[Bug 1960864] Re: [MIR] plocate

[Steve Beattie]

I reviewed plocate 1.1.15-1ubuntu2 as checked into jammy.  This shouldn't be
considered a full audit but rather a quick gauge of maintainability.

plocate is a locate implementation based on posting lists and io_uring,
intended as a drop-in replacement for mlocate.

- No CVE History.
- Build-Depends on liburing and libzstd
- The pre/post inst/rm scripts adds a plocate group, sets up
  alternatives to place it as the locate, and sets up the systemd timer.
  Things are cleaned up in the pre/post-rm scripts.
- No init scripts.
- One systemd timer and service to run updatedb
- No dbus services
- No setuid binaries, plocate binary is setgid.
- binaries in PATH: plocate, plocate-build, and updatedb.plocate
- No sudo fragments
- No polkit files
- No udev rules
- test
  - no unit or other build-time tests
  - autopkgtests: a basic test plus a more complex test that tests
    visibility across differing users.
- One cron job that exits immediately because systemd timers are available.
- No build warnings or errors, lintian with one minor warning:
  command-with-path-in-maintainer-script

- No processes spawned.
- Memory management is okay, generally uses C++ style
  allocations / deallocations.
- File IO is mostly performed on static names or parsed out of
  /proc/self/mountinfo. The exception is the db argument to plocate;
  however, if alternate db files are passed, a child process that drops
  privilege is forked to search the passed db file.
- Logging is mostly done by perror, and is done safely.
- Environment variable usage is okay.
- Privileged functions (setgid) are used to drop privs and are okay
  (returned errors are checked for).
- No use of cryptography / random number sources.
- Sole use of temp files in database-builder is okay, uses O_TMPFILE if
  available.
- No use of networking.
- No use of WebKit.
- No use of PolicyKit.

- No significant cppcheck results.
- No significant Coverity results, a couple of issues that could possibly
  warrant further investigation. Recommend upstream project make use of
  the public https://scan.coverity.com service.

Code generally feels modern and readable.

Security team ACK for promoting plocate to main.


** Changed in: plocate (Ubuntu Jammy)
     Assignee: Ubuntu Security Team (ubuntu-security) => (unassigned)

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1960864

Title:
  [MIR] plocate

Status in plocate package in Ubuntu:
  New
Status in plocate source package in Jammy:
  New

Bug description:
  [Availability]
  The package plocate is already in Ubuntu universe.
  The package plocate builds for the architectures it is designed to work on.
  It currently builds and works for architetcures: amd64, arm64, armhf, ppc64el, s390x
  Link to package [[https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/plocate|plocate]]

  [Rationale]
  - The package plocate will generally be useful for a large part of
    our user base
  - Package plocate covers the same use case as mlocate, but is better
    because it is a faster implementation. From the package description:
    "plocate is a locate(1) based on posting lists, giving much faster
    searches on a much smaller index. It is a drop-in replacement for mlocate in
    nearly all aspects, and is fast on SSDs and non-SSDs alike."
  - Additional reasons: Debian has removed mlocate in favor of plocate.

  [Security]
  - No CVEs/security issues in this software in the past
    http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=plocate
    https://ubuntu.com/security/cve?package=plocate
  - /usr/bin/plocate binary is sgid
  - There are binaries in sbin
    /usr/sbin/plocate-build
    /usr/sbin/updatedb.plocate
  - Package does install services, timers or recurring jobs
    /lib/systemd/system/plocate-updatedb.service
    /lib/systemd/system/plocate-updatedb.timer

    $ cat /lib/systemd/system/plocate-updatedb.service
      [Unit]
      Description=Update the plocate database
      ConditionACPower=true

      [Service]
      Type=oneshot
      ExecStart=/usr/sbin/updatedb.plocate
      LimitNOFILE=131072
      IOSchedulingClass=idle

      PrivateTmp=true
      PrivateDevices=true
      PrivateNetwork=true

    $ cat /lib/systemd/system/plocate-updatedb.timer
      [Unit]
      Description=Update the plocate database daily

      [Timer]
      OnCalendar=daily
      RandomizedDelaySec=12h
      AccuracySec=20min
      Persistent=true

      [Install]
      WantedBy=timers.target

  - Packages does not open privileged ports (ports < 1024)
  - Packages does not contain extensions to security-sensitive software
    (filters, scanners, plugins, UI skins, ...)

  [Quality assurance - function/usage]
  - The package works well right after install. One must run
    `updatedb` after install to do initial indexing, and can
     then easily use `locate`.

  [Quality assurance - maintenance]
  - The package is maintained well in Debian/Ubuntu and has not too many
    and long term critical bugs open
    - Ubuntu https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/plocate/+bug
    - Debian https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=plocate
  - The package does not deal with exotic hardware we cannot support

  [Quality assurance - testing]
  - The package does not run a test at build time.
  - The package runs an autopkgtest, and is currently passing on
    amd64, arm64, armhf, ppc64el, s390x: https://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/packages/plocate
  - The package does have failing autopkgtests tests right now on i386,
    but this package is not supported for i386

  [Quality assurance - packaging]
  - debian/watch is not present
  - This package does not yield massive lintian Warnings, Errors
    $ lintian --pedantic -I
      I: plocate source: debian-watch-file-is-missing
      I: plocate source: out-of-date-standards-version 4.5.0 (released 2020-01-20) (current is 4.5.1)
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/.ninja_deps
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/meson-private/build.dat
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/meson-private/coredata.dat
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/meson-private/install.dat
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/meson-private/sanitycheckcpp.exe
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/plocate
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/plocate-build
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/plocate-build.p/database-builder.cpp.o
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/plocate-build.p/plocate-build.cpp.o
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/plocate.p/access_rx_cache.cpp.o
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/plocate.p/complete_pread.cpp.o
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/plocate.p/io_uring_engine.cpp.o
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/plocate.p/needle.cpp.o
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/plocate.p/parse_trigrams.cpp.o
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/plocate.p/plocate.cpp.o
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/plocate.p/serializer.cpp.o
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/plocate.p/turbopfor.cpp.o
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/updatedb.plocate
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/updatedb.plocate.p/bind-mount.cpp.o
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/updatedb.plocate.p/complete_pread.cpp.o
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/updatedb.plocate.p/conf.cpp.o
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/updatedb.plocate.p/database-builder.cpp.o
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/updatedb.plocate.p/lib.cpp.o
      I: plocate source: unused-entry-in-debian-source-include-binaries obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/updatedb.plocate.p/updatedb.cpp.o
      P: plocate source: spelling-error-in-patch-description debian/patches/locate-add-ignore-spaces-option-to-ignore-word-separ.patch "allows to" "allows one to"
      P: plocate source: trailing-whitespace debian/changelog (line 208)
      P: plocate source: trailing-whitespace debian/changelog (line 226)
      P: plocate source: trailing-whitespace debian/changelog (line 313)
      P: plocate source: trailing-whitespace debian/changelog (line 320)
      P: plocate source: trailing-whitespace debian/control (line 22)

  - Lintian overrides are not present
  - This package does not rely on obsolete or about to be demoted packages.
  - This package has no python2 or GTK2 dependencies
  - The package will not be installed by default
  - Packaging and build is easy

  [UI standards]
  - Application is not end-user facing (does not need translation)

  [Dependencies]
  - No further depends or recommends dependencies that are not yet in main

  [Standards compliance]
  - This package correctly follows FHS and Debian Policy

  [Maintenance/Owner]
  - Upstream is active, the package is maintained in Debian and in sync for Ubuntu
  - This does not use static builds
  - This does not use vendored code

  [Background information]
  The Package description explains the package well
  https://plocate.sesse.net/

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