Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 13:07:07 +0100 From: n j <nino80@gmail.com> To: User Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: pkgng package repository tracking security updates Message-ID: <CALf6cgYY0LYnUb_Yo3XZZ=-tsXoyJ=GUic8KtdcoaVWMF8XUqQ@mail.gmail.com>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Hi, One of my primary concerns when managing a system is its security. In the interest of security, I usually hold to that "patch early, patch often". Ports are kept well up-to-date and with portmaster it is not a problem to keep updating the ports. However, as Ivan [1] pointed out on his blog on pkgng: "Having source-based ports is all fine and well but all that time compiling ports is subtracted from the time the server(s) would perform some actually useful work. After all, servers exist to do some work, not to be waited on while compiling. The same goes for me: I don't want to wait for ports anymore." I don't want to wait for compilation too, especially on large ports and weak hardware, and do it often to stay on top of security vulnerabilities. For that reason I look forward to binary packages. So, my question regarding pkgng is not really about the tool itself, but rather what will be provided via official repositories. One of the problems with the old pkg_* tools was that packages for a lot of software didn't exist and for those that did exist they weren't updated when vulnerabilities were discovered and patched upstream (and in ports). Is this going to improve with pkgng repositories, will there be a, say, -SECURITY repository that will build the new version of packages at least as often as security vulnerabilities are fixed in ports? [1] http://ivoras.net/blog/tree/2012-08-31.using-pkgng-in-real-life.html Regards, -- Nino
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?CALf6cgYY0LYnUb_Yo3XZZ=-tsXoyJ=GUic8KtdcoaVWMF8XUqQ>