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Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2021 14:31:30 -0400
From: Eli Schwartz <eschwartz@...hlinux.org>
To: oss-security@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: xscreensaver package caps gets raw socket
On 4/19/21 2:15 PM, Ariadne Conill wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Mon, 19 Apr 2021, David A. Wheeler wrote:
>
>>>> On Apr 18, 2021, at 8:25 AM, Simon McVittie <smcv@...ian.org> wrote:
>>>> Scraping is undesirable, but sometimes needed. If this is a common
>>>> need, a
>>>> long-term solution might be to create an option on ping to generate
>>>> a standard
>>>> format that’s easier to machine-parse.
>>>
>>> On Apr 19, 2021, at 1:35 PM, Ariadne Conill
>>> <ariadne@...eferenced.org> wrote:
>>> This already exists as fping(1), for example:
>>
>> The problem for application developers is that “ping” exists
>> practically everywhere,
>> while fping does not.
>
> Absolutely true, but fping is packaged in most Linux distributions, as
> well as all of the BSDs, due to its use by various network monitoring
> programs such as smokeping and nagios, so it seems like a reasonable
> dependency for cases like these.
>
> IMO, it's better that programs declare something like fping as a
> dependency, so that we don't have to deal with yet another program years
> from now having elevated privileges and being abused to run tcpdump... :)
>
> Seriously, if anyone on this list ever finds themselves writing a
> program where they need to fire off some pings, instead of making their
> program SUID or granting it cap_net_raw, just use fping instead. At the
> very least, you'll be happier because you don't have to write your own
> ping code, and the distribution maintainers of the world will be happier
> because you *didn't* write your own ping code.
Also fping is the standard fping, but there is no standard ping so one
would need to coordinate adding the option to a number of different
descendant forks of 4.3BSD ping, before it could be reliably used.
If the answer to your question is ever "for X number of independent
implementations of Y, add the same new feature to all of them", then the
problem will not be coming up with wonderful ideas to solve problems --
the problem will be getting people to implement those wonderful ideas.
--
Eli Schwartz
Arch Linux Bug Wrangler and Trusted User
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