Gentoo Weekly Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 47
Yuji Carlos Kosugi <[email protected]> Mon, 24 Nov 2003 12:22:27 -0500
| Newsgroups | gmane.linux.gentoo.weekly-news |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gentoo Weekly Newsletter
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/current.xml
This is the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of November 24th, 2003.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
==============
1. Gentoo News
==============
Summary
-------
* Gentoo Managers' Meeting Summary - 17 November 2003
* Gentoo Desktop update
Gentoo Managers' Meeting Summary - 17 November 2003
---------------------------------------------------
A log[1] and summary[2] of last week's Managers' Meeting have been posted
on the Gentoo Managers' Meetings[3] page. During the meeting, three issues
were discussed before the floor was opened. First, Daniel Robbins[4] spoke
about Catalyst, a new system for building LiveCDs and stage tarballs.
Catalyst, a rewrite of the original "stager" code used to build the
stage1, stage2, and stage3 tarballs, will be a single modular program able
to reliably and repeatably build stages, livecds, and package sets for all
architectures. Next, Sven Vermeulen[5] announced that the installation
section of the Gentoo Handbook[6] was ready for mass consumption. Finally,
infrastructure lead Kurt Lieber[7] asked what was being done to facilitate
QA for Gentoo, and was answered by Seemant Kulleen[8], who said that
releng was handling QA by developing catalyst and similar tools, and that
ideas were being tossed around in #gentoo-qa and in conversations with
developers.
1.
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/manager-meetings/logs/2003/20031117.tx
t
2.
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/manager-meetings/summaries/2003/200311
17.xml
3. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/manager-meetings/
4. [email protected]
5. [email protected]
6. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/index.xml
7. [email protected]
8. [email protected]
Gentoo Desktop update
---------------------
Status Report
There has been quite a bit of work done in the Gentoo Desktop world during
the last several weeks. A number of developers from the Gentoo Desktop
team have banded together to ensure that every package pertaining to
running Gentoo on the desktop is sufficiently maintained. This team has
begun forming new herds (collections of related ebuilds maintained by a
group of interested developers), updating forgotten packages to newer
versions, testing said packages, marking some of them stable, and closing
bugs. The current target categories are x11-misc, x11-wm, and x11-plugins.
Who wants to be a Gentoo Developer?
We are looking for at least two intelligent, dedicated people to join in
this effort. First, the KDE team is short of help, and would appreciate an
able volunteer. Second, the gnustep herd, which comprises gnustep,
afterstep, windowmaker, and some related apps, is fairly inactive, so we
would like one more person to fill this position. Other positions may be
available, so don't hesitate to contact tseng on IRC at #gentoo-desktop,
or send an email to Brandon Hale[9].
9. [email protected]
Qualified applicants will preferably be long-time users of Linux as a
desktop OS. Strong troubleshooting skills are required, as the selected
applicants will be working to resolve bug reports from other users.
Familiarity with Bugzilla and cvs are also a plus, and fluency in the
English language is greatly preferred.
=================================
2. Featured Developer of the Week
=================================
Featured Developer is on hiatus this week.
==================
3. Gentoo Security
==================
GLSA: apache
------------
Quote from http://httpd.apache.org/dev/dist/Announcement:
This version of Apache is principally a bug and security fix release. A
partial summary of the bug fixes is given at the end of this document. A
full listing of changes can be found in the CHANGES file. Of particular
note is that 1.3.29 addresses and fixes 1 potential security issue:
* CAN-2003-0542 (cve.mitre.org): Fix buffer overflows in mod_alias and
mod_rewrite which occurred if one configured a regular expression with
more than 9 captures.
We consider Apache 1.3.29 to be the best version of Apache 1.3 available
and we strongly recommend that users of older versions, especially of the
1.1.x and 1.2.x family, upgrade as soon as possible. No further releases
will be made in the 1.2.x family.
* Packages Affected: <apache-1.3.29
* Rectification: emerge sync; emerge -pv apache; emerge
'>=net-www/apache-1.3.29'; emerge clean; /etc/init.d/apache restart
* GLSA Announcement[10]
10. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.announce/263
GLSA: kdebase
-------------
Firstly, versions of KDM <= 3.1.3 are vulnerable to a privilege escalation
bug with a specific configuration of PAM modules. Users who do not use PAM
with KDM and users who use PAM with regular Unix crypt/MD5 based
authentication methods are not affected.
Secondly, KDM uses a weak cookie generation algorithm. It is advised that
users upgrade to KDE 3.1.4, which uses /dev/urandom as a non-predictable
source of entropy to improve security.
Please look at http://www.kde.org/info/security/advisory-20030916-1.txt
for the KDE Security Advisory and source patch locations for older
versions of KDE.
* Packages Affected: <=3.1.3
* Rectification: emerge --sync; emerge '>=kde-base/kde-3.1.4'; emerge
clean
* GLSA Announcement[11]
11. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.announce/264
GLSA: opera
-----------
The Opera browser can cause a buffer allocated on the heap to overflow
under certain HREFs when rendering HTML. The mail system is also deemed
vulnerable and an attacker can send an email containing a malformed HREF,
or plant the malicious HREF on a web site.
Please see http://www.atstake.com/research/advisories/2003/a102003-1.txt
for further details.
* Severity: High - buffer overflows rendering certain HREFs
* Packages Affected: 7.11, 7.20
* Rectification: emerge --sync; emerge '>=net-www/opera-7.22'; emerge
clean
* GLSA Announcement[12]
12. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.announce/265
GLSA: hylafax
-------------
During a code review of the hfaxd server, the SuSE Security Team
discovered a format bug condition that allows a remote attacker to execute
arbitrary code as the root user. However, the bug cannot be triggered in
the default hylafax configuration.
SuSE-SA:2003:045 outlines the problem, and is available at
http://lwn.net/Articles/57562/
* Severity: Normal - Remote code exploit untriggerable in default
configuration
* Packages Affected: <=4.1.7
* Rectification: emerge --sync; emerge '>=net-misc/hylafax-4.1.8'; emerge
clean
* GLSA Announcement[13]
13. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.announce/266
New Security Bug Reports
------------------------
The following new security bugs were posted this week:
* sys-libs/pam[14]
* net-www/jboss[15]
* sys-libs/pam[16]
14. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=28407
15. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30554
16. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31877
=========================
4. Heard in the Community
=========================
Beyond X
"Can I use this without blowing a hole in my PC?" was the spontaneous
first reaction to port001[17]'s announcement of ebuilds for Keith
Packard's alternative Xserver[18] (formerly known as kdrive), including
the Render extension and a 32 bits X Visual for presenting alpha-blended
content to the screen. The forum thread started last Sunday, is quite
lively and an absolute must for anyone who wants to have a go at
translucent windows... The ebuild's actual author spyderous[19] and thread
initiator port001 are still around answering questions:
17. http://forums.gentoo.org/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=11355
18. http://freedesktop.org/Software/xserver
19. http://forums.gentoo.org/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=16592
* Freedesktop.org XServer ebuilds[20]
* Spyderous' repository and instructions[21]
20. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=106391
21. http://dev.gentoo.org/~spyderous/overlay-freedesktop
Power Profiles for Laptops
Well rooted in the tradition of donating excellent documentation to the
Forum section of the same name, optilude[22] has deposited a collection of
scripts for power management on laptop and notebooks, addressing CPU
frequency throttles and backlight adjustments, but potentially including
other funtions, too.:
22. http://forums.gentoo.org/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=1707
* [SCRIPTS] Power profiles for laptops[23]
23. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=106835
gentoo-user
-----------
Dangers of unmerging?
Quoting the Portage Manual: 'Unmerging packages can be dangerous...removal
of various libraries may cause software to fail". User list member Jason
presented that this is a fundamental shortcoming in Portage. Check out how
others felt about this topic here[24].
24. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/55063
=======================
5. Gentoo International
=======================
Vienna Gentoo Linux Users Group (VGLUG) Meeting in December
The Vienna crowd continues to pick the strangest of places for their
venues. This time (Tuesday 2 December, 19:00 hours) it's going to be at
the Cafe Oskar[25], a peculiar joint where - judging from the pictures on
their website - part of the crowd consistently seems to enjoy dancing on
tables while being inappropriately clad for temperatures outside. Stow
those notebooks away, Gentoomen... Questions, remarks, RSVPs to the Forum
coordination thread[26].
25. http://oskar-cafe.at
26. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=659182#659182
================
6. Portage Watch
================
Portage Watch is on hiatus this week.
===========
7. Bugzilla
===========
Summary
-------
* Statistics
* Closed Bug Ranking
* New Bug Rankings
Statistics
----------
The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org[27]) to record and
track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the
development team. Between 14 November 2003 and 20 November 2003, activity
on the site has resulted in:
27. http://bugs.gentoo.org
* 457 new bugs during this period
* 296 bugs closed or resolved during this period
* 11 previously closed bugs were reopened this period
Of the 4145 currently open bugs: 106 are labeled 'blocker', 189 are
labeled 'critical', and 319 are labeled 'major'.
Closed Bug Rankings
-------------------
The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period
are:
* AMD64 Porting Team[28], with 39 closed bugs[29]
* Markus Nigbur[30], with 15 closed bugs[31]
* Mozilla Gentoo Team[32], with 12 closed bugs[33]
* Gentoo Games[34], with 12 closed bugs[35]
* Gentoo KDE Team[36], with 11 closed bugs[37]
* Portage Team[38], with 11 closed bugs[39]
28. [email protected]
29.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-11-14&chfieldto=2003-11-20&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
30. [email protected]
31.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-11-14&chfieldto=2003-11-20&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
32. [email protected]
33.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-11-14&chfieldto=2003-11-20&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
34. [email protected]
35.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-11-14&chfieldto=2003-11-20&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
36. [email protected]
37.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-11-14&chfieldto=2003-11-20&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
38. [email protected]
39.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-11-14&chfieldto=2003-11-20&resolution=FIX
ED&[email protected]
New Bug Rankings
----------------
The developers and teams who have been assigned the most new bugs during
this period are:
* Net-Dialup Team[40], with 15 new bugs[41]
* Net-Mail Packages[42], with 13 new bugs[43]
* Martin Schlemmer[44], with 13 new bugs[45]
* Portage team[46], with 8 new bugs[47]
40. [email protected]
41.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-11-14&chfieldto=2003-11
-20&[email protected]
42. [email protected]
43.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-11-14&chfieldto=2003-11
-20&[email protected]
44. [email protected]
45.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-11-14&chfieldto=2003-11
-20&[email protected]
46. [email protected]
47.
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-11-14&chfieldto=2003-11
-20&[email protected]
==================
8. Tips and Tricks
==================
Killing a Hung Virtual Console
This week's tip shows you how to restore a hung virtual console (without
rebooting). To do this, you need sys-apps/lsof from portage.
Using lsof, find the login processes of the hung console.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Code Listing 8.1: |
| Example: (hung console is /dev/vc/3) |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
|# lsof /dev/vc/3 |
|COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE NODE NAME |
|login 7114 root 0u CHR 4,3 17 /dev/vc/3 |
|login 7114 root 1u CHR 4,3 17 /dev/vc/3 |
|login 7114 root 2u CHR 4,3 17 /dev/vc/3 |
|zsh 30630 david 0u CHR 4,3 17 /dev/vc/3 |
|zsh 30630 david 1u CHR 4,3 17 /dev/vc/3 |
|zsh 30630 david 2u CHR 4,3 17 /dev/vc/3 |
|zsh 30630 david 10u CHR 4,3 17 /dev/vc/3 |
| |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kill the processes associated with this login and the console should
respawn.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Code Listing 8.2: |
| Killing the virtual console processes |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| # kill -9 7114 30630 |
| |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
==========================
9. Moves, Adds and Changes
==========================
Moves
-----
The following developers recently left the Gentoo team:
* none this week
Adds
----
The following developers recently joined the Gentoo Linux team:
* none this week
Changes
-------
The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo Linux
project.
* none this week
=====================
10. Contribute to GWN
=====================
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email[48].
48. [email protected]
================
11. GWN Feedback
================
Please send us your feedback[49] and help make the GWN better.
49. [email protected]
================================
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================================
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===================
13. Other Languages
===================
The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter is also available in the following languages:
* Dutch[50]
* English[51]
* German[52]
* French[53]
* Japanese[54]
* Italian[55]
* Polish[56]
* Portuguese (Brazil)[57]
* Portuguese (Portugal)[58]
* Russian[59]
* Spanish[60]
* Turkish[61]
50. http://www.gentoo.org/news/be/gwn/gwn.xml
51. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/gwn.xml
52. http://www.gentoo.org/news/de/gwn/gwn.xml
53. http://www.gentoo.org/news/fr/gwn/gwn.xml
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55. http://www.gentoo.org/news/it/gwn/gwn.xml
56. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pl/gwn/gwn.xml
57. http://www.gentoo.org/news/br/gwn/gwn.xml
58. http://www.gentoo.org/news/pt/gwn/gwn.xml
59. http://www.gentoo.org/news/ru/gwn/gwn.xml
60. http://www.gentoo.org/news/es/gwn/gwn.xml
61. http://www.gentoo.org/news/tr/gwn/gwn.xml
Yuji Carlos Kosugi <[email protected]> - Editor
AJ Armstrong <[email protected]> - Contributor
Brian Downey <[email protected]> - Contributor
Luke Giuliani <[email protected]> - Contributor
Shawn Jonnet <[email protected]> - Contributor
Michael Kohl <[email protected]> - Contributor
Kurt Lieber <[email protected]> - Contributor
Rafael Cordones Marcos <[email protected]> - Contributor
David Narayan <[email protected]> - Contributor
Gerald J Normandin Jr. <[email protected]> - Contributor
Ulrich Plate <[email protected]> - Contributor
Mathy Vanvoorden <[email protected]> - Dutch Translation
Hendrik Eeckhaut <[email protected]> - Dutch Translation
Jorn Eilander <[email protected]> - Dutch Translation
Bernard Kerckenaere <[email protected]> - Dutch Translation
Peter ter Borg <[email protected]> - Dutch Translation
Jochen Maes <[email protected]> - Dutch Translation
Roderick Goessen <[email protected]> - Dutch Translation
Gerard van den Berg <[email protected]> - Dutch Translation
Matthieu Montaudouin <[email protected]> - French Translation
Xavier Neys <[email protected]> - French Translation
Martin Prieto <[email protected]> - French Translation
Antoine Raillon <[email protected]> - French Translation
Sebastien Cevey <[email protected]> - French Translation
Jean-Christophe Choisy <[email protected]> - French Translation
Thomas Raschbacher <[email protected]> - German Translation
Steffen Lassahn <[email protected]> - German Translation
Matthias F. Brandstetter <[email protected]> - German Translation
Lukas Domagala <[email protected]> - German Translation
Tobias Scherbaum <[email protected]> - German Translation
Daniel Gerholdt <[email protected]> - German Translation
Marc Herren <[email protected]> - German Translation
Tobias Matzat <[email protected]> - German Translation
Marco Mascherpa <[email protected]> - Italian Translation
Claudio Merloni <[email protected]> - Italian Translation
Christian Apolloni <[email protected]> - Italian Translation
Stefano Lucidi <[email protected]> - Italian Translation
Yoshiaki Hagihara <[email protected]> - Japanese Translation
Katsuyuki Konno <[email protected]> - Japanese Translation
Yuji Carlos Kosugi <[email protected]> - Japanese Translation
Yasunori Fukudome <[email protected]> - Japanese Translation
Takashi Ota <[email protected]> - Japanese Translation
Radoslaw Janeczko <[email protected]> - Polish Translation
Lukasz Strzygowski <[email protected]> - Polish Translation
Michal Drobek <[email protected]> - Polish Translation
Adam Lyjak <[email protected]> - Polish Translation
Krzysztof Klimonda <[email protected]> - Polish Translation
Atila "Jedi" Bohlke Vasconcelos <[email protected]> - Portuguese
(Brazil) Translation
Eduardo Belloti <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Brazil) Translation
Jo達o Rafael Moraes Nicola <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Brazil)
Translation
Marcelo Gon巽alves de Azambuja <[email protected]> - Portuguese
(Brazil) Translation
Otavio Rodolfo Piske <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Brazil)
Translation
Pablo N. Hess -- NatuNobilis <[email protected]> - Portuguese
(Brazil) Translation
Pedro de Medeiros <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Brazil) Translation
Ventura Barbeiro <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Brazil)
Translation
Bruno Ferreira <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Portugal)
Translation
Gustavo Felisberto <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Portugal)
Translation
Jos辿 Costa <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Luis Medina <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Ricardo Loureiro <[email protected]> - Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Sergey Galkin <[email protected]> - Russian Translator
Sergey Kuleshov <[email protected]> - Russian Translator
Alex Spirin <[email protected]> - Russian Translator
Dmitry Suzdalev <[email protected]> - Russian Translator
Anton Vorovatov <[email protected]> - Russian Translator
Denis Zaletov <[email protected]> - Russian Translator
Lanark <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Fernando J. Pereda <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Lluis Peinado Cifuentes <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Zephryn Xirdal T <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Guillermo Juarez <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Jes炭s Garc鱈a Crespo <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Carlos Castillo <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Julio Castillo <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Sergio G坦mez <[email protected]> - Spanish Translation
Aycan Irican <[email protected]> - Turkish Translation
Bugra Cakir <[email protected]> - Turkish Translation
Cagil Seker <[email protected]> - Turkish Translation
Emre Kazdagli <[email protected]> - Turkish Translation
Evrim Ulu <[email protected]> - Turkish Translation
Gursel Kaynak <[email protected]> - Turkish Translation
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