Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: security updates only? (security-1.0.ebuild)

[Marius Mauch <genone@genone.de>]

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 12:29:59 +0200
Karsten Schulz <kaschu@t800.ping.de> wrote:

> Am Samstag, 16. August 2003 21:38 Marius Mauch wrote:
> > So, what is needed to get this working?
> > - put the GLSA in a standard location for automated retrieval, I
> > suggest both in the rsync tree and somewhere on www.gentoo.org
> > - convert all GLSA into XML format, this could be done by the
> > authors or a converter script
> > - some code additions, nothing major
> > - a lot of testing :)
> 
> I would like to discuss some aspects of your software. I like it, and
> I think, it could make admin's life easier. 

I'm currently writing a GLEP to adress the problem, so far the feedback
on my stuff has been very positive so I'm optimistic that it will be
accepted.

> First, for what reason do you maintain /var/cache/edb/glsa? You could
> ask portage to see, wether a special version of a package is installed
> in the system or is not. To store applied GLSAs in this file seems
> redundant to me, isn't it?

Sometimes you might want to solve an issue in another way than
recommended or the test result could be wrong or you don't want to fix
the issue or ...

> Second, the 'glsa-' prefix of the GLSA filenames seems unnecessary to
> me. The GLSA information is stored in the directory
> /usr/portage/glsa/. Why not name the file with its unique GLSA
> identifier (200307-07 or perhaps 200307-07.xml), shouldn't that be
> enough?

That's open for discussion. FYI, the glsa- prefix can be
changed/disabled in /etc/portage/glsa.conf.

> In your 'readme' file you wrote, that there is no installation needed.
> Nevertheless I would provide a little install-script, which checks the
> presence of the needed files and directories (/etc/portage/, 
> /usr/portage/glsa/  and /var/cache/edb/glsa). Without this dirs and
> the file, glsa.py fails.

Right now the tool is nearly useless as there are no XMLified GLSAs
available. It's only a prototype. Once the GLEP is accepted
I'll write an ebuild for it or ask carpaski to add it to the portage
package.

Marius

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