Re: PG Patch (fwd) [openserver patch followup #2]

--On Wednesday, July 23, 2003 12:20:34 +0200 Peter Eisentraut
<peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> wrote:

> Larry Rosenman writes:
>
>> Why do this at all? Security. Having shared libraries without full
>> SONAME's is a big security risk. There have been any number of huge
>> explots based around this. Point me at any Solaris machine <= 2.7, or
>> any OSR5 system < 507 or any FreeBSD system <= 4.0 and I can get root
>> with 1 tiny program thats on all of them: xterm. It has long upset me,
>> and I am done trying to convince them, but libtool encourages the worst
>> possible .so practices, and may programs seem to have picked up those
>> equally bad practices. There is no need for futzing with ld.conf and the
>> like if people take the time to construct shared libraries propperly.
>> Yes it can be a pain to bootstrap but the reward is very well worth the
>> effort it takes.
>
> These concerns might have some merit, but the solution could not possibly
> be to only fix this on one platform, because the mechanisms are the same
> everywhere. That said, it seems the universal practice is not to put full
> sonames into shared libraries, so it seems better that our libraries
> follow that practice. Otherwise it will be only a matter of time before
> someone comes out of the wood and claims that libraries will full sonames
> are a big whatever-else problem.
Universal Practice does NOT equal Security and Usability.

Please consider what Kean is saying here.

Kean,
Please respond.

LER

--
Larry Rosenman http://www.lerctr.org/~ler
Phone: +1 972-414-9812 E-Mail: ler(at)lerctr(dot)org
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