Latest systemd news

[Bob Marcan]

On Sat, 15 Nov 2014 08:53:59 -0500
Sam Varshavchik <mrsam at courier-mta.com> wrote:

> Making the rounds of various technical mailing lists yesterday, with a subject that's typically a variation of "Just for yucks, and giggles" isa link to a commit to systemd's git, adding DNS caching to systemd; in one, huge 857 line glop. Here's its entire commit message: "resolved: add DNS cache".
> 
> And, it's beauty to read. Made me teary-eyed to know that systemd will ca
> che my DNS queries. Not sure why systemd, all of a sudden, needs to make DNS queries. But if it does, it's going to cache them now! Such a sight to behold makes my heart skip a beat: now, not just bind, or pretty much eve
> ry DNS server that automatically caches DNS for you – but so will sy
> stemd!
> 
> But, seriously folks, systemd's DNS caching achieves absolutely 100% nothing. Really. Surprised? Well, you'll be shocked to know that the DNS server that systemd queries for that DNS RR, such as the stock "bind", already automatically caches all recursive DNS replies!! systemd's own caching produces absolutely zero useful results. On the oft chance that i
> t sends a query for a non-cached RR, the local DNS server will cache the response, before returning it to systemd, and then use the cached respons
> e for all future queries. That's what DNS servers do: provide caching for local clients. It's inherent in DNS's design: DNS was explicitly designedto use aggressive caching, it's an internet-wide, distributed, locally cache
> d database.
> 
> Isn't modern technology amazing?
> 
> I'm willing to consider the possibility that I missed something obvious, some obvious value-added result from caching DNS RRs directly by systemd, and I'll stick around for someone to enlighten me; or if Occam's razor applies, and the author of that commit had no idea that bind already automatically caches DNS responses, and, more importantly, that its cachi
> ng algorithms are a result of painful lessons learned from various DNS cache poisoning attacks, that have circulated around the intertubes, for the la
> st couple of years.
> 
> The only possible use case for this kind of caching approach would be if:
> 
> A) You do not have a local DNS server nearby; and you have non-negligible latencies to whatever DNS server you use.
> 
> B) Your queries tend to be for domains that your DNS servers are not authoritative for, so they'll benefit from local caching.
> 
> So, can someone explain to me how likely this is going to be the case ina typical deployment scenario that systemd is targeted for; in an average corporate environment where systemd's alleged benefits will supposedly sh
> ine?
> 
> I would guess that a typical systemd deployment, in a corporate/business environment, will certainly have multiple, low-latency DNS servers nearby
> , won't that be the case? And, if so, then this is just another potentially exploitable security hole in systemd, nothing more.
> 
> P.S. After I wrote the above, poking around, Google dumped this onto my screen:
> 
> http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2014/q4/592
> 
> Mental note to myself: go back and check the timestamp of the systemd git commit – before, or after, this was disclosed…
> 

When will be the kernel embeded in the systemd?
BR, Bob