GNU Planet!

September GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali: Seventeen new GNU releases!

Hello all, a quick post today. Inspired by Rust as a Language for High Performance GC Implementation by Yi Lin et al, a few months ago I had a look to see how the basic Rust concurrency facilities that they used were implemented.

One of the key components that Lin et al used was a Chase-Lev work-stealing double-ended queue (deque). The 2005 article Dynamic Circular Work-Stealing Deque by David Chase and Yossi Lev is a nice read defining this data structure. It's used when you have a single producer of values, but multiple threads competing to claim those values. This is useful when implementing per-CPU schedulers or work queues; each CPU pushes on any items that it has to its own deque, and pops them also, but when it runs out of work, it goes to see if it can steal work from other CPUs.

The 2013 paper Correct and Efficient Work-Stealing for Weak Memory Models by Nhat Min Lê et al updates the Chase-Lev paper by relaxing the concurrency primitives from the original big-hammer sequential-consistency operations used in the Chase-Lev paper to an appropriate mix of C11 relaxed, acquire/release, and sequentially-consistent operations. The paper therefore has a C11 translation of the original algorithm, and a proof of correctness. It's quite pleasant. Here's the a version in Rust's crossbeam crate, and here's the same thing in C.

I had been using this updated C11 Chase-Lev deque implementation for a while with no complaints in a parallel garbage collector. Each worker thread would keep a local unsynchronized work queue, which when it grew too large would donate half of its work to a per-worker Chase-Lev deque. Then if it ran out of work, it would go through all the workers, seeing if it could steal some work.

My use of the deque was thus limited to only the push and steal primitives, but not take (using the language of the Lê et al paper). take is like steal, except that it takes values from the producer end of the deque, and it can't run concurrently with push. In practice take only used by the the thread that also calls push. Cool.

Well I thought, you know, before a worker thread goes to steal from some other thread, it might as well see if it can do a cheap take on its own deque to see if it could take back some work that it had previously offloaded there. But here I ran into a bug. A brief internet search didn't turn up anything, so here we are to mention it.

Specifically, there is a bug in the Lê et al paper that is not in the Chase-Lev paper. The original paper is in Java, and the C11 version is in, well, C11. The issue is.... integer overflow! In brief, push will increment bottom, and steal increments top. take, on the other hand, can decrement bottom. It uses size_t to represent bottom. I think you see where this is going; if you take on an empty deque in the initial state, you create a situation that looks just like a deque with (size_t)-1 elements, causing garbage reads and all kinds of delightful behavior.

The funny thing is that I looked at the proof and I looked at the industrial applications of the deque and I thought well, I just have to transcribe the algorithm exactly and I'll be golden. But it just goes to show that proving one property of an algorithm doesn't necessarily imply that the algorithm is correct.

Two weeks ago, some of us were in Paris, France, to celebrate ten years of Guix! The event included 22 talks and 12 lightning talks, covering topics ranging from reproducible research on Friday and Guix hacking on Saturday and Sunday.

If you couldn’t make it in Paris, and if you missed the live stream, we have some good news: videos of the talks and supporting material are now available from the program page!

If you weren’t there, there are things you definitely missed though: more than 60 participants from a diverse range of backgrounds—a rare opportunity for scientists and hackers to meet!—, impromptu discussions and encounters, and of course not one but two crazy birthday cakes (yup! on one day it was vanilla/blueberry-flavored, and on the other day it was chocolate/passion fruit, but both were equally beautiful!).

There are a few more pictures on the web site.

It might seem a bit of a stretch at first, but there is a connection between, say, bioinformatics pipelines, OCaml bootstrapping, and Guix Home: it’s about deploying complex software stacks in a way that is not only convenient but also transparent and reproducible. It’s about retaining control, both collectively and individually, over the “software supply chain” at a time when the most popular option is to give up.

We have lots of people to thank, starting with the speakers and participants: thanks for sharing your knowledge and enthusiasm, and thank you for making it a warm and friendly event! Thanks to the sponsors of the event without which all this would have been impossible.

Special thanks to Nicolas Dandrimont of the Debian video team for setting up the video equipment, tirelessly working during all three days and even afterwards to prepare the “final cut”—you rock!! Thanks to Leo Famulari for setting up the live streaming server on short notice, and to Luis Felipe for designing the unanimously acclaimed Ten Years of Guix graphics, the kakemono, and the video intros and outros (check out the freely-licensed SVG source!), all that under pretty tight time constraints. Thanks also to Andreas Enge with their Guix Europe hat on for addressing last-minute hiccups behind the scenes.

Organizing this event has certainly been exhausting, but seeing it come true and meeting both new faces and old-timers was a great reward for us. Despite the occasional shenanigans—delayed talks, one talk cancellation, and worst of all: running out of coffee and tea after lunch—we hope it was enjoyable for all.

For those in Europe, our next in-person meeting is probably going to be FOSDEM. And maybe this will inspire some to organize events in other regions of the world and/or on-line meetups!

About GNU Guix

GNU Guix is a transactional package manager and an advanced distribution of the GNU system that respects user freedom. Guix can be used on top of any system running the Hurd or the Linux kernel, or it can be used as a standalone operating system distribution for i686, x86_64, ARMv7, AArch64, and POWER9 machines.

In addition to standard package management features, Guix supports transactional upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management, per-user profiles, and garbage collection. When used as a standalone GNU/Linux distribution, Guix offers a declarative, stateless approach to operating system configuration management. Guix is highly customizable and hackable through Guile programming interfaces and extensions to the Scheme language.

Join the FSF and friends on Friday, October 28, from 12:00 to 15:00 EDT (16:00 to 19:00 UTC) to help improve the Free Software Directory.

Join the FSF and friends on Friday, October 21, from 12:00 to 15:00 EDT (16:00 to 19:00 UTC) to help improve the Free Software Directory.

Join the FSF and friends on Friday, October 14, from 12:00 to 15:00 EDT (16:00 to 19:00 UTC) to help improve the Free Software Directory.

Join the FSF and friends on Friday, October 7, from 12:00 to 15:00 EDT (16:00 to 19:00 UTC) to help improve the Free Software Directory.

GNUnet 0.17.6

This is a bugfix release for gnunet 0.17.5.

Download links

• http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gnunet/gnunet-0.17.6.tar.gz
• http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gnunet/gnunet-0.17.6.tar.gz.sig

The GPG key used to sign is: 3D11063C10F98D14BD24D1470B0998EF86F59B6A

Note that due to mirror synchronization, not all links may be functional early after the release. For direct access try http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnunet/

Noteworthy changes in 0.17.6 (since 0.17.5)

• NAMESTORE :
  • Added transactional API. #7203
  • Removed heap storage storage plugin.
• FS : Fix `-s` and `-o` options not working together in gnunet-search
• REST : Added (optional) authentication for all rest endpoints. #5669
• DOC : Doxygen is now built only if available. Sphinx is built on bootstrap. #7324
• UTIL : Remove outdated test. #7361
• BUILD : Remove gnurl as dependency and improve cURL detection. #5084

Python 2 went end of life January 2020. Since then Arch has been actively cutting down the number of projects depending on python2 in their repositories, and they have finally been able to drop it from our distribution, making it disappear from Parabola too. If you still have python2 installed on your system consider removing it and any python2 package.

If you still require the python2 package you can keep it around, but please be aware that there will be no security updates.

GNU Parallel 20220922 ('Elizabeth') has been released. It is available for download at: lbry://@GnuParallel:4

Quote of the month:

  reduced our backend test pipelines from 4 to 1.30 hrs. gnu parallel for the win!!!
     -- Swapnil Sahu @CaffeinatedWryy@twitter

New in this release:

• --colour-failed only changes output for failing jobs.

• Password for --sshlogin can be put in $SSHPASS.

• Examples are moved from `man parallel` to `man parallel_examples`.

• Bug fixes and man page updates.

News about GNU Parallel:

• WOMM - Works On My Machine uses GNU Parallel https://pypi.org/project/womm/

GNU Parallel - For people who live life in the parallel lane.

If you like GNU Parallel record a video testimonial: Say who you are, what you use GNU Parallel for, how it helps you, and what you like most about it. Include a command that uses GNU Parallel if you feel like it.

About GNU Parallel

GNU Parallel is a shell tool for executing jobs in parallel using one or more computers. A job can be a single command or a small script that has to be run for each of the lines in the input. The typical input is a list of files, a list of hosts, a list of users, a list of URLs, or a list of tables. A job can also be a command that reads from a pipe. GNU Parallel can then split the input and pipe it into commands in parallel.

If you use xargs and tee today you will find GNU Parallel very easy to use as GNU Parallel is written to have the same options as xargs. If you write loops in shell, you will find GNU Parallel may be able to replace most of the loops and make them run faster by running several jobs in parallel. GNU Parallel can even replace nested loops.

GNU Parallel makes sure output from the commands is the same output as you would get had you run the commands sequentially. This makes it possible to use output from GNU Parallel as input for other programs.

For example you can run this to convert all jpeg files into png and gif files and have a progress bar:

  parallel --bar convert {1} {1.}.{2} ::: *.jpg ::: png gif

Or you can generate big, medium, and small thumbnails of all jpeg files in sub dirs:

  find . -name '*.jpg' |
    parallel convert -geometry {2} {1} {1//}/thumb{2}_{1/} :::: - ::: 50 100 200

You can find more about GNU Parallel at: http://www.gnu.org/s/parallel/

You can install GNU Parallel in just 10 seconds with:

    $ (wget -O - pi.dk/3 || lynx -source pi.dk/3 || curl pi.dk/3/ || \
       fetch -o - http://pi.dk/3 ) > install.sh
    $ sha1sum install.sh | grep 883c667e01eed62f975ad28b6d50e22a
    12345678 883c667e 01eed62f 975ad28b 6d50e22a
    $ md5sum install.sh | grep cc21b4c943fd03e93ae1ae49e28573c0
    cc21b4c9 43fd03e9 3ae1ae49 e28573c0
    $ sha512sum install.sh | grep ec113b49a54e705f86d51e784ebced224fdff3f52
    79945d9d 250b42a4 2067bb00 99da012e c113b49a 54e705f8 6d51e784 ebced224
    fdff3f52 ca588d64 e75f6033 61bd543f d631f592 2f87ceb2 ab034149 6df84a35
    $ bash install.sh

Watch the intro video on http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL284C9FF2488BC6D1

Walk through the tutorial (man parallel_tutorial). Your command line will love you for it.

When using programs that use GNU Parallel to process data for publication please cite:

O. Tange (2018): GNU Parallel 2018, March 2018, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1146014.

If you like GNU Parallel:

• Give a demo at your local user group/team/colleagues
• Post the intro videos on Reddit/Diaspora*/forums/blogs/ Identi.ca/Google+/Twitter/Facebook/Linkedin/mailing lists
• Get the merchandise https://gnuparallel.threadless.com/designs/gnu-parallel
• Request or write a review for your favourite blog or magazine
• Request or build a package for your favourite distribution (if it is not already there)
• Invite me for your next conference

If you use programs that use GNU Parallel for research:

• Please cite GNU Parallel in you publications (use --citation)

If GNU Parallel saves you money:

• (Have your company) donate to FSF https://my.fsf.org/donate/

About GNU SQL

GNU sql aims to give a simple, unified interface for accessing databases through all the different databases' command line clients. So far the focus has been on giving a common way to specify login information (protocol, username, password, hostname, and port number), size (database and table size), and running queries.

The database is addressed using a DBURL. If commands are left out you will get that database's interactive shell.

When using GNU SQL for a publication please cite:

O. Tange (2011): GNU SQL - A Command Line Tool for Accessing Different Databases Using DBURLs, ;login: The USENIX Magazine, April 2011:29-32.

About GNU Niceload

GNU niceload slows down a program when the computer load average (or other system activity) is above a certain limit. When the limit is reached the program will be suspended for some time. If the limit is a soft limit the program will be allowed to run for short amounts of time before being suspended again. If the limit is a hard limit the program will only be allowed to run when the system is below the limit.

This is the latest installment of our Licensing and Compliance Lab's series on free software developers who choose GNU licenses for their works.

Announcement of Free Software Awards announcement. Read more about how to nominate individuals who have made an impact in free software.

To protect web resources with Kerberos you may use Apache HTTPD with mod_auth_gssapi — however, all web scripts (e.g., PHP) run under Apache will have access to the Kerberos long-term symmetric secret credential (keytab). If someone can get it, they can impersonate your server, which is bad.

The gssproxy project makes it possible to introduce privilege separation to reduce the attack surface. There is a tutorial for RPM-based distributions (Fedora, RHEL, AlmaLinux, etc), but I wanted to get this to work on a DPKG-based distribution (Debian, Ubuntu, Trisquel, PureOS, etc) and found it worthwhile to document the process. I’m using Ubuntu 22.04 below, but have tested it on Debian 11 as well. I have adopted the gssproxy package in Debian, and testing this setup is part of the scripted autopkgtest/debci regression testing.

First install the required packages:

root@foo:~# apt-get update root@foo:~# apt-get install -y apache2 libapache2-mod-auth-gssapi gssproxy curl

This should give you a working and running web server. Verify it is operational under the proper hostname, I’ll use foo.sjd.se in this writeup.

root@foo:~# curl --head http://foo.sjd.se/
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
…

The next step is to create a keytab containing the Kerberos V5 secrets for your host, the exact steps depends on your environment (usually kadmin ktadd or ipa-getkeytab), but use the string “HTTP/foo.sjd.se” and then confirm using something like the following.

root@foo:~# ls -la /etc/gssproxy/httpd.keytab -rw------- 1 root root 176 Sep 18 06:44 /etc/gssproxy/httpd.keytab root@foo:~# klist -k /etc/gssproxy/httpd.keytab -e Keytab name: FILE:/etc/gssproxy/httpd.keytab KVNO Principal ---- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 HTTP/foo.sjd.se@GSSPROXY.EXAMPLE.ORG (aes256-cts-hmac-sha1-96) 2 HTTP/foo.sjd.se@GSSPROXY.EXAMPLE.ORG (aes128-cts-hmac-sha1-96) root@foo:~#

The file should be owned by root and not be in the default /etc/krb5.keytab location, so Apache’s libapache2-mod-auth-gssapi will have to use gssproxy to use it.

Then configure gssproxy to find the credential and use it with Apache.

root@foo:~# cat<<EOF > /etc/gssproxy/80-httpd.conf [service/HTTP] mechs = krb5 cred_store = keytab:/etc/gssproxy/httpd.keytab cred_store = ccache:/var/lib/gssproxy/clients/krb5cc_%U euid = www-data process = /usr/sbin/apache2 EOF

For debugging, it may be useful to enable more gssproxy logging:

root@foo:~# cat<<EOF > /etc/gssproxy/gssproxy.conf [gssproxy] debug_level = 1 EOF root@foo:~#

Restart gssproxy so it finds the new configuration, and monitor syslog as follows:

root@foo:~# tail -F /var/log/syslog & root@foo:~# systemctl restart gssproxy

You should see something like this in the log file:

Sep 18 07:03:15 foo gssproxy[4076]: [2022/09/18 05:03:15]: Exiting after receiving a signal
Sep 18 07:03:15 foo systemd[1]: Stopping GSSAPI Proxy Daemon…
Sep 18 07:03:15 foo systemd[1]: gssproxy.service: Deactivated successfully.
Sep 18 07:03:15 foo systemd[1]: Stopped GSSAPI Proxy Daemon.
Sep 18 07:03:15 foo gssproxy[4092]: [2022/09/18 05:03:15]: Debug Enabled (level: 1)
Sep 18 07:03:15 foo systemd[1]: Starting GSSAPI Proxy Daemon…
Sep 18 07:03:15 foo gssproxy[4093]: [2022/09/18 05:03:15]: Kernel doesn't support GSS-Proxy (can't open /proc/net/rpc/use-gss-proxy: 2 (No such file or directory))
Sep 18 07:03:15 foo gssproxy[4093]: [2022/09/18 05:03:15]: Problem with kernel communication! NFS server will not work
Sep 18 07:03:15 foo systemd[1]: Started GSSAPI Proxy Daemon.
Sep 18 07:03:15 foo gssproxy[4093]: [2022/09/18 05:03:15]: Initialization complete.

The NFS-related errors is due to a default gssproxy configuration file, it is harmless and if you don’t use NFS with GSS-API you can silence it like this:

root@foo:~# rm /etc/gssproxy/24-nfs-server.conf
root@foo:~# systemctl try-reload-or-restart gssproxy

The log should now indicate that it loaded the keytab:

Sep 18 07:18:59 foo systemd[1]: Reloading GSSAPI Proxy Daemon…
Sep 18 07:18:59 foo gssproxy[4182]: [2022/09/18 05:18:59]: Received SIGHUP; re-reading config.
Sep 18 07:18:59 foo gssproxy[4182]: [2022/09/18 05:18:59]: Service: HTTP, Keytab: /etc/gssproxy/httpd.keytab, Enctype: 18
Sep 18 07:18:59 foo gssproxy[4182]: [2022/09/18 05:18:59]: New config loaded successfully.
Sep 18 07:18:59 foo systemd[1]: Reloaded GSSAPI Proxy Daemon.

To instruct Apache — or actually, the MIT Kerberos V5 GSS-API library used by mod_auth_gssap loaded by Apache — to use gssproxy instead of using /etc/krb5.keytab as usual, Apache needs to be started in an environment that has GSS_USE_PROXY=1 set. The background is covered by the gssproxy-mech(8) man page and explained by the gssproxy README.

When systemd is used the following can be used to set the environment variable, note the final command to reload systemd.

root@foo:~# mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/apache2.service.d root@foo:~# cat<<EOF > /etc/systemd/system/apache2.service.d/gssproxy.conf [Service] Environment=GSS_USE_PROXY=1 EOF root@foo:~# systemctl daemon-reload

The next step is to configure a GSS-API protected Apache resource:

root@foo:~# cat<<EOF > /etc/apache2/conf-available/private.conf <Location /private> AuthType GSSAPI AuthName "GSSAPI Login" Require valid-user </Location>

Enable the configuration and restart Apache — the suggested use of reload is not sufficient, because then it won’t be restarted with the newly introduced GSS_USE_PROXY variable. This just applies to the first time, after the first restart you may use reload again.

root@foo:~# a2enconf private
Enabling conf private.
To activate the new configuration, you need to run:
systemctl reload apache2
root@foo:~# systemctl restart apache2

When you have debug messages enabled, the log may look like this:

Sep 18 07:32:23 foo systemd[1]: Stopping The Apache HTTP Server…
Sep 18 07:32:23 foo gssproxy[4182]: [2022/09/18 05:32:23]: Client [2022/09/18 05:32:23]: (/usr/sbin/apache2) [2022/09/18 05:32:23]: connected (fd = 10)[2022/09/18 05:32:23]: (pid = 4651) (uid = 0) (gid = 0)[2022/09/18 05:32:23]:
Sep 18 07:32:23 foo gssproxy[4182]: message repeated 4 times: [ [2022/09/18 05:32:23]: Client [2022/09/18 05:32:23]: (/usr/sbin/apache2) [2022/09/18 05:32:23]: connected (fd = 10)[2022/09/18 05:32:23]: (pid = 4651) (uid = 0) (gid = 0)[2022/09/18 05:32:23]:]
Sep 18 07:32:23 foo systemd[1]: apache2.service: Deactivated successfully.
Sep 18 07:32:23 foo systemd[1]: Stopped The Apache HTTP Server.
Sep 18 07:32:23 foo systemd[1]: Starting The Apache HTTP Server…
Sep 18 07:32:23 foo gssproxy[4182]: [2022/09/18 05:32:23]: Client [2022/09/18 05:32:23]: (/usr/sbin/apache2) [2022/09/18 05:32:23]: connected (fd = 10)[2022/09/18 05:32:23]: (pid = 4657) (uid = 0) (gid = 0)[2022/09/18 05:32:23]:
root@foo:~# Sep 18 07:32:23 foo gssproxy[4182]: message repeated 8 times: [ [2022/09/18 05:32:23]: Client [2022/09/18 05:32:23]: (/usr/sbin/apache2) [2022/09/18 05:32:23]: connected (fd = 10)[2022/09/18 05:32:23]: (pid = 4657) (uid = 0) (gid = 0)[2022/09/18 05:32:23]:]
Sep 18 07:32:23 foo systemd[1]: Started The Apache HTTP Server.

Finally, set up a dummy test page on the server:

root@foo:~# echo OK > /var/www/html/private

To verify that the server is working properly you may acquire tickets locally and then use curl to retrieve the GSS-API protected resource. The "--negotiate" enables SPNEGO and "--user :" asks curl to use username from the environment.

root@foo:~# klist Ticket cache: FILE:/tmp/krb5cc_0 Default principal: jas@GSSPROXY.EXAMPLE.ORG Valid starting Expires Service principal 09/18/22 07:40:37 09/19/22 07:40:37 krbtgt/GSSPROXY.EXAMPLE.ORG@GSSPROXY.EXAMPLE.ORG root@foo:~# curl --negotiate --user : http://foo.sjd.se/private OK root@foo:~#

The log should contain something like this:

Sep 18 07:56:00 foo gssproxy[4872]: [2022/09/18 05:56:00]: Client [2022/09/18 05:56:00]: (/usr/sbin/apache2) [2022/09/18 05:56:00]: connected (fd = 10)[2022/09/18 05:56:00]: (pid = 5042) (uid = 33) (gid = 33)[2022/09/18 05:56:00]:
Sep 18 07:56:00 foo gssproxy[4872]: [CID 10][2022/09/18 05:56:00]: gp_rpc_execute: executing 6 (GSSX_ACQUIRE_CRED) for service "HTTP", euid: 33,socket: (null)
Sep 18 07:56:00 foo gssproxy[4872]: [CID 10][2022/09/18 05:56:00]: gp_rpc_execute: executing 6 (GSSX_ACQUIRE_CRED) for service "HTTP", euid: 33,socket: (null)
Sep 18 07:56:00 foo gssproxy[4872]: [CID 10][2022/09/18 05:56:00]: gp_rpc_execute: executing 1 (GSSX_INDICATE_MECHS) for service "HTTP", euid: 33,socket: (null)
Sep 18 07:56:00 foo gssproxy[4872]: [CID 10][2022/09/18 05:56:00]: gp_rpc_execute: executing 6 (GSSX_ACQUIRE_CRED) for service "HTTP", euid: 33,socket: (null)
Sep 18 07:56:00 foo gssproxy[4872]: [CID 10][2022/09/18 05:56:00]: gp_rpc_execute: executing 9 (GSSX_ACCEPT_SEC_CONTEXT) for service "HTTP", euid: 33,socket: (null)

The Apache log will look like this, notice the authenticated username shown.

127.0.0.1 - jas@GSSPROXY.EXAMPLE.ORG [18/Sep/2022:07:56:00 +0200] "GET /private HTTP/1.1" 200 481 "-" "curl/7.81.0"

Congratulations, and happy hacking!

Don't miss this little talk from Mohammad-Reza Nabipoor about leveraging GNU poke as a test tool in the assembler.   He uses RISC-V to explore how to better write pickles for instruction sets.  Looks promising!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n09mhw4-m_E

Check out the great work our volunteers accomplished at today's Free Software Directory (FSD) IRC meeting.

Need help getting your session proposal in good shape? We're holding office hours in #LibrePlanet on Libera.chat Thursdays at 13:00 EDT.

Need help getting your session proposal in good shape? We're holding office hours in #LibrePlanet on Libera.chat Thursdays at 13:00 EDT.

Need help getting your session proposal in good shape? We're holding office hours in #LibrePlanet on Libera.chat Thursdays at 13:00 EDT.

Need help getting your session proposal in good shape? We're holding office hours in #LibrePlanet on Libera.chat Thursdays at 13:00 EDT.

Need help getting your session proposal in good shape? We're holding office hours in #LibrePlanet on Libera.chat Thursdays at 13:00 EDT.