How compatible is LibreSSL?
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How compatible is LibreSSL?
1–10 of 55 posts
Re: How compatible is LibreSSL?
#2> -Werror is hardcoded in the configure script, which is a very bad idea, and the opposite of portable.
using -Werror is a guarantueed build break whenever the build is tried on a system the original developer had no access to.
I think that is exactly the point; if the thing does not build, people are going to complain loudly and things are going to get fixed. Warnings are usually just run-time problems waiting to happen, so they may as well be considered bugs.
Re: How compatible is LibreSSL?
#3so if the libressl developers rip out all their dubious entropy generation methods in favor of /dev/urandom on linux it might be well worth switching to it.
/dev/urandom is the favored entropy gathering method. But if you can't open it (not there, rlimit restriction, etc.) it falls back to the bobo code. If the linux kernel provided a random number source that was reliable and could not fail, this wouldn't be an issue.
Re: How compatible is LibreSSL?
#4The author tried building the first release on Sabotage Linux, an experimental distro, and reported on what broke. That may be valid; I hadn't heard of the distro before. They also talked about how entropy was being gathered incorrectly; this is possible, as I thought it's kind of a preview release, but I'm inclined to listen to the OpenBSD guys first.
Re: How compatible is LibreSSL?
#5so if the libressl developers rip out all their dubious entropy generation methods in favor of /dev/urandom on linux it might be well worth switching to it. /dev/urandom is the favored entropy gathering method. But if you can't open it (not there, rlimit restriction, etc.) it falls back to the bobo code. If the linux kernel provided a random number source that was reliable and could not fail, this wouldn't be an issu…
How is it a good thing to fall back to non sufficient security? The only good fallback is falling back to crash and clean up. If libressl can't find enough entropy then it should give up on it.
Re: How compatible is LibreSSL?
#6> -Werror is hardcoded in the configure script, which is a very bad idea, and the opposite of portable. using -Werror is a guarantueed build break whenever the build is tried on a system the original developer had no access to. I think that is exactly the point; if the thing does not build, people are going to complain loudly and things are going to get fixed. Warnings are usually just run-time problems waiting to ha…
In addition, correctness and security should always be prioritized ahead of portability. It does no good for software to be portable if that just means it's incorrect and insecure on more platforms.
Re: How compatible is LibreSSL?
#7"Werror is a guarantueed build break whenever the build is tried on a system the original developer had no access to."
Yeah, if your program uses undefined behaviour or your cc is crazy. I think the point is to catch undefined behaviour and make sure it isn't ignored.
Re: How compatible is LibreSSL?
#8> -Werror is hardcoded in the configure script, which is a very bad idea, and the opposite of portable. using -Werror is a guarantueed build break whenever the build is tried on a system the original developer had no access to. I think that is exactly the point; if the thing does not build, people are going to complain loudly and things are going to get fixed. Warnings are usually just run-time problems waiting to ha…
In addition, correctness and security should always be prioritized ahead of portability. It does no good for software to be portable if that just means it's incorrect and insecure on more platforms.
Well, actually, that's what the LibreSSL guys are doing. Removing tons and tons of backwards compatibility crap
Re: How compatible is LibreSSL?
#9so if the libressl developers rip out all their dubious entropy generation methods in favor of /dev/urandom on linux it might be well worth switching to it. /dev/urandom is the favored entropy gathering method. But if you can't open it (not there, rlimit restriction, etc.) it falls back to the bobo code. If the linux kernel provided a random number source that was reliable and could not fail, this wouldn't be an issu…
How is it a good thing to fall back to non sufficient security? The only good fallback is falling back to crash and clean up. If libressl can't find enough entropy then it should give up on it.
It does seem kind of odd to criticize the release for having -Werror on by default and also for having a fallback if /dev/urandom is unavailable.
In the former case they are sacrificing portability for increased confidence of correctness, and in the latter they are sacrificing confidence or correctness for increased portability.
Re: How compatible is LibreSSL?
#10so if the libressl developers rip out all their dubious entropy generation methods in favor of /dev/urandom on linux it might be well worth switching to it. /dev/urandom is the favored entropy gathering method. But if you can't open it (not there, rlimit restriction, etc.) it falls back to the bobo code. If the linux kernel provided a random number source that was reliable and could not fail, this wouldn't be an issu…
Was this not one of the things you critisized openssl for?
ie falling back on braindead methods when sane ones failed.