#470065 debsecan: Better report for backports

Package:
debsecan
Source:
debsecan
Submitter:
Vincent Bernat
Date:
2026-02-26 12:33:03 UTC
Severity:
wishlist
Tags:
#470065#5
Date:
2008-03-08 22:36:28 UTC
From:
To:
Hi !

Suppose that xxxx 3.0.1-5 fixes a vulnerability. Therefore, 3.0.1-4 is
vulnerable. Assume that I backport 3.0.1-5 to etch. I will name this
version 3.0.1-5~bpo.1. Because of "~", this version will be considered
as inferior to 3.0.1-5 and will be marked as vulnerable.

I think that this "inferiority" should be changed to equality in term
of security. I suppose that __cmp__() in Version class could return 0
when all the following conditions are met:
 - upstream versions are equal
 - debian versions of the package without r'~.*$' pattern are equal
Otherwise, we just use return VersionCompare() result.

I attach a proposed (ugly) patch. If you think this behaviour is too
dangerous, you could add a flag '--enable-backports-support'.

Thanks.

#470065#10
Date:
2008-03-08 22:47:30 UTC
From:
To:
OoO La nuit ayant déjà recouvert d'encre ce jour du samedi 08 mars 2008,
vers 23:36, je disais:

My patch  did not consider  the fact that  '~' was also used  in testing
security.  I don't really  understand what  '~' means  in this  case and
therefore, I don't know if my patch is still valid.

#470065#15
Date:
2008-03-09 04:49:16 UTC
From:
To:
* Vincent Bernat:

This doesn't work because "~" isn't really that special.  It's used by
maintainers as well, not just backports and testing-security.

Sorry, but the fix is more complex, and I'm not 100% sure what it would
look like.  It probably has to happen on the server side anyway.

#470065#20
Date:
2008-03-09 08:18:19 UTC
From:
To:
OoO En cette  fin de nuit blanche du dimanche 09  mars 2008, vers 05:49,
Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> disait:

Do you  have other examples?  I did not  find one. I emphasize  the fact
that we  only consider '~' in  the debian version part,  not in upstream
version.

Backports  are   not  official  and   can  come  from   various  sources
(backports.org or  backports made  by hand). I  don't see how  you could
handle this on server side.

#470065#25
Date:
2008-03-12 21:37:25 UTC
From:
To:
OoO En cette  fin de nuit blanche du dimanche 09  mars 2008, vers 05:49,
Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> disait:

Well, I  have another idea. We  could add an option  that will normalize
package versions by stripping some  data. For example, debsecan could be
invoked with  --normalize='~bpo.\d+' to  support backports. Or  we could
use  --normalize='(~bpo|+custom).\d+'  to  support  both  backports  and
custom packages.

I'll send you a patch implementing this.

#470065#30
Date:
2008-03-15 20:31:13 UTC
From:
To:
OoO En cette  fin de nuit blanche du dimanche 09  mars 2008, vers 05:49,
Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> disait:
will be stripped from the version. If debsecan is called with:
  --strip-version '~bpo.\d+$'
then, backports version will  be compared against their testing/unstable
counterparts.

#470065#35
Date:
2008-03-28 12:33:44 UTC
From:
To:
Since backports.org is (pseudo?)official, and it's very unlikely to see a
~bpo.\d+ version on a package not coming from backports.org, can't we just
hardcode that any ~bpo.\d+ version is stripped off automatically before the
compare?

Vincent's last patch can be useful but I would propose to add ~bpo.\d+ by
default to the list of strippable regexps...


Thijs

#470065#40
Date:
2010-10-18 15:47:27 UTC
From:
To:
I am not 100% sure if I have the same error as the OP, but I think so.

I am getting this warning:
CVE-2010-3315 authz.c in the mod_dav_svn module for the Apache HTTP...
  <http://security-tracker.debian.net/tracker/CVE-2010-3315>
  - libsvn-perl, subversion-tools, subversion, libapache2-svn, libsvn1,
    python-subversion (remotely exploitable, medium urgency)

I have subversion: 1.6.12dfsg-2~bpo50+1 installed.

But, that is reported as fixed here:
http://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2010-3315

Thanks.

#470065#45
Date:
2011-02-07 06:37:41 UTC
From:
To:
Hi!

No  update on this  bug. My  patch seems  to be  better than  nothing at
all. How about using it waiting for a better solution?

#470065#50
Date:
2016-03-20 16:44:04 UTC
From:
To:
Hello,
it's 2016 and this "bug" is still there.

I have nginx from jessie-backports ( 1.9.10-1~bpo8+1 ) which is not
affected by this CVE -
https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2016-0746 - but
debsecan still says I have affected version.

For detecting backports - they now have "~bpo" in their version.

Regards,
Marqin

#470065#55
Date:
2026-02-26 12:31:18 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Florian,

since debsecan came up as a candidate for the bug of the day.
I have verified bugs tagged patch.  I left

   #470065 debsecan: Better report for backports
   #588064 Parse config file before option checking
   #725934 debsecan: automatically add apt pinning for packages with security issues

untouched (submitters of patches in CC) since the package is now several
versions ahead.  I would prefer if submitters could verify the patches
and possibly provide MRs.  For this purpose and to enable you checking
what exactly was NMUed I migrated the package to Salsa at

https://salsa.debian.org/debian/debsecan

If you do not agree with the Salsa migration please update your clone
that used to be at gitlab and I will cancel the upload - and for sure
let me know if you have other reasons for making me cancel the upload
to delayed=15.

Kind regards
    Andreas.