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SIG/Security Wiki

The Security SIG repositories provide extra security-related packages and security-hardened override packages (replacing those from the main distribution) for Rocky Linux and other Enterprise Linux (EL) distributions.

Responsibilities

Developing and maintaining various security related packages that are not in upstream EL. Identifying, developing, and maintaining security hardening changes relative to upstream EL packages. Occasionally including/backporting additional security fixes that are not yet in upstream EL packages. Contributing to the respective upstreams where practical.

Repo Installation

On Rocky Linux

dnf install rocky-release-security

On another compatible EL distro

Download the release package containing our repository configuration file and package signing public key. Use the version that corresponds to the major version of your EL distro.

Verify the package file's SHA-256 digest with sha256sum. The currently expected digests are:

8daf0934c8b5cfce1f5c2dc53ea0118102940bf307c7cc8863ab718696863da6  rocky-release-security-9-2.el9.noarch.rpm
15aebef7257d4ff3c59a3b4e45acf8fae9894a10ddd2c924dfd521033337e96c  rocky-release-security-8-2.el8.noarch.rpm

This isn't as secure as checking the package signature would be if you previously had our package signing public key, but on another distro you probably don't have that yet, so checking the digest against its copy obtained from this separate website is a best-effort measure.

Install the package with rpm -U --nodeps. The --nodeps option is needed to bypass the dependency check on our rocky-release package. In essense, you're manually confirming to rpm that you're installing on a compatible distro.

You'll normally install packages from the mirrors, which should just work. However, if there's any issue with the mirrors and you uncomment our baseurl line instead, then on non-Rocky you'll need to use DNF_VAR_sigcontentdir=/pub/sig dnf in place of simply dnf.

Packages

Extra packages (for EL8 and EL9)

  • lkrg (Linux Kernel Runtime Guard)
  • passwdqc (Password/passphrase strength checking and policy enforcement)

Extra packages (currently only for EL9)

  • hardened_malloc (Security-focused memory allocator providing the malloc API, and a script to preload it into existing program binaries)

Override packages (for EL8 and EL9)

Override packages (currently only for EL9)

  • glibc (adds many security-hardening changes originating from Owl and ALT Linux on top of EL package)
  • openssh (fewer shared libraries exposed in sshd processes while otherwise fully matching EL package's functionality)

The changes are described in more detail on the per-package wiki pages linked above, as well as in the package changelogs. More packages/changes are planned, including override packages also for EL8.

Source code

Just like for other Rocky Linux SIGs, the source trees for Security SIG packages are maintained in per-package git repositories. Each repository contains branches r8 and/or r9 corresponding to target EL version.

Contributing

If anyone else wants to join this effort - in any capacity including development, maintenance, testing, documentation, user support, spreading the word, or something else - please join the Mattermost channel below and let us know!

We also welcome well-reasoned suggestions/feedback/preferences on direction we should take (e.g., only making changes on top of EL's vs. offering newer upstream versions), what else to package, and what other changes to include.

Meetings / Communications

We hang out in our Security Mattermost channel.

Members

Some of the people active with setting up this SIG so far:

Name Mattermost Name
@flawedworld
Fredrik Nyström @nscfreny
Louis Abel @label
Mustafa @mustafa
Neil Hanlon @neil
Scott Shinn @atomicturtle
Solar Designer @solardiz

Last update: November 19, 2023