Revision as of 15:35, 16 September 2022

Pcre Deprecation

Summary

Upstream stopped the support for the old 'pcre' package. It only supports the new 'pcre2' version, so Fedora should deprecate it so it could later be retired and removed from Fedora entirely.

Owner

Name: Lukas Javorsky
Email: ljavorsk@redhat.com

Current status

Targeted release: Fedora Linux 38
Last updated: 2022-09-16
devel thread
FESCo issue: #2862
Tracker bug: #2127507
Release notes tracker: #878

Detailed Description

Upstream stopped supporting the old 'pcre' package. The 8.45 is marked as a final release and nothing else will be added/fixed in it. This may lead to some unresolved CVEs, which would have to be resolved by the maintainers. Unfortunately, due to our limited capacity, we wouldn't have the time and experience to solve this by ourselves, so we need to deprecate this package. After the deprecation is done, the very next step would be starting the retirement change, so the package is removed from Fedora entirely.

The new 'pcre2' package is out for more than 7 years now and most of the packages have already been ported to its redefined API. Mail about the changes in the pcre2.

Plan

1) File the BZ trackers for all of the dependent packages.

2) Document the deprecation.

3) Start the new change with the pcre retirement.

Feedback

The early feedback from the community is in this mailing thread

Benefit to Fedora

Fedora shouldn't support unsupported packages. When the future RHEL versions fork from Fedora, it could lead to less secure RHEL as well. By deprecating this package, we will send the message to the maintainers that their packages should port to new pcre2 package and any new package would have to use only new and supported pcre2 version.

Scope

Proposal owners: 3 steps mentioned in the Plan.

Other developers: Port their package to support the new pcre2.

Release engineering: N/A (not needed for this Change)

Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)

Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

Alignment with Objectives:

Upgrade/compatibility impact

The old pcre package will be deprecated, so the new packages are not able to require it and have to require the new pcre2 version of this package.

User Experience

Users will not be exposed to the possible vulnerable pcre package, because the pcre2 is supported by the upstream community.

Dependencies

This list is obtained by using and combining the output of the following commands:

dnf repoquery --disablerepo='*' --enablerepo=rawhide --whatrequires 'libpcre.so.1()(64bit)' --whatrequires 'libpcreposix.so.0()(64bit)' -s | pkgname

dnf repoquery --disablerepo='*' --enablerepo=rawhide-source --whatrequires pcre-devel | pkgname

List

389-ds-base
adanaxisgpl
aide
aircrack-ng
anope
apachetop
bti
ccze
cegui
cegui06
clamav
ClanLib
clisp
clover2
coccinelle
collada-dom
compton
condor
cppcheck
cyrus-imapd
deepin-file-manager
dogtag-pki
EMBOSS
eterm
Falcon
freeradius
gambas3
ganglia
ghc-highlighting-kate
ghc-pcre-light
ghc-regex-pcre
GMT
gnote
golang
gource
grep
groonga
gsmartcontrol
haxe
hydra
hyperscan
i3
i3-gaps
imapfilter
Io-language
kdelibs
kdelibs3
kdevelop
kf5-kjs
kf5-kplotting
libast
liblognorm
libmodsecurity
lnav
logstalgia
lumail
medusa
mle
mod_auth_openid
mod_auth_openidc
mod_qos
mod_security
monotone
ncid
nekovm
ngrep
nmap
ocaml-pcre
oci-umount
octave
openCOLLADA
openscap
opensips
pads
pcre
pdfgrep
perl-re-engine-PCRE
petsc
php-pecl-apcu
php-pecl-http
php-pecl-oauth
picom
pl
poco
postgis
powwow
prelude-lml
privoxy
proxysql
python-qutepart
python-scss
R
rasqal
regexxer
remctl
renderdoc
rkward
root
rudiments
sigil
slang
sord
sslh
suricata
sway
swig
syncevolution
syslog-ng
the_foundation
the_silver_searcher
Thunar
tin
tintin
tinyfugue
trafficserver
uwsgi
vdr-epgfixer
watchman
wireshark
wmweather+
xastir
xfce4-verve-plugin
xgrep
xmlcopyeditor
zsh

Contingency Plan

Contingency mechanism: (What to do? Who will do it?) N/A (not needed for this Change)
Contingency deadline: N/A (not needed for this Change)
Blocks release? No

Documentation

There should be documentation of this change, so the users know that the pcre is no longer supported and cannot be required by any Fedora package. If an existing package requires the pcre package, it is considered as a bug.

Release Notes

Release notes should contain the information about the pcre deprecation so the users know they won't be able to use its libraries anymore.

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 = Pcre Deprecation <!-- The name of your change proposal --> =
-{{Change_Proposal_Banner}}
 == Summary ==
@@ Line 17: / Line 15: @@
 == Current status ==
-[[Category:ChangeReadyForWrangler]]
+[[Category:ChangeAcceptedF38]]
 <!-- When your change proposal page is completed and ready for review and announcement -->
 <!-- remove Category:ChangePageIncomplete and change it to Category:ChangeReadyForWrangler -->
@@ Line 27: / Line 25: @@
 <!-- [[Category:SystemWideChange]] -->
-* Targeted release: [[Releases/39 | Fedora Linux 39 ]]
+* Targeted release: [[Releases/38 | Fedora Linux 38 ]]
 * Last updated: <!-- this is an automatic macro — you don't need to change this line -->  {{REVISIONYEAR}}-{{REVISIONMONTH}}-{{REVISIONDAY2}}
 <!-- After the change proposal is accepted by FESCo, tracking bug is created in Bugzilla and linked to this page
@@ Line 35: / Line 33: @@
 ON_QA -> change is fully code complete
 -->
-* FESCo issue: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
+* [https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/HEK6GY22HOUAYHQQV257WNLPRI74LCZ4/ devel thread]
-* Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
+* FESCo issue: [https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/2862 #2862]
-* Release notes tracker: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
+* Tracker bug: [https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2127507 #2127507]
+* Release notes tracker: [https://pagure.io/fedora-docs/release-notes/issue/878 #878]
 == Detailed Description ==
@@ Line 57: / Line 56: @@
 == Benefit to Fedora ==
 Fedora shouldn't support unsupported packages. When the future RHEL versions fork from Fedora, it could lead to less secure RHEL as well. By deprecating this package, we will send the message to the maintainers that their packages should port to new pcre2 package and any new package would have to use only new and supported pcre2 version.
-The main API difference between pcre and pcre2 are mentioned in [https://lists.exim.org/lurker/message/20150105.162835.0666407a.en.html email] introducing the new pcre2 in 2015
 == Scope ==
-* Proposal owners: 3 steps mentioned in the [https://fedoraproject.org/w/index.php?title=PcreDeprecation&action=submit#Plan Plan].
+* Proposal owners: 3 steps mentioned in the [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PcreDeprecation#Plan Plan].
 <!-- What work do the feature owners have to accomplish to complete the feature in time for release?  Is it a large change affecting many parts of the distribution or is it a very isolated change? What are those changes?-->

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