LWN.net

Arch Linux has updated chromium (multiple vulnerabilities) and libdwarf (multiple vulnerabilities).CentOS has updated firefox (C6; C5: code execution).Debian-LTS has updated openafs (information leak).Fedora has updated firefox (F25; F24; F23: code execution), gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free (F25: codeexecution), gstreamer1-plugins-good (F25:code execution), p7zip (F24; F23: denial of service), phpMyAdmin (F25: multiple vulnerabilities), thunderbird (F24: code execution), and xen (F25; F24; F23: multiple vulnerabilities).Gentoo has updated busybox (twovulnerabilities), chromium (multiplevulnerabilities), cifs-utils (codeexecution from 2014), dpkg (codeexecution), gd (multiple vulnerabilities),libsndfile (two vulnerabilities), libvirt (path traversal), nghttp2 (code execution), nghttp2 (denial of service), patch (denial of service), and pygments (shell injection).openSUSE has updated containerd,docker, runc (Leap42.1, 42.2: permission bypass), firefox (two vulnerabilities), java-1_7_0-openjdk (13.1: multiplevulnerabilities), java-1_8_0-openjdk(Leap42.1, 42.2: multiple vulnerabilities), libarchive (Leap42.2; Leap42.1: multiple vulnerabilities), thunderbird (code execution), nodejs4 (Leap42.2: code execution), phpMyAdmin (multiple vulnerabilities),sudo (Leap42.2; Leap42.1: three vulnerabilities), tar (Leap42.1, 42.2: file overwrite), andvim (Leap42.2; Leap42.1, 13.2: code execution).Red Hat has updated thunderbird (code execution).SUSE has updated qemu (SLE12-SP1:multiple vulnerabilities).

The 4.9-rc8 kernel prepatch is out; thefinal 4.9 release will need one more week. "So if anybody has beenfollowing the git tree, it should come as no surprise that I ended up doingan rc8 after all: things haven't been bad, but it also hasn't been thecomplete quiet that would have made me go 'no point in doing anotherweek'."

Over at Opensource.com, Rich Bowen gives an overview of the changes in the OpenStack Newton release that was made in October. In it, he looks at each of sub-projects and highlights some of the changes for them that were in the release, which is also useful as a kind high-level guide to some of the various sub-projects and their roles. "With a product as large as OpenStack, summarizing what's new in a particular release is challenging. (See the full release notes for more details.) Each deployment of OpenStack might use a different combination of services and projects, and so will care about different updates. Added to that, the release notes for the various projects tend to be extremely technical in nature, and often don't do a great job of calling out the changes that will actually be noticed by either operators or users."

Google's Project Zero blog has a detailed look at exploiting a vulnerability in Android's ashmem shared-memory facility. "The mismatch between the mmap-ed and munmap-ed length provides us with a great exploitation primitive! Specifically, we could supply a short length for the mmap operation and a longer length for the munmap operation - thus resulting in deletion of an arbitrarily large range of virtual memory following our bitmap object. Moreover, there’s no need for the deleted range to contain one continuous memory mapping, since the range supplied in munmap simply ignores unmapped pages.Once we delete a range of memory, we can then attempt to “re-capture” that memory region with controlled data, by causing another allocation in the remote process. By doing so, we can forcibly “free” a data structure and replace its contents with our own chosen data -- effectively forcing a use-after-free condition."

The 4.8.12 and 4.4.36 stable kernels have been released.As always, users of those kernel series should upgrade.

Arch Linux has updated firefox(two vulnerabilities) and thunderbird (code execution).CentOS has updated thunderbird (C6; C5: code execution).Debian-LTS has updated firefox-esr (multiple vulnerabilities), imagemagick (multiple vulnerabilities, many from 2014 and 2015), monit (cross-site request forgery), tomcat6 (multiple vulnerabilities), and tomcat7 (multiple vulnerabilities).Fedora has updated calamares (F25; F24:encryption bypass), jenkins (F25: code execution), jenkins-remoting (F25: code execution), moin (F25; F24; F23: cross-site scripting flaws), mujs (F23: multiple vulnerabilities), and zathura-pdf-mupdf (F23: multiple vulnerabilities).Gentoo has updated davfs2(privilege escalation from 2013) and gnupg(flawed random number generation).openSUSE has updated libtcnative-1-0 (42.2, 42.1: SSL improvements)and pacemaker (42.2: two vulnerabilities).Oracle has updated firefox (OL7; OL6; OL5: code execution).Red Hat has updated firefox (codeexecution).SUSE has updated kernel (SLE11: multiple vulnerabilities, some from 2013 and 2015)and ImageMagick(SLE11: multiple vulnerabilities, some from 2014 and 2015).Ubuntu has updated ghostscript(multiple vulnerabilities, one from 2013) and oxide-qt (16.10,16.04, 14.04: multiple vulnerabilities).

The Google security blog announcesthe OSS-Fuzz project, which performs continuous fuzz testing offree-software project repositories. "OSS-Fuzz has already found 150bugs in several widely used open source projects (and churns ~4 trilliontest cases a week). With your help, we can make fuzzing a standard part ofopen source development, and work with the broader community of developersand security testers to ensure that bugs in critical open sourceapplications, libraries, and APIs are discovered and fixed."

Version 5.5 of the Ardouraudio editor has been released. "Among the notable new featuresare support for VST 2.4 plugins on OS X, the ability to have MIDI inputfollow MIDI track selection, support for Steinberg CC121, Avid Artist &Artist Mix Control surfaces, 'fanning out' of instrument outputs to newtracks/busses and the often requested ability to do horizontal zoom viavertical dragging on the rulers."

Debian has updated firefox-esr(code execution).Debian-LTS has updated gst-plugins-good0.10 (three code execution flaws).Gentoo has updated imagemagick(multiple vulnerabilities) and php (multiple vulnerabilities, one from 2015).openSUSE has updated bash (42.1:multiple vulnerabilities, two from 2014) and libcares2 (13.2:code execution).Slackware has updated firefox(code execution) and thunderbird (codeexecution).Ubuntu has updated c-ares (codeexecution), firefox (two vulnerabilities),imagemagick (multiple vulnerabilities), kernel (16.10; 16.04;14.04; 12.04: multiple vulnerabilities), linux-lts-trusty (12.04: two vulnerabilities),linux-lts-xenial (14.04: multiple vulnerabilities), linux-ti-omap4 (12.04: code execution), and thunderbird (multiple vulnerabilities).

Cyanogen Inc. has put out a terse press releaseannouncing the departure of founder (and CyanogenMod creator) SteveKondik. See thisrather less terse Android Police article for Kondik's view of thematter. The future of the CyanogenMod distribution seems unclear at thispoint; if it goes forward, it may have to do so with a different name.

The LWN.net Weekly Edition for December 1, 2016 is available.

Arch Linux has updated neovim (code execution).Debian has updated hdf5 (multiple vulnerabilities).Fedora has updated drupal7 (F25; F24; F23: multiple vulnerabilities), p7zip (F25: denial of service), teeworlds (F25; F24; F23: code execution), and vagrant (F25; F24; F23: nfs export insertion).Mageia has updated jenkins-remoting (code execution) and teeworlds (code execution).Oracle has updated thunderbird (OL7; OL6: multiple vulnerabilities).SUSE has updated vim (SLE12-SP2; SLE11-SP4: code execution).

As covered here in January, changes to theGNU C Library's memory-allocation routines have broken the "unexec" methodused to build the Emacs editor. Fixing this problem has proved to be morechallenging than originally thought; that issue has now come to a head in adisagreement that could cost the Emacs community one of its maintainers.

The Git project has announcedthe release of Git 2.11.0. This version prints longer abbreviatedSHA-1 names and has better tools for dealing with ambiguous short SHA-1s,it's faster at accessing delta chains, and has other performanceenhancements, and much more. The releasenotes contain more details.

CentOS has updated expat (C6:code execution) and memcached (C6: code execution).openSUSE has updated ffmpeg(Leap42.2: heap corruption) and virtualbox(Leap42.2: multiple unspecified vulnerabilities).Oracle has updated expat (OL7; OL6: code execution).Red Hat has updated expat(RHEL6,7: code execution) and thunderbird(RHEL5,6,7: multiple vulnerabilities).SUSE has updated mariadb (SLE12-SP1,2; SLES12: multiple vulnerabilities) and qemu (SLES12: multiple vulnerabilities).Ubuntu has updated python-cryptography (16.10, 16.04: bad key generation) and vim (code execution).

InfoWorld looksat the underfunded NTP project. "NTP is more than 30 years old—it may be the oldest codebase running on the internet. Despite some hiccups, it continues to work well. But the project’s future is uncertain because the number of volunteer contributors has shrunk, and there’s too much work for one person—principal maintainer Harlan Stenn—to handle. When there is limited support, the project has to pick and choose what tasks it can afford to complete, which slows down maintenance and stifles innovation."

Arch Linux has updated lib32-libtiff (multiple vulnerabilities), libtiff (multiple vulnerabilities), and ntp (multiple vulnerabilities).Debian has updated icu (multiple vulnerabilities) and imagemagick (three vulnerabilities).Debian-LTS has updated irssi (information disclosure), libsoap-lite-perl (XML expansion), and mcabber (roster push attack).Fedora has updated bind (F23:denial of service) and python-tornado (F25:XSRF protection bypass).Mageia has updated bzip2 (denialof service), chromium-browser-stable(multiple vulnerabilities), clamav (threevulnerabilities), giflib (denial ofservice), icu (two vulnerabilities), kernel-4.4.32 (code execution), libtiff (two vulnerabilities), lighttpd (man-in-the-middle attacks), and perl-Email-Address (denial of service).openSUSE has updated wireshark(Leap42.2: multiple vulnerabilities).SUSE has updated kernel(SLE12-SP1: multiple vulnerabilities).Ubuntu has updated gst-plugins-good0.10, gst-plugins-good1.0(incomplete fix in previous update).

Harald Welte looksback at the Openmoko phone with a ten-year perspective (and an almostunreadable low-contrast web page). "So yes, the smartphone world ismuch more restricted, locked-down and proprietary than it was back in theOpenmoko days. If we had been more successful then, that world might bequite different today. It was a lost opportunity to make the world embracemore freedom in terms of software and hardware."

The 4.9-rc7 kernel prepatch is out. Linussays that things are shaping up and it is possible, but perhaps not likely,that the final 4.9 release will happen on December 4. "Ibasically reserve the right to make up my mind next weekend."

Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of the 4.8.11 and 4.4.35 stable kernels. As usual, they containfixes throughout the kernel tree and users of those kernel series shouldupgrade.

Arch Linux has updated tomcat6(two vulnerabilities), wireshark-cli (multiple vulnerabilities), wireshark-gtk (multiple vulnerabilities), and wireshark-qt (multiple vulnerabilities).Debian has updated gst-plugins-good0.10 (three vulnerabilities)and gst-plugins-good1.0 (three vulnerabilities).Debian-LTS has updated libgc(code execution) and xen (multiple vulnerabilities).Fedora has updated bind99 (F23:two vulnerabilities), ghostscript (F23: twovulnerabilities), icu (F25; F24: code execution), kernel (F23: multiple vulnerabilities), moodle (F24; F23:three vulnerabilities), mujs (F25;F24: multiple vulnerabilities), perl-DBD-MySQL (F24: out of bounds read), sudo (F23: privilege escalation), and zathura-pdf-mupdf (F25; F24: multiple vulnerabilities).openSUSE has updated java-1_7_0-openjdk (13.2: multiple vulnerabilities).SUSE has updated kvm (SLE11: multiple vulnerabilities).Ubuntu has updated lxc (16.10,16.04, 14.04: directory traversal) and moin(three vulnerabilities).

The Verge looksat legislation in the UK that would allow police and intelligenceagencies to legally spy on its own people. "The legislation in question is called the Investigatory Powers Bill. It’s been cleared by politicians and awaits only the formality of royal assent before it becomes law. The bill will legalize the UK’s global surveillance program, which scoops up communications data from around the world, but it will also introduce new domestic powers, including a government database that stores the web history of every citizen in the country. UK spies will be empowered to hack individuals, internet infrastructure, and even whole towns — if the government deems it necessary."

Debian has updated tomcat7 (multiple vulnerabilities), tomcat8 (multiple vulnerabilities), and vim (code execution).Debian-LTS has updated moin (cross-site scripting), tiff (multiple vulnerabilities), and vim (code execution).Gentoo has updated adobe-flash (multiple vulnerabilities), chromium (multiple vulnerabilities), poppler (code execution), rpcbind (denial of service), tar (file overwrite), and testdisk (code execution).Mageia has updated bash (code execution), flex (buffer overflow), libssh2 (insecure ssh sessions), libxslt (code execution), and tre (code execution).openSUSE has updated dovecot22(information disclosure), gnuchess (codeexecution), monit (two vulnerabilities), sudo (13.2: privilege escalation), and tar (13.2: file overwrite).Oracle has updated ipsilon (OL7:information leak/denial of service) and memcached (OL7; OL6:multiple vulnerabilities).Red Hat has updated memcached (RHEL7; RHEL6: code execution).Scientific Linux has updated 389-ds-base (SL6: multiple vulnerabilities),firefox (SL5,6,7: multiplevulnerabilities), kernel (SL6: twovulnerabilities), memcached (SL6: codeexecution), nss and nss-util (SL5,6,7:multiple vulnerabilities), and policycoreutils (SL6,7: sandbox escape).Slackware has updated ntp (multiple vulnerabilities).SUSE has updated java-1_8_0-openjdk (SLE12-SP1,2: multiplevulnerabilities) and pacemaker (SLE12-SP2:two vulnerabilities).Ubuntu has updated gst-plugins-good0.10, gst-plugins-good1.0(code execution), python2.7, python3.2,python3.4, python3.5 (16.04, 14.04, 12.04: multiple vulnerabilities), and tar (file overwrite).

The Fedora 25 release is now available "The Fedora Project is pleased to announce the immediate availability ofFedora 25, the next big step our journey into the containerized, modularfuture!" See the announcement and therelease notes for details on the many changes in this release.

Clement Lefebvre has announcedthe release of Cinnamon 3.2. This version has QT 5.7+ support, supportfor libinput touchpads as well as synaptics, and many more changes acrossthe stack.

Fedora Magazine has a briefoverview of the changes to be found in the workstation version of theFedora 25 release. "Wayland now replaces the old X11 displayserver by default. Its goal is to provide a smoother, richer experiencewhen navigating Fedora Workstation. Like all software, there may still besome bugs. You can still choose the old X11 server if required."

Arch Linux has updated drupal (multiple vulnerabilities), php (multiple vulnerabilities), slock (screen locking bypass), and w3m (multiple vulnerabilities).CentOS has updated 389-ds-base(C6: multiple vulnerabilities), firefox (C6; C5:multiple vulnerabilities), java-1.7.0-openjdk (C5: multiplevulnerabilities), kernel (C6: twovulnerabilities), nss (C6; C5: multiple vulnerabilities), nss-util (C6: multiple vulnerabilities), andpolicycoreutils (C6: sandbox escape).Debian has updated wireshark (multiple vulnerabilities).Debian-LTS has updated drupal7 (multiple vulnerabilities), gst-plugins-bad0.10 (multiple vulnerabilities), sniffit (privilege escalation), and wireshark (multiple vulnerabilities).Fedora has updated 389-ds-base(F25: information leak), ansible (F25: twovulnerabilities), bind (F25: denial ofservice), bind99 (F25: denial of service),chromium (F25; F23: multiple vulnerabilities), chromium-native_client (F25: multiplevulnerabilities), curl (F25: multiplevulnerabilities), docker (F25; F25: access bypass), dracut (F25: information disclosure),firefox (F25 (v49.02); F25 (V50.0); F23: multiple vulnerabilities), ghostscript (F25: two vulnerabilities), icu (F25: code execution), java-1.8.0-openjdk-aarch32 (F25: multiplevulnerabilities), kernel (F25;F24: denial of service), libgit2 (F25: unspecified), libwebp (F25: integer overflows), mingw-gnutls (F25: information leak), mingw-libwebp (F25: integer overflows), mingw-nettle (F25: information leak), moodle (F25: multiple vulnerabilities),python-cryptography (F25; F24; F23: badkey generation), python-django (F25: twovulnerabilities), quagga (F25: multiplevulnerabilities), sudo (F25: privilegeescalation), tomcat (F25: multiplevulnerabilities), tre (F25: codeexecution), and xen (F25: multiplevulnerabilities) (Note: Fedora 25 will be released tomorrow).Gentoo has updated imlib2(multiple vulnerabilities), mit-krb5 (multiple vulnerabilities), mongodb (denial of service), and qemu (multiple vulnerabilities).openSUSE has updated java-1_8_0-openjdk (13.2: multiplevulnerabilities), firefox, nss (Leap42.2,Leap42.1, 13.2: multiple vulnerabilities), and php5 (13.2: use after free).Oracle has updated kernel 4.1.12 (OL7; OL6:multiple vulnerabilities), kernel 3.8.13 (OL7; OL6:multiple vulnerabilities), kernel 2.6.39 (OL6; OL5: multiple vulnerabilities).Red Hat has updated ipsilon(RHEL7: information leak/denial of service).Slackware has updated firefox (multiple vulnerabilities).Ubuntu has updated firefox (multiple vulnerabilities) and imagemagick (multiple vulnerabilities).

As expected, the 4.8.10 and 4.4.34 stable kernel updates have beenreleased. Each contains another set of important fixes.

Linus has released the 4.9-rc6 kernelprepatch for testing. "We're getting further in the rc series, andwhile things have stayed pretty calm, I'm not sure if we're quite thereyet. There's a few outstanding issues that just shouldn't be issues at rc6time, so we'll just have to see. This may be one of those releases thathave an rc8, which considering the size of 4.9 is perhaps not thatunusual."

The stable kernel machine continues to produce updates; the latest are 4.8.9 and 4.4.33. Each contains the usual set ofimportant fixes. Note that 4.8.10 and4.4.34 are already in the review process;they can be expected on or after November 21.

Debian has updated drupal7 (multiple vulnerabilities)and gst-plugins-bad1.0 (code execution).Debian-LTS has updated akonadi(denial of service) and curl (multiple vulnerabilities).Mageia has updated derby(information leak), dracut (informationleak), gnuchess (code execution from 2015),irssi (information leak), libtiff (multiple vulnerabilities), memcached (three code execution flaws), python-pillow (two vulnerabilities), resteasy (code execution), sudo (privilege escalation), systemd (denial of service), tar (file overwrite), and wireshark (multiple vulnerabilities).openSUSE has updated ghostscript(42.1: regression in previous security update), GraphicsMagick (42.1, 13.2: denial ofservice), ImageMagick (13.2: denial ofservice), jasper (42.2, 42.1: multiple vulnerabilities, some from2015, 2014, and 2008), memcached (42.2;42.1, 13.2: three code execution flaws), otrs (42.2, 13.2:), php5 (42.2; 42.1:three vulnerabilities), andutil-linux (42.1: denial of service).Ubuntu has updated openjdk-7(14.04: multiple vulnerabilities).

The Linux Foundation has announced that it is consolidating three conferences under one name going forward. LinuxCon, CloudOpen, and ContainerCon join together under the "Linux Foundation Open Source Summit" name. For 2017, that encompasses three events: OSS Japan in Tokyo May 31-June 2, OSS North America in Los Angeles September 11-13, and OSS Europe in Prague October 23-25. "The Linux Foundation Open Source Summit in North America and Europe will also contain a brand new event, Community Leadership Conference. Attendees will have access to sessions across all events in a single venue, enabling them to collaborate and share information across a wide range of open source topics and areas of technology. They can take advantage of not only unparalleled educational opportunities, but also an expo hall, networking activities, hackathons, additional co-located events and The Linux Foundation’s diversity initiatives, including free childcare, nursing rooms, non-binary restrooms and a diversity luncheon."

The Tor blog has a post about the refresh of its Tor-enabled Android phone prototype, which is now in a workable state though it still has some rough edges. There is also a worrisome trend that the post highlights:"It is unfortunate that Google seems to see locking down Android as the only solution to the fragmentation and resulting insecurity of the Android platform. We believe that more transparent development and release processes, along with deals for longer device firmware support from SoC vendors, would go a long way to ensuring that it is easier for good OEM players to stay up to date. Simply moving more components to Google Play, even though it will keep those components up to date, does not solve the systemic problem that there are still no OEM incentives to update the base system. Users of old AOSP base systems will always be vulnerable to library, daemon, and operating system issues. Simply giving them slightly more up to date apps is a bandaid that both reduces freedom and does not solve the root security problems. Moreover, as more components and apps are moved to closed source versions, Google is reducing its ability to resist the demand that backdoors be introduced. It is much harder to backdoor an open source component (especially with reproducible builds and binary transparency) than a closed source one."

Arch Linux has updated firefox(multiple vulnerabilities), libgit2 (two vulnerabilities), python-django (two vulnerabilities), and python2-django (two vulnerabilities).Debian has updated firefox-esr (multiple vulnerabilities).Fedora has updated bind99 (F24:two vulnerabilities), firefox (F24: multiple vulnerabilities),and kernel (F24: denial of service).Gentoo has updated libuv(privilege escalation from 2015).Mageia has updated nss, firefox (multiple vulnerabilities).Oracle has updated firefox (OL7; OL6; OL5: multiple vulnerabilities) and nss and nss-util (OL7; OL6; OL5: twovulnerabilities).Red Hat has updated openssl(RHEL6: denial of service).

The LWN.net Weekly Edition for November 17, 2016 is available.

The EuroPython Society sharesthe sad news that Rob Collins has passed away. "Many of you may know Rob from the sponsored massage sessions he regularly ran at EuroPython in recent years and which he continued to develop, taking them from a single man setup (single threaded process) to a group of people setup by giving workshops (multiprocessing) and later on by passing on his skills to more leaders (removing the GIL) to spread wellness and kindness throughout our conference series."

Debian has updated akonadi (denial of service), gst-plugins-bad0.10 (code execution), and moin (cross-site scripting).Debian-LTS has updated mysql-5.5(multiple unspecified vulnerabilities) and postgresql-9.1 (PostgreSQL 9.1 is eol, usersare encouraged to upgrade).Mageia has updated libarchive (unspecified).openSUSE has updated pcre (13.2: multiple vulnerabilities).Oracle has updated 389-ds-base(OL6: three vulnerabilities) and kernel(OL6: multiple vulnerabilities).Red Hat has updated 389-ds-base(RHEL6: three vulnerabilities), atomic-openshift (RHOSCP3.3: redirect networktraffic), atomic-openshift-utils(RHOSCP3.2,3.3: code execution), firefox(RHEL5,6,7: multiple vulnerabilities), kernel (RHEL6: two vulnerabilities), and nss and nss-util (RHEL5,6,7: three vulnerabilities).

The Linux Foundation has announced that Microsoft has joined as a platinummember. "From cloud computing and networking to gaming, Microsoft has steadilyincreased its engagement in open source projects and communities. Thecompany is currently a leading open source contributor on GitHub andearlier this year announced several milestones that indicate the scope ofits commitment to open source development."

Mozilla has released Firefox 50.0. This version features improvedperformance for SDK extensions or extensions using the SDK module loader,added download protection for a large number of executable file types,added option to Find in page that allows users to limit search to wholewords only, and more. See the releasenotes for details.

Stable kernels 4.8.8 and 4.4.32 have been released. Both of themcontain important fixes and users should upgrade.

Arch Linux has updated shutter (code execution).Debian-LTS has updated sudo (privilege escalation).Fedora has updated libgit2 (F24:unspecified), memcached (F24; F23: code execution), python-django (F24: two vulnerabilities), and tre (F24; F23: code execution).Gentoo has updated libpng(multiple vulnerabilities), polkit(privilege escalation), tnftp (commandexecution from 2014), xen (multiplevulnerabilities), and xinetd (privilegeescalation from 2013).openSUSE has updated Chromium (SPH for SLE12; Leap42.2, Leap42.1, 13.2: multiple vulnerabilities).Oracle has updated policycoreutils (OL7; OL6: sandbox escape).Red Hat has updated chromium-browser (RHEL6: multiplevulnerabilities), qemu-kvm-rhev (RHELOSP7 for RHEL7; RHELOSP6 for RHEL7; RHELOSP5 for RHEL7: denial ofservice), rh-mysql56-mysql (RHSCL: multiplevulnerabilities), and rh-php56 (RHSCL: multiple vulnerabilities).

Hector Marco and Ismael Ripoll reporta discouraging vulnerability in many encrypted disk setups: simply runningup too many password failures will eventually result in a root shell."This vulnerability allows to obtain a root initramfs shell onaffected systems. The vulnerability is very reliable because it doesn'tdepend on specific systems or configurations. Attackers can copy, modify ordestroy the hard disc as well as set up the network to exfiltratedata. This vulnerability is specially serious in environments likelibraries, ATMs, airport machines, labs, etc, where the whole boot processis protect (password in BIOS and GRUB) and we only have a keyboard or/and amouse."

The KDE Project has a littleproblem to report for users of the KDEneon distribution: "The package archive used by KDE neon wasincorrectly configured allowing anyone to upload packages to it. There isno reason to think that anyone actually did so but as a precaution we haveemptied the archives and removed ISOs built before this date." Oncethe process of rebuilding the archive is complete, users are recommended toupgrade to the new versions, or, better, simply reinstall.

The Core Infrastructure Initiative (CII) has announcedcontinued financial support for the Reproducible Builds Project."The grant extends the contribution to include Debian developersChris Lamb, Mattia Rizzolo, Ximin Luo and Vagrant Cascadian, as well asextending funding for Holger Levsen. Furthermore, this contribution addssupport for Ed Maste, working with FreeBSD." (Thanks to Paul Wise)

Getting live-patching capabilities into the mainline kernel has been amulti-year process. Basic patching support was merged for the 4.0 release,but further work has been stalled overdisagreements on how the consistency model — the code ensuring that a patchis safe to apply to a running kernel — should work. The addition of kernel stack validation has addressed thebiggest of the objections, so, arguably, it is time to move forward. Atthe 2016 Linux PlumbersConference, developers working on live patching got together to discusscurrent challenges and future directions.Click below (subscribers only) for the full report from LPC 2016.

CentOS has updated java-1.7.0-openjdk (C6: multiplevulnerabilities), libgcrypt (C6: flawedrandom number generation), and pacemaker(C6: privilege escalation).Debian has updated mariadb-10.0 (multiple vulnerabilities) and terminology (command execution).Fedora has updated bind (F24:denial of service), mingw-libwebp (F24:integer overflows), sudo (F24: privilege escalation), and tomcat (F24; F23: multiple vulnerabilities).Mageia has updated libwmf (denial of service), monit (cross-site request forgery), python-cryptography (returns empty byte-string), and quagga (stack overrun).openSUSE has updated flash-player(13.1: multiple vulnerabilities), mysql-community-server (Leap42.2: multiple vulnerabilities), and opera (Leap42.2; Leap42.1: multiple vulnerabilities).Red Hat has updated policycoreutils (RHEL6,7: sandbox escape).SUSE has updated flash-player(SLE12-SP1: multiple vulnerabilities) and mysql (SLE11-SP4: three vulnerabilities).

The 4.9-rc5 kernel prepatch is out. Linussays: "Things have definitely gotten smaller, so a normal releaseschedule (with rc7 being the last one) is still looking possible despitethe large size of 4.9. But let's see how things work out over the nextcouple of weeks. In the meantime, there's a lot of normal fixes in here,and we just need more testing."

Over at Linux Journal, Susan Sons has a lengthy article on security exercises, which are a way to test the readiness of a project or organization for some kind of security problem. "Scheduling exercises at a predictable time and reminding others when it will happen prevents confusion among staff. It is wise to begin with low-impact exercises (more on this below) that don't leverage production systems, and move on to higher-potential-impact exercises only when the organization's infrastructure and personnel have had most of the bugs shaken out. If something as small as a runaway process on a single server can seriously impact your business, it's better to find out at a planned time with all hands on deck than at 4am on a holiday when no one who knows what to do can be reached. The whole point of security exercises is to increase resilience: raise the threshold of what is normal for your team to deal with, what your systems can shrug off." She followed that article up with some example security exercises.

Debian has updated pillow (two vulnerabilities).Fedora has updated jasper (F23:multiple vulnerabilities), kdepimlibs (F23: threevulnerabilities), libXi (F23: twovulnerabilities), and xen (F23: multiple vulnerabilities).Mageia has updated freeimage (twovulnerabilities, one from 2015).openSUSE has updated curl (42.1:multiple vulnerabilities), flash-player (13.2: multiple vulnerabilities), gd (42.1: three vulnerabilities), ImageMagick (42.1: multiple vulnerabilities, some from 2014 and2015), and mysql-community-server (42.1,13.2: multiple vulnerabilities, many unspecified).Oracle has updated 389-ds-base(OL7: unspecified), bind (OL7: denial ofservice), curl (OL7: TLS botch), dhcp (OL7: unspecified), firewalld (OL7: authentication bypass), fontconfig (OL7: privilege escalation), gimp (OL7: code execution), glibc (OL7: code execution), java-1.7.0-openjdk (OL7: unspecified), kernel (OL7: multiple vulnerabilities, some from 2013 and 2015), krb5 (OL7: two vulnerabilities), libgcrypt (OL7: bad random numbers), libguestfs (OL7: information leak from 2015), libreoffice (OL7: code execution), libreswan (OL7: denial of service), libvirt (OL7: three vulnerabilities, two from 2015), mariadb (OL7: privilege escalation), mod_nss (OL7: cipher choosing botch), nettle (OL7: multiple vulnerabilities, three from 2015), NetworkManager (OL7: information leak), ntp (OL7: multiple vulnerabilities from 2015), openssh (OL7: privilege escalation from 2015), php (OL7: multiple vulnerabilities), poppler (OL7: code execution from 2015), postgresql (OL7: two vulnerabilities), python (OL7: code execution), qemu-kvm (OL7: two vulnerabilities), resteasy-base (OL7: code execution), squid (OL7: multiple vulnerabilities), sudo (OL7: information disclosure), systemd (OL7: denial of service), tomcat (OL7: multiple vulnerabilities, three from 2015), util-linux (OL7: denial of service), and wget (OL7: code execution).Ubuntu has updated kernel (16.10; 16.04:denial of service), kernel (14.04: multiple vulnerabilities, onefrom 2014 and 2015), kernel (12.04: twovulnerabilities), linux-lts-trusty (12.04:multiple vulnerabilities, one from 2014 and 2015), linux-lts-xenial (14.04: denial of service),linux-raspi2 (16.10: denial of service), linux-snapdragon (16.04: denial of service),and linux-ti-omap4 (12.04: two vulnerabilities).

Christian Schaller writesthat, after all these years, a stock Fedora system will be able to play MP3files. "I know this has been a big wishlist item for a long time fora lot of people so I am really happy that we are finally in a position tofulfill that wish. You should be able to download the mp3 plugin on day 1through GNOME Software or through the missing codec installer in variousGStreamer applications. For Fedora Workstation 26 I would not be surprisedif we decide to ship it on the install media."