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RCE via ND6 Router Advertisements in FreeBSD

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Re: RCE via ND6 Router Advertisements in FreeBSD

#71

Post by valleyer »

IshKebab wrote: post #62
matheusmoreira wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is POSIX standardizing legacy stuff like shells, thereby tempting people to write "portable" software, leading these technologies to ossify and stick with us for half a century and counting. Someone comes along and builds something better but gets threatened for not following "the UNIX way".

This is a very good point. I wonder how hard it would be to get POSIX to standardise a scripting language that isn't awful. Probably never going to happen. There is a dearth of good scripting languages, and I would imagine any POSIX committee is like 98% greybeard naysayers who think 70s Unix was the pinnacle of computing.

POSIX does not specify the init/rc script system, so it's not a factor here at all. A POSIX-compliant system could use Python scripts. macOS (which is UNIX 03 certified) uses launchd. A POSIX system has to ship the shell, not use it.

And FreeBSD isn't actually POSIX-certified anyway!

The real consideration here is simply that there are tons of existing rc scripts for BSDs, and switching them all would be a large task.

Re: RCE via ND6 Router Advertisements in FreeBSD

#72

Post by MisterTea »

IshKebab wrote: post #68
MisterTea wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately your joke has wooshed over quite a few heads but what you say is true. The shell should be one of the most reliable parts of your operating system. Why on earth would you NOT trust the primary interface of your OS? Makes no sense.

I'm not sure I follow you but it wasn't a joke. Shell scripts are notoriously error-prone. I absolutely do not trust shell script authors to get everything right. Also the shell isn't even "the primary interface of your OS". For Linux that's the Linux ABI, or arguably libc. Unless you meant "human interface", in which case also no - KDE is the primary interface of my OS.

> I'm not sure I follow you but it wasn't a joke. Shell scripts are notoriously error-prone. I absolutely do not trust shell script authors to get everything right.

This is an extremely naive take as are the rest of your comments. Any language in the wrong hands is error prone.

Re: RCE via ND6 Router Advertisements in FreeBSD

#73

Post by IshKebab »

MisterTea wrote: post #72
IshKebab wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I follow you but it wasn't a joke. Shell scripts are notoriously error-prone. I absolutely do not trust shell script authors to get everything right. Also the shell isn't even "the primary interface of your OS". For Linux that's the Linux ABI, or arguably libc. Unless you meant "human interface", in which case also no - KDE is the primary interface of my OS.

> I'm not sure I follow you but it wasn't a joke. Shell scripts are notoriously error-prone. I absolutely do not trust shell script authors to get everything right. This is an extremely naive take as are the rest of your comments. Any language in the wrong hands is error prone.

> Any language in the wrong hands is error prone.

Talk about naive!

Re: RCE via ND6 Router Advertisements in FreeBSD

#74

Post by shakna »

zokier wrote: post #65
immibis wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a federal mandate to implement IPv6 by... the end of this year. So in about 2-3 weeks.

Are you referring to the OMB IPv6 mandate? That only relates to federal networks, and even there its requiring only 80% adoption. It has zero relevance to normal commercial/private networks

I assume they were referencing ISM-0518.

Which mandates all ISPs _in Australia_ to have IPv6 before January 1st, 2026.

Re: RCE via ND6 Router Advertisements in FreeBSD

#75

Post by linksnapzz »

IshKebab wrote: post #73
MisterTea wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure I follow you but it wasn't a joke. Shell scripts are notoriously error-prone. I absolutely do not trust shell script authors to get everything right. This is an extremely naive take as are the rest of your comments. Any language in the wrong hands is error prone.

> Any language in the wrong hands is error prone. Talk about naive!

Feel free to implement system utilities in whichever language you feel will completely eliminate the possibility of bugs.

I wait with bated breath.

Re: RCE via ND6 Router Advertisements in FreeBSD

#76

Post by linksnapzz »

hollerith wrote: post #69
IshKebab wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing the number of people that thing shell scripts should be anything other than throwaway single-person hacks. They should probably go through their whole system and verify that there aren't more shell scripts being used, e.g. in the init system. Ideally a default distro would have zero shell scripts.

You are being downvoted, but I agree with you. I've always believed sh, csh, bash, etc, are very bad programming languages that require excessive efforts to learn how to write code in without unintentionally introducing bugs, including security holes.

Sir, this is a Wendy's.

If you want all-singing, all-dancing opaque binaries to handle every conceivable configuration eventuality, MacOS and Windows are <-- that way. Or, you could have patience, and sometime soon systemd will likely expand to cover your use-case.

Re: RCE via ND6 Router Advertisements in FreeBSD

#77

Post by IshKebab »

linksnapzz wrote: post #75
IshKebab wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any language in the wrong hands is error prone. Talk about naive!

Feel free to implement system utilities in whichever language you feel will completely eliminate the possibility of bugs. I wait with bated breath.

"error-prone" means bugs are more likely than the alternatives. It doesn't mean that the alternatives completely eliminate the possibility of bugs. Come on.

Re: RCE via ND6 Router Advertisements in FreeBSD

#78

Post by [deleted] »

somat wrote: post #61
TekMol wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't use public networks? And when you connect to a non-public WiFi for the first time - how do you make sure it is the WiFi you think it is and not some dude who spun up a hotspot on their laptop?

Why does it matter? I mean I guess it did in this case but that is considered a top priority bug and quickly fixed. I guess my point is the way the internet works is that your traffic goes through a number of unknown and possibly hostile actors on it's way to the final destination. Having a hostile actor presenting a spoofed wifi access point should not affect your security stance in any way. Either the connection wo…

[deleted]

Re: RCE via ND6 Router Advertisements in FreeBSD

#79

Post by hollerith »

linksnapzz wrote: post #76
hollerith wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are being downvoted, but I agree with you. I've always believed sh, csh, bash, etc, are very bad programming languages that require excessive efforts to learn how to write code in without unintentionally introducing bugs, including security holes.

Sir, this is a Wendy's. If you want all-singing, all-dancing opaque binaries to handle every conceivable configuration eventuality, MacOS and Windows are <-- that way. Or, you could have patience, and sometime soon systemd will likely expand to cover your use-case.

On MacOS I remember many .plist files but no binary config files. The .plist format looks similar to XML.

I like the .ini format used by systemd (and do not have an opinion about the overall quality of systemd).

Re: RCE via ND6 Router Advertisements in FreeBSD

#80

Post by linksnapzz »

IshKebab wrote: post #77
linksnapzz wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel free to implement system utilities in whichever language you feel will completely eliminate the possibility of bugs. I wait with bated breath.

"error-prone" means bugs are more likely than the alternatives. It doesn't mean that the alternatives completely eliminate the possibility of bugs. Come on.

I wonder what the tally is for "things posted to HN that'll replace bash/ksh/zsh in every respect REAL Soon Now". It's a genre of post unto itself.
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