this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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example, suppose there was a bug in openssl's prime number generation code. It will generate insecure keys.
No amount of sandboxing can help with that. The bug is discovered and the next day I run 'pacman -Syu' (I use arch, btw) and the problem is gone systemwide, except for any flatpaks or appimages etc. Those will only get updates (and stop leaking my data) if and only if its maintainer actually gives a fuck, is still alive and active. If not, you're sol
I am very certain the most appropriate person to update the software would be the developer itself. So when suddenly for flatpaks & co the responsibility of updating libraries is put on the flatpak package maintainer for ANYTHING used in that container... it doesn't sound optimal.
Still your example is a very edge-case scenario, because it would create a static vulnerability.
Containers are a form of static linking. just because they are different files inside the image, doesn't mean they're not effectively statically linked, if they can only be upgraded together
If I update my shared libraries, that application uses its own 'statically linked' libraries and doesn't pick up the changes. Exactly like what happens with a normal statically linked binary.
I avoid static linking like the plague.
ELI5?