1: SELinux is hereby invited to grow by giving pain to others, not to me. When it's ready for release to the unsuspecting world, let it be released in a 'default on' state then. Not now.
2: The word 'but' *always* indicates a denial of the statement before the 'but'. What's before the 'but' in this case is not just too important to deny, it's an understatement. SELinux is *broken* if it renders otherwise working applications dysfunctional as shipped. I don't mind being asked to volunteer to alpha/beta test software. What's done is to *compel* me to be a SELinux tester, or to disable it. Everybody who is inclined to help SELinux get ready for The Big Time Release, *please* accept my encouragement to do so. Us other miserable grunts who want to beta test something else are best off disabling SELinux as of it's current behavior.
"It's needed for security" meets the "necessary" test, but not the "proper" test, which won't be met until it works without breaking things.
Brian Brunner brian.t.brunner@gai-tronics.com (610)796-5838
jperrin@gmail.com 11/14/05 09:29AM >>>
SELinux is going through growing pains, and it's not quite to the point where I'd call it "user friendly", but
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"Brian T. Brunner" brian.t.brunner@gai-tronics.com wrote:
1: SELinux is hereby invited to grow by giving pain to others, not to me. When it's ready for release to the unsuspecting world, let it be released in a 'default on' state then. Not now.
But how do you define "ready"??? Do we wait until all software is SELinux-aware? Do we wait until all sysadmins know how to use it?
Same problems with ... NPTL ANSI C++ GLibC 2 and many others.
Red Hat is forcing people to adopt it, so people have to comply. Because if they don't, they won't. And then it will _never_ be "ready."
SELinux is *broken* if it renders otherwise working applications dysfunctional as shipped.
Depends on your viewpoint. The same was said about NPTL, ANSI C++ and GLibC 2.
Yet Red Hat regression tests _all_ its distros as a whole before shipment. It verifies things work as they should. That was true of the first Red Hat distro with NPTL, the first distro with ANSI C++ compliant compilers and code, with GLibC 2.
But then people configure things, use them in ways that aren't stock, and things start to break. And the biggest culprit is legacy software that isn't compatible or compliant. Who's at fault then?
In the end, it's not about "fault" and it's not about "broken." By the same definition, _real_ firewalls that do outgoing as well as incoming blocking are "broken" as well. Furthermore, the same could be said for higher-layer IDS/IPS systems.
Red Hat always forces the issue. They get chastized for it. Their software and/or defaults get declared as broken, etc..., etc..., etc... In fact, I distinctly remember a major complaint about Red Hat taking off suid on cdrecord, which forced people to use proper permissions on the devices. That was also, so-called, "broken." But then, Red Hat had only one of the very few distros without the kernel 2.8.1.x priority issue (because cdrecord didn't run suid). So who was "broken" there?
It's all a matter of viewpoint.
I don't mind being asked to volunteer to alpha/beta test software. What's done is to *compel* me to be a SELinux tester, or to disable it. Everybody who is inclined to help SELinux get ready for The Big Time Release, *please* accept my encouragement to do so.
SELinux is already "The Big Time" -- but the majority of software on Linux is not. At some point, _someone_ has to get people to care.
SELinux works. It's just that most software isn't designed with it in mind. ;->
Us other miserable grunts who want to beta test something else are best off disabling SELinux as of it's current behavior. "It's needed for security" meets the "necessary" test, but not the "proper" test, which won't be met until it works without breaking things.
Then you're going to be waiting _forever_.
Just like most people don't do "deny all outgoing" firewalls either. They don't want have to deal with things.
I hate these meta-discussions. But I guess I'm tired of seeing "compatibility issues" mistaken for "broken." SELinux throws a wrench into a lot of programs that should be written differently, and no amount of "SELinux hacking" is going to be a "workaround" for some programs/configurations.
The mindset has to change. Otherwise, you will _never_ get something like SELinux to work. And Linux won't be able to reach higher CC levels.
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Brian T. Brunner -
Bryan J. Smith