Re: Official Linux system wrapper library?

From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>
To: Szabolcs Nagy <Szabolcs.Nagy@arm.com>
Cc: Daniel Colascione <dancol@google.com>,
	Florian Weimer <fweimer@redhat.com>, nd <nd@arm.com>,
	"Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>,
	linux-kernel <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	Joel Fernandes <joelaf@google.com>,
	Linux API <linux-api@vger.kernel.org>, Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu>,
	Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>,
	Carlos O'Donell <carlos@redhat.com>,
	"libc-alpha@sourceware.org" <libc-alpha@sourceware.org>
Subject: Re: Official Linux system wrapper library?
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2018 09:35:06 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20181112143506.GC7377@thunk.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <45cf58e0-909e-262c-5b9f-b91d62350a79@arm.com>

On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 12:45:26PM +0000, Szabolcs Nagy wrote:
> >> A lot of the new system calls lack clear specifications or are just
> >> somewhat misdesigned.  For example, pkey_alloc
> > [snip]
> >> getrandom still causes boot delays

I'll note that what some people consider misdesigns, others consider
"fix CVE's".

Some people may consider it more important to avoid boot delays;
others would consider internet-wide security problems, ala
https://factorable.net to be higher priority.

It's clear this is one area where I and some glibc developers have had
a difference of opinion.  The bigger problem is that if a single glibc
developer is able to veto any new system call, maybe we *do* need to
have a kernel-provided library which bypasses glibc....

						- Ted