Bug 2010528 (tcb) - Review Request: tcb - The alternative scheme to /etc/shadow
Summary: Review Request: tcb - The alternative scheme to /etc/shadow
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG
Alias: tcb
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: Package Review
Version: rawhide
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Nobody's working on this, feel free to take it
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks: FE-DEADREVIEW
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2021-10-04 22:06 UTC by Björn Esser (besser82)
Modified: 2024-12-20 21:38 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2022-11-07 00:45:24 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)


Links
System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
Fedora Koji taskID 76705377 0 None None None 2021-10-04 22:10:15 UTC
Fedora Koji taskID 76707012 0 None None None 2021-10-04 22:46:46 UTC

Description Björn Esser (besser82) 2021-10-04 22:06:56 UTC
Description:

  The tcb package consists of three components: pam_tcb,
  libnss_tcb, and libtcb.  pam_tcb is a PAM module which
  supersedes pam_unix and pam_pwdb.  It also implements the
  tcb password shadowing scheme (see tcb(5) for details).
  The tcb scheme allows many core system utilities (passwd(1)
  being the primary example) to operate with little privilege.
  libnss_tcb is the accompanying NSS module.  libtcb contains
  code shared by the PAM and NSS modules and is also used by
  programs from the shadow-utils package.


Koji Builds:

  https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=76705377


Issues:

  fedora-review shows no obvious issues.


FAS-User:

  besser82


Urls:

  Spec URL:  https://pagure.io/besser82/package-review/raw/master/f/tcb.spec
  SRPM URL:  https://pagure.io/besser82/package-review/raw/master/f/tcb-1.2-0.1.fc36.src.rpm


Additional information:

  This package is intended as a base for (likely to happen) future
  system-wide changes to Fedora.  As the functionality, this package
  provides, is will be needed for the system core, the (quite many
  small) sub-packages have intentionally been crafted for needing as
  few (pre-)dependencies each as possible in order to be installable
  very early in the process of system-upgrades and/or kickstarts.
  For that reason the main-library package ships no components
  that require anything but glibc to be available, since otherwise
  hard to resolve dependency cycles with unpredictable behaviour
  will arise.


Thanks for review in advance!

Comment 1 Björn Esser (besser82) 2021-10-04 22:36:15 UTC
=== Updated package ===


Changelog:
  * Mon Oct 04 2021 Björn Esser <besser82> - 1.2-0.2
  - Remove archful requirements in noarch packages


Koji Builds:

  https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=76707012


Urls:

  Spec URL:  https://pagure.io/besser82/package-review/raw/master/f/tcb.spec
  SRPM URL:  https://pagure.io/besser82/package-review/raw/master/f/tcb-1.2-0.2.fc36.src.rpm

Comment 2 Iker Pedrosa 2021-10-07 07:29:13 UTC
I don't know if I understood it correctly so I'm asking. What do you intend to do with "replace_pam_unix"?

Comment 3 Björn Esser (besser82) 2021-10-07 11:37:50 UTC
(In reply to Iker Pedrosa from comment #2)
> I don't know if I understood it correctly so I'm asking. What do you intend
> to do with "replace_pam_unix"?

I have some plans to propose a SWC to replace the pam_unix module with the pam_tcb at some time in the future.  For that reason I have added this %bcond, so I can do local package builds (rpmbuild -ba tcb.spec --with replace_pam_unix) reflecting that change for use in a VM for testing purposes, without the needed for major edits to the spec file.

Basically that conditional just adds compatibility symlinks for pam_unix_*.so -> pam_tcb.so to the list of packaged files.

Comment 4 Iker Pedrosa 2021-10-07 14:03:42 UTC
If you are only planning to use it for your testing that's fine, but I think it's dangerous to do that in production environments.

By the way, what are your plans for replacing pam_tcb in pam stack files? I think that authconfig should be aware of it and have some configuration to change between one and the other. And at some point in the future we could change the default in authconfig from pam_unix to pam_tcb. Just a little gossip, there's an authconfig SWC in draft to change pam stack files ownership to this package.

Comment 5 Björn Esser (besser82) 2021-10-07 17:19:48 UTC
=== Updated package ===


Changelog:
  * Tue Oct 05 2021 Björn Esser <besser82> - 1.2-0.3
  - Add soft-static group allocation preferring the gids as assigned by FPC
  - Merge the filesystem and sysusers sub-packages into common sub-package


Koji Builds:

  https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=76877498


Urls:

  Spec URL:  https://pagure.io/besser82/package-review/raw/master/f/tcb.spec
  SRPM URL:  https://pagure.io/besser82/package-review/raw/master/f/tcb-1.2-0.3.fc36.src.rpm

Comment 6 Björn Esser (besser82) 2021-10-07 17:30:56 UTC
(In reply to Iker Pedrosa from comment #4)
> If you are only planning to use it for your testing that's fine, but I think
> it's dangerous to do that in production environments.

There can't be any harm, but the pam-tcb package intentionally not being installable when replace_pam_unix is enabled without forcing rpm manually to explictly ignore several arising conflicts.


> By the way, what are your plans for replacing pam_tcb in pam stack files? I
> think that authconfig should be aware of it and have some configuration to
> change between one and the other. And at some point in the future we could
> change the default in authconfig from pam_unix to pam_tcb. Just a little
> gossip, there's an authconfig SWC in draft to change pam stack files
> ownership to this package.

Using pam_tcb in the stack files is one part of the change as I have it in mind.  I know there are changes needed to authconfig as well, and I think, it's a good idea to coordinate between the different changes and discuss their extends to be as little disruptive as possible.

Comment 7 Björn Esser (besser82) 2021-10-07 17:35:13 UTC
For a better understanding:  pam_tcb is a leightweight, yet fully mature - well tested for over 20 years - replacement for pam_unix, offerring all its capabilities, but support for NIS(+).

Comment 8 Package Review 2022-10-08 00:45:18 UTC
This is an automatic check from review-stats script.

This review request ticket hasn't been updated for some time. We're sorry
it is taking so long. If you're still interested in packaging this software
into Fedora repositories, please respond to this comment clearing the
NEEDINFO flag.

You may want to update the specfile and the src.rpm to the latest version
available and to propose a review swap on Fedora devel mailing list to increase
chances to have your package reviewed. If this is your first package and you
need a sponsor, you may want to post some informal reviews. Read more at
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_get_sponsored_into_the_packager_group.

Without any reply, this request will shortly be considered abandoned
and will be closed.
Thank you for your patience.

Comment 9 Package Review 2022-11-07 00:45:24 UTC
This is an automatic action taken by review-stats script.

The ticket submitter failed to clear the NEEDINFO flag in a month.
As per https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Policy_for_stalled_package_reviews
we consider this ticket as DEADREVIEW and proceed to close it.


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