** Changed in: nodejs (Debian)
Status: New => Fix Released
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1779863
Title:
Ubuntu nodejs package isn't ABI compatible with mainline nodejs.
Status in nodejs package in Ubuntu:
Fix Released
Status in nodejs source package in Trusty:
Invalid
Status in nodejs source package in Xenial:
Invalid
Status in nodejs source package in Bionic:
Fix Released
Status in nodejs source package in Cosmic:
Fix Released
Status in nodejs package in Debian:
Fix Released
Bug description:
[impact]
Pre-built addons for nodejs built against the 8.10 version, which is
what is included in Bionic, will fail to load on Bionic because the
version of nodejs there is built using a newer ABI-incompatible
openssl version.
[test case]
1. Run 'sudo apt install nodejs npm'
2. Run 'mkdir /tmp/lp.1779863'
3. Run 'cd /tmp/lp.1779863'
4. Run 'npm install grpc'
5. Note that it mentions installing a prebuilt binary from remote.
6. Run 'node' and enter the following code:
> const grpc = require('grpc')
> const creds = grpc.ServerCredentials.createSsl(null, [])
> const server = new grpc.Server()
> server.bind('0.0.0.0:8080', creds)
7. Observe that this results in a crash, with an error like:
node: symbol lookup error:
/tmp/lp.1779863/node_modules/grpc/src/node/extension_binary/node-v57-linux-x64-glibc/grpc_node.node:
undefined symbol: SSL_library_init
8. Run 'npm install node-webcrypto-ossl'.
9. Observe that compilation fails due to a header expectation mismatch.
10. Install nodejs from -proposed.
11. Repeat steps 6-9 and observe that the commands succeed without errors.
[regression potential]
Although this SRU changes the ABI of nodejs that is exposed to binary
add-ons, the practical regression potential for this ABI change is
minimal. The archive has been scanned to confirm there are no
reverse-dependencies in Ubuntu which use this part of the ABI, and it
is not feasible to build third-party binaries that are compatible with
nodejs as shipped in 18.04 because the gyp build system used by the
nodejs ecosystem exposes system headers that don't match the symbols
exported by the current Ubuntu nodejs built against OpenSSL 1.1.
Thus, the greatest risk of regression is from someone manually working
around this gyp incompatibility in order to build an add-on which uses
these symbols. This risk is negligible.
Changing this to use openssl1.0 assumes that the security team will
maintain security patches for openssl1.0.
There is no risk of regression in protocol compatibility by switching
back from openssl 1.1 to openssl 1.0, because TLS 1.3 support has not
yet landed in the openssl package in 18.04.
[other info]
alternately, this could be fixed by upgrading the nodejs package in
Bionic (and Cosmic) to a newer nodejs - Debian has version 10.4.0 in
experimental.
also debian 904274 has quite a bit of discussion.
original bug description below.
---
Background:
NodeJS has a native extension API: https://nodejs.org/api/addons.html
It's fairly understood by developers that NodeJS's ABI is stable, and that
one module built using a version of nodejs should work on another semantically
version compatible of nodejs.
NodeJS exposes various third party libraries to the native module
developers. Quote from the addons developers page: "Node.js includes a
number of other statically linked libraries including OpenSSL. These
other libraries are located in the deps/ directory in the Node.js
source tree. Only the libuv,i OpenSSL, V8 and zlib symbols are
purposefully re-exported by Node.js and may be used to various extents
by Addons."
It's fairly understood by developers that native modules have the same
ABI guarantee than the rest of the node API.
The NodeJS ecosystem uses native modules extensively, and it's fairly
common for developers to publish precompiled versions of their
extensions so that the typical end-user can simply npm install their
dependencies without worrying about having a compiler installed. Some
packages will do their own thing (see for instance
https://www.npmjs.com/package/uws), while others will rely on third
party extensions to facilitate their work. See for instance prebuild
(https://www.npmjs.com/package/prebuild) that has a handful of
dependents, or node-pre-gyp (https://www.npmjs.com/package/node-pre-
gyp) that has north of 350 dependents. So the nodejs ecosystem has
roughly 400 native packages that are publishing prebuilt versions of
their extensions.
Problem with the Ubuntu nodejs package:
Put simply, it breaks prebuilt packages that depend on OpenSSL. NodeJS 8.10.0
officially comes with OpenSSL 1.0.2n, while the NodeJS 8.10.0 that comes with
the Ubuntu package exposes OpenSSL 1.1.0g.
Since there are ABI breakages between OpenSSL 1.0.2 and 1.1.0, these
ABI breakages are bubbling up to any prebuilt native addon.
Here is an example:
https://github.com/nicolasnoble/openssl-nodejs-ubuntu-demo
If you build this package under the mainline nodejs, it will try to import
the following symbols from OpenSSL 1.0.2:
. SSL_library_init
. SSLeay_version
Whereas if you build it under Ubuntu's nodejs, it will try to import the
following symbols instead from OpenSSL 1.1.0:
. OPENSSL_init_ssl
. OpenSSL_version
Therefore, trying to load one prebuilt module from one version of the
runtime to another will result in a symbol loading error:
node: symbol lookup error: /home/pixel/node-openssl-addon-
example/build/Release/openssl_example.node: undefined symbol:
SSL_library_init
Incidentally, nodejs 10.5.0 uses OpenSSL 1.1.0h, and compiling the
same demo module with this version of node will try to import the
proper symbols. Obviously, since the module will be built for the
wrong version of the nodejs runtime, it won't load, but the SSL
symbols are now proper.
This creates weird bug reports for nodejs extension developers, such
as https://github.com/grpc/grpc-node/issues/341
Another example is uws. Trying to use uws in ubuntu's nodejs will
result in the same sort of failures. Which means there are at least
two packages available out there that are affected by this issue.
I don't think this is easily solvable, and all of my suggestions for
fixing it have severe cons. Ubuntu won't want to downgrade their
system's OpenSSL for this. Maybe there's a way to get another openssl
package for 1.0.2, and have the nodejs runtime for Ubuntu depend on
it. Another possible solution would be to radically upgrade nodejs to
10, so that the ABI of OpenSSL will then match properly. But this may
be viewed as a too radical upgrade.
One sort of mitigation option would be to get node-pre-gyp and
prebuild to recognize that it's running with this version of the
nodejs runtime, so that it can recognize and take actions, such as
downloading an ubuntu-specific version of the prebuilt extension, or
recompiling from sources. This obviously would help mitigating the
issue for a good portion of existing packages that are using node-pre-
gyp and prebuild, but for packages that are doing their own thing such
as uws, this solution wouldn't work properly.
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: nodejs 8.10.0~dfsg-2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-24.26-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-24-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.2
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Tue Jul 3 05:34:28 2018
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-03-08 (482 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 16.10 "Yakkety Yak" - Release amd64 (20161012.2)
ProcEnviron:
TERM=xterm-256color
PATH=(custom, no user)
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: nodejs
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to bionic on 2018-05-10 (54 days ago)
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