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Message-ID: <20231014164334.GA19096@openwall.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2023 18:43:34 +0200
From: Solar Designer <solar@...nwall.com>
To: oss-security@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: linux-distros list membership application - CIQ Rocky Linux Security Team
On Fri, Oct 13, 2023 at 11:19:18PM -0400, Neal Gompa wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 13, 2023 at 8:07???PM Martin Hecht <martin.hecht@...s.de> wrote:
> > I'd like to give an example against this. With the recent glibc issue
> > (CVE-2023-4911) we were closely following the upcoming fixed packages.
> > While we were installing the Rocky packages in the late evening of Thu Oct 5,
> > I had the impression that the Redhat packages became available later on Friday.
> > It might be attributed to some hours of delay between arriving on the repo
> > servers vs. being announced via advisory. But, anyhow, accusing Rocky being
> > late in providing packages at least is not valid in general imho. At least
> > important ones, like this one, seem to arrive rather quickly. Without mentioning
> > the distros, I have seen quite some announcements even around a week later.
>
> The fix for Rocky 8 and Rocky 9 are purely imports from RHEL:
>
> * R8: https://git.rockylinux.org/staging/rpms/glibc/-/commit/6433675bfaab392b362993d8ff8d576335e6bcd4
> * R9: https://git.rockylinux.org/staging/rpms/glibc/-/commit/610a8a6829e1e604ff018daccf6bf63620edd19d
Right, but we also had an effective mitigation for R9 pushed publicly in
Security SIG on Oct 3, same day as the vulnerability was made public:
https://sig-security.rocky.page/packages/glibc/
This was possible due to explicit permission I requested/obtained from
Qualys in a thread on linux-distros. The rules do mention that things
like that can be done "with the reporter's explicit approval". (This
option also came up in the recent discussion around illumos distros.)
> I did see that Louis Abel attempted to do something for Rocky 8, but
> it was not shipped.
Yes, I noticed this one too and asked him about it, and yes it was just
a test that was not shipped.
I would be pushing a Security SIG package addressing the issue for R8 as
well if we didn't get upstream's update for a day more (after Oct 5).
> I have also not seen much in terms of upstream
> engagement indicating the bidirectional relationship expected for
> members of linux-distros@.
I agree this is something to improve, and I intend to be contributing to
that with my CIQ or Rocky Linux hat on, as well as encourage others with
Rocky Linux to contribute to upstreams more.
I did contribute to the linux-distros discussion on this glibc issue, to
an extent greater than I would have without intent to push a mitigation
or fix into Rocky Linux Security SIG.
> > I think the point here is "*not only* being a rebuild of another distro".
> > So, their engagement with SIG should already be a valid add-on to be honored.
> > Anyhow, the fact that CIQ offers LTS branches and professional support,
> > as well as their promise to provide backports of upstream fixes independent
> > of RHEL clearly distinguishes them from a "pure distro rebuild".
> >
> > https://ciq.com/products/rocky-linux/benefits/enterprise-level-support/
Quoting from the above web page:
"CIQ offers an additional paid service for customers: Rocky Linux Long
Term Support ("LTS"). This is designed for organizations who want to
remain on a previous minor release of Rocky Linux (like 8.6), which is
no longer supported by the public project. CIQ staff will continue
backporting security and bug fixes into the supported minor releases for
a period of time, after the public project has retired that minor
release.
Subscribed customers who value stability can remain on their desired
release longer, while still enjoying minor security and bugfix updates
to their packages. As of this writing, CIQ is supporting non-zero,
even-numbered point releases (8.6, 8.8, 9.2, 9.4, etc.) with its LTS
offerings. LTS support lasts for 18 months after the release is retired
from the public project. For example, Rocky 8.6 was retired in November
2022. CIQ's LTS-8.6 support will last 18 months from that, or May 2024."
> The point I'm making is that SIGs do not count because they cannot
> obey embargo regulations. No open project or community project can do
> that without having some mechanism for private controls, which is
> antithetical to the community process. They fundamentally are
> ineligible to join because they cannot keep anything secret.
SIGs are ineligible to join on their own. A distro's security team that
would only push to SIGs on the coordinated release date can.
Alexander
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