bug#47185: grub2 package is vulnerable to CVE-2020-14372, CVE-2020-25632, CVE-2020-25647, CVE-2020-27749, CVE-2020-27779, CVE-2021-20225, CVE-2021-20233 and CVE-2021-3418

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Léo,

Léo Le Bouter via Bug reports for GNU Guix <bug-guix@gnu.org> writes:
> NOTE: SecureBoot on GNU Guix is not something common at all, so the
> urgency to fix this issue is not as great as if we explicitly
> advertised support for SecureBoot.

I would go further and question whether *anyone* is using SecureBoot
with a Guix system, and moreover whether its feasible to do without
non-trivial development work.

> This looks like a sizeable upgrade to a sensitive part of GNU Guix, so
> we have to test carefully.

Indeed.  I would like to underline this point: GRUB is the only part of
a Guix system that cannot be easily rolled back if it breaks.  If we
make changes to GRUB that causes breakage for some minority of users,
those users could end up with an unbootable system, requiring the use of
a rescue disk to repair.

Therefore, we should be *very* careful about updating our GRUB package,
especially for the sake of bugs that almost certainly do not affect Guix
users.

I think we should refrain from updating GRUB until there's an official
upstream stable release.  Even then, I would advise making an effort to
test it on Guix systems, using several different system configurations,
before pushing it to 'master'.

What do you think?

      Regards,
        Mark