[RFC] Mark of upstream CVE patches

Mariano Lopez
2015-12-15T16:04:38Z

There is an initiative to track vulnerable software being built (see
bugs 8119 and 7515). The idea is to have a testing tool that would check
the recipe versions against CVEs. In order to accomplish such task there
is need to reliable mark the patches from upstream that solve CVEs.

There have been two options to mark the patches that solve CVEs:

1. Have "CVE" and the CVE number as the patch filename.
Pros:
Doesn't require a new tag.
Cons:
It is not flexible to add more information, for example two CVEs in
the same patch

2. Add a new tag in the patch that have the CVE information.
Pros:
It is flexible and can add more information.
Cons:
Require a change in the patch metadata.

What I would recommend is to add a new tag in the patch, it must contain
the CVE ID. With this it would be possible to look for the CVE
information easily in the testing tool or in NIST, MITRE, or another web
page. For example, this would be part of the patch for CVE-2013-6435,
currently in OE-Core:

-- snip --

Upstream-Status: Backport
CVE: CVE-2013-6435

Reference:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2013-6435

-- snip --

The expected output of this discussion is a standard format for CVE
patches that most, if not all, of community members agree on.

Please let me know your comments.

Cheers,

Mariano Lopez