> [!IMPORTANT]
> **Breaking Changes**
> - DecodePacket and EncodePacket delegates replaced with IClientEncryption interface
> - NetState.Connection (Socket) replaced with internal RingSocket management
> - NetState.RecvPipe and NetState.SendPipe removed (buffers managed internally)
## Summary
Upgrades the networking stack from PollGroup-based I/O to io_uring, significantly improving I/O performance on Linux.
This also adds native client encryption support for encrypted UO clients.
## Major Changes
io_uring Networking Architecture
- Replaced PollGroup with IORingGroup for async socket I/O operations
- Removed Pipe.cs (mirrored ring buffer) and TcpServer.cs in favor of RingSocketManager
- Added NetState.Network.cs - centralized network infrastructure handling accept, recv, send, and disconnect
completions
- Added SocketHelper.cs - platform-specific socket utilities for raw socket handle operations (getpeername,
getsockname)
- Buffer management now handled by RingSocketManager with configurable slab allocation
### Client Encryption Support
- Added full encryption stack in Network/Encryption/:
- EncryptionConfig.cs - configurable encryption modes (None, Unencrypted, Encrypted, Both)
- EncryptionManager.cs - encryption detection and initialization for login/game packets
- LoginEncryption.cs - handles login packet encryption with version-derived keys
- GameEncryption.cs - handles game server encryption using Twofish
- TwofishEngine.cs - optimized Twofish block cipher implementation
- LoginKeys.cs - encryption key table for client versions
- IClientEncryption.cs - interface for client encryption implementations
### NetState Improvements
- Replaced Socket Connection with RingSocket _socket for managed socket lifecycle
- Changed from GCHandle polling to event-based completion processing
- Disconnect handling now properly waits for pending sends to flush
- Simplified connecting socket management using lazy queue removal
### Configuration
- New settings: network.encryptionMode and network.encryptionDebug
- Encryption mode flags: Unencrypted, Encrypted, or Both
### Dependencies
- Replaced PollGroup NuGet package with IORingGroup
- Linux requires liburing-dev / liburing-devel package
### Test plan
- Verify server starts and accepts connections on Linux with io_uring
- Verify server starts and accepts connections on Windows (fallback to IOCP)
- Test unencrypted client connections (ClassicUO with encryption disabled)
- Test encrypted client connections if available
- Verify graceful disconnect flushes pending data
- Confirm CI builds pass on all target platforms
### Summary
- Puts back `EventSink.SocketConnect`.
- Reverts networking change to push the networking to a separate thread.
- Reverts changes to the firewall by removing the firewall queue.
- Fixes listeners not shutting down with the server.
- Fixes race condition causing connections to get stuck even after they are disposed.
> [!NOTE]
> **Developer Note**
> Networking has been reverted back to using the main thread instead of a background thread. This alleviated complexity and the requirement for concurrent queues all over the place.
## Breaking Changes
* The Firewall and IP Limiter have been rewritten. Please read the notes carefully!
* `TcpServer.Instances` moved back to `NetState.Instances` - sorry - it was stupid to move it to begin with.
> [!Note]
> Sockets that fail the IP Limiter or Firewall will be immediately and forcibly disconnected.
> This means they will be stuck at "Verifying account..." if it was a real client.
### Summary
- Removes firewall wildcard support.
- Removes `AccessRestrictions`.
- Moves Firewall/IPLimiter to the core.
- Moves `TcpServer` to its own thread.
- Removes the `SocketConnect` and `SocketDisconnect` event sinks.
- Moves `Instances` back to `NetState.Instances`.
- Fixes a long standing bug with bad handling of duplicate listener addresses.
#### Firewall
The firewall has been completely rewritten. There is now an "Admin Firewall" which saves to the config file. Secondarily, there is an internal firewall used exclusively by the TcpServer while processing sockets. The Admin firewall mirrors it's additions/deletions to the internal firewall by adding requests to a queue.
> [!IMPORTANT]
> **Wildcard firewall entries, such as `X`, `*`, `?` are not allowed.**
> **Ranges in between IP classes or sextets are not allowed.**
> **Please make sure to use one of the following:**
> * IP Address - `192.168.1.1`
> * CIDR - `192.168.1.0/24`
> * Range - `192.168.1.1-192.168.1.100`
#### IP Limiter
The IP Limiter has been completely rewritten. The available configurations are:
```json
"ipLimiter.enable": "True",
"ipLimiter.maxConnectionsPerIP": 10,
"ipLimiter.clearConnectionAttemptsDuration": "00:00:00:10",
"ipLimiter.clearThrottledDuration": "00:00:02:00",
```
The IP Limiter is set up to prevent spamming connections from the same IP. Every time an IP connects, it is added to a connection list. After 10 attempts, the IP is added to the throttle list. To keep the system fast, the connection list is entirely wiped every 10 seconds, and the throttle list is entirely wiped every 2 minutes.
**Only one functional change**
* Fixes a bug in LogFactory where `Warning` is being logged as `Information`
Non-functional changes:
* Updates/Fixes copyright headers
* Removes namespace scopes for core files.
View with [whitespace off](https://github.com/modernuo/ModernUO/pull/1187/files?w=1).
- [X] Adds better diagnostics for world saves.
- [X] Adds world save stats.
- [X] World now saves to a temporary folder.
- [X] Backups are now stored by timestamp.
- [X] Backup is now made after the world save.
- [X] "Saves" folder is now configurable.
- [X] Temporary folder is now configurable.
- [X] Backups folder is now configurable.
- [X] Removing Kestrel & Libuv
- [X] Cleaning up NetState
- [X] Removing System.IO.Pipelines
- [X] Cleaning up packet reading
- [X] Adds a maximum of 5000 sockets (configurable) to prevent OOM
- [X] Replaces the AsyncState with a thread-safe wrapped boolean called NetworkState
- [X] Removes Parallel.ForEach (no perf gain)
- [X] Removes custom houses compression on another thread
- [X] Test high load scenarios
Bumps release version
