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How the xz backdoor highlights a major flaw in Nix (shadeyg56.vercel.app)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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The main issue is the handling of security updates within the Nixpkgs ecosystem, which relies on Nix's CI system, Hydra, to test and build packages. Due to the extensive number of packages in the Nixpkgs repository, the process can be slow, causing delays in the release of updates. As an example, the updated xz 5.4.6 package took nearly 5 days to become available in the unstable branch!

Fundamentally, there needs to be a change in how security fixes are handled in Hydra. As stated in the article, Nix was lucky to be unaffected, but multiple days to push out a security patch of this severity is concerning, even if there was no reason for concern.

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[-] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Shouldn't the lesson here be "don't introduce more complexity and dependencies to critical software"?

But then again that's systemd in a nutshell...

this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2024
108 points (87.5% liked)

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Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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