Re: [gentoo-user] Risks of making traceroute suid root

[John Runyon]

On May 11, 2017 1:49:05 AM GMT+02:00, Adam Carter  wrote:
>I want to allow some fairly well trusted users the ablilty to do traces
>with icmp. I can give them sudo, but how high is the risk of making
>traceroute suid root? AFAIK making text editors or anything that has an
>ability to run shell commands suid root is effectively giving them root
>access, but other than exploiting vulnerabilities in traceroute itself,
>are
>there any other issues?

You should be able to do this with capabilities. Presumably the
capability needed is CAP_NET_RAW, therefore something like this should
do the trick:

setcap 'CAP_NET_RAW=+ep' `which traceroute`

Re: [gentoo-user] Risks of making traceroute suid root

[J. Roeleveld]

On May 11, 2017 1:49:05 AM GMT+02:00, Adam Carter  wrote:
>I want to allow some fairly well trusted users the ablilty to do traces
>with icmp. I can give them sudo, but how high is the risk of making
>traceroute suid root? AFAIK making text editors or anything that has an
>ability to run shell commands suid root is effectively giving them root
>access, but other than exploiting vulnerabilities in traceroute itself,
>are
>there any other issues?

Vulnerabilities in appications can always be exploited. Traceroute (and 
similar) are not written with the idea of making it super secure.
I also once heard that it was possible to abuse a random suid program to gain 
root shell. Not sure if that is (still) true. I never saw evidence for it, but 
with the push to use sudo instead of suid-root, I wonder how well that part is 
being tested.

If I had to give some power users access to traceroute, I would allow them to 
use "sudo traceroute". Or fix it so they can run traceroute from their own 
accounts without the use of suid.

--
Joost
-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

Re: [gentoo-user] world rebuild with gcc-6.3.0 - not completely there yet

[Walter Dnes]

  "Walter's Excellent Adventure Continues"... Now that I've got ICEWM
built, I'm trying to start X.  I copied over my ~/.icewm cirectory, the
.xinitrc, and local X startup script from my current machine, where it
all works.  I run "startx", and the X window pops up and I can see the
cursor... for half a second or so.  Then X exits immediately.  I don't
see any ominous error messages.  I'm attaching the contents of
Xorg.0.log in case it helps.

-- 
Walter Dnes 
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications


xorg.log.gz
Description: Binary data

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Horrible English

[Peter Humphrey]

On Wednesday 10 May 2017 23:33:37 Alan McKinnon wrote:

> I you read -dev, you could have replied to the original with a correct
> fix :-)

No good. I can't read C. I gave up in the '80s and reverted to assembler.

> The author isn't English mother-tongue btw [1]

Maybe not, but he's only following what the typical American is doing.

> > (By way of explanation, 35 years ago I was made the documentation
> > manager of a 200-man-year software project. Ever since then I've been
> > unable to read anything at all without the eye of an editor - it's
> > ruined my enjoyment of everything I read. There's no hope any longer.)
> 
> Oh noes. So you can't enjoy Pratchett? poor, poor you  :-)

Sadness.

> [1] Living in a country with 11 (yes, eleven!) official languages, all
> considered legally valid for purposes of government with equal status, I
> had to let go of English bias and accept that languages get mangled. All
> the time.

I sympathise. I couldn't live in a place like that.

> Except for this new meaning for "revert". can't bring myself to accept
> that one, too much like gouging out eyeballs with a blunt spoon.

Eh? What meaning is that? I seem to have missed it.

-- 
Regards
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I turn off ansi (colour) codes in GCC 6.3.0 ?

[Walter Dnes]

On Wed, May 10, 2017 at 01:35:24PM -0500, R0b0t1 wrote

> The option is "-fdiagnostics-color=never" or "-fno-diagnostics-color".
> You can also set the environment variable GCC_COLORS to the empty
> string. The latter is probably more useful in the context of portage.

  Thank you.  I successfully tried...

GCC_COLORS="" emerge icewm

  I suppose the next step is to add GCC_COLORS="" to make.conf.

-- 
Walter Dnes 
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] world rebuild with gcc-6.3.0 - not completely there yet

[Walter Dnes]

On Wed, May 10, 2017 at 02:15:23PM -0400, Walter Dnes wrote
> On Mon, May 08, 2017 at 07:55:30AM +0200, Raffaele Belardi wrote
> 
>   Bringing a 2008 Core2 duo back into use.  I ran into major problems
> with graphite optimizations.  So I re-installed without graphite.
> 
>   I copied over most of the world file from my current desktop (GCC
> 5.4.0) and tried it on the totally GCC 6.3.0 system (without graphite).
> Two problems...
> 
> 1) icewm (This would be a showstopper)
> 
> icesh.cc:249:1: error: narrowing conversion of '4294967295ul' from 'long 
> unsigned int' to 'long int' inside { } [-Wnarrowing]
>  };
>  ^
> icesh.cc:261:1: error: narrowing conversion of '4294967295ul' from 'long 
> unsigned int' to 'long int' inside { } [-Wnarrowing]
>  };
>  ^

  A bit more Google-fu turned up the answer.

Step 1)
mkdir /etc/portage/env
echo 'CXXFLAGS="${CXXFLAGS} -Wno-narrowing"' > /etc/portage/env/narrowing

Step 2)
create/edit /etc/portage/package.env adding the 2 lines

games-board/xfreecell narrowing
x11-wm/icewm narrowing

-- 
Walter Dnes 
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

[gentoo-user] Risks of making traceroute suid root

[Adam Carter]

I want to allow some fairly well trusted users the ablilty to do traces
with icmp. I can give them sudo, but how high is the risk of making
traceroute suid root? AFAIK making text editors or anything that has an
ability to run shell commands suid root is effectively giving them root
access, but other than exploiting vulnerabilities in traceroute itself, are
there any other issues?

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Horrible English

[Peter Humphrey]

On Wednesday 10 May 2017 10:57:30 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Wed, 10 May 2017 10:09:26 +0100, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > Be advised that switching from an older version to GCC 6 will ...
> > 
> > Those first three words are redundant; they add nothing.
> 
> Except for those of us that are paid by the word ;-)

Like ISO9001 quality auditors? No, they seem to be paid by the stack inch.

> I learned grammar by reading the collected plays of Ernie Wise, so I
> write proper like what he did!

I'm sure we've all noticed...   ;_)

-- 
Regards
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] gkrellm sensors vanish

[Peter Humphrey]

On Wednesday 10 May 2017 15:54:05 Ian Zimmerman wrote:
> Since about 2 weekly updates ago (which seems to neatly translate to a
> newly stable 2.3.10-r1 version of gkrellm) sometimes it starts without
> any of the hardware monitoring sensors displayed.  Not always; but since
> gkrellm despite of all its other virtues is the misguided sort of
> program that confuse configuration and state, and save the state when
> exiting, this means once it happens I have to manually configure all the
> sensors again, with the GUI because I don't know another way.  ARGH!
> 
> _All_ the hw monitoring sensors disappear: temps, fans, and voltages,
> provided by at least two different hardware interfaces.  This makes me
> doubt that the cause is some change in the kernel or udev or anything on
> that level - it looks more like a bug in gkrellm itself.
> 
> (For complete clarity: I use the direct way to read sensor values, not
> via mbmon or lm-sensors.)
> 
> Has anyone else seen this?  There was a thread discussing gkrellm not so
> long ago, so I know there are other users around.

No, it's fine here, and I also don't use lm_sensors. I only show temperatures 
though. I'd show you a screen shot, but it's 1.3MB.

Gkrellm is just about the most useful accessory for the Linux desktop, if 
you ask me. I have three instances of it here, showing data from three 
machines.

If you want to report a bug, the place to do it is on the mailing list 
gkre...@lists.netservicesgroup.com .

-- 
Regards
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: How do I turn off text console screen in software?

[Walter Dnes]

On Wed, May 10, 2017 at 03:36:05PM -0400, Jonathan Callen wrote

> Additionally, "setterm --blank force" turns the console off immediately.

  Thank you; that's exactly what I was looking for.  My script
~/bin/dark now reads...

#!/bin/bash
sleep 1 && xset -display :0.0 dpms force off
setterm --blank force

...so I can execute "dark" in either X or a true text console, and it
works in both cases.

-- 
Walter Dnes 
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

[gentoo-user] gkrellm sensors vanish

[Ian Zimmerman]

Since about 2 weekly updates ago (which seems to neatly translate to a
newly stable 2.3.10-r1 version of gkrellm) sometimes it starts without
any of the hardware monitoring sensors displayed.  Not always; but since
gkrellm despite of all its other virtues is the misguided sort of
program that confuse configuration and state, and save the state when
exiting, this means once it happens I have to manually configure all the
sensors again, with the GUI because I don't know another way.  ARGH!

_All_ the hw monitoring sensors disappear: temps, fans, and voltages,
provided by at least two different hardware interfaces.  This makes me
doubt that the cause is some change in the kernel or udev or anything on
that level - it looks more like a bug in gkrellm itself.

(For complete clarity: I use the direct way to read sensor values, not
via mbmon or lm-sensors.)

Has anyone else seen this?  There was a thread discussing gkrellm not so
long ago, so I know there are other users around.

-- 
Please *no* private Cc: on mailing lists and newsgroups
Personal signed mail: please _encrypt_ and sign
Don't clear-text sign:
http://primate.net/~itz/blog/the-problem-with-gpg-signatures.html

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Horrible English

[Alan McKinnon]

On 10/05/2017 11:09, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> "Can not" should be "cannot" (different meaning).
> 
> I did say this is all off-topic. Apologies to anyone who feels aggrieved. I 
> could have suggested several other improvements as well, so I could say I've 
> let you off lightly.  ;-)

I you read -dev, you could have replied to the original with a correct
fix :-)

The author isn't English mother-tongue btw [1]

> 
> (By way of explanation, 35 years ago I was made the documentation manager of 
> a 200-man-year software project. Ever since then I've been unable to read 
> anything at all without the eye of an editor - it's ruined my enjoyment of 
> everything I read. There's no hope any longer.)

Oh noes. So you can't enjoy Pratchett? poor, poor you  :-)


[1] Living in a country with 11 (yes, eleven!) official languages, all
considered legally valid for purposes of government with equal status, I
had to let go of English bias and accept that languages get mangled. All
the time.

Except for this new meaning for "revert". can't bring myself to accept
that one, too much like gouging out eyeballs with a blunt spoon.


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com

[gentoo-user] Re: How do I turn off text console screen in software?

[Jonathan Callen]

On 05/10/2017 12:59 PM, R0b0t1 wrote:
> On Wed, May 10, 2017 at 9:03 AM, Walter Dnes  wrote:
>>   I'd prefer to avoid hitting the monitor display on/off too often.  In
>> an xterm, the script...
>>
>> #!/bin/bash
>> sleep 1 && xset -display :0.0 dpms force off
>>
>> ...shuts the screen off.  Is there an equivalant command for a text
>> console (e.g. where you end up if you hit CTRL-ALT-F1)?
>>
>> --
>> Walter Dnes 
>> I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
>>
> 
> `setterm -blank VALUE` where VALUE is specified in minutes. A value of
> zero disables blanking. You can also add "consoleblank=0" to your
> kernel's command line. It's probably worth looking at the other
> `setterm` options.
> 
> You can read /sys/module/kernel/parameters/consoleblank to see if your
> changes applied properly.
> 
> 


Additionally, "setterm --blank force" turns the console off immediately.

-- 
Jonathan Callen



signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I turn off ansi (colour) codes in GCC 6.3.0 ?

[R0b0t1]

On Wed, May 10, 2017 at 1:29 PM, Walter Dnes  wrote:
>   Splitting away from the main GCC 6.3.0 thread, because this is a
> tangential issue.  The GCC 6.3.0 build output is cutsie/wootsie with
> lots of colour... "because teh shiney".  Unfortunately, it absolutely
> sucks for reading build logs giving stuff like...
>
> ^[[01m^[[Kicesh.cc:249:1:^[[m^[[K ^[[01;31m^[[Kerror: ^[[m^[[Knarrowing 
> conversion of '^[[01m^[[K4294967295ul^[[m^[[K' from '^[[01m^[[Klong unsigned 
> int^[[m^[[K' to '^[[01m^[[Klong int^[[m^[[K' inside { } 
> [^[[01;31m^[[K-Wnarrowing^[[m^[[K]
>  ^[[01;31m^[[K}^[[m^[[K;
>  ^[[01;31m^[[K^^[[m^[[K
> ^[[01m^[[Kicesh.cc:261:1:^[[m^[[K ^[[01;31m^[[Kerror: ^[[m^[[Knarrowing 
> conversion of '^[[01m^[[K4294967295ul^[[m^[[K' from '^[[01m^[[Klong unsigned 
> int^[[m^[[K' to '^[[01m^[[Klong int^[[m^[[K' inside { } 
> [^[[01;31m^[[K-Wnarrowing^[[m^[[K]
>  ^[[01;31m^[[K}^[[m^[[K;
>  ^[[01;31m^[[K^^[[m^[[K
>
>   I tried "emerge --color=n icewm", but that doesn't help.  Any ideas?
>
> --
> Walter Dnes 
> I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
>

The option is "-fdiagnostics-color=never" or "-fno-diagnostics-color".
You can also set the environment variable GCC_COLORS to the empty
string. The latter is probably more useful in the context of portage.

[gentoo-user] How do I turn off ansi (colour) codes in GCC 6.3.0 ?

[Walter Dnes]

  Splitting away from the main GCC 6.3.0 thread, because this is a
tangential issue.  The GCC 6.3.0 build output is cutsie/wootsie with
lots of colour... "because teh shiney".  Unfortunately, it absolutely
sucks for reading build logs giving stuff like...

^[[01m^[[Kicesh.cc:249:1:^[[m^[[K ^[[01;31m^[[Kerror: ^[[m^[[Knarrowing 
conversion of '^[[01m^[[K4294967295ul^[[m^[[K' from '^[[01m^[[Klong unsigned 
int^[[m^[[K' to '^[[01m^[[Klong int^[[m^[[K' inside { } 
[^[[01;31m^[[K-Wnarrowing^[[m^[[K]
 ^[[01;31m^[[K}^[[m^[[K;
 ^[[01;31m^[[K^^[[m^[[K
^[[01m^[[Kicesh.cc:261:1:^[[m^[[K ^[[01;31m^[[Kerror: ^[[m^[[Knarrowing 
conversion of '^[[01m^[[K4294967295ul^[[m^[[K' from '^[[01m^[[Klong unsigned 
int^[[m^[[K' to '^[[01m^[[Klong int^[[m^[[K' inside { } 
[^[[01;31m^[[K-Wnarrowing^[[m^[[K]
 ^[[01;31m^[[K}^[[m^[[K;
 ^[[01;31m^[[K^^[[m^[[K

  I tried "emerge --color=n icewm", but that doesn't help.  Any ideas?

-- 
Walter Dnes 
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] world rebuild with gcc-6.3.0 - not completely there yet

[Walter Dnes]

On Mon, May 08, 2017 at 07:55:30AM +0200, Raffaele Belardi wrote

  Bringing a 2008 Core2 duo back into use.  I ran into major problems
with graphite optimizations.  So I re-installed without graphite.

  I copied over most of the world file from my current desktop (GCC
5.4.0) and tried it on the totally GCC 6.3.0 system (without graphite).
Two problems...

1) icewm (This would be a showstopper)

icesh.cc:249:1: error: narrowing conversion of '4294967295ul' from 'long 
unsigned int' to 'long int' inside { } [-Wnarrowing]
 };
 ^
icesh.cc:261:1: error: narrowing conversion of '4294967295ul' from 'long 
unsigned int' to 'long int' inside { } [-Wnarrowing]
 };
 ^

2) xfreecell

A whole slew of stuff like...

boundingMask.bm:108:38: error: narrowing conversion of '224' from 'int' to 'char
' inside { } [-Wnarrowing]
0xff, 0xff, 0xff, 0xff, 0xff, 0x03};
  ^
boundingMask.bm:108:38: error: narrowing conversion of '255' from 'int' to 'char
' inside { } [-Wnarrowing]

  Is there a way to turn off the "-Wnarrowing" check?  If I can do that,
the next step would be to create custom build environments, with
modified CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS as per 
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Knowledge_Base:Overriding_environment_variables_per_package

  Is this sloppy programming that should be reported as a bug?

-- 
Walter Dnes 
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

[gentoo-user] Back to bussiness with freecad ... but ...

[tuxic]

Hi,

ok it seems that previously reported problems
with compilation problems of the dependencies
of freecad had gone.

Reason was a mixed up configuration of gcc.

I returned to gcc 5* and that did it.

Now emerging reaches the final step and
starts compiling freecad, and . failed.

I added the build.log as 7zip compressed file
to this email.

Waht happens here ... it fails so silently...

Thank you very much in advance for any help!
Cheers
Meino




build.log.7z
Description: application/7z-compressed

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I turn off text console screen in software?

[R0b0t1]

On Wed, May 10, 2017 at 9:03 AM, Walter Dnes  wrote:
>   I'd prefer to avoid hitting the monitor display on/off too often.  In
> an xterm, the script...
>
> #!/bin/bash
> sleep 1 && xset -display :0.0 dpms force off
>
> ...shuts the screen off.  Is there an equivalant command for a text
> console (e.g. where you end up if you hit CTRL-ALT-F1)?
>
> --
> Walter Dnes 
> I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
>

`setterm -blank VALUE` where VALUE is specified in minutes. A value of
zero disables blanking. You can also add "consoleblank=0" to your
kernel's command line. It's probably worth looking at the other
`setterm` options.

You can read /sys/module/kernel/parameters/consoleblank to see if your
changes applied properly.

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Horrible English

[Peter Humphrey]

On Wednesday 10 May 2017 10:11:36 Walter Dnes wrote:
> On Wed, May 10, 2017 at 10:09:26AM +0100, Peter Humphrey wrote
> 
> > On Tuesday 09 May 2017 14:29:16 Walter Dnes wrote:
> > > It's a feature, not a bug.  There's a news item being worked on in
> > > the Gentoo dev list.  I'd normally just link to a mail archive, but
> > > it's
> > > too new to have been archived yet.  Here's a copy of the proposed news
> > > item.
> > 
> > (Quoting order changed.)
> > 
> > Sorry, Walter, but I just couldn't let this go. Reading it hurt too
> > much.
> > 
> > English grammar has very few hard-and-fast rules, but one is absolutely
> > sacrosanct: every verb agrees in number with its subject. If I'd been
> > guilty
> > of this at school I'd have earned myself a stiff rebuke:
> I was merely quoting the post verbatim.  Don't shoot the messanger. 

No, I didn't mean to. I know it wasn't your wording.

> I hereby volunteer you to join the Gentoo-dev list and help clean up the
> grammar of the news item.

:-)  I don't think that's a very good idea. I find too often that I don't 
know when to stop, and I'd hate to make enemies of the entire dev team!

> It's currently undergoing technical changes, and the draft has changed
> somewhat.

Well, let's hope it's improved in more ways than one...

-- 
Regards
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Horrible English

[Neil Bothwick]

On Wed, 10 May 2017 13:50:40 +0100, David W Noon wrote:

> > Except for those of us that are paid by the word ;-)  
> 
> ... those of us *who* are paid by the word. ... :-)

who/that/what/is it's all the same price ;-)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Fill what's empty, empty what's full, scratch where it itches.


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[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Horrible English

[Grant Edwards]

On 2017-05-10, Peter Humphrey  wrote:
> On Tuesday 09 May 2017 14:29:16 Walter Dnes wrote:
>
>> It's a feature, not a bug.  There's a news item being worked on in
>> the Gentoo dev list.  I'd normally just link to a mail archive, but it's
>> too new to have been archived yet.  Here's a copy of the proposed news
>> item.
>
> (Quoting order changed.)
>
> Sorry, Walter, but I just couldn't let this go. Reading it hurt too much.
>
> English grammar has very few hard-and-fast rules,

Usenet has few hard-and-fast rules, but one is absolutely sacrosanct:
you don't jump all over somebody for minor English grammar mistakes
when English is their second language.

> (By way of explanation, 35 years ago I was made the documentation
> manager of a 200-man-year software project.
>
> Ever since then I've been unable to read anything at all without the
> eye of an editor - it's ruined my enjoyment of everything I
> read. There's no hope any longer.)

And that's your excuse for being rude and bitching out somebody for
minor grammar mistakes in work they're doing for you for free?

You owe Hr. Maier, and Gentoo devs in general, an apology.

-- 
Grant Edwards   grant.b.edwardsYow! I wish I was on a
  at   Cincinnati street corner
  gmail.comholding a clean dog!

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Horrible English

[Walter Dnes]

On Wed, May 10, 2017 at 10:09:26AM +0100, Peter Humphrey wrote
> On Tuesday 09 May 2017 14:29:16 Walter Dnes wrote:
> 
> > It's a feature, not a bug.  There's a news item being worked on in
> > the Gentoo dev list.  I'd normally just link to a mail archive, but it's
> > too new to have been archived yet.  Here's a copy of the proposed news
> > item.
> 
> (Quoting order changed.)
> 
> Sorry, Walter, but I just couldn't let this go. Reading it hurt too much.
> 
> English grammar has very few hard-and-fast rules, but one is absolutely 
> sacrosanct: every verb agrees in number with its subject. If I'd been guilty 
> of this at school I'd have earned myself a stiff rebuke:

  I was merely quoting the post verbatim.  Don't shoot the messanger.  I
hereby volunteer you to join the Gentoo-dev list and help clean up the
grammar of the news item.  It's currently undergoing technical changes,
and the draft has changed somewhat.

-- 
Walter Dnes 
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

[gentoo-user] How do I turn off text console screen in software?

[Walter Dnes]

  I'd prefer to avoid hitting the monitor display on/off too often.  In
an xterm, the script...

#!/bin/bash
sleep 1 && xset -display :0.0 dpms force off

...shuts the screen off.  Is there an equivalant command for a text
console (e.g. where you end up if you hit CTRL-ALT-F1)?

-- 
Walter Dnes 
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Horrible English

[Kent Fredric]

On Wed, 10 May 2017 13:50:40 +0100
David W Noon  wrote:

> those of us *who* are paid by the word.

*whomst 


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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Horrible English

[David W Noon]

On Wed, 10 May 2017 10:57:30 +0100, Neil Bothwick (n...@digimed.co.uk) 
wrote about "Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Horrible English" (in 
<20170510105615.7340c...@digimed.co.uk>):


[snip]

Except for those of us that are paid by the word ;-)


... those of us *who* are paid by the word. ... :-)
--
Regards,

Dave  [RLU #314465]
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
dwn...@ntlworld.com (David W Noon)
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Horrible English

[Neil Bothwick]

On Wed, 10 May 2017 10:09:26 +0100, Peter Humphrey wrote:

> > Be advised that switching from an older version to GCC 6 will ...  
> 
> Those first three words are redundant; they add nothing.

Except for those of us that are paid by the word ;-)

I learned grammar by reading the collected plays of Ernie Wise, so I
write proper like what he did!


-- 
Neil Bothwick

"A computer is like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no
mercy." \xA0-- Joseph Campbell


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Re: [gentoo-user] gcc 6 PIE use flag

[Adam Carter]

  It's a feature, not a bug.  There's a news item being worked on in

> the Gentoo dev list.  I'd normally just link to a mail archive, but it's
> too new to have been archived yet.  Here's a copy of the proposed news
> item.  Note the example error message about relocation against .rodata
>
> ###
> Title: GCC 6 defaults to USE="pie ssp"
> Author: Matthias Maier 
> Content-Type: text/plain
> Posted: 2017-05-07
> Revision: 1
> News-Item-Format: 1.0
> Display-If-Installed: >=sys-devel/gcc-6.3.0
> Display-If-Keyword: amd64 applications
>
> 
Thanks for that info. Looks like i got spooked unnecessarily.

Re: [gentoo-user] gcc 6 PIE use flag

[Adam Carter]

I'm not so sure. Whether -fPIC is required or not depends on too

> many factors and adding it when not needed will bring harm.
>
> Are you using hardened?
>

Yes, its on. I haven't hit the error again so it doesnt appear to be too
much of an issue.

[gentoo-user] [OT] Horrible English

[Peter Humphrey]

On Tuesday 09 May 2017 14:29:16 Walter Dnes wrote:

> It's a feature, not a bug.  There's a news item being worked on in
> the Gentoo dev list.  I'd normally just link to a mail archive, but it's
> too new to have been archived yet.  Here's a copy of the proposed news
> item.

(Quoting order changed.)

Sorry, Walter, but I just couldn't let this go. Reading it hurt too much.

English grammar has very few hard-and-fast rules, but one is absolutely 
sacrosanct: every verb agrees in number with its subject. If I'd been guilty 
of this at school I'd have earned myself a stiff rebuke:

> An indicator are linker errors ...

[...]

> [Additionally, following Gentoo policies, the default-off use-flags
> nopie (only present in Hardened) and nossp are replaced starting with
> gcc-6 by default-on use-flags pie and ssp.]

No; they are replaced, by the developers, with those flags.

> Be advised that switching from an older version to GCC 6 will ...

Those first three words are redundant; they add nothing.
 
>   ... relocation R_X86_64_32 against `.rodata.str1.1' can not be used
>   when...

"Can not" should be "cannot" (different meaning).

I did say this is all off-topic. Apologies to anyone who feels aggrieved. I 
could have suggested several other improvements as well, so I could say I've 
let you off lightly.  ;-)

(By way of explanation, 35 years ago I was made the documentation manager of 
a 200-man-year software project. Ever since then I've been unable to read 
anything at all without the eye of an editor - it's ruined my enjoyment of 
everything I read. There's no hope any longer.)

-- 
Regards
Peter