--On Wednesday, July 23, 2003 12:20:34 +0200 Peter Eisentraut <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Larry Rosenman writes:

Why do this at all? Security. Having shared libraries without full
SONAME's is a big security risk. There have been any number of huge
explots based around this. Point me at any Solaris machine <= 2.7, or
any OSR5 system < 507 or any FreeBSD system <= 4.0 and I can get root
with 1 tiny program thats on all of them: xterm. It has long upset me,
and I am done trying to convince them, but libtool encourages the worst
possible .so practices, and may programs seem to have picked up those
equally bad practices. There is no need for futzing with ld.conf and the
like if people take the time to construct shared libraries propperly.
Yes it can be a pain to bootstrap but the reward is very well worth the
effort it takes.

These concerns might have some merit, but the solution could not possibly be to only fix this on one platform, because the mechanisms are the same everywhere. That said, it seems the universal practice is not to put full sonames into shared libraries, so it seems better that our libraries follow that practice. Otherwise it will be only a matter of time before someone comes out of the wood and claims that libraries will full sonames are a big whatever-else problem.
Universal Practice does NOT equal Security and Usability.

Please consider what Kean is saying here.

Kean,
   Please respond.

LER




-- Larry Rosenman http://www.lerctr.org/~ler Phone: +1 972-414-9812 E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] US Mail: 1905 Steamboat Springs Drive, Garland, TX 75044-6749


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