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PACKET RADIO STATION - BUENOS AIRES (GF05OM)
PHP SCHEDULED NEWSLETTERS (PSN)
COPYRIGHT 2025 - EDUARDO A. CASTILLO +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

PROVIDING A LICENSE FOR PACKAGE SOURCES

ARCH LINUX HASN'T HAD A LICENSE FOR ANY PACKAGE SOURCES (SUCH AS PKGBUILD FILES) IN THE PAST, WHICH IS POTENTIALLY PROBLEMATIC. PROVIDING A LICENSE WILL PREEMPT THAT UNCERTAINTY.
IN RFC 40 WE AGREED TO CHANGE ALL PACKAGE SOURCES TO BE LICENSED UNDER THE
VERY LIBERAL 0BSD LICENSE. THIS CHANGE WILL NOT LIMIT WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH PACKAGE SOURCES. CHECK OUT THE RFC FOR MORE ON THE RATIONALE AND PRIOR DISCUSSION.
BEFORE WE MAKE THIS CHANGE, WE WILL PROVIDE CONTRIBUTORS WITH A WAY TO VOICE ANY OBJECTIONS THEY MIGHT HAVE. STARTING ON 2024-11-19, OVER THE COURSE OF A WEEK, CONTRIBUTORS WILL RECEIVE A SINGLE NOTIFICATION EMAIL LISTING ALL THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS.

IF YOU RECEIVE AN EMAIL AND AGREE TO THIS CHANGE, THERE IS NO ACTION REQUIRED FROM YOUR SIDE.
IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, PLEASE REPLY TO THE EMAIL AND WE'LL FIND A SOLUTION TOGETHER.

IF YOU CONTRIBUTED TO ARCH LINUX PACKAGES BEFORE BUT DIDN'T RECEIVE AN EMAIL, PLEASE CONTACT US AT PACKAGE-SOURCES-LICENSING@ARCHLINUX.ORG.

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MANUAL INTERVENTION FOR PACMAN 7.0.0 AND LOCAL REPOSITORIES REQUIRED

WITH THE RELEASE OF VERSION 7.0.0 PACMAN HAS ADDED SUPPORT FOR
DOWNLOADING PACKAGES AS A SEPARATE USER WITH DROPPED PRIVILEGES.
FOR USERS WITH LOCAL REPOS HOWEVER THIS MIGHT IMPLY THAT THE DOWNLOAD
USER DOES NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THE FILES IN QUESTION, WHICH CAN BE FIXED
BY ASSIGNING THE FILES AND FOLDER TO THE ALPM GROUP AND ENSURING THE
EXECUTABLE BIT (+X) IS SET ON THE FOLDERS IN QUESTION.
$ CHOWN :ALPM -R /PATH/TO/LOCAL/REPO

REMEMBER TO MERGE THE .PACNEW FILES TO APPLY THE NEW DEFAULT.
PACMAN ALSO INTRODUCED A CHANGE TO IMPROVE CHECKSUM STABILITY FOR
GIT REPOS THAT UTILIZE .GITATTRIBUTES FILES. THIS MIGHT REQUIRE A
ONE-TIME CHECKSUM CHANGE FOR PKGBUILDS THAT USE GIT SOURCES.

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THE SSHD SERVICE NEEDS TO BE RESTARTED AFTER UPGRADING TO OPENSSH-9.8P1

AFTER UPGRADING TO OPENSSH-9.8P1, THE EXISTING SSH DAEMON WILL BE UNABLE TO ACCEPT NEW CONNECTIONS (SEE HTTPS://GITLAB.ARCHLINUX.ORG/ARCHLINUX/PACKAGING/PACKAGES/OPENSSH/-/ISSUES/5). WHEN UPGRADING REMOTE HOSTS, PLEASE MAKE SURE TO RESTART THE SSHD SERVICE
USING SYSTEMCTL TRY-RESTART SSHD RIGHT AFTER UPGRADING.
WE ARE EVALUATING THE POSSIBILITY TO AUTOMATICALLY APPLY A RESTART OF THE SSHD SERVICE ON UPGRADE IN A FUTURE RELEASE OF THE OPENSSH-9.8P1 PACKAGE.

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ARCH LINUX 2024 LEADER ELECTION RESULTS

RECENTLY WE HELD OUR LEADER ELECTION, AND THE PREVIOUS PROJECT LEADER LEVENTE "ANTHRAXX" POLYAK RAN AGAIN WHILE NO OTHER PEOPLE WERE NOMINATED FOR THE ROLE. AS PER OUR ELECTION RULES HE IS RE-ELECTED FOR A NEW TERM.
THE ROLE OF OF THE PROJECT LEAD WITHIN ARCH LINUX IS CONNECTED TO A FEW RESPONSIBILITIES REGARDING DECISION MAKING (WHEN NO CONSENSUS CAN BE REACHED), HANDLING
FINANCIAL MATTERS WITH SPI AND OVERALL PROJECT MANAGEMENT TASKS. CONGRATULATIONS TO LEVENTE AND ALL THE BEST WISHES FOR ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL
TERM! 🥳

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INCREASING THE DEFAULT VM.MAX_MAP_COUNT VALUE

THE VM.MAX_MAP_COUNT PARAMETER WILL BE INCREASED FROM THE DEFAULT 65530 VALUE TO 1048576.
THIS CHANGE SHOULD HELP ADDRESS PERFORMANCE, CRASH OR START-UP ISSUES FOR A NUMBER OF MEMORY INTENSIVE APPLICATIONS, PARTICULARLY FOR (BUT NOT LIMITED TO) SOME WINDOWS GAMES PLAYED THROUGH WINE/STEAM PROTON. OVERALL, END USERS SHOULD HAVE A SMOOTHER EXPERIENCE OUT OF THE BOX WITH NO EXPRESSED CONCERNS ABOUT POTENTIAL DOWNSIDES IN THE RELATED PROPOSAL ON ARCH-DEV-PUBLIC MAILING LIST. THIS VM.MAX_MAP_COUNT INCREASE IS INTRODUCED IN THE 2024.04.07-1 RELEASE OF
THE FILESYSTEM PACKAGE AND WILL BE EFFECTIVE RIGHT AFTER THE UPGRADE.
BEFORE UPGRADING, IN CASE YOU ARE ALREADY SETTING YOUR OWN VALUE FOR THAT PARAMETER IN A SYSCTL.D CONFIGURATION FILE, EITHER REMOVE IT (TO SWITCH TO THE NEW DEFAULT VALUE) OR MAKE SURE YOUR CONFIGURATION FILE WILL BE READ WITH A HIGHER PRIORITY THAN THE /USR/LIB/SYSCTL.D/10-ARCH.CONF FILE (TO SUPERSEDE THE NEW DEFAULT VALUE).

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THE XZ PACKAGE HAS BEEN BACKDOORED

UPDATE: TO OUR KNOWLEDGE THE MALICIOUS CODE WHICH WAS DISTRIBUTED VIA
THE RELEASE TARBALL NEVER MADE IT INTO THE ARCH LINUX PROVIDED BINARIES,
AS THE BUILD SCRIPT WAS CONFIGURED TO ONLY INJECT THE BAD CODE IN
DEBIAN/FEDORA BASED PACKAGE BUILD ENVIRONMENTS. THE NEWS ITEM BELOW CAN THEREFORE MOSTLY BE IGNORED.
WE ARE CLOSELY MONITORING THE SITUATION AND WILL UPDATE THE PACKAGE AND
NEWS AS NECCESARY.

TL;DR: UPGRADE YOUR SYSTEMS AND CONTAINER IMAGES NOW!
AS MANY OF YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY READ (ONE), THE UPSTREAM RELEASE TARBALLS FOR XZ IN VERSION 5.6.0 AND 5.6.1 CONTAIN MALICIOUS CODE WHICH ADDS A BACKDOOR. THIS VULNERABILITY IS TRACKED IN THE ARCH LINUX SECURITY TRACKER (TWO).
THE XZ PACKAGES PRIOR TO VERSION 5.6.1-2 (SPECIFICALLY 5.6.0-1 AND 5.6.1-1) CONTAIN THIS BACKDOOR.
THE FOLLOWING RELEASE ARTIFACTS CONTAIN THE COMPROMISED XZ:

INSTALLATION MEDIUM 2024.03.01
VIRTUAL MACHINE IMAGES 20240301.218094 AND 20240315.221711
CONTAINER IMAGES CREATED BETWEEN AND INCLUDING 2024-02-24 AND 2024-03-28

THE AFFECTED RELEASE ARTIFACTS HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM OUR MIRRORS.
WE STRONGLY ADVISE AGAINST USING AFFECTED RELEASE ARTIFACTS AND INSTEAD DOWNLOADING WHAT IS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE AS LATEST VERSION!
UPGRADING THE SYSTEM
IT IS STRONGLY ADVISED TO DO A FULL SYSTEM UPGRADE RIGHT AWAY IF YOUR SYSTEM CURRENTLY HAS XZ VERSION 5.6.0-1 OR 5.6.1-1 INSTALLED:
PACMAN -SYU
UPGRADING CONTAINER IMAGES
TO FIGURE OUT IF YOU ARE USING AN AFFECTED CONTAINER IMAGE, USE EITHER
PODMAN IMAGE HISTORY ARCHLINUX/ARCHLINUX
OR
DOCKER IMAGE HISTORY ARCHLINUX/ARCHLINUX
DEPENDING ON WHETHER YOU USE PODMAN OR DOCKER.
ANY ARCH LINUX CONTAINER IMAGE OLDER THAN 2024-03-29 AND YOUNGER THAN 2024-02-24 IS AFFECTED.
RUN EITHER
PODMAN IMAGE PULL ARCHLINUX/ARCHLINUX
OR
DOCKER IMAGE PULL ARCHLINUX/ARCHLINUX
TO UPGRADE AFFECTED CONTAINER IMAGES TO THE MOST RECENT VERSION.
AFTERWARDS MAKE SURE TO REBUILD ANY CONTAINER IMAGES BASED ON THE AFFECTED VERSIONS AND ALSO INSPECT ANY RUNNING CONTAINERS!
REGARDING SSHD AUTHENTICATION BYPASS/CODE EXECUTION
FROM THE UPSTREAM REPORT (ONE):

OPENSSH DOES NOT DIRECTLY USE LIBLZMA. HOWEVER DEBIAN AND SEVERAL OTHER DISTRIBUTIONS PATCH OPENSSH TO SUPPORT SYSTEMD NOTIFICATION, AND LIBSYSTEMD DOES DEPEND ON LZMA.

ARCH DOES NOT DIRECTLY LINK OPENSSH TO LIBLZMA, AND THUS THIS ATTACK VECTOR IS NOT POSSIBLE. YOU CAN CONFIRM THIS BY ISSUING THE FOLLOWING COMMAND:
LDD "$(COMMAND -V SSHD)"
HOWEVER, OUT OF AN ABUNDANCE OF CAUTION, WE ADVISE USERS TO REMOVE THE MALICIOUS CODE FROM THEIR SYSTEM BY UPGRADING EITHER WAY. THIS IS BECAUSE
OTHER YET-TO-BE DISCOVERED METHODS TO EXPLOIT THE BACKDOOR COULD EXIST.

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MKINITCPIO HOOK MIGRATION AND EARLY MICROCODE

WITH THE RELEASE OF MKINITCPIO V38, SEVERAL HOOKS PREVIOUSLY PROVIDED BY ARCH PACKAGES HAVE BEEN
MOVED TO THE MKINITCPIO UPSTREAM PROJECT. THE HOOKS ARE: SYSTEMD, UDEV, ENCRYPT,
SD-ENCRYPT, LVM2 AND MDADM_UDEV.
TO ENSURE NO BREAKAGE OF USERS' SETUP OCCURS, TEMPORARY
CONFLICTS HAVE BEEN INTRODUCED INTO THE RESPECTIVE PACKAGES TO PREVENT INSTALLING PACKAGES
THAT ARE NO LONGER COMPATIBLE.
THE FOLLOWING PACKAGES NEEDS TO BE UPGRADED TOGETHER:

MKINITCPIO 38-3
SYSTEMD 255.4-2
LVM2 2.03.23-3
MDADM 4.3-2
CRYPTSETUP 2.7.0-3

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE MKINITCPIO FLAG --MICROCODE, AND THE MICROCODE OPTION IN THE PRESET FILES, HAS BEEN DEPRECATED IN FAVOUR OF
A NEW MICROCODE HOOK. THIS ALSO ALLOWS YOU TO DROP THE MICROCODE INITRD
LINES FROM YOUR BOOT CONFIGURATION AS THEY ARE NOW PACKED TOGETHER WITH THE MAIN INITRAMFS IMAGE.

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MAKING DBUS-BROKER OUR DEFAULT D-BUS DAEMON

WE ARE MAKING DBUS-BROKER OUR DEFAULT IMPLEMENTATION OF D-BUS, FOR
IMPROVED PERFORMANCE, RELIABILITY AND INTEGRATION WITH SYSTEMD.
FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE WE WILL STILL SUPPORT THE USE OF DBUS-DAEMON,
THE PREVIOUS IMPLEMENTATION. PACMAN WILL ASK YOU WHETHER TO INSTALL DBUS-BROKER-UNITS OR DBUS-DAEMON-UNITS. WE RECOMMEND PICKING THE
DEFAULT.
FOR A MORE DETAILED RATIONALE, PLEASE SEE OUR RFC 25.

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BUGTRACKER MIGRATION TO GITLAB COMPLETED

WE ARE HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THAT THE MIGRATION OF THE BUGTRACKER TO GITLAB IS DONE! 🥳
THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HAS HELPED DURING THE MIGRATION!
THIS MEANS THE ISSUE TRACKER AND MERGE REQUESTS ON THE GITLAB PACKAGE REPOS
ARE NOW ENABLED.
THE OLD BUGTRACKER WILL SUBSEQUENTLY BE CLOSED DOWN. FOR ARCHIVING REASONS THERE WILL BE A STATIC COPY SO THAT LINKS (FOR EXAMPLE THE RANDOMLY PICKED
TASK #56716) ARE STILL STABLE, MIGRATED BUGS HAVE A CLOSING COMMENT POINTING
TO THE NEW URL ON GITLAB.
PACKAGING BUGS ARE NOW OPENED ON THE REPO HOSTING THE CORRESPONDING PACKAGING SOURCES, THE "ADD A NEW BUG" BUTTON ON THE PACKAGE PAGE ON ARCHLINUX.ORG WILL AUTOMATICALLY DIRECT YOU TO THE CORRECT PLACE TO OPEN THE ISSUE. THE WORKFLOW AFTERWARDS IS MOSTLY THE SAME, FIRST OUR BUG WRANGLERS WILL HAVE A LOOK AT THE ISSUES AND TRIAGE THEM, AND THEN THEY WILL BE HANDED OVER TO THE RESPECTIVE PACKAGE MAINTAINERS TO FIX. A LIST OF ALL ISSUES CAN BE FOUND HERE.
IF YOU DO NOT HAVE AN ACCOUNT FOR GITLAB ALREADY (WHICH AUTHENTICATES AGAINST OUR SSO SERVICE), PLEASE WRITE US A MAIL WITH YOUR DESIRED USERNAME TO ACCOUNTSUPPORT@ARCHLINUX.ORG AS ADVISED IN THE BANNER.

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INCOMING CHANGES IN JDK / JRE 21 PACKAGES MAY REQUIRE MANUAL INTERVENTION

WE ARE INTRODUCING A CHANGE IN JDK/JRE PACKAGES OF OUR DISTRO. THIS IS TRIGGERED FROM THE WAY A JRE IS BUILD IN MODERN VERSIONS OF JAVA (>9). WE ARE INTRODUCING THIS CHANGE IN JAVA 21.
TO SUM IT UP INSTEAD OF HAVING JDK AND JRE PACKAGES COEXIST IN THE SAME SYSTEM WE WILL BE MAKING THEM CONFLICT. THE JDK VARIANT PACKAGE INCLUDES THE RUNTIME ENVIRONMENT TO EXECUTE JAVA APPLICATIONS SO IF ONE NEEDS COMPILATION AND RUNTIME OF JAVA THEY NEED ONLY THE JDK PACKAGE IN THE FUTURE. IF, ON THE OTHER HAND, THEY NEED JUST RUNTIME OF JAVA THEN JRE (OR JRE-HEADLESS) WILL WORK.
THIS WILL (POTENTIALLY) REQUIRE A MANUAL USER ACTION DURING UPGRADE:

IF YOU HAVE BOTH JDK AND JRE INSTALLED YOU CAN MANUALLY INSTALL THE JDK
WITH PACMAN -SY JDK-OPENJDK && PACMAN -SU AND THIS REMOVES THE JRE RELATED PACKAGES.
IF YOU HAVE BOTH JRE AND JRE-HEADLESS YOU WILL NEED TO CHOOSE ONE OF
THEM AND INSTALL IT MANUALLY SINCE THEY WOULD CONFLICT EACH OTHER NOW.
IF YOU ONLY HAVE ONE OF THE JDK/JRE/JRE-HEADLESS PACMAN SHOULD RESOLVE DEPENDENCIES NORMALLY AND NO ACTION IS NEEDED.

AT THE MOMENT THIS IS ONLY VALID FOR THE UPCOMING JDK 21 RELEASE, WITH OTHER VERSIONS TO FOLLOW.

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