Dne 09. 07. 26 v 16:06 Neal Gompa napsal(a):
On Thu, Jul 9, 2026 at 9:33 AM Vít Ondruch <[email protected]> wrote:

Dne 08. 07. 26 v 13:18 Neal Gompa napsal(a):
On Wed, Jul 8, 2026 at 6:50 AM Daniel P. Berrangé <[email protected]> wrote:
On Tue, Jun 30, 2026 at 05:56:42PM +0100, Aoife Moloney via devel-announce 
wrote:
Wiki - https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/DisableVendorChangeByDefault
Discussion thread -
https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/f45-change-proposal-disable-vendor-change-by-default-system-wide/195269
== Detailed Description ==
By default, ''libdnf5'' allows packages to switch vendors if a
repository provides a different version or release of a package with a
different <code>VENDOR</code> tag that satisfies a transaction. While
this can sometimes resolve dependencies automatically, it can lead to
unexpected behavior in multi-vendor setups (e.g., mixing packages
between official Fedora Project, RPM Fusion, Copr, or third-party
corporate repositories).

For instance, an essential multimedia package or a proprietary driver
supplied by a specific vendor could be silently overwritten or
downgraded by a package from another vendor during system updates or
dependency resolution, potentially breaking user setups.

By introducing <code>allow_vendor_change = false</code> into Fedora's
default distribution configuration for DNF5, Fedora will achieve
strict vendor isolation by default. A package will only be modified if
the replacement package originates from the same vendor as the
currently installed package, ensuring predictable behavior across all
package operations.
I see this change appears to be careful not to use to the word
"security", but preventing vendor transitions is effectively
acting as a security measure.

If a 3rd party repo gets compromised, it purports to prevent
that repo from distributing a malicious package  that "upgrades"
a standard Fedora package.

I'm curious whether that is actually the case though? The change
suggests this protection relies on the "VENDOR" tag in the RPM,
but AFAIK nothing stops  anyone from building their RPM with
the "VENDOR" tag set to "Fedora Project".

Does this vendor protection only work when we have co-operating
repository vendors who promise not to step on each others'
"VENDOR" tags ?

It would be nice if the "VENDOR" tag was tied to the RPM signing
keys, so that there is a cryptographic block on spoofing the
vendor identifier.

I'm still in support of this change proposal, just wondering
about the limits of the protection it offers and possibility
for future improvement.

It is deliberately not marketed as a security feature for the reasons
you are stating. Tying it to PGP signature fingerprints would be an
interesting extension, but I don't think that currently exists in
libsolv (we're using the libsolv feature internally).

To be honest, the main driver is for consistency and usability for
Fedora with user-added third party repositories and for Fedora
derivatives (like Remixes)

Well, why the derivatives do not change the option?

I personally quite often benefit from having multiple repositories from
different vendors, using e.g. Copr to test more recent version than the
official one. Therefore I prefer the current behavior.

You mean the behavior of randomly switching back and forth? Because if
you want to lock onto a Copr, this essentially makes that work by
default now.


No, I don't want to lock onto Copr, because quite often the Copr repository becomes stalled or is even removed once the work is moved into Fedora official repo.



There are people who use third party builds of stuff included in
Fedora that has more functionality or different functionality for
whatever reason. Not having to worry about it being randomly swapped
out from underneath them is pretty useful, I think.

All this does is make it so switching providers is explicit rather
than implicit.



I see your point. But one or the other group will be sad if this is approved. Hard to judge which group is bigger.

But shouldn't such setting be part of some repo data or something? Because I can even imagine that I would prefer to stick with some repo while from others, I just want the most recent version.

BTW with all due respect, I can't help but the VendorChangeManager seems to be quite overengineered. While it seems it could e.g. enable all Copr repositories, I can't imagine I would be able to come up with such policy.


Vít

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