| 1 |
On Sat, 10 Feb 2007 17:02:38 +0100 |
| 2 |
Nagy Gabor Peter <linux42@××××××××.hu> wrote: |
| 3 |
|
| 4 |
> Hi list, |
| 5 |
> |
| 6 |
> I have a question: |
| 7 |
> |
| 8 |
> Since I am new to gentoo, I don't know how security updates work. |
| 9 |
> |
| 10 |
> I know Debian. In Debian if I have stable installed on a production |
| 11 |
> server, I get regular security fixes, often backported from the |
| 12 |
> current bleeding edge version, where upstream has fixed the bug to |
| 13 |
> the version that Debian stable contains. |
| 14 |
|
| 15 |
Where a security issue is identified in a package, all versions in the |
| 16 |
tree are either bumped (patched, backported or otherwise) or removed |
| 17 |
from the tree. |
| 18 |
|
| 19 |
> I have noticed that in gentoo there are many versions of a package |
| 20 |
> that are considered stable. Take glibc as an example, according to |
| 21 |
> http://packages.gentoo.org/search/?sstring=glibc, on x86 there are 8 |
| 22 |
> versions available, all of them stable. |
| 23 |
|
| 24 |
Yep; that's normal. We don't force people to always go up to the |
| 25 |
latest version of a package. This is especially true for central |
| 26 |
packages like glibc, which users may well prefer not to upgrade apart |
| 27 |
from security fixes. If you're building a new system, you might as well |
| 28 |
use the latest (which is what you get unless you specifically ask for |
| 29 |
something different). |
| 30 |
|
| 31 |
> I have now two gentoo machines, one is going to be production, the |
| 32 |
> other is used to get me a little bit more familiar with the system. |
| 33 |
> |
| 34 |
> On the playground machine I have 2006.1 installed, glibc 2.4-r3 |
| 35 |
> On the production machine I have 2006.0, switched to hardened profile, |
| 36 |
> and then recompile, there I have glibc 2.3.6-r5 |
| 37 |
> |
| 38 |
> I see now that glibc 2.4-r3 should be upgraded to 2.4-r4 (by the way, |
| 39 |
> where can I check the differences (Changelog) between two gentoo |
| 40 |
> versions (like r3 and r4)?) |
| 41 |
> |
| 42 |
> So my question: If someone finds a bug in glibc that gets corrected, |
| 43 |
> what does the gentoo maintainers do about it? Do they backport the fix |
| 44 |
> in all 8 versions? Or just in some of the versions and mark the not |
| 45 |
> fixed ones ~? |
| 46 |
|
| 47 |
For serious security issues, all versions, stable and ~, should get |
| 48 |
patched & bumped, or removed if they're not easily patched. For other |
| 49 |
bugs it depends on the severity of a bug. |
| 50 |
|
| 51 |
> Is there some mailinglist (like debian-security-announce) where such |
| 52 |
> security fixes are announced? |
| 53 |
|
| 54 |
See the gentoo-announce mailing list, where all GLSA (Gentoo Linux |
| 55 |
Security Advisories) are posted. |
| 56 |
|
| 57 |
> What is the reason that the hardened profile selects the 2.3.6 version |
| 58 |
> instead of the 2.4? I mean not in glibc's case only, but generally. |
| 59 |
|
| 60 |
Our toolchain modifications for >=glibc-2.4 and gcc-4.1 aren't quite |
| 61 |
ready yet. I just have to resolve some significant test failures on |
| 62 |
x86, then it should be good to go. |
| 63 |
|
| 64 |
> Does libc 2.4 have troubles with ssp? |
| 65 |
|
| 66 |
Not really, however SSP has changed significantly from gcc-3 to |
| 67 |
gcc-4 - RedHat have re-implemented SSP and in the process changed its |
| 68 |
behaviour in significant ways. |
| 69 |
|
| 70 |
-- |
| 71 |
Kevin F. Quinn |
Archives