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Nagy Gabor Peter wrote: |
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> Hi list, |
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> |
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> I have a question: |
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> |
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> Since I am new to gentoo, I don't know how security updates work. |
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> |
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> I know Debian. In Debian if I have stable installed on a production |
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> server, I get regular security fixes, often backported from the current |
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> bleeding edge version, where upstream has fixed the bug to the version |
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> that Debian stable contains. |
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> |
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> I have noticed that in gentoo there are many versions of a package that |
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> are considered stable. Take glibc as an example, according to |
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> http://packages.gentoo.org/search/?sstring=glibc, on x86 there are 8 |
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> versions available, all of them stable. |
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> |
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> I have now two gentoo machines, one is going to be production, the |
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> other is used to get me a little bit more familiar with the system. |
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> |
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> On the playground machine I have 2006.1 installed, glibc 2.4-r3 |
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> On the production machine I have 2006.0, switched to hardened profile, |
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> and then recompile, there I have glibc 2.3.6-r5 |
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> |
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> I see now that glibc 2.4-r3 should be upgraded to 2.4-r4 (by the way, |
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> where can I check the differences (Changelog) between two gentoo |
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> versions (like r3 and r4)?) |
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|
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On the packages.gentoo.org there is a link to the changelog that |
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describes major changes to ebuilds. |
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|
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> |
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> So my question: If someone finds a bug in glibc that gets corrected, |
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> what does the gentoo maintainers do about it? Do they backport the fix |
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> in all 8 versions? Or just in some of the versions and mark the not |
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> fixed ones ~? |
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|
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Mostly, when a package (f.i. glibc-2.3.6-r5) contains a bug, a new |
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ebuild is released under a new revision (in this example: |
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glibc-2.3.6-r6) and then marked stable. The vulnerable ebuild will be |
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removed. Users do an 'emerge --sync && emerge -uD world' and get the new |
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glibc installed. |
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|
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|
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> |
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> Is there some mailinglist (like debian-security-announce) where such |
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> security fixes are announced? |
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|
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Security are announced on the gentoo-announce mailing list, see |
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http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/lists.xml for more info. |
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|
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> |
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> What is the reason that the hardened profile selects the 2.3.6 version |
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> instead of the 2.4? I mean not in glibc's case only, but generally. |
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> |
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> Does libc 2.4 have troubles with ssp? |
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> |
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|
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Support for PIE and/or SSP is not complete for glibc >2.3 and gcc 4. |
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There was some overlay with usable ebuilds for these versions |
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I'm not sure about the reason why it doesn't work yet and why it takes |
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so much trouble, there are some ppl on this list who can explain that |
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far better... |
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Tom |
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