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How the xz backdoor highlights a major flaw in Nix (shadeyg56.vercel.app)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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The main issue is the handling of security updates within the Nixpkgs ecosystem, which relies on Nix's CI system, Hydra, to test and build packages. Due to the extensive number of packages in the Nixpkgs repository, the process can be slow, causing delays in the release of updates. As an example, the updated xz 5.4.6 package took nearly 5 days to become available in the unstable branch!

Fundamentally, there needs to be a change in how security fixes are handled in Hydra. As stated in the article, Nix was lucky to be unaffected, but multiple days to push out a security patch of this severity is concerning, even if there was no reason for concern.

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[-] epyon22@programming.dev 20 points 7 months ago

Isn't that the risk of running an unstable build of anything?

[-] Atemu@lemmy.ml 7 points 7 months ago

This has nothing to do with "unstable" or the specific channel. It could have happened on the stable channel too; depending on the timing.

this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2024
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