6/7/10 - version 1.3.6 (r22617)
Rewrite of the first third of the interface, providing vastly improved performance, maintainability, and a few very nice features. This improved the refresh rate (which is also related to system resource usage) from 30ms to 4ms (an 87% improvement).

• added: settings are fetched from an optional armrc (update rates, controller password, caching, runlevels, etc)
• added: system tools util providing simplified usage, suppression of leaks to stdout, logging, and optional caching
• added: wrapper for accessing TorCtl providing:
  • client side caching for commonly fetched relay information (fingerprint, descriptor, etc)
  • singleton accessor and convenience functions, simplifying interface code
  • wrapper allowing reattachment to new controllers (ie, arm still works if tor's stopped then restarted - still in the works)
• change: full rewrite of the header panel, providing:
  • notice for when tor's disconnected (with time-stamp)
  • lightweight redrawing (smarter caching and moved updating into a daemon thread)
  • more graceful handling of tiny displays
• change: rewrite of graph panel and related stats, providing:
  • prepopulation of bandwidth information from the state file if possible
  • observed and measured bandwidth stats (requested by arma)
  • graph can be configured to display any numeric ps stat
  • third option for graphing bounds (restricting to both local minima and maxima)
  • substantially reduced redraw rate and making use of cached ps parameters (reducing call volume)
• fix: preventing 'command unavailable' error messages from going to stdout, which disrupts the display (caught by sid77)
• fix: removed -p option due to being a gaping security problem (caught by ioerror and nickm)
• fix: crashing issue if TorCtl reports TorCtlClosed before the first refresh (caught by Tas)
• fix: preventing the connection panel from initiating or resetting while in blind mode (caught by micah)
• fix: ss resolution wasn't specifying the use of numeric ports (caught by data)
• fix: parsing error when ExitPolicy is undefined (caught by Paul Menzel)
• fix: revised sleep pattern used for threads, greatly reducing the time it takes to quit
• fix: bug in defaulting the connection resolver to something predetermined to be available
• fix: stopping connection resolution (and related failover message) when tor's stopped
• fix: crashing issue when trying to resolve addresses without network connectivity
• fix: forgot to join on connection resolver when quitting
• fix: revised calculation for effective bandwidth rate to take MaxAdvertisedBandwidth into account
• fix (8/7/10, r22820): connection panel was incorrectly parsing multi-line exit policies

4/8/10 - version 1.3.5 (r22148)
Utility and service rewrite (refactored roughly a third of the codebase, including revised APIs and much better documentation).

• added: centralized logging utility for handling arm events, simplifying several parts of the interface
• added: rewrote connection resolver, including:
  • fallback support for 'ss' and 'lsof' (requested by dun, John Case, and Christopher Davis)
  • readjusts resolution rate if calls prove burdensome
  • ui option for selecting mode of resolution
• added: rewrote hostname resolver, including:
  • optional resolution via socket module (seems worse so disabled by default... pity)
  • non-blocking thread safety
  • extra error info
• change: revised curses wrapper utilities (plus some hacks of the interface to accommodate it)
• fix: issuing resets via RELOAD signal rather than sighup (thanks to Sebastian for pointing this out)
• fix: taking into account potential None values when running get_option on arbitrary values (caught by pipe and enki)
• fix: crashing problem if use_default_colors() calls failed (caught by sid77)
• fix: removed workaround for mysterious torrc validation bug (was accidentally already fixed - thanks to dun for lending a test environment)
• fix: size and time labels weren't doing integer truncation (rounding was unintended and frustratingly difficult to get rid of)
• fix: hack to prevent log panel from drawing before being positioned
• fix: arm crashed if torrc was an empty file
• fix: wasn't consistently bolding help keys
• fix (4/9/10, r22160): crashing issue from malformed display string
• fix (4/10/10, r22169): crashing issue when failing to find event types

• added: returned option to reload torrc and added option to issue a sighup
• fix: header panel wasn't interpreting multi-line exit policies (caught by dun)
• fix: substantial display bug when stripping comments and torrc is bigger than the panel (caught by Paul Menzel)
• fix: deb specific hack for estimating the file descriptor limit was broken (caught by Paul Menzel)
• fix: skip printing stack trace in case of keyboard interrupt
• fix: updated listing of directory authorities (for tor version 0.2.1.24)
• fix: several uncaught exceptions when the network consensus couldn't be fetched
• fix: torrc comment stripping wasn't removing comments on the same lines as commands
• fix: torrc validation was failing under some conditions for CSV values (like ExitPolicy)
• fix (3/9/10, r21888): initializing error when processing family connections (caught by dun)
• fix (4/7/10, r22134): scrubbing wrong data for inbound connections (caught by waltman)

2/27/10 - version 1.3.3 (r21772)
Hiding client/exit information to address privacy concerns and fixes for numerous issues brought up in irc.

• added: scrubbing connection details of possible client and exit connections
• change: providing file descriptions in README, updated known issues and future plans in TODO
• change: added precision for bandwidth cap and burst if uneven values (requested by mete1989)
• fix: HiddenService* parameters fetched via a special option (caught by dun, karsten, and grumpy3)
• fix: workaround for os specific torrc validation bug - unfortunately haven't managed to repro yet so no fix (caught by grumpy3, Tas, and dun)
• fix: checking for python curses bindings at startup (caught by dun)
• fix: import error - TorCtl and socket missing from confPanel.py (caught by grumpy3)
• fix: showing external ip in connection panel rather than local nat address (caught by mete1989)
• fix: raised minimum width at which graph stats are displayed beside label (caught by dun)
• fix: wasn't treating "accept *" and "reject *" as catch-all policies
• fix: wasn't resizing graph panel properly in case of a sighup

2/14/10 - version 1.3.2 (r21646)
Refactoring goodness and bug fixes.

• change: revised curses utilities to further simplify interface implementations
• change: substantial layout changes (adding util and init packages) and including a copy of the gpl
• fix: bug with handing of DST for accounting's 'Time to reset' (patch provided by waltman)
• fix: header and connection panels weren't accounting for having ORListenAddress set (caught by waltman)
• fix: crashing bug when shrank too much for scrollbars to be drawn
• fix: couple system commands weren't redirecting their stderr to /dev/null

2/7/10 - version 1.3.1 (r21580)
Had enough of a siesta - getting back into development beginning with a rewrite if the starter.

• added: made authentication a little smarter, using PROTOCOLINFO to autodetect authentication type and cookie location
• change: made 'blind mode' (disables connection queries) a startup option rather than flag in source (request by Sebastian)
• change: all log events (including arm) are now set via character flags, with TorCtl events log as their own toggleable type
• change: starting log label with runlevel events, condensing if logging a range
• change: simplifying command line parsing via getopt
• fix: blind mode now prevents all netstats (including connection counts and halting resolver thread), improving performance

11/29/09 - version 1.3.0 (r21062)
Weekend bugfix bundle.

• added: most commands can be immediately executed from the help page (feature request by arma)
• fix: truncating header's version fields if too long (caught by hexa)
• fix: file descriptor dialog now provides a wider variety of error messages in case of failure
• fix: offset issue in connections listing when scroll bar was visible
• fix: removing family connections from listing when control port is closed
• fix: preventing TorCtl startup issues from going to stdout (duplicates warnings)

11/8/09 - version 1.2.2 (r20927)
This will be the last update for a while since I'm about to start a new job.

• added: including family relays on connections listing
• added: file descriptors dialog (stats and scrollable listing)
• change: logs warning if torrc fails to load
• fix: size and time labels used in torrc are expanded for validation
• fix: duplicate torrc entries weren't being detected if not erroneous
• fix: crashing issue when cleaning up hostname cache
• fix: stretching connection lines to fill full screen

10/21/09 - version 1.2.1 (r20814)
Substantial bundle of changes including torrc validation, improved arm event logging, and numerous bug fixes.

• added: verifies loaded torrc consistency against tor's actual state (gives warning and providing corrections)
• added: checks for torrc entries that are irrelevant due to duplication (gives notices and highlights)
• added: log provides TorCtl events (hack... so ugly...)
• added: option for logging runlevel events of arm, tor, or both
• added: ARM-DEBUG event for netstat query time
• added: providing progress bar when resolving a batch of hostnames
• change: providing prompt notice when tor's control port is closed
• fix: limiting pre-loaded events to this tor instance
• fix: limits log entries used to pre-load events (big logs caused issue with startup time)
• fix: properly closing TorCtl when quitting (was occasionally screwing up terminal)
• fix: at several points TorCtlClosed exceptions were uncaught, causing crashes when tor was closed
• fix: netstat and geoip failures were being noisy when tor quits
• fix: bug in tracking connection counts if tor quits when paused
• fix: sighup wasn't resetting all relevant internal variables
• fix: pausing bypassed connection sorting

10/16/09 - version 1.2.0 (r20798)
Resolving a few small issues that bugged me.

• change: using log file to pre-populate events if available
• change: asks for confirmation when quitting
• change: provides warning when tor's descriptors won't be updated
• change: event log now allows for multi-line messages
• fix: occasional crashing error concerning connection cache when paused
• fix: issue with tracking connection times when paused or not visible

9/28/09 - version 1.1.3 (r20678)
More issues discussed on irc.

• fix: made netstat lookups a best-effort service, separate from draw thread (caught by arma and StrangeCharm)
• fix: using ps as final fallback if otherwise unable to determine pid (suggested by Sebastian)
• fix: appends tor's pwd if torrc path is relative (caught by arma)

9/27/09 - version 1.1.2 (r20674)
Few issues discussed on irc.

• added: changelog and cleaned up todo documents (requested by arma)
• added: option in controller.py to disable connection panel (feature request by Sebastian)
• fix: failed to work on osx and bsd due to crashes after failed system calls (caught by Sebastian and Christopher Davis)
• fix: reloading static data in bandwidth panel after HUP (caught by hexa)
• fix: couple alignment issues with the connection listings

9/23/09 - version 1.1.1 (r20655)
Bundle of semi-low hanging fruit, including a few issues discussed on irc.

• added: showing extra parameters in connection listings if room's available
• added: identifying directory server connections
• change: providing an error message if running an incompatible python version (issue spotted by arma)
• change: giving arm a version to help in bug reports
• change: minor tweak to the wording of a faq entry (requested by Sebastian)
• fix: wasn't accounting for RelayBandwidthRate/Burst in effective bandwidth (caught by hexa and arma)
• fix: timing issue when shutting down (caught by arma)
• fix: couple issues with connection time being tracked when paused
• fix: preserving old results when netstat fails

9/6/09 - r20493
Several substantial features (last tasks for arm's todo list).

• added: scroll bars for connections listing and event log
• added: made log scrollable (feature request by StrangeCharm)
• added: regular expression filtering for log (feature request by StrangeCharm)
• added: connection uptimes (time since connection was first made)
• added: identifying client from server connections and providing popup for client circuits
• added: graph for system resource usage (cpu/memory)
• change: removed cursor toggling option for connection page
• fix: minor display issue when changing event types

8/22/09 - r20354
Several fixes and changes, mostly concerning the graph panel and making better use of screen real estate.

• added: labeled the graph's x-axis and reordered the information with changes omitted for small (tty sized) terminals (feature request by StrangeCharm)
• added: doubling up contents of header panel in case of wide screens to take advantage of added space
• added: exit policy to header if a wide display
• change: added precision for bandwidth measurements
• change: using "orconn-status" info to eliminated ambiguity in identifying inbound connection fingerprints (clever idea, but had very little impact)
• fix: when sighup signal is received reloads torrc and internal state (caught by StrangeCharm)
• fix: probable resolution of nasty concurrent bug concerning access to connection cache
• fix: minor issues concerning connection panel including graph widths and miscalculating local maxima
• fix: short circuits fingerprint cache when looking up localhost descriptor (preventing lookup failures)
• fix: minor issues with connection panel and description popups when no connections are available
• fix: descriptor popup wasn't determining if the first visible line belonged to an encryption block
• fix: made interface more resilient against arbitrary resizing (such as during popups)

8/17/09 - r20331
Work done over this last week.

• added: popup for raw consensus description
• added: total bandwidth measurement (feature request by StrangeCharm)
• added: connection entry for lookup of local consensus data
• change: widened graphs to utilize full screen width (clever idea by StrangeCharm)
• change: preserving runtime and pid when shutting down
• change: few tweaks to the readme
• fix: joining on worker daemon threads to exit gracefully (had a noisy race condition)
• fix: using BW events to keep connection count graph in sync with bandwidth graph
• fix: can now support graphs of multiple sizes

8/8/09 - r20233
Rewrote graph panel so it can handle any real time statistics.

• added: option to graph connection counts (feature request by phobos)
• added: custom graph bounds (global or local maxima)

8/4/09
Announced the project on the or-talk mailing list today which spurred an interview with Brenno Winter (who works on the cleverly named Little Sister project). The interview is available here.

8/3/09 - r20210
Added start of a faq to the readme in preparation for announcement on or-talk.

7/30/09 - r20198
Work done over the trip.

• added: customizable update interval for bandwidth graph (feature request by StrangeCharm)
• change: noted new project page in the readme (www.atagar.com/arm)
• change: added word wrapping to conf panel
• change: added function for custom popup menus
• change: logs error message when required event types are unsupported rather than throwing an exception
• change: using different screenshot images
• fix: resolved issue that caused monitor to think tor was resumed when quit
• fix: bug with panel utility's resize detection
• fix: resorts connections after NEWDESC and NEWCONSENSUS events
• fix: forgetting to to resume monitor at multiple points after a temporary pause
• fix: minor refactoring based on suggestions from pylint (unused imports and such)

7/22/09 - r20115
Another small grab bag update.

• added: version status to header panel
• change: noted "Common *nix commands including: ps, pidof, host, and netstat" among requirements in readme
• change: took some tricks from Mike's ConsensusTracker to further improve match rate
• fix: type mismatch that greatly diminished fingerprint matching
• fix: accidentally used idhash rather than idhex for fingerprints when updating cache with the contents of a NEWDESC event

7/21/09 - r20100
Quick fixes based on discussion on irc.

• change: provides warning when geoip database is unavailable (thanks to SwissTorExit and karsten)
• fix: missing import for the socket module

7/20/09 - r20096, r20097, r20098
Couple fixes so arm plays nicely in the case of multiple running tor instances.

• fix: can now deal with multiple tor instances: checks pid of process with the open control port
• fix: if only one tor process is running use that pid (netstat fails if running as a different user

7/19/09 - r20087, r20090
Last substantial feature on my to-do list.

• added: connections can be selected to view consensus details (very spiffy!)
• added: listing selection is by menu rather than cycling
• fix: couple bugs, the most interesting being when netstat can't resolve a connections listing (spotted by phobos)

7/18/09 - r20078, r20079
Miscellaneous fix and feature batch.

• added: relay's flags to the header
• added: listing by relay nickname
• added: additional event aliases and option for NEWCONSENSUS
• added (phobos): screenshot of arm in action so people can see what it looks like
• change: use constant "Listing" label for sorting rather than current view
• change: removed 'reload torrc' option (deceptive and useless)
• fix: updates cached consensus mappings with NEWDESC and NEWCONSENSUS events

7/14/09 - r20016
Resolved a few quick bugs:

• fix: added fingerprint lookup cache to resolve substantial performance issue
• fix: hostname resolution progress accounts for newly added entries (no more negative progress)
• fix: resolved bug that prevented arm from starting if too small
• fix: ordering issue when sorting unresolved ip addresses

7/11/09 - r19975
Connections panel can now list by IP, hostname, or fingerprint: reverse resolution was easy, but comparing three different implementations and making it non-blocking with a pausable thread-pool backend? Not so much.

7/8/09 - r19953, r19957
Just got back from Toorcamp. Preliminary connection page and miscellaneous additions.

• added: basic connection listing page (using netstat results)
• added: connection listing now has user configurable sort functionality (it's actually pretty spiffy: supports secondary and tertiary sub-keys)
• added: 'addfstr' to util which allows for embedded formatting tags (VERY helpful)
• added: help shows page's current settings
• added: made bandwidth panel toggleable
• added: avg bandwidth to bottom of panel
• fix: prevented header from being paused on page change
• fix: prevented bandwidth accounting events from being lost when paused

6/14/09 - r19716
Decently big batch of feature additions and bug fixes.

• added: second page that presents torrc with syntax highlighting, optional comment stripping, etc
• added: ps sampling (cpu/memory usage, pid, and uptime)
• added: help popup with page controls
• fix: corrected issue that caused periodic refreshing to fail
• fix: accounting reset time takes into account DST
• fix: make accounting input and header pausable

6/10/09 - r19708, r19709
Couple quick changes.

• change: removed '--path-to-torctl' startup option
• fix: accounting 'time to reset' now includes gmt to local conversion

6/7/09 - r19646, r19655, r19656
Couple features.

• added: svn external inclusion of TorCtl
• added: bandwidth panel now displays accounting data if set

6/6/09 - r19636, r19637
Quick change based on discussion on irc.

• added: command line argument to specify location of TorCtl without changing Python path first (feature request by phobos)

6/5/09 - r19629
Substantial refactoring changes.

• change: switched from a functional to an OO implementation which further simplified the controller: as an added plus this should make adding additional 'pages' trivial
• change: offloaded resizing to the curses wrapper
• fix: dealt with another curses wtf bug where panels wouldn't repaint unless done in a specific order

6/4/09 - r19626
Tested and corrected formatting for all event types except STREAM and STREAM_BW (not sure how to make those occur...).

6/2/09 - r19615, r19619, r19620
Introduced layer of abstraction from curses, simplifying its use and greatly improving reliability.

• added: introduced wrapper to hide curses ugliness which greatly simplified interface code
• added: notice when relay's been silent for five seconds (based on BW events so probably due to Tor being closed), another idea by karsten
• changed: unchecked events have stubs to present information and provide debugging information in case of type mismatch
• fix: all problems with resizing: it's now rock solid

5/29/09 - r19580, r19594
Fixes for several rather sinister reliability problems:

• added: allows logged events to be changed while running (suggested feature by karsten) and experimenting with a more modular design
• fix: added non-blocking reentrant locks to fix concurrency errors that caused chaotic terminal glitches (such as switching to a Chinese character set)
• fix: now fully handles resizing (including vertical)
• fix: using new capabilities in TorCtl including cookie authentication and disabling logging
• fix: bandwidth graph bug when paused
• fix: occasionally refreshes static content in case of graphical hiccups
• fix: added workaround for obscure curses caching bug that prevented portions of the screen from being redrawn
• fix: bug preventing initialization if too small

5/25/09 - r19567
Few small tweaks including:

• added: tiny shell script to alias starting
• added: more informative error message if TorCtl isn't available
• change: defaultly logged events
• change: make inclusion of 'unknown' events toggleable

5/24/09 - r19548, r19549, r19550, r19551
Initial version of arm (terminal relay status monitor). Repository set up by arma.

• fix: bug concerning undefined exit policy
• fix: resolved issue that prevented monitor from functioning in terminals without curs_set support