size maybe in a size over time diagram).
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9. Once the API between the sources (contacts, hosts) and the UI (what to
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display, where and how to trigger notifications, where and how to handle global
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changes (such as reconnect)) is clear and implemented, commands need to be
|
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reinvented (some, such as navigation commands and emacs keybindings, are generic
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|
to the user interface, others are specific to XMPP and/or OTR): a new transport
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|
(IRC) or end-to-end crypto protocol (omemo) - should be easy to integrate (with
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|
similar minimal UI features and colours).
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### Conclusion
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Jackline started as a procrastination project, and still is one. I only develop
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on jackline if I enjoy it. I'm not scared to try new approaches in jackline,
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|
and either reverting them or rewriting some chunks of code again. It is a
|
|
project where I publish early and push often. I've met several people (whom I
|
|
don't think I know personally) in the multi-user chatroom
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`jackline@conference.jabber.ccc.de`, and fixed bugs, discussed features.
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|
|
|
When introducing [customisable
|
|
colours](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline/commit/40bec5efba81061cc41df891cadd282120e16816),
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|
the proximity to a log viewer became again clear to me - configurable colours
|
|
are for severities such as `Success`, `Warning`, `Info`, `Error`, `Presence` -
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|
maybe I really should get started on implementing a log viewer.
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I would like to have more community contributions to jackline, but the lack of
|
|
documentation (there aren't even a lot of interface files), mixed with a
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|
non-mainstream programming language, and a convoluted code base, makes me want
|
|
some some code cleanups first, or maybe starting from scratch.
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I'm interested in feedback, either via [twitter](https://twitter.com/h4nnes) or
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on the [jackline repository on GitHub](https://github.com/hannesm/jackline).
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