Ken Johnson
efed2f9665
Three perf fixes for the daemon-side protocol drivers:
1. cometbinkpfpc + cometfpc: pass Session.HasPendingTx as the
WantWrite argument to Transport.WaitReady so select() also
wakes on socket-write readiness when there are queued
outbound bytes. Without this, large outbound transfers
paid a 50 ms idle-wait per frame (binkd-style poll cadence
instead of Argus's CanSend socket-buffer pacing).
Live measurement, 10 MB BinkP outbound to a Comet 1.2.2
BinkP-fallback responder, both ends running this fix:
bbsnode2 (FreeBSD/LAN): 134 s -> 2.7 s (~50x)
sea-vps11 (Linux/WAN): 134 s -> 1.7 s (~80x)
Requires fpc-binkp v0.4.0 + fpc-comet v0.4.0 (HasPendingTx
accessor, additive).
2. cometdaemon: cap the inbound banner protocol-detect peek
at 100 ms instead of TimeoutHandshake * 1000 (= 30 s).
The 3d1d9f7 "sniff-first" change inverted the banner flow
from send-then-recv to wait-peek-conditional-send-recv to
avoid sending COMET/1.0 to BinkP-only peers (Argus, binkd)
that misparse it as a junk M_NUL frame header. But the
30 s outer timeout combined with the new read-then-write
order interacted badly with TCP_NODELAY not being set
until CometSessionInit ran further down -- the server's
banner became the first socket write after accept(), got
held by Nagle / ack-delay, and the same pattern repeated
for every small write through INIT/INITACK. Net cost was
~5 s per Comet session.
100 ms is enough headroom for any client to send its
first byte (Comet clients send banner immediately on
connect, BinkP clients send a frame). If no data within
100 ms we fall through to the original send-then-recv
path; CometRecvBanner still detects BinkP from the first
byte (cometses.pas:298) as a safety net.
Live measurement, 10 MB Comet outbound:
before: 7.31 s
after: 3.4 s (2.1x)
Argus / binkd interop preserved -- BinkP frames still
detected at the peek; banner only sent when peek shows
Comet bytes or no data within 100 ms.
No fpc-comet change. No wire-protocol change.
Bisect history + bench matrix in
~/.COMET_TESTING_SESSION.md "Resolution -- 2026-04-25 §4".
Comet Mailer
A modern FidoNet TCP mailer daemon for the 2020s.
Comet provides direct TCP file transfer with a purpose-built protocol while maintaining full BinkP/1.1 (FTS-1026) compatibility. Both protocols are auto-detected on the same port.
Features
- Direct TCP file transfer with SHA-256 verification
- Bidirectional transfer with sliding window flow control
- ED25519 public-key authentication (no shared secrets needed)
- CRAM-MD5 password authentication (passwords never sent in clear)
- X25519 + ChaCha20 encryption (when using ED25519 auth)
- Full BinkP/1.1 compatibility (FTS-1026) with auto-detection
- Inline file requests (Hydra-style, within active sessions)
- FTS-5 nodelist integration (automatic IP/port lookup)
- BSO outbound scanning with point directory support
- Optional zlib compression (per-block, automatic)
- Multi-session daemon with per-node BSY locking
- Config hot-reload (edit config while Comet is running)
- Embeddable in BBS software via log/event callbacks and stream API
- Cross-platform: Linux, FreeBSD, DOS, Windows, OS/2
Quick Start
comet keygen # generate ED25519 keypair
comet showkey # print public key from config
comet # run as daemon (listen + poll)
comet call 1:213/723 # single outbound call
comet -c /path/to/comet.cfg # use alternate config file
comet -d call 1:213/723 # debug/trace mode
See COMET.SAM for an annotated sample configuration.
Platforms
| Platform | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Linux x86-64 | Production | Primary platform |
| FreeBSD x86-64 | Production | Cross-compiled from Linux |
| DOS (FreeDOS) | Production | Requires CWSDPMI + Watt-32 packet driver |
| Windows 64-bit | In progress | WinSock2, needs type compatibility fixes |
| OS/2 | Experimental | FPC OS/2 Sockets unit, untested |
Building
Requires Free Pascal Compiler (FPC) 3.2.x.
make # Linux (default)
make freebsd # FreeBSD cross-compile
make dos # DOS cross-compile
make win64 # Windows 64-bit cross-compile
Documentation
COMET.DOC— Full operator manualCOMET.SAM— Annotated sample configurationFSP-COMET.001— Wire protocol specification
Tested Against
- binkd (reference BinkP implementation)
- Radius/Argus 4.010 (CRAM-MD5 + CRYPT)
- BinkIT/sbbs 2.42 (CRAM-MD5)
Contact
- FidoNet: 1:218/720
- Email: ken@rail-city.net
License
GPL-2.0