Overall Status
automatic installation |
final tweaks to postinstall needed, but works well |
automatic maintenance |
sue, aaru,kernel works |
integration / features |
the hard ones are done, but many missing |
user/group environment |
profiles/hepix etc. need lots of work |
application software |
many open questions |
batch/grid |
no work done yet |
Xsession environment |
many open questions |
desktop |
no work done yet |
general
- main targets: cleanup, progress
user level compatibility with SL3 & Solaris is NOT
- for file distribution, prefer rpm over cfengine-copy-by-checksum
- clean up profiles! do NOT copy from SL3!
- no more hepixdm - replacement needed?
open questions
support only bash as the login shell?
- zsh has UTF-8 issues
- can we stop supporting tcsh as a login shell?
- much effort especially since we have to change the profiles
- not recommended anyway
- mapping of users' shells in local /etc/passwd is implemented
replace NIS/LDAP with local files?
Why not finally rid ourselves of all NIS/LDAP/nsswicth(compat...) problems?
- distribute /etc/groups (like we already do with netgroups)
- create /etc/passwd from a distributed master file (taking into account who gets a shell on the system)
- this is available now, but needs some more testing and refinement
- this would also make it easy to change all users' shells to bash
if yes: how to handle nscd?
- turn it off completely?
- or have different configurations (like: use for DNS only) ?
- need to adapt all features touching it
- ldap
- nagios
- netgroup
- nsswitch
- have a variable CF_nscd ?
- values could be (off, on, dns_only, ...), feture would copy right config
- which feature? nsswitch? or have a new one?
done
- CKS3.pl works (same script, input, location etc. as SL3)
- SL3U.pl works (same script as SL3, but need /opt/products/perl/5.8.2 - link to SL3 products is ok)
- AI client works
- aaru scripts work (same as on SL3)
- remapgroups works and is installed
- ppm, prpm, products feature
- staged errata, aaru feature
- KUSL3.pl, kernel feature
- automount feature
- postinstallation (now using runcon and restoring file contexts where needed - TEST!)
roadmap
- other priority1 features (sue) (?profiles?)
- Milestone: Regular test systems
- priority2 features
- Milestone: Ready for special purposes
- priority3 features
- Milestone: public preview
little todos
- check: remapgroups in default.ys ?
features
Feature |
Priority |
Remarks |
aaru |
done |
init script should probably runcon -t unconfined_t yum ... |
account |
3 |
|
afs_client |
3 |
|
arcd |
won't |
should not be needed naymore |
arcx |
5 |
|
automount |
done |
|
cfengine |
2 |
|
conmgr |
done |
- gpm not turned off (also on SL3) ?!BR - check_console operational (also on SL3?) |
dhcp |
5 |
basically ok, but restorecon missing, bug in init script (status) |
doocsadm |
5 |
PITZ HOSTS ONLY!!! Keep this off my sane systems. Please. |
emacs |
2 |
trivial |
hepixdm |
4 |
replace with new simple xdm feature? |
hosts |
done |
|
inetd |
3 |
|
kerberos |
3 |
|
kernel |
done |
|
klogin |
ok |
nothing to do |
ldap |
2 |
nscd handling? |
links |
won't |
links should be packaged |
linux |
3 |
|
localdisks |
5 |
probably trivial |
3 |
|
|
motd |
3 |
probably trivial |
nagios |
5 |
nscd handling? |
name_srv |
5 |
|
netgroup |
2 |
nscd handling? |
nfs |
2 |
NFS4 ? |
nsswitch |
2 |
- CF_NSSWITCH=files implementedBR - nscd: off? only DNS? how to handle? |
optpro |
? |
|
pam |
3 |
|
passwd |
2 |
use local files for everything ?BR - implemented, but needs more test and refinementBR |
passwd_prog |
3 |
|
printing |
3 |
switch to cups? keep lprng? |
products |
done |
|
profiles |
won't |
most of this should go into hepix and other packages |
removable_media |
5 |
probably not much to do, but check crash case etc. |
scout |
4 |
|
security |
2 |
|
sge |
5 |
|
sound |
5 |
|
ssh |
3 |
|
sudo |
3 |
|
sue |
done |
sue_boot now runs sue.update in the unconfined_t domain on SELinux-enabled systems, this should alleviate most file context problems |
sue_links |
won't |
should be packaged |
syslog |
3 |
trivial if kept as is, but try to improve (boot.log,...) |
tcp_wrapper |
2 |
|
testcfe |
? |
|
tidy_up |
3 |
tidy up the feature! but trivial |
trusted |
ok |
trivial |
vamos |
2 |
|
xf86 |
5 |
|
xntp |
done |
|
ypclient |
3 |
|
zzz |
? |
|
Traps & Pitfalls
Files in /etc/cron.d
These must have mode 644. Crond does not accept 755.
SELinux and cfengine
the problem
Any files read by daemons covered by the targeted policy must have the correct type. The file /etc/passwd, for example, is read by nscd:
[root@satyr2 ~]# ls -Z /etc/passwd -rw-r--r-- root root system_u:object_r:etc_t /etc/passwd
Unfortuantely, cfengine is not aware of security contexts. Hence files it modifies may end up with the wrong context, and daemons may no longer be able to access them:
[root@satyr2 ~]# ls -Z /etc/passwd -rw-r--r-- root root system_u:object_r:etc_runtime_t /etc/passwd
These actions are known to have this problem:
- editfiles
- copy
- link
Even more unfortunately, many files (but not all) will still have the right context if a feature is run interactively, or even by cron, since in this case they run in the unconfined_t domain. This may change in the future, but so far the problem only affects features run from /etc/init.d/sue_boot The reason is that then processes run in domain initrc_t, with the result that newly created files may get a different context.
Hence to test the effect of a feature, run sue.update like this:
[root@satyr2 ~]# runcon -t initrc_t /products/sue/etc/sue.update ...
the solution(s)
modify the sue_boot init script
One step is obviously to run sue_boot in a different context, by adding this to /etc/init.d/sue_boot
RUNCON="" if [ -x /usr/sbin/selinuxenabled ]; then /usr/sbin/selinuxenabled && RUNCON="/usr/bin/runcon -t unconfined_t --" fi
and then changing the sue.update command to this:
$RUNCON /products/sue/etc/sue.update -v 2>&1 | cat
This seems to work the way it does normally (which is less than perfect since all output ends up in the sue update logs even if nothing was done), and it indeed solves most problems. Hence this should probably be implemented.
However, if the default type created in a directory is not the desired one, action must be taken in the features. Example:
/etc/dhcpd.conf should be dhcp_etc_t, not etc_t
- even if in this case dhcpd is still allowed to read the file, this may change eventually
and the file is not protected from other daemons allowed to read files of type etc_t but have no business with dhcp
use restorecon in features where appropriate
The restorecon command looks up the right file context(s) in /etc/selinux/targeted/contexts/files/file_contexts and sets the context accordingly for all files passed as arguments. It only works if SELinux is available in the kernel and enabled. If it is available but disabled, the command will complete successfully but the contexts will not be changed, hence no point in running it.
These are the ingredients for (cfengine2 only) feature to correct the filetypes:
control: actionsequence = ( shellcommands.PASS1 copy editfiles shellcommands.PASS2 ) AddInstallable = ( RESTORECON )
It will often be necessary to introduce several shellcomands passes, since restorecon should obviously run after the files are modified, but before any daemons that need them are (re)started.
groups: HAS_SEL = ( FileExists(/usr/sbin/selinuxenabled) ) HAS_SEL:: SELINUX = ( ReturnsZero(/usr/sbin/selinuxenabled) )
This should work silently and with minimal overhead on any system. If the SELINUX class is set, restorecon should work.
editfiles: { /some/file.1 ... DefineClasses "RESTORECON" } copy: /repository/some/file.2 dest=/some/file.2 type=checksum define=RESTORECON links: CLASS1:: /some/file ->! ./some/file.1 type=relative define=RESTORECON CLASS2:: /some/file ->! ./some/file.2 type=relative define=RESTORECON
Here we make sure the RESTORECON class gets set if there is something to do for restorecon.
At least in some cases, this only works if RESTORECON is declared AddInstallable, as shown above.
shellcommands: PASS1:: "/some/other command ..." PASS2:: "/sbin/restorecon /some/file /some/file.1 /some/file.2"
One could do this more fine grained, but it's probably not worth it.
Bugs in the distribution we need to fix
SL 4.2: service dhcpd status buggy, always returns 0