nccommon

Project primer

nccommon — shared session/crypto library (review primer)

Shared C++/Qt library (a submodule of BOTH ncpeer and nmsnj) that owns the
session-layer protocol and cryptography: the wire Envelope, the per-channel message
types, and the crypto primitives. The consuming products cannot communicate without it, so
its wire format and crypto are cross-repo, cross-version contracts.

Architecture (durable map)

• Transport: the binary Envelope (framing) + a serialization mechanism for message structs.
• Crypto: an OpenSSL 3.x / FIPS-capable backend, a legacy libsodium path, and platform crypto

bridges (Apple, Android) — multiple backends that must be byte-for-byte equivalent.

• Per-channel message definitions (input, desktop, audio, ftp, bulk, service) and utilities

(IP ACL, session-token / DUT helpers, common types).

What matters most when reviewing here (durable risk areas)

• Wire-format stability. The serialization version + byte order are frozen; reordering or

retyping a serialized field silently corrupts deserialization for peers on other versions.

• Crypto-backend equivalence. The parallel backends must produce identical bytes and

interoperate, or cross-platform sessions fail silently.

• Nonce uniqueness. AEAD nonces are driven by global counters — any reuse is catastrophic.

Scrutinize any change near nonce assignment.

• Envelope MAC / auth. Header + payload MAC tags are the authentication; a skipped/bypassed

tag is an auth bypass.

• Thread-safety of shared/thread_local serialization buffers; FIPS-mode gating.
• API/ABI stability. As a submodule of two products, public header/API changes ripple into

both — weigh both consumers.

Security-sensitive zones

Key exchange (ECDH/X25519) + AEAD; the platform crypto bridges (an encoding mismatch yields a
wrong shared secret); the Envelope MAC tags; the IP ACL and session-token signing.

Compatibility surfaces (contracts that must not silently break)

• The Envelope binary layout + channel / packet-type constants (there is a hard cap on packet

types — respect it).

• Every per-channel serialization operator (field order/width is the contract).
• The crypto-primitive API across all backends.

Conventions & gotchas

• Three crypto backends exist in parallel — a change to one usually must be mirrored in the

others to keep bytes identical.

• Consumed by ncpeer AND nmsnj, and its transport is shared with ncrp — see the ecosystem map

for blast radius.

_Orientation only — verify current specifics in the code; this describes durable architecture &
risk areas, not a snapshot._

Ecosystem map

NinjaRemote / NinjaOne project ecosystem (relationship map)

How the monitored repos relate — so a change in one repo is reviewed with its blast
radius in mind (a change upstream of ncpeer can break ncpeer even if it looks local).
Orientation only; verify specifics in code.

NinjaRemote product

• ncpeer — the remote-desktop client/agent (streamer host + player viewer). The hub.
• ncrp — the server/relay component NinjaRemote peers connect through; ncpeer ⇄ ncrp

speak the NCRP wire protocol (protocol/format changes must stay compatible across
client and server versions).

• ncinstaller — installs the ncpeer player onto end machines.
• qclauncher — bootstraps/launches an ncpeer quick-connect session.

Cloud-side relays of the ninja-remote system (AWS-hosted, Python/Go)

• websocket-switch — generic WebSocket pairing relay: two clients join with signed

URLs, it pairs them and forwards frames verbatim. Signed join URLs are minted by the
Ninja backend — the signature scheme is a backend⇄relay contract, and the frame
semantics are a peer⇄peer contract.

• file-transfer-service — the same pairing idea over plain HTTP for file transfer:

a signed upload leg streams to a signed download leg through memory (never stored).
Two parallel implementations (Python ftsv2/ + Go fts_go/) must stay behaviorally
identical; the URL/signature scheme is shared-family with websocket-switch.
NinjaRemote file-transfer features ride on these relays when peers can't go direct.

Pulled INTO ncpeer (and sometimes nmsnj) — upstream of the products

• nccommon — shared C++ library; a submodule of BOTH ncpeer and nmsnj. An API/ABI

or behaviour change here affects both consumers.

• nr-i18n — localization resources; a submodule of ncpeer.
• nrvirtdisplay — Windows virtual-display driver used by ncpeer.
• nrvusb — virtual-USB driver used by ncpeer.
• ncpeer_vcpkg — the pinned/patched dependency set (vcpkg fork) that **ncpeer and nmsnj

build against**. A dependency bump changes what those products link (security/ABI/build).

• ncpeer_qt6win7 — patched Qt6 (QtBase) for legacy-OS support, delivered to the clients

through the ncpeer_vcpkg overlay.

Largely independent

• nmsnj — network-management delegate (talks to the Ninja Backend over WAMP/RPC);

shares nccommon and ncpeer_vcpkg with ncpeer.

• ninjaflow — packet-capture library + agent (a distinct network-telemetry product, NOT

part of the remote-desktop family). Runs as a child process of the NinjaRMM agent (the
parent owns install/upgrade/policy/launch); NinjaFlow owns the CLI contract, config schema,
credential precedence, DB schema/migrations, and exit-code meanings the parent consumes —
those are cross-process contracts. Submits telemetry to the Ninja Backend. Shares no code with
ncpeer/nmsnj; adjacent to nmsnj only in domain (network), not in implementation.

• desktop-companion — internal companion app; mostly standalone.
• spaceship — AppSec SBOM-ingestion backend (Python/Flask). A distinct security product,

not part of any product's build. It consumes the SBOMs the other products' pipelines emit
(Ninja-Remote/ncpeer, NMS/nmsnj, NinjaFlow all appear in its scope maps), scans them for CVEs
and files Jira issues — a downstream *security-scanning* relationship, not a code dependency.
Shares no code with the others; has its own DB/schema and a toolbox submodule.

• ssh-pam-ninja — SSH one-time-password PAM gatekeeper (Linux C). A standalone

authentication component: its pam_ninja.so gates SSH reverse-tunnel access into
Ninja infrastructure with a time-based OTP. Shares no code with the other repos; its
blast radius is operational (who can SSH-tunnel into hosts), not code-level. The client OTP
generators and the module must agree on the OTP scheme + shared secret.

Review implications

• Reviewing nccommon / nr-i18n / nrvirtdisplay / nrvusb / ncpeer_vcpkg / ncpeer_qt6win7:

these are *upstream* of ncpeer (and nccommon/vcpkg also of nmsnj) — weigh the consumer
side: API/ABI compatibility, build impact, and cross-platform reach.

• Reviewing ncpeer or ncrp: the NCRP wire protocol between them is a cross-version

contract.