The response by the debian maintainer responsible for this change to the keepassxc developer is an actual disgrace
Request to revert change:
@julian-klode this needs to be reverted asap. This is now our fourth bug report because of the decision to neuter the base KeePassXC package in Debian. Put the base package back where it was and create a keepassxc-minimal.
Response by debian maintainer:
julian-klode commented 9 hours ago: I’m afraid that’s not going to happen. It was a mistake to ship with all plugins built by default. This will be painful for a year as users annoyingly do not read the NEWS files they should be reading but there’s little that can be done about that. It is our responsibility to our users to provide them the most secure option possible as the default. All of these features are superfluous and do not really belong in a local password database manager, these developments are all utterly misguided. Users who need this crap can install the crappy version but obviously this increases the risk of drive-by contributor attacks.
The whole github issue is worth a read, as it actually explains the issue with the change.
Edit: as i gave the debian maintainers view visibility i wanted to give a quick summary of the keepassxc point of view as well:
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julian-klode specifically mentions attacks by contributors of keepassxc. If you don’t trust the developers, why would you trust the minimal package which is developed by the same people?
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If the Debian packagers have good reason to believe the keepassxc-full version presents a broader attack surface, then they ought to present what they’ve seen that makes them feel that way, not promote baseless innuendo.
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the features are disabled by default. If you do not opt in, the code never gets executed.
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the safest version of keepassxc is the one thats tested, meaning full featured
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removing all those features doesn’t make it more secure, it dumbs it down to an encrypted spreadsheet and makes it less secure. Users should be automatically notified when one of their accounts has been breached and their password for that account has been found floating in a db dump. Users should rely on their password manager to handle logins for them, so they’re less likely to get tricked into a phishing page.
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if you disagree with features in someones app you fork it. You do not change it and distribute it under the same name. A -minimal version would have been ok
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Debians own policy is to communicate with upstream beforehand before introducing changes. This was not the case, nor was there a chance to collaborate on an effective solution for both parties.
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Debian could have chosen to give users an informed choice between -full and -minimal. Instead they broke existing users installs.
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People saying it was released in Debian sid, which is meant for changes. It is also meant for Feedback, which julian-klode refuses to listen to.
He’s not wrong but he sounds like a jackass. A minimal version sounds better than removing features that are present and used by people.
At first i thought some reasons sounded reasonable too, but after reading the github issue i changed my mind. See my edit for reasons.
users annoyingly do not read the NEWS files they should be reading
Devs having too much time.
If I were maintaining a package and got a “request” worded like that I would tell the person to go fuck themselves. It’s extremely rude to order people around like that.
Of anything the maintainer was extremely courteous. I will be extremely wary of KeepassXC in the future given that its developers behave like this. As far as I’m concerned this is a clear cut case of maintainer bullying and I hope Debian sends a signal by kicking their -full package out completely.
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Ι don’t agree with what they did. They removed browser integration, not just the “favicon” thing. If this was a problem for normal users, well, normal users would just use Firefox’s built-in password manager, not keepassxc. That change made the app useless to me, and going forward it will be a headache for NEW users who won’t know of the -full package. It was a bad decision.
They didn’t “strip” anything, they’ve split it into 2 variants, a package without networking features (
-DWITH_XC_NETWORKING=OFF
) and a package with them, because it’s considered a privacy issue to have your password manager phone home and fetch favicons and so on. The packages will be calledkeepassxc
andkeepassxc-full
going forward.Afaiu it, he added a second package with (quote) “all the crap” later, after the storm.
And no, it wasn’t just the favicons feature that was removed (which like … is that really such a big privacy issue that you need to remove it from the binary?). Support for Yubikey was removed as well — which is not a privacy issue. The reasoning mentioned by the Debian maintainer is that all of these features might turn out to be security issues in the long run. Thus, in his view, a password manager application must do nothing but provide access to the database within the app.
I find it an interesting example of diverging upstream, maintainer, and user interests in any case.
And no, it wasn’t just the favicons feature that was removed (which like … is that really such a big privacy issue that you need to remove it from the binary?)
Fetching a favicon means raising a network connection with a predictable endpoint. That’s already three concerns (four on the modern internet) to handle security-wise, and it’s absolutely an unneeded feature. Favicons could just be shipped on something like
keepassxc-data
orkeepassxc-contrib
to handle locally, no need to raise a network call.There are so many people who think sid is a distro when really, as far as the Debian project is concerned, it is a staging ground.
KeepassXC replied on that thread that it wasn’t just the privacy problematic networking that was removed:
that bug report is bunk. He removed ALL features, not just networking. That includes yubikey support, auto-type and browser integration.
I expect the KeepassXC people are mostly bothered by the naming of the package because the version called “keepassxc” is now the basic one. Anyway, the maintainer has offered to call them
-minimal
and-full
and to make “keepassxc” a metapackage that pops up a debconf dialog telling users that install it to choose one. There is precedent with other complex packages that are split into basic and full. This should solve things nicely for everyone.That sounds reasonable. I use the package on LMDE6, the one currently in stable though. Having a minimal keepassxc and a full one makes sense to me.
I highly recommend reading the Github thread as this is not at all an accurate representation. These features you’re talking about are off by default. Removing them from the existing package is just breaking existing users. There’s already a report from a user who can’t access their passwords because yubikey support was suddenly removed. You don’t do that to users just because you suddenly develop an opinion as a package maintainer that you feel is important. There was no dialogue, no consideration and a very rude, dismissive attitude of Julian.
There’s already a report from a user who can’t access their passwords because yubikey support was suddenly removed.
Yeah, well, this is Sid. It’s called unstable for a reason. You have to read the changelogs or bad things will happen.
By the time it lands in stable it will most likely have a debconf dialog warning users and letting them transition smoothly to the version they want.
This is the kind of crap that makes me glad flatpak and such exist. I don’t want a maintainer making arbitrary decisions like this, it adds unpredictability and platform inconsistency.
A similar issue I face is that on Debian the python stdlib well… isn’t all standard. In particular they split off the venv package, and it’s an extra step that adds unnecessary complication. No other Linux distros or other OS do this, it’s so frustrating. I guess someone is super happy they saved a few hundreds kilobytes of disk space though.
It’s work, I don’t get much of a choice here. I do get paid for the hassle though.
I guess someone is super happy they saved a few hundreds kilobytes of disk space though.
Yes. All the people basing docker images off if debian, and trying to get them as small as possible. The splitting up of packages, allows people to only pull in what they need.
Debian or Ubuntu are usually the best choice if you depend on glibc. Alpine is definitely more compact but musl isn’t always an option.
I don’t think many docker images out there will have keepassxc installed though.
Sorry I was way off in my assumption that the venv package is a few hundreds kilobytes. apt is reporting 6144 bytes. 6 kilobytes. Installing python on the base bookworm image is 38.3MB. If you’re already installing python, it’s a rounding error. Also they have a separate python3-minimal package (which saves a laughable 200kb), why are they de-featuring the regular python version when they also have a separate minimal version? It makes zero sense. The python3 package should contain the entire python standard library. If it were supposed to be an addon, it wouldn’t be part of the standard library.
The python3 package should contain the entire python standard library
You are free to use a distro which does not split packages, favorite distro, Arch Linux (btw).
Or, you can install the recommended dependencies of python3. Testing in a container, the
python3
package pulls:root@a72bd55a3c1a:/# apt install python3 Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Reading state information... Done The following additional packages will be installed: ca-certificates krb5-locales libexpat1 libgpm2 libgssapi-krb5-2 libk5crypto3 libkeyutils1 libkrb5-3 libkrb5support0 libncursesw6 libnsl2 libpython3-stdlib libpython3.11-minimal libpython3.11-stdlib libreadline8 libsqlite3-0 libssl3 libtirpc-common libtirpc3 media-types openssl python3-minimal python3.11 python3.11-minimal readline-common Suggested packages: gpm krb5-doc krb5-user python3-doc python3-tk python3-venv python3.11-venv python3.11-doc binutils binfmt-support readline-doc The following NEW packages will be installed: ca-certificates krb5-locales libexpat1 libgpm2 libgssapi-krb5-2 libk5crypto3 libkeyutils1 libkrb5-3 libkrb5support0 libncursesw6 libnsl2 libpython3-stdlib libpython3.11-minimal libpython3.11-stdlib libreadline8 libsqlite3-0 libssl3 libtirpc-common libtirpc3 media-types openssl python3 python3-minimal python3.11 python3.11-minimal readline-common 0 upgraded, 26 newly installed, 0 to remove and 18 not upgraded.
python3-venv python3.11-venv
I find it odd, because debian does this by default, actually. They account for usecases like yours, and instead you have to edit a config file or use a command line flag to get it to not install recommended dependencies.
I do this stuff for work, unfortunately I don’t have the flexibility to choose here.
Ah, I was wondering why I couldn’t get it to detect my yubikey. I saw keepassxc-full in the repo but that also didn’t seem to work. I’ll have to revisit it.
deleted by creator
Debian sid user here, and long time keepassxc user
Debian maintainer didnt communicate this well, but i agree that i dont want my password manager having any access to networking or interacting with anything other than the clipboard.
I’m not a developer or a security expert. This is just my gut feeling talking
Exactly. And if you want those features, you install the full version. Packages can break in sid, that is the whole point of it.
I am also running sid and keepassxc and I see no problem with this change. In fact it seems like a very sane thing to do, and something I wished more packages did.
Sane move by maintainer, but he should not go around calling other people’s code crap unless there is proof that the code was actually crap with gaping security hole
He could have handled it better. But he didn’t call the code crap directly, just the bundle of everything.
Having a meta package and let users choose seems like the best way. But this is a Debian issue, and not a keepassxc issue. It is up to Debian to package it anyway they want.
If you look deeper at the recorded PR commit, comments, and package description it’s clearly straight up mean-spirited.
Don’t debian packages have use flags like gentoo does ? Surely it’s not hard to compile the binary with every possible combination of build flag in 2024 ?
There’s a keepassxc-full package that comes with all the functionality. Anyhow, Debian does not have the concept of USE flags, these don’t make sense in a binary-based distribution.
Good to know. Thanks for the heads up. Switching to
KeePassXC-full
when it becomes available.Rip keep ass xc emacs style defaults.
Keepassxc systemd integration when?
The Debian maintainer is probably a volunteer. Can we not troll people who make Debian and Foss possible?
You have a point to some degree, yet I still think it is defensible to make this post. He majorly altered software
- downstream
- against user expectations
- for somewhat spurious reasons
- seemingly quite ad-hoc
He then went on to defend that decision in a less-than-graceful way before announcing there will be a second, new package.
But, to make it clear: I certainly don’t approve of hate directed toward him and I don’t have a personal issue with him.
To be fair, it looks like the debian maintainer started the unfriendly discourse by calling the work of other FOSS devs “crap”
Everyone needs to chill out, otherwise we have another potential XZ social engineering attack
It would be catastrophic for something like keepass to have a malicious maintainer take over
True, but let them settle it without turning a few thousand people against one person.
well it is that one person causing issues
by issues I mean breaking existing users’ workflow, possibly literally locking them out (I personally use a yubikey with my keepass db, for example).
There is a very simple solution he could have done: not rename the existing package. Just give his fork a new name. That’s it, everybody is happy.
So yes, he is the one causing issues. Because the issue isn’t in the features he removed, but by breaking the users’expectation that the package they installed yesterday, is the same one they’re updating today.
Aren’t the networking features just toggles in the settings already? I remember seeing several of the mentioned features in there.
Yes, these are off-by-default features.