From: "Ludovic Courtès" <ludo@gnu.org>
To: "Mason Hock" <chaosmonk@riseup.net>
Cc: 43075@debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#43075: Prioritize providing substitutes for security-critical packages with potentially long build times
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2020 08:53:45 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87d02s7qiu.fsf@gnu.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <C5K545LNO64W.2PDZIYAKMIVOJ@libricia-thinkcentre> (Mason Hock's message of "Thu, 10 Sep 2020 18:14:28 -0700")
Hi,
"Mason Hock" <chaosmonk@riseup.net> skribis:
> On Thu Sep 10, 2020 at 1:00 AM PDT, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> chaosmonk <chaosmonk@riseup.net> skribis:
>>
>> > ungoogled-chromium receives frequent security updates, so it is
>> > important for users to keep it up-to-date. However, binary
>> > substitutes for the latest version are usually not available, and it
>> > can take a very long time to build from source, possibly multiple
>> > days on low-end hardware. This might tempt or force some users to put
>> > off upgrading the package and run an older, vulnerable version until a
>> > binary substitute is available or they have a chance to set aside the
>> > uptime needed to build from source.
>> >
>> > I don't know what Guix's CI system looks like or how packages are
>> > queued for building, but if there is a way to prioritize builds for
>> > certain packages, I propose that substitutes for packages like
>> > ungoogled-chromium should be built as soon as possible once there is a
>> > new version. Other security-critical packages with potentially long
>> > build times that come to mind are icecat and linux-libre.
>>
>> Thanks for your feedback. Our build farm has often been lagging behind
>> lately and that’s something we’ve been working on. The
>> ungoogled-chromium package is even more problematic because it takes
>> more than ~80 CPU-hours to build, and that often times out with our
>> current build farm settings (where we don’t allow builds to take more
>> than 6h, IIRC).
>
> Yes, Chromium's build time is obscene. However, not providing
> substitutes for it duplicates that problem to the machines of every Guix
> user who uses ungoogled-chromium. In the time that it would take Guix's
> build farm to build u-c it could probably build many other packages, but
> users are in the exact same situation, so a substitute for u-c is likely
> more valuable to them than substitutes for those other packages. If it
> is possible to override the 6h timeout value for individual packages, I
> think that it would be worth doing so for u-c, and perhaps for Icecat
> and Linux-libre as well.
Definitely, yes. I just meant to explain why the build farm often lacks
u-c substitutes currently, but I agree it must be addressed.
Ludo’.
prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-09-11 6:55 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 13+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-08-27 20:50 bug#43075: Prioritize providing substitutes for security-critical packages with potentially long build times chaosmonk
2020-09-10 8:00 ` Ludovic Courtès
2020-09-10 9:19 ` zimoun
2020-09-11 0:47 ` Bengt Richter
2020-09-11 1:06 ` Mason Hock
2020-09-11 6:56 ` Ludovic Courtès
2020-09-11 7:37 ` zimoun
2020-09-11 8:23 ` Ricardo Wurmus
2020-09-11 13:39 ` Leo Famulari
2020-09-11 14:33 ` Dr. Arne Babenhauserheide
2020-09-11 14:45 ` Ludovic Courtès
2020-09-11 1:14 ` Mason Hock
2020-09-11 6:53 ` Ludovic Courtès [this message]
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