Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo "Stable" Portage/Releases

[Chris Gianelloni]

On Tue, 2006-01-10 at 23:57 -0500, Andrew Muraco wrote:
> What I meant to say is, having this alternative tree method (as
> described here) would mean that portage would handle everything the
> exact same as it already does, which means that if someother tree was
> accidently sync'd or replaced the local one, portage would react and
> want to update everything, because its not 'aware' that there is a
> difference in the first place. (now that I think about it, how likely is
> it that something like that will happen?)

So someone would "accidentally" change the SYNC variable, then
"accidentally" run "emerge --sync"?  That seems rather unlikely.

> The method described here would also open up the oppurtunity for "fake"
> enterprise trees, without having something to double check that the tree
> that we have is indeed the one that is wanted, it would be possible for
> a hacked rsync server (or a bogus one) to host the enterprise (stable)
> trees with extra ebuilds which could compromise security (/me thinks of
> emails warning about Microsoft's patchs and links which point to
> infectious websites.)

What exactly makes the release trees any more vulnerable to this than
current portage?

> Maybe this is something thats not very likely to happen, but it still is
> important to note that an enterprise tree has to be secure.

You will notice that I *never* call it an "enterprise" tree, so don't
make that mistake yourself.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Strategic Lead
x86 Architecture Team
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux