Danger, Will Robinson! Hardened and xen-tools-3.0.2-r4

The motive for my previous post is about to be revealed – I’ve just committed app-emulation/xen-tools-3.0.2-r4, as ~x86/~amd64, and hardened users should heed the ebuild’s warning:

xend may not work when python is built with stack smashing protection (ssp). If ‘xm create’ fails with ‘<ProtocolError for /RPC2: -1 >’, see bug #141866

While -r4 includes fixes for quite a few bugs, for those using a hardened profile the biggest change is a relaxation of the restriction I introduced in -r3 to combat bug #141866 (RPC Protocol Error with xen-tools and hardened profile).

In response to this bug I made -r3 die if python was built with SSP, since it appeared that everyone using xen with a hardened profile was having the same problem. However, after -r3 hit the tree some users reported that they were unaffected by this problem, hence the relaxation in -r4.

If you’re using xen on a hardened system please test xen-tools-3.0.2-r4 and let me know (via the above-mentioned bug) if your ‘xm create’ fails with ‘<ProtocolError for /RPC2: -1 >’ or not.

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