This week is fairly quiet but there is the addition of support for a useful new Apache module. Here are the details of all the notable changes…

User namespaces

In Informatics, we have had Linux user namespaces disabled on Ubuntu for a long time due to security concerns (there were a few nasty CVEs in early 2022). This didn’t cause too much trouble for us as it was only really preventing a few users from running software containers. Recently however, software such as firefox, google chrome and VS code have begun using this feature to sandbox processes. It appears that the bugs in this kernel functionality have now been resolved and enabling the feature now improves user security. In Informatics we have now decided to change the default setting of the kernel.unprivileged_userns_clone sysctl, other Schools may wish to check their own settings.

DHCP Server

The LCFG dhcpd component has been tweaked to make it possible to simply use all available interfaces. Previously it has been necessary to explicitly list all of the required network interfaces in the dhcpd.interfaces resource. That resource may now be set to ALL, the loopback (lo) and any idrac interfaces will be ignored by default.

Apache OpenIDC support

There is a new LCFG header – lcfg/options/apacheconf-openidc.h – which can be used to install and activate the Apache module for the OpenIDC access management system.

apptainer

The apptainer software for Ubuntu has been updated to version 1.3.4.

Ultraleap

There is new support for the Ultraleap hand tracking software. The Ubuntu repository may be mirrored locally using aptly by defining the APTLY_MIRROR_ULTRALEAP macro. The software may be installed on a system by including the ed/options/ultraleap.h header.

Changes to headers and package lists

Members of the Informatics Computing team can browse all the changes to the headers and package lists.

Weekly Changes – 23/09/2024 / LCFG Project by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0