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Dstat project ended due to RedHat replacing it with its own dstat tool

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Re: Dstat project ended due to RedHat replacing it with its own dstat tool

#111
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn't red hat calling their version 'pcp-dstat' and not simply 'dstat', so they aren't shipping with the exact same name.

They install a symlink from plain "dstat" to pcp-dstat. That's the exact same name part and plausibly objectionable.

The entire principle of a GNU based system is that everything is a reimplementation of original Unix tools with the same names but different provenances.

Re: Dstat project ended due to RedHat replacing it with its own dstat tool

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The software isn't finished if the runtime it runs on has been EOL'd. dstat, up until earlier this year (a couple weeks before that announcement), did not support Python 3 - and the author may have just merged RedHat's changes anyways. RedHat's "fork" supported Python3 for months at that point. Yes, it was a useful tool, and what RedHat did was shitty but I can understand the motivation for not wanting to keep a Pyth…

> I can understand the motivation for not wanting to keep a Python2 install around just for one tool. I don't use a Red Hat distro but would this really only be one tool? On Arch I see the following packages depend on python2: mercurial [required], git [optional], texlive-core [optional], graphviz [optional], ...

Arch doesn't promise support. Red Hat does. If software in Arch is unsupported in the near future but currently works, that's less of a problem than software in RHEL becoming definitely unsupported during the release lifetime.

Re: Dstat project ended due to RedHat replacing it with its own dstat tool

#113
post #73
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They install a symlink from plain "dstat" to pcp-dstat. That's the exact same name part and plausibly objectionable.

That is done so that existing scripts keep working. Nobody complains about the LLVM linker installing itself as /usr/bin/ld, or systemd providing /sbin/init, do they?

Actually, yes they did. The use of /sbin/init was something that came up during the Debian Hoo-Hah. The conclusion was that it should be a symbolic link, and that there should be distinct packages providing that link and providing the real executable program image file that it points to.

* https://packages.debian.org/search?suite=jessie&searchon=con...

Re: Dstat project ended due to RedHat replacing it with its own dstat tool

#114
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that massively popular utilities were ever "reimplemented" with the same name. Ported, or forked, or extended, but not reimplemented. It's not clear to me if pcp-dstat is a fork or a total rewrite. Also, most of those utilities were named things which solely described what they did. It's a bit different to make a new "cut" vs a new "clhodapp".

Then there is a lot of history that you do not know, starting with BSD and progressing through the late 1980s and early 1990s when there was a torrent of "clones" of things. The "Vixie cron" that you might even still be using is a "PD" clone of the Unix cron program, reimplemented from scratch with the same name. The van Smoorenburg "init" that you might have heard of was a clone of (an at the time sadly already out…

I'd like to add the common aliasing of vi->vim

Re: Dstat project ended due to RedHat replacing it with its own dstat tool

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>> community developers requesting access to help were being ignored >>> This is not true >> GitHub PRs being ignored seems totally true. > Sure, and Red Hat being paid for RHEL shipping Dstat for a decade could have helped out. But instead they decided to replace it. It's one thing to be upset due to a belief that Red Hat/others are at fault, but why lie to make your point?

Who lied about this ? It's pretty clear we didn't accepted any PRs since December 2016 until Red Hat decided to replace our code, which started early June 2018. That's 18 months. If I am upset about anything, it is this: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1614277#c7

> Who lied about this ?

> It's pretty clear we didn't accepted any PRs since December 2016 until Red Hat decided to replace our code, which started early June 2018. That's 18 months.

You are asking: "why didn't RH help out", you also didn't accept any pull requests. That surely would answer the question about why they didn't bother with pull request.

The question is then, how exactly do you think they have helped?

Re: Dstat project ended due to RedHat replacing it with its own dstat tool

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't relative to the binary install, it's relative to argv[0]. It's the same security issue -- that argument is under user control. You can make a symlink to your target wherever you want and then argv[0] will be the symlink location. I don't think there is any secure way to get the current script path in Python.

so you install dstat in /usr/bin/dstat + /usr/share/dstat (because you are root), and an attacker creates /home/eve/bin/dstat with /home/eve/share/dstat/evil.py. why would you run /home/eve/bin/dstat? if eve can get you to run dstat from here ~/bin, why wouldn't she just have ~/bin/dstat with completely different contents? i'm still convinced this is cargocult security.

You're right that this wouldn't matter if the program is run with the same privileges as the caller. I was imagining if that wasn't the case (e.g. the user gives dstat setuid permissions), then letting it load arbitrary code could produce a security hole. Admittedly I didn't think too hard about whether/why something like this might be done -- if it wouldn't be, then never mind. As a matter of general safe practice I err on the side of caution, i.e. not depending on argv[0] to have any particular value for the correctness of the program, because otherwise you have to think through all the possible attack/error scenarios and likely document them for the user, etc... and I thought in any case it was worth pointing out that argv[0] did not necessarily correspond to the program location regardless.

Re: Dstat project ended due to RedHat replacing it with its own dstat tool

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, they were right to use the same namespace and its questionable how you conflate that to stealing. If something is abandoned, how can you steal it? The project was dead, PR's and issues were ignored and the lack of Python 3 support was a huge issue (which the developer pathetically tried to shut down discussion over by releasing a python 3 port just hours before closing the project). Changing the name spac…

Nobody stepped up to maintain the project, not even Red Hat. Some people have offered help, and I have send out a few GitHub invitations to people that offered, but no takers. I assume people offering to help only wanted to see their own contributions merged. I shouldn't be surprised people here take positions while not having been involved in the project or know the whole history. In my opinion, stopping the project…

[deleted]

Re: Dstat project ended due to RedHat replacing it with its own dstat tool

#118

Honest question: aside from "they provide Enterprise support", does anyone have a reason they would actually use redhat or centos for new servers? Why not use a Debian-derived one, which seems to both be more common, and have less constant creepy corporate influences?

We had a vendor that we bought software from require, as part of the software requirements, both Red Hat and Oracle. This is not unique as many small specialized software shops do the same. I still have some government software that requires Windows 2008 and no other version is supported.

Re: Dstat project ended due to RedHat replacing it with its own dstat tool

#119

I have been using dstat for years. It's a great tool. But why kill the project just because some company has a project with the same name? There is more than one distro, you know

The project was already dead. But now the maintainer[s] found time to complain about how evil RH simply opted to provide a py3 compatible replacement and provide it as dstat.

Re: Dstat project ended due to RedHat replacing it with its own dstat tool

#120
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there is a lot of history that you do not know, starting with BSD and progressing through the late 1980s and early 1990s when there was a torrent of "clones" of things. The "Vixie cron" that you might even still be using is a "PD" clone of the Unix cron program, reimplemented from scratch with the same name. The van Smoorenburg "init" that you might have heard of was a clone of (an at the time sadly already out…

I'd like to add the common aliasing of vi->vim

You're too late. It's the fourth item in the first Stack Exchange answer. (-:
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