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Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier

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Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier

#41

Post by honestthrowaway »

comex wrote: post #20
rdtsc wrote: post #4

Really, a browser is now dependent on a particular Linux kernel? For example RHEL/CentOS 7 which was released just last year with at least a 10 year support ahead of it is now obsolete according to them because it has a kernel version 3.10... Not that many people are on desktop versions of those OSes, and those that are will not use Chrome (for example, US govt loves them some Desktop RHEL systems, but Chrome is usua…

Chrome isn't your average application, though - it pioneered the modern use of tight process sandboxes in general (in client-side applications, anyway), and in particular was the biggest motivating client for (and Kees Cook on Chrome OS Security wrote some of the code for) seccomp-bpf, the ~3-year-old sandboxing mechanism that allows precise control of permitted syscalls and syscall arguments. The incompatibility her…

Google invented sandboxing in client apps? I don't know who's more arrogant - Google or their fawning fanboys.

Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier

#42

Post by yuhong »

gsnedders wrote: post #31
comex wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome isn't your average application, though - it pioneered the modern use of tight process sandboxes in general (in client-side applications, anyway), and in particular was the biggest motivating client for (and Kees Cook on Chrome OS Security wrote some of the code for) seccomp-bpf, the ~3-year-old sandboxing mechanism that allows precise control of permitted syscalls and syscall arguments. The incompatibility her…

Chrome did? IE7 shipped with pretty tight sandboxing in 2006 — and Chrome was only announced in 2008!

Only on Vista and later though.

Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier

#43

Post by zobzu »

ars wrote: post #5

Can someone say what TSYNC is? Googling it did not help me, lots of links, but none that said what it actually is.

it synchronize all the process's threads to use the same seccomp filter (seccomp being a sandbox mechanism - a bit like a firewall for system calls).

Threads on Linux are very close to an equivalent of "separate process" except they share memory. Up to until seccomp tsync, only the thread calling seccomp and it's children would get the seccomp filter.

If you wanted to have seccomp in previously started threads you'd have to handle a broadcast in userspace and ensure all threads actually apply the same seccomp filter.

I bet they ran into issues with that (it's easy to forget a thread or have a new thread someone elses coded that will fail to apply the filter).

tsync is kernel side and explicitly fails/succeeds so its both simpler and safer.

Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier

#44

Post by zobzu »

comex wrote: post #20
rdtsc wrote: post #4

Really, a browser is now dependent on a particular Linux kernel? For example RHEL/CentOS 7 which was released just last year with at least a 10 year support ahead of it is now obsolete according to them because it has a kernel version 3.10... Not that many people are on desktop versions of those OSes, and those that are will not use Chrome (for example, US govt loves them some Desktop RHEL systems, but Chrome is usua…

Chrome isn't your average application, though - it pioneered the modern use of tight process sandboxes in general (in client-side applications, anyway), and in particular was the biggest motivating client for (and Kees Cook on Chrome OS Security wrote some of the code for) seccomp-bpf, the ~3-year-old sandboxing mechanism that allows precise control of permitted syscalls and syscall arguments. The incompatibility her…

Chrome certainly didn't pioneer anything. Google devs brought seccomp-bpf to the kernel, which is a simpler alternative (but also not always as useable) to many other mechanisms.

Chrome is one of the first products on linux with a large amount of users to support a reasonably strong sandbox. But that's not what pioneering means.

Of course, seccomp-nonbpf, selinux and quite a few other mechanisms have been around for a longer while. In non-Linux kernels in fact, there are FAR more secure mechanisms (but also, they don't run Linux binaries..)

Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier

#45

Post by delroth »

honestthrowaway wrote: post #41
comex wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome isn't your average application, though - it pioneered the modern use of tight process sandboxes in general (in client-side applications, anyway), and in particular was the biggest motivating client for (and Kees Cook on Chrome OS Security wrote some of the code for) seccomp-bpf, the ~3-year-old sandboxing mechanism that allows precise control of permitted syscalls and syscall arguments. The incompatibility her…

Google invented sandboxing in client apps? I don't know who's more arrogant - Google or their fawning fanboys.

Calling comex a "fawning fanboy"? That's ballsy for a throwaway account.

Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier

#46

Post by honestthrowaway »

yuhong wrote: post #38
honestthrowaway wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair Google's whole business model is based on spying on people to gather data for ad placement. If we're being entirely honest a browser which sends every url you visit to Google by default is spyware.

It is very off topic too.

Not really. You have to see the supreme irony in a company which is ditching suppport for very recent kernels in the name of security when the app in question is designed primarily to spy on your browsing habits (and ensure that you favour their search and mail products, which exist purely to make money from ads based on their spying).

Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier

#47

Post by yuhong »

fpgeek wrote: post #40
teraflop wrote: post #17

Chrome "unofficially" dropped support for pre-3.16 kernels, such as the kernel in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, about half a year ago. More precisely, they introduced a bug that caused installing extensions to fail with that kernel, and then declined to fix it. https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=401655 See comment #47: "Ok, while it sounds like this is technically a regression, I'm going to mark this as Wontfix…

First, I'll note that plenty of people use Chrome without extensions. This issue wasn't a showstopper for any of them. Second, you cut out the rest of the comment: "If that causes great hardship for anyone and you want to do the work to figure out what's going on submit patches to fix it, I can provide pointers for where to start looking and code reviews for the patch." Since that comment has anyone done anything oth…

I wonder if any distro's Chromium package had a patch.

Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier

#48

Post by microtonal »

ryanprichard wrote: post #23
teraflop wrote: post #17

Chrome "unofficially" dropped support for pre-3.16 kernels, such as the kernel in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, about half a year ago. More precisely, they introduced a bug that caused installing extensions to fail with that kernel, and then declined to fix it. https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=401655 See comment #47: "Ok, while it sounds like this is technically a regression, I'm going to mark this as Wontfix…

At least there seems to be a supported method for updating the 14.04 kernel: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TrustyTahr/ReleaseNotes#LTS_Hardware... Apparently, Ubuntu 14.04.2 installs a 3.16 kernel by default, and previous 14.04 installs can be updated by installing a bunch of "*-utopic" packages.

For some reason, Chrome seems to work fine with extensions on my Ubuntu 14.04, kernel 3.13.

I agree with those saying this is completely stupid. In corporate environments, there are a lot of Ubuntu LTS, RHEL, and CentOS desktops. They won't be upgraded to >= 3.16 for years.

Edit: oh, wait, this starts in the next version.

Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier

#49

Post by KaiserPro »

teraflop wrote: post #17

Chrome "unofficially" dropped support for pre-3.16 kernels, such as the kernel in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, about half a year ago. More precisely, they introduced a bug that caused installing extensions to fail with that kernel, and then declined to fix it. https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=401655 See comment #47: "Ok, while it sounds like this is technically a regression, I'm going to mark this as Wontfix…

Lots of people are stuck on RHEL6 which means we have to use a wrapper to get chrome installed.

Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier

#50

Post by microtonal »

honestthrowaway wrote: post #37
redthrowaway wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like an exceedingly childish exchange.

To be fair Google's whole business model is based on spying on people to gather data for ad placement. If we're being entirely honest a browser which sends every url you visit to Google by default is spyware.

The questioner is using Chrome and already made his mind up that it is an acceptable trade-off. He is asking for a simple yes or no, but instead gets useless Chrome bashing.

Of course, no one can expect free support. But if you want to have/keep users as well, this is perhaps not the way to treat them ;).

Even if you wanted to sneak in the Chrome bashing, it would be better to answer the question first.

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