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Description of problem:
pmcd.service Wants avahi.service by default so when enabling pmcd.service Insights now complains:
"
Decreased security when unencrypted protocols used
This system is vulnerable because the following unencrypted services are running:
* avahi
Red Hat recommends you:
* Evaluate whether these services are in use, and disable them if not
* Consider alternatives which support encryption, such as LDAP, where applicable
* Configure stunnel to provide a TLS wrapper for services which don't support encryption
"
While the warning seems somewhat reasonable (although only SSH is allowed in firewall) it's a bit unfortunate that enabling basic metrics functionality would require the user to start figuring out how to secure Avahi even if the user doesn't even need or want it. Adding -A to pmcd.options doesn't help since this is a property of the pmcd.service.
I'm not sure what would be the best approach here but I'll file this initially against the pcp component to allow PCP maintainers to evaluate and reassign to Insights if deemed appropriate.
Thanks.
From a PCP POV, I've long thought there were areas the original libpcp discovery could be further improved.
This issue would be solved I think if we generalised the discovery code to have a 'plugin' design, and have an optional avahi 'plugin' (outside of libpcp). This would solve this issue (we'd no longer have to use avahi by default) - would simplify the packaging and install experience (fewer pcp package deps and fewer linked libraries on all pcp tools) - and would be a feature allowing other plugin outside of PCP to do discovery (cloud vendors, perhaps, that sorta thing).
Its a Simple Matter of Programming I think - needs some upstream discussion and then a some libpcp work, some new APIs for discovery, some packaging work ... not a trivial exercise but certainly desirable for a future RHEL version IMO.
Another, simpler possibility occurred to me for solving this.
If we add an entry to /etc/sysconfig/pmcd to allow overriding use of Avahi, defaulting to off, this'd be a simpler change.
We don't get to remove the fact that avahi libraries are still linked into pmcd, but it'll be alot quicker in terms of coding.
Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.
For information on the advisory (pcp bug fix and enhancement update), and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.
If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2022:1765