My Debian Activities in January 2021

FTP master

This month I could increase my activities in NEW again and accepted 132 packages. Unfortunately I also had to reject 12 packages. The overall number of packages that got accepted was 374.

Debian LTS

This was my seventy-ninth month that I did some work for the Debian LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian.

This month my all in all workload has been 26h. During that time I did LTS and normal security uploads of:

  • [DSA 4823-1] influxdb security update for one CVE
  • [DLA 2536-1] libsdl2 security update for nine CVEs

With the buster upload of highlight.js I could finish to fix CVE-2020-26237 in all releases.

I also tried to fix one or the other CVE for golang packages, to be exact: golang-github-russellhaering-goxmldsig, golang-github-tidwall-match, golang-github-tidwall-gjson and golang-github-antchfx-xmlquery. The version in unstable is easily done by uploading a new upstream version after checking with ratt that all reverse-build-dependencies are still working. The next step will be to really upload all reverse-build-dependencies that need a new build. As the number of reverse-build-dependencies might be rather large, this needs to be done automatically somehow. The problem I am struggling with at the moment are packages that need to be rebuilt but the version in git already increased …

Another problem with golang packages are packages that are referenced by a Built-Using: line, but whose sources are not yet available on security-master. If this happens, the uploaded package will be automatically rejected. Unfortunately the rejection-email only contains the first missing package. So in order to reduce the hassle with such uploads, please send me the Built-Using:-line before the upload and I will import everything. In December/January this affected the uploads of influxdb and snapd.

Last but not least I did some days of frontdesk duties.

Debian ELTS

This month was the thirty-first ELTS month.

During my allocated time I uploaded:

  • ELA-351-1 for sudo
  • ELA-352-1 for dbus
  • ELA-353-1 for libsdl2

Last but not least I did some days of frontdesk duties.

Other stuff

This month I uploaded new upstream versions of:

I improved packaging of:

The golang packages here are basically ones with a missing source upload. For whatever reason maintainers tend to forget about this …

My Debian Activities in December 2020

FTP master

This month I only accepted 8 packages and like last month rejected 0. Despite the holidays 293 packages got accepted.

Debian LTS

This was my seventy-eighth month that I did some work for the Debian LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian.

This month my all in all workload has been 26h. During that time I did LTS uploads of:

  • [DLA 2489-1] minidlna security update for two CVEs
  • [DLA 2490-1] x11vnc security update for one CVE
  • [DLA 2501-1] influxdb security update for one CVE
  • [DLA 2511-1] highlight.js security update for one CVE

Unfortunately package slirp has the same version in Stretch and Buster. So I first had to upload slirp/1:1.0.17-11 to unstable, in order to be allowed to fix the CVE in Buster and to finally upload a new version to Stretch. Meanwhile the fix for Buster has been approved by the Release Team and I am waiting for the next point release now.

I also prepared a debdiff for influxdb, which will result in DSA-4823-1 in January.

As there appeared new CVEs for openjpeg2, I did not do an upload yet. This is planned for January now.

Last but not least I did some days of frontdesk duties.

Debian ELTS

This month was the thirtieth ELTS month.

During my allocated time I uploaded:

  • ELA-341-1 for highlight.js

As well as for LTS, I did not finish work on all CVEs of openjpeg2, so the upload is postponed to January.

Last but not least I did some days of frontdesk duties.

Unfortunately I also had to give back some hours.

Other stuff

This month I uploaded new upstream versions of:

I fixed one or two bugs in:

I improved packaging of:

Some packages just needed a source upload:

… and there have been even some new packages:

With these uploads I finished the libosmocom- and libctl-transitions.

The Debian Med Advent Calendar was again really successful this year. There was no new record, but with 109, the second most number of bugs has been closed.

year number of bugs closed
2011 63
2012 28
2013 73
2014 5
2015 150
2016 95
2017 105
2018 81
2019 104
2020 109

Well done everybody who participated. It is really nice to see that Andreas is no longer a lone wolf.

My Debian Activities in November 2020

FTP master

Unfortunately a day only has 24h. As the freeze is approaching, I had to concentrate a bit more on keeping my packages in shape. So this month I only accepted nine packages. The good news, I rejected no package. The overall number of packages that got accepted was 328.

Debian LTS

This was my seventy-seventh month that I did some work for the Debian LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian.

This month my all in all workload has been 22.75h. During that time I did LTS uploads of:

  • [DLA 2446-1] moin security update for two CVEs
  • [DLA 2451-1] libvncserver security update for one CVE
  • [DLA 2459-1] golang-1.7 security update for two CVEs
  • [DLA 2460-1] golang-1.8 security update for three CVEs
  • [DLA 2468-1] tcpflow security update for one CVE
  • [DLA 2469-1] qemu security update for five CVEs

I also started to work on x11vnc and slirp.

Last but not least I did some days of frontdesk duties.

Debian ELTS

This month was the twenty ninth ELTS month.

During my allocated time I uploaded:

  • ELA-319-1 for libass
  • ELA-320-1 for tcpflow
  • ELA-321-1 for qemu

Unfortunately I also had to give back some hours.

Last but not least I did some days of frontdesk duties.

Other stuff

This month I uploaded new upstream versions of:

I fixed one or two bugs in:

I improved packaging of:

… and there have been even some new packages:

As it is again this time of the year, I would also like to draw some attention to the Debian Med Advent Calendar. Like the past years, the Debian Med team starts a bug squashing event from the December 1st to 24th. Every bug that is closed will be registered in the calendar. So instead of taking something from the calendar, this special one will be filled and at Christmas hopefully every Debian Med related bug is closed. Don’t hesitate, start to squash :-).

The announcement on the mailing list can be found here.

My Debian Activities in October 2020

FTP master

This month I accepted 208 packages and rejected 29. The overall number of packages that got accepted was 563, so yeah, I was not alone this month :-).

Anyway, this month marked another milestone in my NEW package handling. My overall number of ACCEPTed package exceeded the magic number of 20000 packages. This is almost 30% of all packages accepted in Debian. I am a bit proud of this achievement.

Debian LTS

This was my seventy-sixth month that I did some work for the Debian LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian.

This month my all in all workload has been 20.75h. During that time I did LTS uploads of:

  • [DLA 2415-1] freetype security update for one CVE
  • [DLA 2419-1] dompurify.js security update for two CVEs
  • [DLA 2418-1] libsndfile security update for eight CVEs
  • [DLA 2421-1] cimg security update for eight CVEs

I also started to work on golang-1.7 and golang-1.8

Last but not least I did some days of frontdesk duties.

Debian ELTS

This month was the twenty eighth ELTS month.

During my allocated time I uploaded:

  • ELA-289-2 for python3.4
  • ELA-304-1 for freetype
  • ELA-305-1 for libsndfile

The first upload of python3.4, last month, did not build on armel, so I had to reupload an improved package this month. For amd64 and i386 the ELTS packages are built in native mode, whereas the packages on armel are cross-built. There is some magic in debian/rules of python to detect in which mode the package is built. This is important as some tests of the testsuite are not really working in cross-build-mode. Unfortunately I had to learn this the hard way …

The upload of libsndfile now aligns the number of fixed CVEs in all releases.

Last but not least I did some days of frontdesk duties.

Other stuff

Despite my NEW-handling and LTS/ELTS stuff I hadn’t much fun with Debian packages this month. Given the approaching freeze, I hope this will change again in November.

My Debian Activities in September 2020

FTP master

This month I accepted 278 packages and rejected 58. The overall number of packages that got accepted was 304.

Debian LTS

This was my seventy-fifth month that I did some work for the Debian LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian.

This month my all in all workload has been 19.75h. During that time I did LTS uploads of:

  • [DLA 2382-1] curl security update for one CVE
  • [DLA 2383-1] nfdump security update for two CVEs
  • [DLA 2384-1] yaws security update for two CVEs

I also started to work on new issues of qemu but had to learn that most of the patches I found have not yet been approved by upstream. So I moved on to python3.5 and cimg. The latter is basically just a header file and I had to find its reverse dependencies to check whether all of them can still be built with the new cimg package. This is still WIP and I hope to upload new versions soon.

Last but not least I did some days of frontdesk duties.

Debian ELTS

This month was the twenty seventh ELTS month.

During my allocated time I uploaded:

  • ELA-284-1 for curl
  • ELA-288-1 for libxrender
  • ELA-289-1 for python3.4

Like in LTS, I also started to work on qemu and encountered the same problems as in LTS above.
When building the new python packages for ELTS and LTS, I used the same VM and encountered memory problems that resulted in random tests failing. This was really annoying as I spent some time just chasing the wind. So up to now only the LTS package got an update and the ELTS one has to wait for October.

Last but not least I did some days of frontdesk duties.

Other stuff

This month I only uploaded some packages to fix bugs:

My Debian Activities in August 2020

FTP master

This month I accepted 159 packages and rejected 16. The overall number of packages that got accepted was 172.

Debian LTS

This was my seventy-fourth month that I did some work for the Debian LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian.

This month my all in all workload has been 21.75h. During that time I did LTS uploads of:

  • [DLA 2336-1] firejail security update for two CVEs
  • [DLA 2337-1] python2.7 security update for nine CVEs
  • [DLA 2353-1] bacula security update for one CVE
  • [DLA 2354-1] ndpi security update for one CVE
  • [DLA 2355-1] bind9 security update for two CVEs
  • [DLA 2359-1] xorg-server security update for five CVEs

I also started to work on curl but did not upload a fixed version yet. As usual, testing the package takes up some time.

Last but not least I did some days of frontdesk duties.

Debian ELTS

This month was the twenty sixth ELTS month.

During my allocated time I uploaded:

  • ELA-265-1 for python2.7
  • ELA-270-1 for bind9
  • ELA-272-1 for xorg-server

Like in LTS, I also started to work on curl and encountered the same problems as in LTS above.

Last but not least I did some days of frontdesk duties.

Other stuff

This month I found again some time for other Debian work and uploaded packages to fix bugs, mainly around gcc10:

I also uploaded new upstream versions of:

All package called *osmo* are developed by the Osmocom project, that is about Open Source MObile COMmunication. They are really doing a great job and I apologize that my uploads of new versions are mostly far behind their development.

Some of the uploads are related to new packages:

TDC: Test-driven configuration, module on puppetforge

Today I released v0.0.2 of my Puppet module puppet-tdc on puppetforge. This version now contains all the features that I mentioned in my first article about TDC.

Though having such a low version, I am using the module in production on my own servers now. I am sure one or another bug will appear but those will be only detected by testing :-). Maybe I also have to change the interface, so probably my old examples will be no longer working. The next steps will be the documentation and a first Debian package.

Anyway, this module does not only help to develop new classes with puppet, but also finds some mistakes that became forgotten. I intentionally avoided to automatically configure members of a new hostgroup in addition to the nagios services that I am going to test. So when adding TDC to the apache2 class, suddenly Nagios reported lots of unknown hosts. In this case I simply forgot to add them to the corresponding hostgroup for web servers and even forgot to monitor some hosts at all.

It again proves to be true that manually taking care of lists is really prone to errors.

My Debian Activities in July 2020

FTP master

This month I accepted 434 packages and rejected 54. The overall number of packages that got accepted was 475.

Debian LTS

This was my seventy-third month that I did some work for the Debian LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian.

This month my all in all workload has been 25.25h. During that time I did LTS uploads of:

  • [DLA 2289-1] mupdf security update for five CVEs
  • [DLA 2290-1] e2fsprogs security update for one CVE
  • [DLA 2294-1] salt security update for two CVEs
  • [DLA 2295-1] curl security update for one CVE
  • [DLA 2296-1] luajit security update for one CVE
  • [DLA 2298-1] libapache2-mod-auth-openidc security update for three CVEs

I started to work on python2.7 as well but stumbled over some hurdles in the testsuite, so I did not upload a fixed version yet.

This month was much influenced by the transition from Jessie LTS to Stretch LTS and one or another workflow/script needed some adjustments.

Last but not least I did some days of frontdesk duties.

Debian ELTS

This month was the twenty fifth ELTS month.

During my allocated time I uploaded:

  • ELA-230-1 for luajit
  • ELA-231-1 for curl

Like in LTS, I also started to work on python2.7 and encountered the same hurdles in the testsuite. So I did not upload a fixed version for ELTS as well.

Last but not least I did some days of frontdesk duties.

Other stuff

In this section nothing much happened this month. Thanks a lot to everybody who NMUed a package to fix a bug.

TDC: Test-driven configuration, the first module

The first module I want to develop with TDC is just a small one. I want to distribute email certificates obtained by Lets Encrypt to some email servers:

 class email_cert {

 }

I am using the puppet module puppet-tdc , that is at the moment only available on github.

The first things to add are some tests:

 class email_cert {
  class{'tdc':
  }
  class{'tdc::test_directory':
     directory    => ['/etc/email-cert'],
  }
  class{'tdc::test_file':
     file    => ['/etc/email-cert/mail-fullchain.pem', '/etc/email-cert/mail-privkey.pem'],
  }
 }

I am using the new class tdc and want to check whether the directory for the certificates is available and whether the certificates itself are there.

Great, after awhile my nagios shows lots of red stuff. Every server that uses my new class email_cert is automatically creating tests for nagios and distributes them. All of them fail.

So now it is time for the real data:

class email_cert {

  class{'tdc':
  }
  class{'tdc::test_directory':
     directory    => ['/etc/email-cert'],
  }
  class{'tdc::test_file':
     file    => ['/etc/email-cert/mail-fullchain.pem', '/etc/email-cert/mail-privkey.pem'],
  }

  file { [ '/etc/email-cert', 
         ]:
          ensure => 'directory',
          mode   => '750',
          owner  => 'Debian-exim',
          group  => 'nagios',
       }
  file { 'cert-fullchain.pem': 
         path    => "/etc/email-cert/mail-fullchain.pem", 
         ensure  => file, 
         mode    => '640',
         owner   => 'Debian-exim',
         group   => 'nagios',
         source  => "puppet:///modules/email_cert/cert/mail-$fqdn-fullchain.pem"
  } 
  file { 'cert-privkey.pem': 
         path    => "/etc/email-cert/mail-privkey.pem", 
         ensure  => file, 
         mode    => '640',
         owner   => 'Debian-exim',
         group   => 'nagios',
         source  => "puppet:///modules/email_cert/cert/mail-$fqdn-privkey.pem"
  } 
 }

After waiting some time, my nagios calms down and everything is green again. According to aNag, I also got 30 new tests.

Of course I had to change the config of nrpe and nagios a bit. In nrpe_local.cfg I had to add:

include_dir=/usr/local/nagios/tdc/config

in order to let nrpe know those newly created tests on the puppet agent.

I also had to tell the nagios server via its puppet module, that there is a new directory containing config data:

      file { '/etc/nagios4/conf.d/tdc':
          ensure => 'directory',
          source => 'puppet:///modules/nagios4_server/tdc',
          recurse => 'remote',
          path => '/etc/nagios4/conf.d/tdc',
          owner => 'root',
          group => 'root',
          mode  => '0755',
          notify  => Service["nagios4"],
        }

TDC: Test-driven configuration, the first steps

During TDD (Test-driven development) you have some kind of specifications that your new module needs to fulfill. Hence you know what functions need to be implemented and what kind of tests you need to write.

During TDC things are similar. You know the software you are going to install. Hence you know how this software works, what configuration is needed and what kind of features you and your users want to use in the beginning.

This results in a number of similar tests for each software.

  1. In a first step you need to check whether …
    • … the binaries are available
    • … the common config files are available
    • … the directories are available
    • … all files and directories have the correct owner and access permissions

    In case you install a package from your distribution, a set of predefined config files should be included in the delivery and your test should be green immediately after installation.

    In case you do a manual installation you need to fiddle around with the configuration files. But as you thought before what config is needed, this task should be an easy one.

    These tests are not only important for the initial installation, but also later on, when you upgrade your system or just install a newer release.
    Often enough names of binaries have been changed (apache -> apache2), the path of config files has been changed, the name of the package has been changed ) or even some binaries are now part of a different package.

    If a test fails, you immediately know that something changed and your configuration (or only the tests) needs to be adapted.

  2. If all files are in the proper place, in the second step you need to check whether their contents is fine as well. Some software has its own tool to check the config files.

    For example “apache2ctl configtest” does a syntax check of the Apache config. Nagios does such checks with “nagios -v nagios.cfg”.

  3. The third step would be to check whether the newly installed software is running. You also need to check whether the correct number of processes is running. For example exim4 basically starts a process for each incoming email and normaly (at least in my case) there are up to five processes running. In case you have 128 exim4 processes running, this might be an indicator that there is something wrong with your incoming email.

As written in the previous article, I am doing configuration management with puppet, so the corresponding puppet module will appear in this repository.