Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu • Hacker News Board

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#151

Post by Ygg2 » Tue, May 06, 2025, 6:52 PM UTC

ziddoap wrote: post #108

Ygg2 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's used to refer to people zealously commenting on message boards that every single tool ever built should be rewritten in Rust. Ok, but between me, GP and the article, who said that? Where are the Rabid RIIR fans? And before you misquote me, I said, why wouldn't you rewrite stuff in Rust, if the status quo is ridden with bugs, and safety issues? And why shouldn't a Linux distro switch to it if they desire.

> Ok, but between me, GP and the article, who said that? Where are the Rabid RIIR fans? The person you replied to said: " The religious element of rust programmers seems more extreme than other languages. " You interpreted that in a way that ended up with you asking " What is religious about rewriting tools in Rust ". I clarified that the typical way "religious element of rust programmers" is interpreted is not the a…

> The proselytizing is the religious element, not the act of rewriting tools in Rust.

Ok. Where is the proselytizing taking place in the article?

Is the sudo-rs did work, the proselytization? Where is it?

> The meme "Rust Evangelists" didn't manifest out of thin air

That's not how memes work. It's just something that appeals to some group that spreads it. It can be true, false and fabricated out of thin air.

What if I told you, that "What if I told you" meme isn't what Morpheus says to Neo? The scene itself is so divorced from meme it doesn't carry much resemblance (here https://youtu.be/L8H9DqkrkcY)

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#152

Post by nmstoker » Tue, May 06, 2025, 6:58 PM UTC

bArray wrote: post #140

wkat4242 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you mean a magic bullet instead of a smoking gun :)

I meant "smoking gun" from a cyber security perspective, i.e. the conclusion or the final part of the investigation. "magic bullet" would also work here too though.

You seem to have inferred the wrong meaning of "smoking gun" and that's why your usage above doesn't make sense.

There's no valid reason cyber security people would take a well known idiom and repurpose it as you imply, and a quick Google suggests they haven't done this.

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#153

Post by pixl97 » Tue, May 06, 2025, 7:00 PM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #72

jvanderbot wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the opposing view is that moving away from sudo is substantially more effort and would break basically everything to accomplish "the same" thing as robustifying sudo (for some very loose definition of "same")

Yes, it's more effort, but it's not close to being the same.

I mean moving from IPv4 to IPv6 is more effort, but it's not close to being the same...

And it's also why it mostly has not happened for most people.

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#154

Post by ziddoap » Tue, May 06, 2025, 7:01 PM UTC

Ygg2 wrote: post #151

ziddoap wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ok, but between me, GP and the article, who said that? Where are the Rabid RIIR fans? The person you replied to said: " The religious element of rust programmers seems more extreme than other languages. " You interpreted that in a way that ended up with you asking " What is religious about rewriting tools in Rust ". I clarified that the typical way "religious element of rust programmers" is interpreted is not the a…

> The proselytizing is the religious element, not the act of rewriting tools in Rust. Ok. Where is the proselytizing taking place in the article? Is the sudo-rs did work, the proselytization? Where is it? > The meme "Rust Evangelists" didn't manifest out of thin air That's not how memes work. It's just something that appeals to some group that spreads it. It can be true, false and fabricated out of thin air. What if…

>Ok. Where is the proselytizing taking place in the article?

It's not? It's like you're picking random words out of my comment to quote without bothering to read what I'm writing. Nothing of what I said is about the article. It's about your misinterpretation of what fossuser meant when they said "religious element".

I can't explain the same thing for a third (fourth, I guess? since I just tried again) time, I'm running out of different ways to say it. So I'll just leave it there.

Your meta-commentary on memes is neat and all, but again, somehow, completely misses the point I was making.

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#155

Post by nottorp » Tue, May 06, 2025, 7:10 PM UTC

bArray wrote: post #121

> This move is part of a broader effort by Canonical to improve the resilience and maintainability of core system components. Sudo-rs is developed by the Trifecta Tech Foundation (TTF), a nonprofit organization that creates secure, open source building blocks for infrastructure software. Ubuntu continuously updates itself without permission, killing apps and losing previous state. You have the Javascript based Gnome…

I have the hardware for a new home server waiting to be set up (as in, I don't need a new home server i'm just messing around, so once in a while i log in and configure one more service).

I tried the latest Ubuntu and it seems to be targeted at either containers or desktops. Everything I wanted to set up networking wise was a pain for my little non standard configuration.

Ended up wiping it and installing Debian instead.

As for this Rust thing, first question that comes to my mind is what features are missing from this new godly impervious to hackers by default implementation.

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#156

Post by bayindirh » Tue, May 06, 2025, 7:22 PM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #155

bArray wrote: post #121

> This move is part of a broader effort by Canonical to improve the resilience and maintainability of core system components. Sudo-rs is developed by the Trifecta Tech Foundation (TTF), a nonprofit organization that creates secure, open source building blocks for infrastructure software. Ubuntu continuously updates itself without permission, killing apps and losing previous state. You have the Javascript based Gnome…

I have the hardware for a new home server waiting to be set up (as in, I don't need a new home server i'm just messing around, so once in a while i log in and configure one more service). I tried the latest Ubuntu and it seems to be targeted at either containers or desktops. Everything I wanted to set up networking wise was a pain for my little non standard configuration. Ended up wiping it and installing Debian inst…

When there's Debian, Ubuntu is moot for servers and personal use (for power users at least).

One of my former colleagues used to install Ubuntu servers. I replace them with Debian when I get the chance. I was already blacklisted for Snap, so I can't re-blacklist them for going uutils and sudo-rs, and that's sad (as in Bryan Cantrell's famous talk).

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#157

Post by mrweasel » Tue, May 06, 2025, 7:26 PM UTC

stop50 wrote: post #3

Rotundo wrote: post #2

Did sudo have memory problems? Did it ever fail because it didn't handle its memory correctly?

Sudo had quite a few problems with security, partially because of this doas was developed for BSD. Some problems come from the huge amount of features(ldap, easter eggs, ...). sudo-rs reduces the problems by not implementing those features.

Ubuntu moving to a memory safe sudo implementation isn't actually that concerning to me. It's a good idea to have a smaller, safer sudo alternative as the default, as OpenBSD does with doas. Users can install sudo if they need it. My problem is that it needs to specifically be called something else than sudo. Again OpenBSD has doas, which to the users clearly isn't sudo, so users don't expect it to behave as sudo or configure as sudo.

By all means, write a better, safer, smaller, more secure version of sudo, but don't have command be sudo or sudo-rs, name it something else.

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#158

Post by ch_123 » Tue, May 06, 2025, 7:27 PM UTC

literalAardvark wrote: post #53

ch_123 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some problems come from the huge amount of features(ldap, easter eggs, ...). sudo-rs reduces the problems by not implementing those features. This makes me wonder: 1) Would a hypothetical "sudo-lite" with these features removed lead to better security without a rewrite? 2) If these features are useful in the real world, will a Rust rewrite of sudo inevitably gain these features over time and end up with similar pro…

It can't end up with similar problems, due to the memory safety guarantee. That's not to say that it won't create other ones.

There are many types of security problems beyond memory safety issues.

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#159

Post by Klonoar » Tue, May 06, 2025, 7:28 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #52

homefree wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's not religious. Memory safety is a thing. If by politics you mean the government: they only got started recommending memory safe languages once it became clear that foreign actors were going to keep exploiting C / C++ vulnerabilities. https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/08/the_us_government_wan...

Trump administration also rescinded this I believe.

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#160

Post by mustache_kimono » Tue, May 06, 2025, 7:28 PM UTC

bArray wrote: post #121

> This move is part of a broader effort by Canonical to improve the resilience and maintainability of core system components. Sudo-rs is developed by the Trifecta Tech Foundation (TTF), a nonprofit organization that creates secure, open source building blocks for infrastructure software. Ubuntu continuously updates itself without permission, killing apps and losing previous state. You have the Javascript based Gnome…

> That all said, Rust is not a smoking gun for incorrect application logic. It could still happily incorrectly execute stuff with the wrong permissions or blow something up badly.

This side steps the issue which is "Does Rust help you make software more correct?" No one is arguing that Rust is perfect. There are plenty of bugs in my Rust software. The question is only -- are we better off with Rust than the alternatives?

> I think it's also a bad idea to offer it as a drop-in replacement when clearly features are still missing since a long time [1].

Your example is the Github issue page?

Look -- I agree that, say, uutils/coreutils missing locales may frustrate some users (although I almost never use them). But "close enough" is more the Unix way than we may care to realize. But especially in this instance, because sudo is not POSIX (unlike locales which are). A distro is free to choose any number of alternatives.

Ubuntu wants to lay claim to "the Rust distribution" and it's hard to blame them when Linux wants to lay claim to "the Rust kernel".