Gentoo Archives: gentoo-hardened

From: Kerin Millar <kerframil@×××××.com>
To: gentoo-hardened@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-hardened] kudos to hardened-sources
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2009 05:49:15
Message-Id: 279fbba40903242249r533f1025g39fbec1695e90dfc@mail.gmail.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-hardened] kudos to hardened-sources by klondike
1 2009/3/24 klondike <franxisco1988@×××××.com>:
2 > 2009/3/24 7v5w7go9ub0o <7v5w7go9ub0o@×××××.com>
3 >>
4 >> FWICT, hardened-sources has offered, for a few days now, a more recent
5 >> kernel than gentoo-sources! (not that there's any sort of competition :-)
6 >> )
7 >>
8 >> Good show! (thanks!!)
9 >
10 > I'm not going to cite anything because then I may get an out of context
11 > answer :P But I think it was gengor who said that, obviously, the isn't any
12 > kinf of competition, and that the kernel change was just casuality.
13 >
14 > As a side note, say that the jump was 2.6.26 to 2.6.28 so I think gentoo
15 > sources has been also advanced for some time :P
16
17 The initial hardened-sources-2.6.28 release was committed precisely
18 one month after the equivalent gentoo-sources release (plus an
19 additional day with respect to the kernel.org release). This is a
20 reasonable timeframe, particularly when you consider that the project
21 must wait on upstream to produce a new grsecurity patch.
22
23 Also, there were releases for 2.6.27 but they were recently retired
24 because - due to issues with the corresponding grsecurity patch - the
25 decision was made that they would never be stabilised, in favour of
26 2.6.28. That doesn't change the fact that they were there at the time.
27
28 As for the patchsets themselves, hardened-extras has a proven track record in:
29
30 1) Incorporating 2.6.X.Y stable patches faster then genpatches-base
31
32 2) Incorporating important fixes that are typically later adopted by
33 genpatches-base and/or stable patch and/or vanilla releases. Recent
34 example: ext4 patches to mitigate against circumstances that commonly
35 lead to data loss: http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=262507
36 (queued upstream for 2.6.30 I believe)
37
38 3) Incorporating/backporting security fixes and _continuing_ to do so
39 for a given 2.6.X trunk for as long as is reasonably possible, even
40 after genpatches/upstream have given up and moved on. For instance,
41 consider the contents of hardened-patches-2.6.25-14.
42
43 4) Occasionally, incorporating security fixes for a given trunk where
44 neither genpatches nor upstream do so. For instance, consider my
45 remarks concerning the 2.6.24 releases here:
46 http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=185022#c3
47
48 All of this has been especially true since Gordon began maintaining
49 hardened-sources.
50
51 In terms of keywording strategy, it's a case of when it it's ready,
52 it's ready. On the other hand, if having a newer driver is more
53 important than the maintainer's view of the overall
54 production-worthiness of the release, then current releases are
55 typically available to those who would add a single entry into
56 package.keywords.
57
58 Taking all of this into due consideration, I would assert that
59 hardened-sources does generally come out ahead of the 'competition',
60 so to speak.
61
62 Cheers,
63
64 --Kerin

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Re: [gentoo-hardened] kudos to hardened-sources klondike <franxisco1988@×××××.com>