[gentoo-project] The status of grsecurity upstream and hardened-sources downstream

["Anthony G. Basile" <blueness@gentoo.org>]

Hi everyone,

Since late April, grsecurity upstream has stop making their patches
available publicly.  Without going into details, the reason for their
decision revolves around disputes about how their patches were being
(ab)used.

Since the grsecurity patch formed the main core of our hardened-sources
kernel, their decision has serious repercussions for the Hardened Gentoo
project.  I will no longer be able to support hardened-sources and will
have to eventually mask and remove it from the tree.

Hardened Gentoo has two sides to it, kernel hardening (done via
hardened-sources) and toolchain/executable hardening.  The two are
interrelated but independent enough that toolchain hardening can
continue on its own.  The hardened kernel, however, provided PaX
protection for executables and this will be lost.  We did a lot of work
to properly maintain PaX markings in our package management system and
there was no part of Gentoo that wasn't touched by issues stemming from
PaX support.

I waited two months before saying anything because the reasons were more
of a political nature than some technical issue.  At this point, I think
its time to let the community know about the state of affairs with
hardened-sources.

I can no longer get into the #grsecurity/OFTC channel (nothing personal,
they kicked everyone), and so I have not spoken to spengler or pipacs.
I don't know if they will ever release grsecurity patches again.

My plan then is as follows.  I'll wait one more month and then send out
a news item and later mask hardened-sources for removal.  I don't
recommend we remove any of the machinery from Gentoo that deals with PaX
markings.

I welcome feedback.

-- 
Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D.
Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened]
E-Mail    : blueness@gentoo.org
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