Glsa-check

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[edit] Description

glsa-check is a tool in gentoolkit implementing GLEP 14, which deals with the design for a security-only update feature for emerge.

[edit] Roadmap

The implementation will take place in the following order:

  1. distribute GLSAs in the portage tree (completed)
  2. release a beta version of the GLSA handling code in gentoolkit (in progress)
  3. move dependency handling code from emerge to portage.py
  4. add glsa.py to portage
  5. integrate functions from glsa-check in emerge and equery

Note: This list might be expanded in the future

[edit] Current status

Currently we have a testing version of the proposed implementation released in gentoolkit (versions 0.2.0_pre7 and higher). This implementation consists of the general handling code (in glsa.py) and an interface script glsa-check. While glsa.py will later be included in portage the interface script is only temporary, its functionality will later be included in emerge and/or equery.

[edit] Known problems

Currently the following problems are known in the GLSA handling code:

  • The 200402-02 GLSA regarding xfree requires some functionality not present in portage. Because of that many systems will be shown as affected when they are not. As a workaround inject this GLSA.
  • Some of the kernel GLSAs have a similar problem, if glsa-check wants to update your kernel and you think it's not needed please unmerge old kernel sources first. If that doesn't fix the problem you can also inject those GLSAs.
  • glsa-check is not SLOT-aware. This might result in false positives. Please check your system for old versions that are in a different SLOT.
  • GLSAs that were released in 2003 don't follow the current DTD which is required for the portage integration. Until they are converted to the new DTD they will be ignored by glsa-check.(fixed)
  • glsa-check currently doesn't check the given arguments for correct syntax, so if you give it a malformed argument it will likely create a traceback.
  • glsa.py apparently has some compability issues when you're using python-2.2 and/or pyxml. Please upgrade to python-2.3 and unmerge pyxml if you get a traceback.
  • Portage can't handle unicode which is passed to it creating a traceback. To fix this glsa.py will convert all strings that are passed to portage functions to ascii format in the next release. All known GLSAs have been adjusted to not contain non-ascii characters.

[edit] Credits

Mostly from here - Copyright 2001-2006 Gentoo Foundation, Inc Under the Creative Commons - Attribution / Share Alike license

[edit] See Also

Retrieved from "http://gentoo-wiki.com/Glsa-check"
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