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In-kernel WireGuard is on its way to FreeBSD and the pfSense router

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121–130 of 167 posts

Re: In-kernel WireGuard is on its way to FreeBSD and the pfSense router

#121
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netgate is weirdly hostile to a lot of opensource stuff, which should be strange given what all their tech is built on top of. This has been going on for years. (see opnsense etc)

They've recently forked their open and closed source products, so a lot of people have been migrating to OPNSense. I've been using it for a couple months now and recommend it.

Same. I didn't really care for open-source-ness or for the anti-OPNsense smear campaigns as much, but when they announced they were EOLing the product I used I jumped ship to OPNsense too.

It does everything my pfSense install did and then some. Eg DNS blocking and IP blocking are built-in instead of needing a pfblockerng-style plugin.

The only thing I've found worth complaining about is the accordion sidebar UI thing makes it hard to middle-click-open new browser tabs, because it's not obvious which entries in the sidebar are actual pages and which are fake hyperlinks that just expand the accordion submenu.

Re: In-kernel WireGuard is on its way to FreeBSD and the pfSense router

#122

Scott Long from Netgate's response: https://www.netgate.com/blog/painful-lessons-learned-in-secu... "Unfortunately, the public discussion has also veered into vague claims and slanderous attacks. This is where the lack of transparency, the lack of respect, and the inflation of ego is damaging and unproductive. We had hoped for a better collaboration than this, and it makes me doubt the motives of the attackers. And y…

I've never used Netgate's products but reading that certainly doesn't enamour me to use them in the future.

Re: In-kernel WireGuard is on its way to FreeBSD and the pfSense router

#123

Link to relevant announcement email: https://lists.zx2c4.com/pipermail/wireguard/2021-March/00649... There's also Jason's reply to apparently not-nice feedback of someone from NetGate: https://lists.zx2c4.com/pipermail/wireguard/2021-March/00649...

> But perhaps this is a good moment to step back and ask how we got here, and what WireGuard itself really is. > Traditionally, network protocols are specified in a document of protocol behaviors. Then different organizations implement that specification. Then everybody interoperates and all goes well. In practice, it often doesn’t go well (see IPsec woes), but this at least has been the traditional way of doing this…

It's not clear what your objection is here.

Re: In-kernel WireGuard is on its way to FreeBSD and the pfSense router

#124

Link to relevant announcement email: https://lists.zx2c4.com/pipermail/wireguard/2021-March/00649... There's also Jason's reply to apparently not-nice feedback of someone from NetGate: https://lists.zx2c4.com/pipermail/wireguard/2021-March/00649...

This isn’t even the only NetGate debacle. There is also the mess that lead to OPNsense. All in all, I’ve sworn off buying NetGate hardware despite it looking great in theory.

Re: In-kernel WireGuard is on its way to FreeBSD and the pfSense router

#125
post #42
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my impression too, then I went back a couple prior messages, and looked at the earlier announcement. Wihle Netgate looks to have overreacted (at least from the info we have), I can understand why they would be upset. This was in the original announcement: The first step was assessing the current state of the code the previous developer had dumped into the tree. It was not pretty. I imagined strange Internet…

Similar reaction here. My first impression was Netgate being an arse. But then when you read the announcement I kind of understand why Scott is angry. Because while the post may have been in "good faith" in an Open Development and Open Source world, it surely isn't in a professional and business world especially when the work is sponsored ( being paid ). Jason should have informed Netgate the quality of the code is s…

It is unprofessional and bad business to deliberately sell your customers insecure code, and you should not expect anyone to support you in doing so. Jason would have veen within his rights to warn Netgate's customers about security holes in pfSense - but he didn't even do that, he made a comment on his own project's mailing list, intentionally not naming the company, about what he was doing and why, which is entirely within the realm of "professional."

(And there is, of course, the question of whether Netgate is in any way "professional" by building on top of an open project and not following its norms.)

Re: In-kernel WireGuard is on its way to FreeBSD and the pfSense router

#126

Link to relevant announcement email: https://lists.zx2c4.com/pipermail/wireguard/2021-March/00649... There's also Jason's reply to apparently not-nice feedback of someone from NetGate: https://lists.zx2c4.com/pipermail/wireguard/2021-March/00649...

Damage control: https://www.netgate.com/blog/painful-lessons-learned-in-secu...

tl;dr: "The developer of the project whose protocol I'm reimplementing and whose trademark I'm using to sell things is an attacker with ulterior motives. Anyway, everyone should be respectful and leave their egos at their door. Everyone else, that is.'

Re: In-kernel WireGuard is on its way to FreeBSD and the pfSense router

#128
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like Jason should trademark Wireguard (the name). Or build an alternative brand. That way Netgate's actions, or the actions of other wireguard implementations, will not reflect on the reputation of his project/product/technology.

He did trademark the name. I don't think Jason is going to tell the FreeBSD project that they can't use the name "wireguard" for their implementation of "wireguard" just because Netgate put out shoddy code. It's not the FreeBSD project's fault. https://www.wireguard.com/trademark-policy/

I don't think this is an accurate description of the responsibility hierarchy. If in fact the code by Netgate or associates/ contractors/ employees of Netgate is not of professional quality, it has no place in the FreeBSD codebase ready for a stable release. Ultimately, the FreeBSD core community/ developers are together responsible for the codebase even if you cannot hold them legally accountable because of the license. They together hand out and take back (deny) the commit rights (bit, whatever). If a highly sought after component _in the kernel_ is (at least to Jason's account) not even up to the lowest security and code quality standard it has no place in the code base in preparation for a stable or probably even a beta release. Other developers (and that's where Jason is completely in the right if his account is correct) should protest the inclusion of such possibly very bad code into the codebase more or less in late preparations for a release as I understand it.

So it is first and foremost on Netgate, if Jason is right but right after that it is on the other responsible FreeBSD co-developers. I mean having so obviously bad code in any kernel of a modern operating system release would be really, really bad. There are many people and companies dependent on it that cannot really influence anything but have to endure the consequences either way. I mean, if you buy a storage appliance, a router or a firewall you trust the quality of the product to a degree and cannot really audit much even if you had the skill. You have to take the word for it and make some reasonable accomodations. No insurance is going the replace the full damage due to lost data to an attacker or a bug. Peoples lives sometimes indirectly depend on the full chain of competence and no insurance can resurrect the dead or right the good name of anybody. Remember, most of the time when you have to update anything for security reasons, somebody didn't understand the system fully or just plain messed up. The only exception is when the problem or times / requirements have changed (e.g. the computers got so fast, we have to transition to longer keys/ passwords whatever).

So yeah, if Jason's account is accurate it is bad the code landed in the codebase at all and raises questions about the quality and security of FreeBSD. I mean, it is code directly meant for a secure-as-possible VPN and something that often directly interacts with the open internet. Surely such code should experience extra scrutiny.

From the short personal interaction with Jason he came across as quite thoughtful and knowledgeable. Over the years, he and his supporters were able to convince many not so easy to convince people about the quality of Wireguard and some of its implementations. He and the supporters have shown a long term commitment and I am for these reasons inclined to trust Jason's judgement as well.

Re: In-kernel WireGuard is on its way to FreeBSD and the pfSense router

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminded me of the type of statements he made last year on another set of mailing lists: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24430424 https://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-net/2020/08/22/msg007842.... https://mail-index.NetBSD.org/current-users/2020/08/22/msg03... https://mail-index.NetBSD.org/tech-kern/2020/08/23/msg026693...

I don't think he intends to be patronising, but he certainly comes off that way.

I mean, Wireguard in these cases is a piece of code _in the kernel_, is meant to be directly in the path of a packet coming from an untrusted network and potentially does cryptography/ security critical stuff. Besides maybe memory management and such things, with what other pieces of code do you care more about quality and security than basically a VPN? People and companies that don't even know what Wireguard or a VPN for that matter is directly or indirectly depend on this and similar code being nearly perfect sometimes with their reputations or even lives. I mean, it is not a game that is taking too long to load or something, which is quite upsetting but I cannot imagine how that would be critical. The security of a kernel or a VPN is a very different story and we should all stop pretending this isn't the case. I hope (and am quite convinced) Jason and others want only the best for the respective kernels and the Wireguard implementation from the standpoint of quality and security.

Re: In-kernel WireGuard is on its way to FreeBSD and the pfSense router

#130
post #90
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not an elaborate insult. My read on it wasn't that it was an elaborate insult, but more that it was far more denigrating than it needed to be, if he was trying to be professional. That doesn't mean it was purposeful, sometimes people just don't really associate the statements they make with how it may be perceived. I think it could have been communicated clearly and succinctly with something along the lines of…

I get your point about perceptions, but there's also another aspect of why I found it important and necessary to describe just how poor the code was: When you're talking about replacing and rewriting the implementation on the eve of release, you better have a good reason for doing so. Stuffing a rewrite of security critical code into the kernel at the last minute is a big red flag. The main question that immediately…

May I ask, how is it possible the previous code was in the code base at all when it was of so poor quality?

Btw. thank you (and all the people that probably help you here and there) for Wireguard. I put a lot of trust into You/ Wireguard and I am hardly the only one. So I am all for quality and security even if it takes as long as it takes. It is really a huge progress we have a useable and _simple_ VPN protocol and widespread implementations of it.

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