Re: GnuTLS CVE-2009-2730 Patches

[Jamie Strandboge <jamie () canonical com>]

On Sat, 15 Aug 2009, Simon Josefsson wrote:

> Jamie Strandboge <jamie-Z7WLFzj8eWMS+FvcfC7Uqw () public gmane org> writes:
>
> > On Fri, 14 Aug 2009, Simon Josefsson wrote:
> >
> > Attached are preliminary patches for 2.4.1, 2.0.4 and 1.2.9 backported
> > from the advisory[1].
>
> Thank you!
>
> I have applied the 2.4.x patch on the gnutls_2_4_x branch, so it will be
> built and tested by the daily autobuilder from now on.  I've tested that
> the nul-in-x509-names self-test works as expected with the 2.4 library.
> So in theory, it should be easy for me to make a v2.4.4 release from
> that branch.  I wonder if this would helps anyone, though?  I'd imagine
> that most people concerned with older releases are distributions that
> have to support older GnuTLS releases.  And you aren't likely to use a
> new upstream release anyway, since you just apply the patches to your
> version.
>
> I'm also concerned that there have been plenty of _other_ serious
> problems in these old GnuTLS releases (check the security vulnerability
> page), and I haven't back-ported the fixes to those problems to these
> old branches.  So if I make a release on that branch, I'd have to check
> what other serious problems would needs to be fixed for that branch to
> be secure -- which sounds like real work (for little gain).
>
> For these two reasons, I'd prefer to help you establish trust in the
> patches you developed rather than make releases on old branches.

I'd agree with this. Vendors have likely backported all those other
fixes. However, having a place for people to get patches for older
releases would likely be beneficial going forward (like you are doing
with this one). This is especially true when considering your
aforementioned lack of resources.

> I also added a link to your post on
> <http://www.gnu.org/software/gnutls/security.html> so others can find it
> easily.

Thanks!

Jamie

-- 
Jamie Strandboge             | http://www.canonical.com

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