Search Results: "ron"

28 February 2021

Chris Lamb: Free software activities in February 2021

Here is my monthly update covering what I have been doing in the free software world during February 2021 (previous month):

Reproducible Builds The motivation behind the Reproducible Builds effort is to ensure no flaws have been introduced during compilation process by promising identical results are always generated from a given source, therefore allowing multiple third-parties to come to a consensus on whether a build was compromised. The project is proud to be a member project of the Software Freedom Conservancy. Conservancy acts as a corporate umbrella allowing projects to operate as non-profit initiatives without managing their own corporate structure. If you like the work of the Conservancy or the Reproducible Builds project, please consider becoming an official supporter. This month, I: I also made the following changes to diffoscope, including preparing and uploading versions 167 and 168 to Debian:

Debian Uploads I also sponsored an upload of adminer (4.7.9-1) for Alexandre Rossi. Debian LTS This month I have worked 18 hours on Debian Long Term Support (LTS) and 12 hours on its sister Extended LTS project. You can find out more about the project via the following video:

27 February 2021

Petter Reinholdtsen: Updated Valutakrambod, now also with information from NBX

I have neglected the Valutakrambod library for a while, but decided this weekend to give it a face lift. I fixed a few minor glitches in several of the service drivers, where the API had changed since I last looked at the code. I also added support for fetching the order book from the newcomer Norwegian Bitcoin Exchange. I alsod decided to migrate the project from github to gitlab in the process. If you want a python library for talking to various currency exchanges, check out code for valutakrambod. This is what the output from 'bin/btc-rates-curses -c' looked like a few minutes ago: 
           Name Pair           Bid         Ask Spread Ftcd    Age   Freq
       Bitfinex BTCEUR  39229.0000  39246.0000   0.0%   44     44    nan
        Bitmynt BTCEUR  39071.0000  41048.9000   4.8%   43     74    nan
         Bitpay BTCEUR  39326.7000         nan   nan%   39    nan    nan
       Bitstamp BTCEUR  39398.7900  39417.3200   0.0%    0      0      1
           Bl3p BTCEUR  39158.7800  39581.9000   1.1%    0    nan      3
       Coinbase BTCEUR  39197.3100  39621.9300   1.1%   38    nan    nan
         Kraken+BTCEUR  39432.9000  39433.0000   0.0%    0      0      0
        Paymium BTCEUR  39437.2100  39499.9300   0.2%    0   2264    nan
        Bitmynt BTCNOK 409750.9600 420516.8500   2.6%   43     74    nan
         Bitpay BTCNOK 410332.4000         nan   nan%   39    nan    nan
       Coinbase BTCNOK 408675.7300 412813.7900   1.0%   38    nan    nan
        MiraiEx BTCNOK 412174.1800 418396.1500   1.5%   34    nan    nan
            NBX BTCNOK 405835.9000 408921.4300   0.8%   33    nan    nan
       Bitfinex BTCUSD  47341.0000  47355.0000   0.0%   44     53    nan
         Bitpay BTCUSD  47388.5100         nan   nan%   39    nan    nan
       Coinbase BTCUSD  47153.6500  47651.3700   1.0%   37    nan    nan
         Gemini BTCUSD  47416.0900  47439.0500   0.0%   36    336    nan
         Hitbtc BTCUSD  47429.9900  47386.7400  -0.1%    0      0      0
         Kraken+BTCUSD  47401.7000  47401.8000   0.0%    0      0      0
  Exchangerates EURNOK     10.4012     10.4012   0.0%   38  76236    nan
     Norgesbank EURNOK     10.4012     10.4012   0.0%   31  76236    nan
       Bitstamp EURUSD      1.2030      1.2045   0.1%    2      2      1
  Exchangerates EURUSD      1.2121      1.2121   0.0%   38  76236    nan
     Norgesbank USDNOK      8.5811      8.5811   0.0%   31  76236    nan
Yes, I notice the negative spread on Hitbtc. Either I fail to understand their Websocket API or they are sending bogus data. I've seen the same with Kraken, and suspect there is something wrong with the data they send. As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address 15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.

26 February 2021

Ritesh Raj Sarraf: Wayland KDE X11

KDE Impressions These days, I often hear a lot about Wayland. And how much of effort is being put into it; not just by the Embedded world but also the usual Desktop systems, namely KDE and GNOME. In recent past, I switched back to KDE and have been (very) happy about the switch. Even though the KDE 4 (and initial KDE 5) debacle had burnt many, coming back to a usable KDE desktop is always a delight. It makes me feel home with the elegance, while at the same time the flexibility, it provides. It feels so nice to draft this blog article from Kwrite + VI Input Mode Thanks to the great work of the Debian KDE Team, but Norbert Preining in particular, who has helped bring very up-to-date KDE packages into Debian. Right now, I m on a Plamsa 5.21.1 desktop, which is recent by all standards.

Wayland Almost all the places in the Linux world these days are busy with integrating Wayland as the primary display service. Not sure what the current status on the GNOME side is but I definitely keep trying KDE + Wayland with every release. I keep trying with every release because it still is not prime for daily use. And it makes me get back to X11, no matter how dated some may call. Fact is, X11 still shines to me as an end-user. Glitches with Wayland still are (Based on this week s test on Plasma 5.21.1):
  • Horrible performance compared to X11
  • Very crashy, especially when hotplugging secondary display. Plasma would just crash. X11 is very resilient to such things, part of the reason I can think is the age of the codebase.
  • Many many applications still need to be fixed for Wayland. Or Wayland needs to accomodate them in some way. XWayland does not really feel like the answer.
And while KDE keeps insisting users to switch to Wayland, as that s where all the new enhancements and fixes are put in, someone like me still needs to stick to X11 for the time being. So to get my shiny new LG 27" 4K Monitor (3840x2160 60.00*+) to work without too much glitch, I had to live with an alias: 
$ alias   grep xrandr
alias rrs_xrandr_lg='xrandr --output DP-1 --mode 3840x2160 --scale .75x.75'
18:31

Plasma 5.21 On the brighter side, the Plasma 5.21.1 release brings some nice enhancements in other areas.
  • I m now able to make use of tighter integration with systemd/cgroups, with better organization and management of processes overall.
  • The new Plasma theme, Breeze Twilight, is a good blend of Light + Dark.
I also appreciate the work put in by Michail Vourlakos. The KDE project is lucky to have a developer/designer like him. His vision and work into the KDE desktop is well beyond a writing by me. 
$ usystemctl status plasma-plasmashell.service 
  plasma-plasmashell.service - KDE Plasma Workspace
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/plasma-plasmashell.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Fri 2021-02-26 18:34:23 IST; 13s ago
   Main PID: 501806 (plasmashell)
      Tasks: 21 (limit: 18821)
     Memory: 759.8M
        CPU: 13.706s
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/plasma-plasmashell.service
              501806 /usr/bin/plasmashell --no-respawn
             
Feb 26 18:35:00 priyasi plasmashell[501806]: qml: recreating buttons
Feb 26 18:35:21 priyasi plasmashell[501806]: qml: recreating buttons
Feb 26 18:35:49 priyasi plasmashell[501806]: qml: recreating buttons
Feb 26 18:35:57 priyasi plasmashell[501806]: qml: recreating buttons
18:36

OBS - Open Build Service I should also thank the OpenSUSE folks for the OBS work. It has enabled the close equivalent (or better, in my experience) of PPAs for Debian. And that is what has enabled developers like Norbert to easily and quickly be able to deliver the entire KDE suite.

OBS - Some detail Christian asked for some more details on the OBS side of things, of my view. I m updating this article with it because the comment system may not always be reliable and I hate losing content. Having been using OBS myself, and also others in the Debian community who are making use of it, I surely think we as project should consider making use of OBS. Given that OBS is Free Software, it is a perfect fit for Debian. Gitlab is another example of what we ve made available in Debian. OBS is divided into multiple parts
  • OBS Server
  • OBS DoD service
  • OBS Publisher
  • OBS Workers
  • OBS Warden
  • OBS Rep Server
For every Debian release I care about, I add an OBS project per release. So I have OBS projects for: Sid, Bullseye, Buster, Jessie. Now, say you have a package, foo . You prep your package and enable all the releases that you want to build the package for. So the same package gets built, in separate clean environments, for every release I mentioned as an example above. You don t have to manually trigger the build for every release/every architcture. You should add the release (as projects) in OBS, set their supported architectures, and then add those enabled release projets as bits to your package. Every build involves:
  • Creating a new chroot for each build
  • Building the package
Builds can be scattered across multiple hosts, known as workers in OBS terminology. Your workers are independent machine entities, supporting different architectures. The machines can be Bare-Metal ones, VMs, even containers. So this allows for very nice scale-in and scale-out. There may be auto-scaling too but that is something worth investigating. Think of things like cross architecture builds. Let s assume the cloud vendors decide to donate resources to the Debian project. We could enable OBS worker instances on the respective clouds (different architectures) and plug them into the master OBS instance that Debian hosts. Fully distributed. Similarly, big hardware vendors willing to donate compute resources could house them in their premises and Debian could just easily establish a connection to them. All of this just a TCP connection away. So when I look at the features of OBS, from the point of view of Debian, I like it more. Extensibility won t be an issue. Supporting a new Debian release would just be a matter of bootstrapping the Debian release as a project in OBS, and then all done. The single effort of setting of the target release project is a one time job, and then all can leverage it. The PPA was a long craved feature missing in Debian, in my opinion. OBS allows to not just fulfil that gap but also extend it in a very easy way. Andrew Lee had put in a nice video presentation about the same @ Debconf 20

22 February 2021

John Goerzen: Recovering Our Lost Free Will Online: Tools and Techniques That Are Available Now

As I ve been thinking and writing about privacy and decentralization lately, I had a conversation with a colleague this week, and he commented about how loss of privacy is related to loss of agency: that is, loss of our ability to make our own choices, pursue our own interests, and be master of our own attention. In terms of telecommunications, we have never really been free, though in terms of Internet and its predecessors, there have been times where we had a lot more choice. Many are too young to remember this, and for others, that era is a distant memory. The irony is that our present moment is one of enormous consolidation of power, and yet also one of a proliferation of technologies that let us wrest back some of that power. In this post, I hope to enlighten or remind us of some of the choices we have lost and also talk about the ways in which we can choose to regain them, already, right now. I will talk about the possibilities, the big dreams that are possible now, and then go into more detail about the solutions. The Problems & Possibilities The limitations of online We make the assumption that we must be online to exchange data. This is reinforced by many modern protocols; Twitter clients, for instance, don t tend to let you make posts by relaying them through disconnected devices. What would it be like if you could fully participate in global communities without a constant Internet connection? If you could share photos with your friends, read the news, read your email, etc. even if you don t have a connection at present? Even if the device you use to do that never has a connection, but can route messages via other devices that do? Would it surprise you to learn that this was once the case? Back in the days of UUCP, much email and Usenet news a global discussion forum that didn t require an Internet connection was relayed via occasional calls over phone lines. This technology remains with us, and has even improved. Sadly, many modern protocols make no effort in this regard. Some email clients will let you compose messages offline to send when you get online later, but the assumption always is that you will be connected to an IP network again soon. NNCP, on the other hand, lets you relay messages over TCP, a radio, a satellite, or a USB stick. Email and Usenet, since they were designed in an era where store-and-forward was valued, can actually still be used in an entirely offline fashion (without ever touching an IP-based network). All it takes is for someone to care to make it happen. You can even still do it over UUCP if you like. The physical and data link layers Many of us just accept that we communicate in a few ways: Wifi for short distances, and then cable modems or DSL for our local Internet connection, and then many people are fuzzy about what happens after that. Or, alternatively, we have 4G phones that are the local Internet connection, and the same fuzzy things happen after. Think about this for a moment. Which of these do you control in any way? Sometimes just wifi, sometimes maybe you have choices of local Internet providers. After that, your traffic is handled by enormous infrastructure companies. There is choice here. People in ham radio have been communicating digitally over long distances without the support of the traditional Internet for decades, but the technology to do this is now more accessible to anyone. Long-distance radio has had tremendous innovation in the last decade; cheap radios can now communicate over several miles/km without any other infrastructure at all. We all carry around radios (Wifi and Bluetooth) in our pockets that don t have to be used as mere access points to the Internet or as drivers of headphones, but can also form their own networks directly (Briar). Meshtastic is an example; it s an instant messenger that can form a mesh over many miles/km and requires no IP infrastructure at all. Briar is similar. XBee radios form a mesh in hardware, allowing peers to reach each other (also over many miles/km) with a serial or framed protocol. Loss of peer-to-peer Back in the late 90s, I worked at a university. I had a 386 on my desk for a workstation not a powerful computer even then. But I put the boa webserver on it and could just serve pages on the Internet. I didn t have to get permission. Didn t have to pay a hosting provider. I could just DO it. And of course that is because the university had no firewall and no NAT. Every PC at the university was a full participant on the Internet as much as the servers at Microsoft or DEC. All I needed was a DNS entry. I could run my own SMTP server if I wanted, run a web or Gopher server, and that was that. There are many reasons why this changed. Nowadays most residential ISPs will block SMTP for their customers, and if they didn t, others would; large email providers have decided not to federate with IPs in residential address spaces. Most people have difficulty even getting a static IP address in the first place. Many are behind firewalls, NATs, or both, meaning that incoming connections of any kind are problematic. Do you see what that means? It has weakened the whole point of the Internet being a network of peers. While IP still acts that way, as a practical matter, there are clients that are prevented from being servers by administrative policy they have no control over. Imagine if you, a person with an Internet connection to your laptop or phone, could just decide to host a website, or a forum on it. For moderate levels of load, they are certainly capable of this. The only thing in the way is the network management policies you can t control. Elaborate technologies exist to try to bridge this divide, and some, like Tor or cjdns, can work quite well. More on this below. Expense of running something popular Related to the loss of peer-to-peer infrastructure is the very high cost of hosting something popular. Do you want to share videos with lots of people? That almost certainly is going to require expensive equipment and bandwidth. There is a reason that there are only a small handful of popular video streaming sites online. It requires a ton of money to host videos at scale. What if it didn t? What if you could achieve economies of scale so much that you, an individual, could compete with the likes of YouTube? You wouldn t necessarily have to run ads to support the service. You wouldn t have to have billions of dollars or billions of viewers just to make it work. This technology exists right now. Of course many of you are aware of how Bittorrent leverages the swarm for files. But projects like IPFS, Dat, and Peertube have taken this many steps further to integrate it into a global ecosystem. And, at least in the case of Peertube, this is a thing that works right now in any browser already! Application-level walled gardens I was recently startled at how much excitement there was when Github introduced dark mode . Yes, Github now offers two colors on its interface. Already back in the 80s and 90s, many DOS programs had more options than that. Git is a decentralized protocol, but Github has managed to make it centralized. Email is a decentralized protocol pick your own provider, and they all communicate but Facebook and Twitter aren t. You can t just pick your provider for Facebook. It s Facebook or nothing. There is a profit motive in locking others out; these networks want to keep you using their platforms because their real customers are advertisers, and they want to keep showing you ads. Is it possible to have a world where you get to pick your own app for sharing photos, and it works even if your parents use a different one? Yes, yes it is. Mastodon and the Fediverse are fantastic examples for social media. Pixelfed is specifically designed for photos, Mastodon for short-form communication, there s Pleroma for more long-form communication, and they all work together. You can use Mastodon to read Pleroma content or look at Pixelfed photos, and there are many (free) providers of each. Freedom from manipulation I recently wrote about the dangers of the attention economy, so I won t go into a lot of detail here. Fundamentally, you are not the customer of Facebook or Google; advertisers are. They optimize their site to keep you on it as much as possible so that they can show you as many ads as possible which makes them as much money as possible. Ads, of course, are fundamentally seeking to manipulate your behavior ( buy this product ). By lowering the cost of running services, we can give a huge boost to hobbyists and nonprofits that want to do so without an ultimate profit motive. For-profit companies benefit also, with a dramatically reduced cost structure that frees them to pursue their mission instead of so many ads. Freedom from snooping (privacy and anonymity) These days, it s not just government snooping that people think about. It s data stolen by malware, spies at corporations (whether human or algorithmic), and even things like basic privacy of one s own security footage. Here the picture is improving; encryption in transit, at least at a basic level, has become much more common with TLS being a standard these days. Sadly, end-to-end encryption (E2EE) is not nearly as much, perhaps because corporations have a profit motive to have access to your plaintext and metadata. Closely related to privacy is anonymity: that is, being able to do things in an anonymous fashion. The two are not necessarily equal: you could send an encrypted message but reveal who the correspondents are, as with email; or, you could send a plaintext message over a Tor exit node that hides who the correspondents are. It is sometimes difficult to achieve both. Nevertheless, numerous answers exist here that tackle one or both problems, from the Signal messenger to Tor. Solutions That Exist Today Let s dive in to some of the things that exist today. One concept you ll see in many of these is integrated encryption with public keys used for addressing. In other words, your public key is akin to an IP address (and in some cases, is literally your IP address.) Data link and networking technologies (some including P2P) P2P Infrastructure While some of the technologies above, such as cjdns, explicitly facitilitate peer-to-peer communication, there are some other application-level technologies to look at. Instant Messengers and Chat I won t go into a lot of detail here since I recently wrote a roundup of secure mesh messengers and also a followup article about Signal and some hidden drawbacks of P2P. Please refer to those articles for some interesting things that are happening in this space. Matrix is a distributed IM platform similar in concept to Slack or IRC, but globally distributed in a mesh. It supports optional E2EE. Social Media I wrote recently about how to join the Fediverse, which covered joining Mastodon, a federeated, decentralized social network. Mastodon is the largest of these, with several million users, and is something of a much nicer version of Twitter. Mastodon is also part of what is known as the Fediverse , which are applications that are loosely joined together by their support of the ActivityPub protocol. Other popular Fediverse applications include Pixelfed (similar to Instagram) and Peertube for sharing video. Peertube is particularly interesting in that it supports Webtorrent for efficiently distributing popular videos. Webtorrent is akin to Bittorrent running efficiently inside your browser. Concluding Remarks Part of my goal with this is encouraging people to dream big, to ask questions like: What could you do if offline were easy? What is possible if you have freedom in the physical and data link layers? Dream big. We re so used to thinking that it s quite difficult for two devices on the Internet to talk to each other. What would be possible if this were actually quite easy? The assumption that costs rise dramatically as popularity increases is also baked into our thought processes. What if that weren t the case could you take on Youtube from your garage? Would lowering barriers to entry lower the ad economy and let nonprofits have more equal footing with large corporations? We have so many walled gardens, from Github to Facebook, that we almost forget it doesn t have to be that way. So having asked these questions, my secondary point is to suggest that these aren t pie-in-the-sky notions. These possibilites are with us right now. You ll notice from this list that virtually every one of these technologies is ad-free at its heart (though some would be capable of serving ads). They give you back your attention. Many preserve privacy, anonymity, or both. Many dramatically improve your freedom of association and communication. Technologies like IPFS and Bittorrent ease the burden of running something popular. Some are quite easy to use (Mastodon or Peertube) while others are much more complex (libp2p or the lower-level mesh network systems). Clearly there is still room for improvement in many areas. But my fundamental point is this: good technology is here, right now. Technical people can vote with their feet and wallets and start using it. Early adopters will help guide the way for the next set of improvements. Join us!

Russ Allbery: Review: Finder

Review: Finder, by Suzanne Palmer
Series: Finder Chronicles #1
Publisher: DAW Books
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 0-7564-1511-X
Format: Kindle
Pages: 391
Fergus Ferguson is a repo man, or professional finder as he'd prefer. He locates things taken by people who don't own them and returns them to their owners. In this case, the thing in question is a sentient starship, and the person who stole it is Arum Gilger, a warlord in a wired-together agglomeration of space habitats and mined-out asteroids named Cernekan. Cernee, as the locals call it, is in the backwaters of human space near the Gap between the spiral arms of the galaxy. One of Fergus's first encounters in Cernee is with an old lichen farmer named Mattie Vahn who happens to take the same cable car between stations that he does. Bad luck for Fergus, since that's also why Gilger's men first disable and then blow up the cable car, leaving Mattie dead and Fergus using the auto-return feature of Mattie's crates to escape to the Vahns' home station. The Vahns are not a power in Cernee, not exactly, but they do have some important alliances and provide an inroads for Fergus to get the lay of the land and map out a plan to recover the Venetia's Sword. This is a great hook. I would happily read a whole series about an interstellar repo man, particularly one like Fergus who only works for the good guys and recovers things from petty warlords. Fergus is a thoughtful, creative loner whose style is improvised plans, unexpected tactics, and thinking on his feet rather than either bluster or force (although there is a fair bit of death in this book, some of which is gruesome). About two-thirds of the book is in roughly that expected shape. Fergus makes some local contacts, maps out the political terrain, and maneuvers himself towards his target through a well-crafted slum of wired-together habitats and working-class miners. Also, full points for the creative security system on the starship that tries to solve a nearly impossible problem (a backdoor supplementing pre-shared keys with a cultural authentication scheme that can't be vulnerable to brute force or database searches). Halfway through, though, Palmer throws a curve ball at the reader that involves the unexplained alien presence that's been lurking around the system. That part of the plot shifts focus somewhat abruptly from the local power struggle Fergus has been navigating to something far more intrusive and personal. Fergus has to both reckon with a drastic change in his life and deal with memories of his early life on an Earth drowning in climate change, his abusive childhood, and his time spent in the Martian resistance. This is also a fine topic for an SF novel, but I think Finder suffered a bit from falling between two stools. The fun competence drama of the lone repossession agent striking back against petty tyrants by taking away their toys is derailed by the sudden burst of introspection and emotional processing, but the processing is not deep or complex enough to carry the story on its own. Fergus had an awful and emotionally alienated childhood followed by some nasty trauma, to which he has responded by carefully never getting close to anyone so that he never hurts anyone who relies on him. And yet, he's a fundamentally decent person and makes friends despite himself, and from there you can probably write the rest of the arc yourself. There's nothing wrong with this as the emotional substrate of a book that's primarily focused on an action plot, but the screeching change of focus threw me off. The good news is that the end of the book returns to the bits that I liked about the first half. The mixed news is that I thought the political situation in Cernee resolved much too easily and much too straightforwardly. I would have preferred the twisty alliances to stay twisty, rather than collapse messily into a far simpler moral duality. I will also speak on behalf of all the sentient starship lovers out there and complain that the Venetia's Sword was woefully underused. It had better show up in a future volume! This unsteadiness and a few missed opportunities make Finder a good book rather than a great one, but I was still happily entertained and willing to write that off as first-novel unevenness. There are a lot of background elements left unresolved for a future volume, but Finder comes to a satisfying conclusion. Recommended if you're looking for an undemanding space action story with a quick pace and decent, if not very deep, characters. Followed by Driving the Deep. Rating: 7 out of 10

21 February 2021

Erich Schubert: My first Rust crate: faster kmedoids clustering

I have written my first Rust crate: kmedoids. Python users can use the wrapper package kmedoids. It implements k-medoids clustering, and includes our new FasterPAM algorithm that drastically reduces the computational overhead. As long as you can afford to compute the distance matrix of your data set, clustering it with k-medoids is now feasible even for large k. (If your data is continuous and you are interested in minimizing squared errors, k-means surely remains the better choice!) My take on Rust so far: Will I use it more? I don t know. Probably if I need extreme performance, but I likely would not want to do everything my self in a pedantic language. So community is key, and I do not see Rust shine there.

Enrico Zini: Software development links

Next time we'll iterate on Himblick design and development, Raspberry Pi 4 can now run plain standard Debian, which should make a lot of things easier and cleaner when developing products based on it. Somewhat related to nspawn-runner, random links somehow related to my feeling that nspawn comes from an ecosystem which gives me a bigger sense of focus on security and solidity than Docker: I did a lot of work on A38, a Python library to deal with FatturaPA electronic invoicing, and it was a wonderful surprise to see a positive review spontaneously appear! : Fattura elettronica, come visualizzarla con python TuttoLogico A beautiful, hands-on explanation of git internals, as a step by step guide to reimplementing your own git: Git Internals - Learn by Building Your Own Git I recently tried meson and liked it a lot. I then gave unity builds a try, since it supports them out of the box, and found myself with doubts. I found I wasn't alone, and I liked The Evils of Unity Builds as a summary of the situation. A point of view I liked on technological debt: Technical debt as a lack of understanding Finally, a classic, and a masterful explanation for a question that keeps popping up: RegEx match open tags except XHTML self-contained tags

Matthew Garrett: Making hibernation work under Linux Lockdown

Linux draws a distinction between code running in kernel (kernel space) and applications running in userland (user space). This is enforced at the hardware level - in x86-speak[1], kernel space code runs in ring 0 and user space code runs in ring 3[2]. If you're running in ring 3 and you attempt to touch memory that's only accessible in ring 0, the hardware will raise a fault. No matter how privileged your ring 3 code, you don't get to touch ring 0.

Kind of. In theory. Traditionally this wasn't well enforced. At the most basic level, since root can load kernel modules, you could just build a kernel module that performed any kernel modifications you wanted and then have root load it. Technically user space code wasn't modifying kernel space code, but the difference was pretty semantic rather than useful. But it got worse - root could also map memory ranges belonging to PCI devices[3], and if the device could perform DMA you could just ask the device to overwrite bits of the kernel[4]. Or root could modify special CPU registers ("Model Specific Registers", or MSRs) that alter CPU behaviour via the /dev/msr interface, and compromise the kernel boundary that way.

It turns out that there were a number of ways root was effectively equivalent to ring 0, and the boundary was more about reliability (ie, a process running as root that ends up misbehaving should still only be able to crash itself rather than taking down the kernel with it) than security. After all, if you were root you could just replace the on-disk kernel with a backdoored one and reboot. Going deeper, you could replace the bootloader with one that automatically injected backdoors into a legitimate kernel image. We didn't have any way to prevent this sort of thing, so attempting to harden the root/kernel boundary wasn't especially interesting.

In 2012 Microsoft started requiring vendors ship systems with UEFI Secure Boot, a firmware feature that allowed[5] systems to refuse to boot anything without an appropriate signature. This not only enabled the creation of a system that drew a strong boundary between root and kernel, it arguably required one - what's the point of restricting what the firmware will stick in ring 0 if root can just throw more code in there afterwards? What ended up as the Lockdown Linux Security Module provides the tooling for this, blocking userspace interfaces that can be used to modify the kernel and enforcing that any modules have a trusted signature.

But that comes at something of a cost. Most of the features that Lockdown blocks are fairly niche, so the direct impact of having it enabled is small. Except that it also blocks hibernation[6], and it turns out some people were using that. The obvious question is "what does hibernation have to do with keeping root out of kernel space", and the answer is a little convoluted and is tied into how Linux implements hibernation. Basically, Linux saves system state into the swap partition and modifies the header to indicate that there's a hibernation image there instead of swap. On the next boot, the kernel sees the header indicating that it's a hibernation image, copies the contents of the swap partition back into RAM, and then jumps back into the old kernel code. What ensures that the hibernation image was actually written out by the kernel? Absolutely nothing, which means a motivated attacker with root access could turn off swap, write a hibernation image to the swap partition themselves, and then reboot. The kernel would happily resume into the attacker's image, giving the attacker control over what gets copied back into kernel space.

This is annoying, because normally when we think about attacks on swap we mitigate it by requiring an encrypted swap partition. But in this case, our attacker is root, and so already has access to the plaintext version of the swap partition. Disk encryption doesn't save us here. We need some way to verify that the hibernation image was written out by the kernel, not by root. And thankfully we have some tools for that.

Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) are cryptographic coprocessors[7] capable of doing things like generating encryption keys and then encrypting things with them. You can ask a TPM to encrypt something with a key that's tied to that specific TPM - the OS has no access to the decryption key, and nor does any other TPM. So we can have the kernel generate an encryption key, encrypt part of the hibernation image with it, and then have the TPM encrypt it. We store the encrypted copy of the key in the hibernation image as well. On resume, the kernel reads the encrypted copy of the key, passes it to the TPM, gets the decrypted copy back and is able to verify the hibernation image.

That's great! Except root can do exactly the same thing. This tells us the hibernation image was generated on this machine, but doesn't tell us that it was done by the kernel. We need some way to be able to differentiate between keys that were generated in kernel and ones that were generated in userland. TPMs have the concept of "localities" (effectively privilege levels) that would be perfect for this. Userland is only able to access locality 0, so the kernel could simply use locality 1 to encrypt the key. Unfortunately, despite trying pretty hard, I've been unable to get localities to work. The motherboard chipset on my test machines simply doesn't forward any accesses to the TPM unless they're for locality 0. I needed another approach.

TPMs have a set of Platform Configuration Registers (PCRs), intended for keeping a record of system state. The OS isn't able to modify the PCRs directly. Instead, the OS provides a cryptographic hash of some material to the TPM. The TPM takes the existing PCR value, appends the new hash to that, and then stores the hash of the combination in the PCR - a process called "extension". This means that the new value of the TPM depends not only on the value of the new data, it depends on the previous value of the PCR - and, in turn, that previous value depended on its previous value, and so on. The only way to get to a specific PCR value is to either (a) break the hash algorithm, or (b) perform exactly the same sequence of writes. On system reset the PCRs go back to a known value, and the entire process starts again.

Some PCRs are different. PCR 23, for example, can be reset back to its original value without resetting the system. We can make use of that. The first thing we need to do is to prevent userland from being able to reset or extend PCR 23 itself. All TPM accesses go through the kernel, so this is a simple matter of parsing the write before it's sent to the TPM and returning an error if it's a sensitive command that would touch PCR 23. We now know that any change in PCR 23's state will be restricted to the kernel.

When we encrypt material with the TPM, we can ask it to record the PCR state. This is given back to us as metadata accompanying the encrypted secret. Along with the metadata is an additional signature created by the TPM, which can be used to prove that the metadata is both legitimate and associated with this specific encrypted data. In our case, that means we know what the value of PCR 23 was when we encrypted the key. That means that if we simply extend PCR 23 with a known value in-kernel before encrypting our key, we can look at the value of PCR 23 in the metadata. If it matches, the key was encrypted by the kernel - userland can create its own key, but it has no way to extend PCR 23 to the appropriate value first. We now know that the key was generated by the kernel.

But what if the attacker is able to gain access to the encrypted key? Let's say a kernel bug is hit that prevents hibernation from resuming, and you boot back up without wiping the hibernation image. Root can then read the key from the partition, ask the TPM to decrypt it, and then use that to create a new hibernation image. We probably want to prevent that as well. Fortunately, when you ask the TPM to encrypt something, you can ask that the TPM only decrypt it if the PCRs have specific values. "Sealing" material to the TPM in this way allows you to block decryption if the system isn't in the desired state. So, we define a policy that says that PCR 23 must have the same value at resume as it did on hibernation. On resume, the kernel resets PCR 23, extends it to the same value it did during hibernation, and then attempts to decrypt the key. Afterwards, it resets PCR 23 back to the initial value. Even if an attacker gains access to the encrypted copy of the key, the TPM will refuse to decrypt it.

And that's what this patchset implements. There's one fairly significant flaw at the moment, which is simply that an attacker can just reboot into an older kernel that doesn't implement the PCR 23 blocking and set up state by hand. Fortunately, this can be avoided using another aspect of the boot process. When you boot something via UEFI Secure Boot, the signing key used to verify the booted code is measured into PCR 7 by the system firmware. In the Linux world, the Shim bootloader then measures any additional keys that are used. By either using a new key to tag kernels that have support for the PCR 23 restrictions, or by embedding some additional metadata in the kernel that indicates the presence of this feature and measuring that, we can have a PCR 7 value that verifies that the PCR 23 restrictions are present. We then seal the key to PCR 7 as well as PCR 23, and if an attacker boots into a kernel that doesn't have this feature the PCR 7 value will be different and the TPM will refuse to decrypt the secret.

While there's a whole bunch of complexity here, the process should be entirely transparent to the user. The current implementation requires a TPM 2, and I'm not certain whether TPM 1.2 provides all the features necessary to do this properly - if so, extending it shouldn't be hard, but also all systems shipped in the past few years should have a TPM 2, so that's going to depend on whether there's sufficient interest to justify the work. And we're also at the early days of review, so there's always the risk that I've missed something obvious and there are terrible holes in this. And, well, given that it took almost 8 years to get the Lockdown patchset into mainline, let's not assume that I'm good at landing security code.

[1] Other architectures use different terminology here, such as "supervisor" and "user" mode, but it's broadly equivalent
[2] In theory rings 1 and 2 would allow you to run drivers with privileges somewhere between full kernel access and userland applications, but in reality we just don't talk about them in polite company
[3] This is how graphics worked in Linux before kernel modesetting turned up. XFree86 would just map your GPU's registers into userland and poke them directly. This was not a huge win for stability
[4] IOMMUs can help you here, by restricting the memory PCI devices can DMA to or from. The kernel then gets to allocate ranges for device buffers and configure the IOMMU such that the device can't DMA to anything else. Except that region of memory may still contain sensitive material such as function pointers, and attacks like this can still cause you problems as a result.
[5] This describes why I'm using "allowed" rather than "required" here
[6] Saving the system state to disk and powering down the platform entirely - significantly slower than suspending the system while keeping state in RAM, but also resilient against the system losing power.
[7] With some handwaving around "coprocessor". TPMs can't be part of the OS or the system firmware, but they don't technically need to be an independent component. Intel have a TPM implementation that runs on the Management Engine, a separate processor built into the motherboard chipset. AMD have one that runs on the Platform Security Processor, a small ARM core built into their CPU. Various ARM implementations run a TPM in Trustzone, a special CPU mode that (in theory) is able to access resources that are entirely blocked off from anything running in the OS, kernel or otherwise.

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Louis-Philippe V ronneau: dput-ng or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Hooks

As my contributions to Debian continue to grow in number, I find myself uploading to the archive more and more often. Although I'm pretty happy with my current sbuild-based workflow, twice in the past few weeks I inadvertently made a binary upload instead of a source-only one.1 As it turns out, I am not the only DD who has had this problem before. As Nicolas Dandrimont kindly pointed to me, dput-ng supports pre and post upload hooks that can be used to lint your uploads. Even better, it also ships with a check-debs hook that lets you block binary uploads. Pretty neat, right? In a perfect world, enabling the hook would only be a matter of adding it in the hook list of /etc/dput.d/metas/debian.json and using the following defaults: 
"check-debs":  
    "enforce": "source",
    "skip": false
 ,
Sadly, bug #983160 currently makes this whole setup more complex than it should be and forces me to use two different dput-ng profiles pointing to two different files in /etc/dput.d/metas: a default source-only one (ftp-master) and a binary upload one (ftp-master-binary). Otherwise, one could use a single profile that disallows binary uploads and when needed, override the hook using something like this: 
$ dput --override "check-debs.enforce=debs" foo_1.0.0-1_amd64.changes
I did start debugging the --override issue in dput-ng, but I'm not sure I'll have time to submit a patch anytime soon. In the meantime, I'm happy to report I shouldn't be uploading the wrong .changes file by mistake again!
  1. Thanks to Holger Levsen and Adrian Bunk for catching those and notifying me.

Russ Allbery: Review: The Fated Sky

Review: The Fated Sky, by Mary Robinette Kowal
Series: Lady Astronaut #2
Publisher: Tor
Copyright: August 2018
ISBN: 0-7653-9893-1
Format: Kindle
Pages: 380
The Fated Sky is a sequel to The Calculating Stars, but you could start with this book if you wanted to. It would be obvious you'd missed a previous book in the series, and some of the relationships would begin in medias res, but the story is sufficiently self-contained that one could puzzle through. Mild spoilers follow for The Calculating Stars, although only to the extent of confirming that book didn't take an unexpected turn, and nothing that wouldn't already be spoiled if you had read the short story "The Lady Astronaut of Mars" that kicked this series off. (The short story takes place well after all of the books.) Also some minor spoilers for the first section of the book, since I have to talk about its outcome in broad strokes in order to describe the primary shape of the novel. In the aftermath of worsening weather conditions caused by the Meteor, humans have established a permanent base on the Moon and are preparing a mission to Mars. Elma is not involved in the latter at the start of the book; she's working as a shuttle pilot on the Moon, rotating periodically back to Earth. But the political situation on Earth is becoming more tense as the refugee crisis escalates and the weather worsens, and the Mars mission is in danger of having its funding pulled in favor of other priorities. Elma's success in public outreach for the space program as the Lady Astronaut, enhanced by her navigation of a hostage situation when an Earth re-entry goes off course and is met by armed terrorists, may be the political edge supporters of the mission need. The first part of this book is the hostage situation and other ground-side politics, but the meat of this story is the tense drama of experimental, pre-computer space flight. For those who aren't familiar with the previous book, this series is an alternate history in which a huge meteorite hit the Atlantic seaboard in 1952, potentially setting off runaway global warming and accelerating the space program by more than a decade. The Calculating Stars was primarily about the politics surrounding the space program. In The Fated Sky, we see far more of the technical details: the triumphs, the planning, and the accidents and other emergencies that each could be fatal in an experimental spaceship headed towards Mars. If what you were missing from the first book was more technological challenge and realistic detail, The Fated Sky delivers. It's edge-of-your-seat suspenseful and almost impossible to put down. I have more complicated feelings about the secondary plot. In The Calculating Stars, the heart of the book was an incredibly well-told story of Elma learning to deal with her social anxiety. That's still a theme here but a lesser one; Elma has better coping mechanisms now. What The Fated Sky tackles instead is pervasive sexism and racism, and how Elma navigates that (not always well) as a white Jewish woman. The centrality of sexism is about the same in both books. Elma's public outreach is tied closely to her gender and starts as a sort of publicity stunt. The space program remains incredibly sexist in The Fated Stars, something that Elma has to cope with but can't truly fix. If you found the sexism in the first book irritating, you're likely to feel the same about this installment. Racism is more central this time, though. In The Calculating Stars, Elma was able to help make things somewhat better for Black colleagues. She has a much different experience in The Fated Stars: she ends up in a privileged position that hurts her non-white colleagues, including one of her best friends. The merits of taking a stand on principle are ambiguous, and she chooses not to. When she later tries to help Black astronauts, she does so in a way that's focused on her perceptions rather than theirs and is therefore more irritating than helpful. The opportunities she gets, in large part because she's seen as white, unfairly hurt other people, and she has to sit with that. It's a thoughtful and uncomfortable look at how difficult it is for a white person to live with discomfort they can't fix and to not make it worse by trying to wave it away or point out their own problems. That was the positive side of this plot, although I'm still a bit wary and would like to read a review by a Black reviewer to see how well this plot works from their perspective. There are some other choices that I thought landed oddly. One is that the most racist crew member, the one who sparks the most direct conflict with the Black members of the international crew, is a white man from South Africa, which I thought let the United States off the hook too much and externalized the racism a bit too neatly. Another is that the three ships of the expedition are the Ni a, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, and no one in the book comments on this. Given the thoughtful racial themes of the book, I can't imagine this is an accident, and it is in character for United States of this novel to pick those names, but it was an odd intrusion of an unremarked colonial symbol. This may be part of Kowal's attempt to show that Elma is embedded in a racist and sexist world, has limited room to maneuver, and can't solve most of the problems, which is certainly a theme of the series. But it left me unsettled on whether this book was up to fully handling the fraught themes Kowal is invoking. The other part of the book I found a bit frustrating is that it never seriously engaged with the political argument against Mars colonization, instead treating most of the opponents of space travel as either deluded conspiracy believers or cynical villains. Science fiction is still arguing with William Proxmire even though he's been dead for fifteen years and out of office for thirty. The strong argument against a Mars colony in Elma's world is not funding priorities; it's that even if it's successful, only a tiny fraction of well-connected elites will escape the planet to Mars. This argument is made in the book and Elma dismisses it as a risk she's trying to prevent, but it is correct. There is no conceivable technological future that leads to evacuating the Earth to Mars, but The Fated Sky declines to grapple with the implications of that fact. There's more that I haven't remarked on, including an ongoing excellent portrayal of the complicated and loving relationship between Elma and her husband, and a surprising development in her antagonistic semi-friendship with the sexist test pilot who becomes the mission captain. I liked how Kowal balanced technical problems with social problems on the long Mars flight; both are serious concerns and they interact with each other in complicated ways. The details of the perils and joys of manned space flight are excellent, at least so far as I can tell without having done the research that Kowal did. If you want a fictionalized Apollo 13 with higher stakes and less ground support, look no further; this is engrossing stuff. The interpersonal politics and sociology were also fascinating and gripping, but unsettling, in both good ways and bad. I like the challenge that Kowal presents to a white reader, although I'm not sure she was completely in control of it. Cautiously recommended, although be aware that you'll need to grapple with a sexist and racist society while reading it. Also a content note for somewhat graphic gastrointestinal problems. Followed by The Relentless Moon. Rating: 8 out of 10

19 February 2021

Jonathan Dowland: Wrist Watches

red strap red strap
This is everything I have to say about watches (or time pieces, or chronometers, if you prefer: I don't). I've always worn a watch, and still do; but I've never really understood the appeal of the kind of luxury watches you see advertise here there and everywhere, with their chunky cases, over-complicated faces and enormous price-tags. So the world of watch-appreciation was closed to me, until my 30th birthday (a while ago) when my wife bought me a Mondaine Evo "Big Date" quartz watch. It's not an analogue watch nor an "heirloom timepiece", neither of which are properties that matter to me. The large face has almost nothing extraneous on it, although my model includes day-of-the-month. I like it very much. And so I cracked open the door a little onto the world of watches and watch fashion and had a short spell of interest in some other styles, types, and the like. This drew to a close with buying a selection of cheap, coloured nylon fabric "nato"-style straps. Now whenever I feel the itch for a change, I just change the strap. Smart Watches have never appealed to me. I can see some of their advantages, but the last thing I need is another gadget to regularly charge, or another avenue to check my email. I appreciate that wearing a wrist watch at all is anachronistic (sorry), and I did wonder whether it's a habit I could get out of. A few weeks ago, during our endless Lockdown, my watch battery ran out, so I spent a couple of weeks un-learning my reliance on a wristwatch to orient myself. I've managed to get it replaced now (some watch repair places being considered Essential Services) and I'm comfortably back in my default mode of wearing and relying upon it.

18 February 2021

Jonathan McDowell: Hacking and Bricking the EE Opsrey 2 Mini

I ve mentioned in the past my twisted EE network setup from when I moved in to my current house. The 4GEE WiFi Mini (also known as the EE Osprey 2 Mini or the EE40VB, and actually a rebadged Alcatel Y853VB) has been sitting unused since then, so I figured I d see about trying to get a shell on it. TL;DR: Of course it s running Linux, there s a couple of test points internally which bring out the serial console, but after finding those and logging in I discovered it s running ADB on port 5555 quite happily available without authentication both via wifi and the USB port. So if you have physical or local network access, instant root shell. Well done, folks. And then I bricked it before I could do anything more interesting. There s a lack of information about this device out there - most of the links I can find are around removing the SIM lock - so I thought I d document the pieces I found just in case anyone else is trying to figure it out. It s based around a Qualcomm MDM9607 SoC, paired with 64M RAM and 256M NAND flash. Wifi is via an RTL8192ES. Kernel is 3.18.20. Busybox is v1.23.1. It s running dnsmasq but I didn t grab the version. Of course there s no source or offer of source provided. Taking it apart is fairly easy. There s a single screw to remove, just beside the SIM slot. The coloured rim can then be carefully pried away from the back, revealing the battery. There are then 4 screws in the corners which need removed in order to be able to lift out the actual PCB and gain access to the serial console test points. EE40VB PCB serial console test points My mistake was going poking around trying to figure out where the updates are downloaded from - I know I m running a slightly older release than what s current, and the device can do an automatic download + update. Top tip; don t run Jrdrecovery. It ll error on finding /cache/update.zip and wipe the main partition anyway. That ll leave you in a boot loop where the device boots the recovery partition which tries to install /cache/update.zip which of course still doesn t exist. So. Where next? First, I need to get the device into a state where I can actually do something other than watch it boot into recovery, fail to flash and reboot. Best guess at present is to try and get it to enter the Qualcomm EDL (Emergency Download) mode. That might be possible with a custom USB cable that grounds D+ on boot. Alternatively I need to probe some of the other test points on the PCB and see if grounding any of those helps enter EDL mode. I then need a suitable firehose OEM-signed programmer image. And then I need to actually get hold of a proper EE40VB firmware image, either via one of the OTA update files or possibly via an Alcatel ADSU image (though no idea how to get hold of one, other than by posting to a random GSM device forum and hoping for the kindness of strangers). More updates if/when I make progress
Qualcomm bootloader log 
Format: Log Type - Time(microsec) - Message - Optional Info
Log Type: B - Since Boot(Power On Reset),  D - Delta,  S - Statistic
S - QC_IMAGE_VERSION_STRING=BOOT.BF.3.1.2-00053
S - IMAGE_VARIANT_STRING=LAATANAZA
S - OEM_IMAGE_VERSION_STRING=linux3
S - Boot Config, 0x000002e1
B -    105194 - SBL1, Start
D -     61885 - QSEE Image Loaded, Delta - (451964 Bytes)
D -     30286 - RPM Image Loaded, Delta - (151152 Bytes)
B -    459330 - Roger:boot_jrd_oem_main
B -    461526 - Welcome to key_check_poweron!!!
B -    466436 - REG0x00, rc=47
B -    469120 - REG0x01, rc=1f
B -    472018 - REG0x02, rc=1c
B -    474885 - REG0x03, rc=47
B -    477782 - REG0x04, rc=b2
B -    480558 - REG0x05, rc=
B -    483272 - REG0x06, rc=9e
B -    486139 - REG0x07, rc=
B -    488854 - REG0x08, rc=a4
B -    491721 - REG0x09, rc=80
B -    494130 - bq24295_probe: vflt/vsys/vprechg=0mV/0mV/0mV, tprechg/tfastchg=0Min/0Min, [0C, 0C]
B -    511546 - come to calculate vol and temperature!!
B -    511637 - ##############battery_core_convert_vntc: NTC_voltage=1785690
B -    517280 - battery_core_convert_vntc: <-44C, 1785690uV>, present=0
B -    529358 - bq24295_set_current_limit: setting=0mA, mode=-1, input/fastchg/prechg/termchg=-1mA/0mA/0mA/0mA
B -    534360 - bq24295_set_charge_current, rc=0,reg_val=0,i=0
B -    539636 - bq24295_enable_charge: setting=0, chg_enable=-1, otg_enable=0
B -    546072 - bq24295_enable_charging: enable_charging=0
B -    552172 - bq24295_set_current_limit: setting=0mA, mode=-1, input/fastchg/prechg/termchg=-1mA/0mA/0mA/0mA
B -    561566 - bq24295_set_charge_current, rc=0,reg_val=0,i=0
B -    567056 - bq24295_enable_charge: setting=0, chg_enable=0, otg_enable=0
B -    579286 - come to calculate vol and temperature!!
B -    579378 - ##############battery_core_convert_vntc: NTC_voltage=1785777
B -    585539 - battery_core_convert_vntc: <-44C, 1785777uV>, present=0
B -    597617 - charge_main: battery is plugout!!
B -    597678 - Welcome to pca955x_probe!!!
B -    601063 - pca955x_probe: PCA955X probed successfully!
D -     27511 - APPSBL Image Loaded, Delta - (179348 Bytes)
B -    633271 - QSEE Execution, Start
D -       213 - QSEE Execution, Delta
B -    638944 - >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Start writting JRD RECOVERY BOOT
B -    650107 - >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Start writting  RECOVERY BOOT
B -    653218 - >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>read_buf[0] == 0
B -    659044 - SBL1, End
D -    556137 - SBL1, Delta
S - Throughput, 2000 KB/s  (782884 Bytes,  278155 us)
S - DDR Frequency, 240 MHz
littlekernel aboot log 
Android Bootloader - UART_DM Initialized!!!
[0] welcome to lk
[0] SCM call: 0x2000601 failed with :fffffffc
[0] Failed to initialize SCM
[10] platform_init()
[10] target_init()
[10] smem ptable found: ver: 4 len: 17
[10] ERROR: No devinfo partition found
[10] Neither 'config' nor 'frp' partition found
[30] voltage of NTC  is 1789872!
[30] voltage of BAT  is 3179553!
[30] usb present is 1!
[30] Loading (boot) image (4171776): start
[530] Loading (boot) image (4171776): done
[540] DTB Total entry: 25, DTB version: 3
[540] Using DTB entry 0x00000129/00010000/0x00000008/0 for device 0x00000129/00010000/0x00010008/0
[560] JRD_CHG_OFF_FEATURE!
[560] come to jrd_target_pause_for_battery_charge!
[570] power_on_status.hard_reset = 0x0
[570] power_on_status.smpl = 0x0
[570] power_on_status.rtc = 0x0
[580] power_on_status.dc_chg = 0x0
[580] power_on_status.usb_chg = 0x0
[580] power_on_status.pon1 = 0x1
[590] power_on_status.cblpwr = 0x0
[590] power_on_status.kpdpwr = 0x0
[590] power_on_status.bugflag = 0x0
[590] cmdline: noinitrd  rw console=ttyHSL0,115200,n8 androidboot.hardware=qcom ehci-hcd.park=3 msm_rtb.filter=0x37 lpm_levels.sleep_disabled=1  earlycon=msm_hsl_uart,0x78b3000  androidboot.serialno=7e6ba58c androidboot.baseband=msm rootfstype=ubifs rootflags=b
[620] Updating device tree: start
[720] Updating device tree: done
[720] booting linux @ 0x80008000, ramdisk @ 0x80008000 (0), tags/device tree @ 0x81e00000
Linux kernel console boot log 
[    0.000000] Booting Linux on physical CPU 0x0
[    0.000000] Linux version 3.18.20 (linux3@linux3) (gcc version 4.9.2 (GCC) ) #1 PREEMPT Thu Aug 10 11:57:07 CST 2017
[    0.000000] CPU: ARMv7 Processor [410fc075] revision 5 (ARMv7), cr=10c53c7d
[    0.000000] CPU: PIPT / VIPT nonaliasing data cache, VIPT aliasing instruction cache
[    0.000000] Machine model: Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. MDM 9607 MTP
[    0.000000] Early serial console at I/O port 0x0 (options '')
[    0.000000] bootconsole [uart0] enabled
[    0.000000] Reserved memory: reserved region for node 'modem_adsp_region@0': base 0x82a00000, size 56 MiB
[    0.000000] Reserved memory: reserved region for node 'external_image_region@0': base 0x87c00000, size 4 MiB
[    0.000000] Removed memory: created DMA memory pool at 0x82a00000, size 56 MiB
[    0.000000] Reserved memory: initialized node modem_adsp_region@0, compatible id removed-dma-pool
[    0.000000] Removed memory: created DMA memory pool at 0x87c00000, size 4 MiB
[    0.000000] Reserved memory: initialized node external_image_region@0, compatible id removed-dma-pool
[    0.000000] cma: Reserved 4 MiB at 0x87800000
[    0.000000] Memory policy: Data cache writeback
[    0.000000] CPU: All CPU(s) started in SVC mode.
[    0.000000] Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 17152
[    0.000000] Kernel command line: noinitrd  rw console=ttyHSL0,115200,n8 androidboot.hardware=qcom ehci-hcd.park=3 msm_rtb.filter=0x37 lpm_levels.sleep_disabled=1  earlycon=msm_hsl_uart,0x78b3000  androidboot.serialno=7e6ba58c androidboot.baseband=msm rootfstype=ubifs rootflags=bulk_read root=ubi0:rootfs ubi.mtd=16
[    0.000000] PID hash table entries: 512 (order: -1, 2048 bytes)
[    0.000000] Dentry cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
[    0.000000] Inode-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
[    0.000000] Memory: 54792K/69632K available (5830K kernel code, 399K rwdata, 2228K rodata, 276K init, 830K bss, 14840K reserved)
[    0.000000] Virtual kernel memory layout:
[    0.000000]     vector  : 0xffff0000 - 0xffff1000   (   4 kB)
[    0.000000]     fixmap  : 0xffc00000 - 0xfff00000   (3072 kB)
[    0.000000]     vmalloc : 0xc8800000 - 0xff000000   ( 872 MB)
[    0.000000]     lowmem  : 0xc0000000 - 0xc8000000   ( 128 MB)
[    0.000000]     modules : 0xbf000000 - 0xc0000000   (  16 MB)
[    0.000000]       .text : 0xc0008000 - 0xc07e6c38   (8060 kB)
[    0.000000]       .init : 0xc07e7000 - 0xc082c000   ( 276 kB)
[    0.000000]       .data : 0xc082c000 - 0xc088fdc0   ( 400 kB)
[    0.000000]        .bss : 0xc088fe84 - 0xc095f798   ( 831 kB)
[    0.000000] SLUB: HWalign=64, Order=0-3, MinObjects=0, CPUs=1, Nodes=1
[    0.000000] Preemptible hierarchical RCU implementation.
[    0.000000] NR_IRQS:16 nr_irqs:16 16
[    0.000000] GIC CPU mask not found - kernel will fail to boot.
[    0.000000] GIC CPU mask not found - kernel will fail to boot.
[    0.000000] mpm_init_irq_domain(): Cannot find irq controller for qcom,gpio-parent
[    0.000000] MPM 1 irq mapping errored -517
[    0.000000] Architected mmio timer(s) running at 19.20MHz (virt).
[    0.000011] sched_clock: 56 bits at 19MHz, resolution 52ns, wraps every 3579139424256ns
[    0.007975] Switching to timer-based delay loop, resolution 52ns
[    0.013969] Switched to clocksource arch_mem_counter
[    0.019687] Console: colour dummy device 80x30
[    0.023344] Calibrating delay loop (skipped), value calculated using timer frequency.. 38.40 BogoMIPS (lpj=192000)
[    0.033666] pid_max: default: 32768 minimum: 301
[    0.038411] Mount-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    0.044902] Mountpoint-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    0.052445] CPU: Testing write buffer coherency: ok
[    0.057057] Setting up static identity map for 0x8058aac8 - 0x8058ab20
[    0.064242]
[    0.064242] **********************************************************
[    0.071251] **   NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE   **
[    0.077817] **                                                      **
[    0.084302] ** trace_printk() being used. Allocating extra memory.  **
[    0.090781] **                                                      **
[    0.097320] ** This means that this is a DEBUG kernel and it is     **
[    0.103802] ** unsafe for produciton use.                           **
[    0.110339] **                                                      **
[    0.116850] ** If you see this message and you are not debugging    **
[    0.123333] ** the kernel, report this immediately to your vendor!  **
[    0.129870] **                                                      **
[    0.136380] **   NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE   **
[    0.142865] **********************************************************
[    0.150225] MSM Memory Dump base table set up
[    0.153739] MSM Memory Dump apps data table set up
[    0.168125] VFP support v0.3: implementor 41 architecture 2 part 30 variant 7 rev 5
[    0.176332] pinctrl core: initialized pinctrl subsystem
[    0.180930] regulator-dummy: no parameters
[    0.215338] NET: Registered protocol family 16
[    0.220475] DMA: preallocated 256 KiB pool for atomic coherent allocations
[    0.284034] cpuidle: using governor ladder
[    0.314026] cpuidle: using governor menu
[    0.344024] cpuidle: using governor qcom
[    0.355452] msm_watchdog b017000.qcom,wdt: wdog absent resource not present
[    0.361656] msm_watchdog b017000.qcom,wdt: MSM Watchdog Initialized
[    0.371373] irq: no irq domain found for /soc/pinctrl@1000000 !
[    0.381268] spmi_pmic_arb 200f000.qcom,spmi: PMIC Arb Version-2 0x20010000
[    0.389733] platform 4080000.qcom,mss: assigned reserved memory node modem_adsp_region@0
[    0.397409] mem_acc_corner: 0 <--> 0 mV
[    0.401937] hw-breakpoint: found 5 (+1 reserved) breakpoint and 4 watchpoint registers.
[    0.408966] hw-breakpoint: maximum watchpoint size is 8 bytes.
[    0.416287] __of_mpm_init(): MPM driver mapping exists
[    0.420940] msm_rpm_glink_dt_parse: qcom,rpm-glink compatible not matches
[    0.427235] msm_rpm_dev_probe: APSS-RPM communication over SMD
[    0.432977] smd_open() before smd_init()
[    0.437544] msm_mpm_dev_probe(): Cannot get clk resource for XO: -517
[    0.445730] smd_channel_probe_now: allocation table not initialized
[    0.453100] mdm9607_s1: 1050 <--> 1350 mV at 1225 mV normal idle
[    0.458566] spm_regulator_probe: name=mdm9607_s1, range=LV, voltage=1225000 uV, mode=AUTO, step rate=4800 uV/us
[    0.468817] cpr_efuse_init: apc_corner: efuse_addr = 0x000a4000 (len=0x1000)
[    0.475353] cpr_read_fuse_revision: apc_corner: fuse revision = 2
[    0.481345] cpr_parse_speed_bin_fuse: apc_corner: [row: 37]: 0x79e8bd327e6ba58c, speed_bits = 4
[    0.490124] cpr_pvs_init: apc_corner: pvs voltage: [1050000 1100000 1275000] uV
[    0.497342] cpr_pvs_init: apc_corner: ceiling voltage: [1050000 1225000 1350000] uV
[    0.504979] cpr_pvs_init: apc_corner: floor voltage: [1050000 1050000 1150000] uV
[    0.513125] i2c-msm-v2 78b8000.i2c: probing driver i2c-msm-v2
[    0.518335] i2c-msm-v2 78b8000.i2c: error on clk_get(core_clk):-517
[    0.524478] i2c-msm-v2 78b8000.i2c: error probe() failed with err:-517
[    0.531111] i2c-msm-v2 78b7000.i2c: probing driver i2c-msm-v2
[    0.536788] i2c-msm-v2 78b7000.i2c: error on clk_get(core_clk):-517
[    0.542886] i2c-msm-v2 78b7000.i2c: error probe() failed with err:-517
[    0.549618] i2c-msm-v2 78b9000.i2c: probing driver i2c-msm-v2
[    0.555202] i2c-msm-v2 78b9000.i2c: error on clk_get(core_clk):-517
[    0.561374] i2c-msm-v2 78b9000.i2c: error probe() failed with err:-517
[    0.570613] msm-thermal soc:qcom,msm-thermal: msm_thermal:Failed reading node=/soc/qcom,msm-thermal, key=qcom,core-limit-temp. err=-22. KTM continues
[    0.583049] msm-thermal soc:qcom,msm-thermal: probe_therm_reset:Failed reading node=/soc/qcom,msm-thermal, key=qcom,therm-reset-temp err=-22. KTM continues
[    0.596926] msm_thermal:msm_thermal_dev_probe Failed reading node=/soc/qcom,msm-thermal, key=qcom,online-hotplug-core. err:-517
[    0.609370] sps:sps is ready.
[    0.613137] msm_rpm_glink_dt_parse: qcom,rpm-glink compatible not matches
[    0.619020] msm_rpm_dev_probe: APSS-RPM communication over SMD
[    0.625773] mdm9607_s2: 750 <--> 1275 mV at 750 mV normal idle
[    0.631584] mdm9607_s3_level: 0 <--> 0 mV at 0 mV normal idle
[    0.637085] mdm9607_s3_level_ao: 0 <--> 0 mV at 0 mV normal idle
[    0.643092] mdm9607_s3_floor_level: 0 <--> 0 mV at 0 mV normal idle
[    0.649512] mdm9607_s3_level_so: 0 <--> 0 mV at 0 mV normal idle
[    0.655750] mdm9607_s4: 1800 <--> 1950 mV at 1800 mV normal idle
[    0.661791] mdm9607_l1: 1250 mV normal idle
[    0.666090] mdm9607_l2: 1800 mV normal idle
[    0.670276] mdm9607_l3: 1800 mV normal idle
[    0.674541] mdm9607_l4: 3075 mV normal idle
[    0.678743] mdm9607_l5: 1700 <--> 3050 mV at 1700 mV normal idle
[    0.684904] mdm9607_l6: 1700 <--> 3050 mV at 1700 mV normal idle
[    0.690892] mdm9607_l7: 1700 <--> 1900 mV at 1700 mV normal idle
[    0.697036] mdm9607_l8: 1800 mV normal idle
[    0.701238] mdm9607_l9: 1200 <--> 1250 mV at 1200 mV normal idle
[    0.707367] mdm9607_l10: 1050 mV normal idle
[    0.711662] mdm9607_l11: 1800 mV normal idle
[    0.716089] mdm9607_l12_level: 0 <--> 0 mV at 0 mV normal idle
[    0.721717] mdm9607_l12_level_ao: 0 <--> 0 mV at 0 mV normal idle
[    0.727946] mdm9607_l12_level_so: 0 <--> 0 mV at 0 mV normal idle
[    0.734099] mdm9607_l12_floor_lebel: 0 <--> 0 mV at 0 mV normal idle
[    0.740706] mdm9607_l13: 1800 <--> 2850 mV at 2850 mV normal idle
[    0.746883] mdm9607_l14: 2650 <--> 3000 mV at 2650 mV normal idle
[    0.752515] msm_mpm_dev_probe(): Cannot get clk resource for XO: -517
[    0.759036] cpr_efuse_init: apc_corner: efuse_addr = 0x000a4000 (len=0x1000)
[    0.765807] cpr_read_fuse_revision: apc_corner: fuse revision = 2
[    0.771809] cpr_parse_speed_bin_fuse: apc_corner: [row: 37]: 0x79e8bd327e6ba58c, speed_bits = 4
[    0.780586] cpr_pvs_init: apc_corner: pvs voltage: [1050000 1100000 1275000] uV
[    0.787808] cpr_pvs_init: apc_corner: ceiling voltage: [1050000 1225000 1350000] uV
[    0.795443] cpr_pvs_init: apc_corner: floor voltage: [1050000 1050000 1150000] uV
[    0.803094] cpr_init_cpr_parameters: apc_corner: up threshold = 2, down threshold = 3
[    0.810752] cpr_init_cpr_parameters: apc_corner: CPR is enabled by default.
[    0.817687] cpr_init_cpr_efuse: apc_corner: [row:65] = 0x15000277277383
[    0.824272] cpr_init_cpr_efuse: apc_corner: CPR disable fuse = 0
[    0.830225] cpr_init_cpr_efuse: apc_corner: Corner[1]: ro_sel = 0, target quot = 631
[    0.837976] cpr_init_cpr_efuse: apc_corner: Corner[2]: ro_sel = 0, target quot = 631
[    0.845703] cpr_init_cpr_efuse: apc_corner: Corner[3]: ro_sel = 0, target quot = 899
[    0.853592] cpr_config: apc_corner: Timer count: 0x17700 (for 5000 us)
[    0.860426] apc_corner: 0 <--> 0 mV
[    0.864044] i2c-msm-v2 78b8000.i2c: probing driver i2c-msm-v2
[    0.869261] i2c-msm-v2 78b8000.i2c: error on clk_get(core_clk):-517
[    0.875492] i2c-msm-v2 78b8000.i2c: error probe() failed with err:-517
[    0.882225] i2c-msm-v2 78b7000.i2c: probing driver i2c-msm-v2
[    0.887775] i2c-msm-v2 78b7000.i2c: error on clk_get(core_clk):-517
[    0.893941] i2c-msm-v2 78b7000.i2c: error probe() failed with err:-517
[    0.900719] i2c-msm-v2 78b9000.i2c: probing driver i2c-msm-v2
[    0.906256] i2c-msm-v2 78b9000.i2c: error on clk_get(core_clk):-517
[    0.912430] i2c-msm-v2 78b9000.i2c: error probe() failed with err:-517
[    0.919472] msm-thermal soc:qcom,msm-thermal: msm_thermal:Failed reading node=/soc/qcom,msm-thermal, key=qcom,core-limit-temp. err=-22. KTM continues
[    0.932372] msm-thermal soc:qcom,msm-thermal: probe_therm_reset:Failed reading node=/soc/qcom,msm-thermal,
key=qcom,therm-reset-temp err=-22. KTM continues
[    0.946361] msm_thermal:get_kernel_cluster_info CPU0 topology not initialized.
[    0.953824] cpu cpu0: dev_pm_opp_get_opp_count: device OPP not found (-19)
[    0.960300] msm_thermal:get_cpu_freq_plan_len Error reading CPU0 freq table len. error:-19
[    0.968533] msm_thermal:vdd_restriction_reg_init Defer vdd rstr freq init.
[    0.975846] cpu cpu0: dev_pm_opp_get_opp_count: device OPP not found (-19)
[    0.982219] msm_thermal:get_cpu_freq_plan_len Error reading CPU0 freq table len. error:-19
[    0.991378] cpu cpu0: dev_pm_opp_get_opp_count: device OPP not found (-19)
[    0.997544] msm_thermal:get_cpu_freq_plan_len Error reading CPU0 freq table len. error:-19
[    1.013642] qcom,gcc-mdm9607 1800000.qcom,gcc: Registered GCC clocks
[    1.019451] clock-a7 b010008.qcom,clock-a7: Speed bin: 4 PVS Version: 0
[    1.025693] a7ssmux: set OPP pair(400000000 Hz: 1 uV) on cpu0
[    1.031314] a7ssmux: set OPP pair(1305600000 Hz: 7 uV) on cpu0
[    1.038805] i2c-msm-v2 78b8000.i2c: probing driver i2c-msm-v2
[    1.043587] AXI: msm_bus_scale_register_client(): msm_bus_scale_register_client: Bus driver not ready.
[    1.052935] i2c-msm-v2 78b8000.i2c: msm_bus_scale_register_client(mstr-id:86):0 (not a problem)
[    1.062006] irq: no irq domain found for /soc/wcd9xxx-irq !
[    1.069884] i2c-msm-v2 78b7000.i2c: probing driver i2c-msm-v2
[    1.074814] AXI: msm_bus_scale_register_client(): msm_bus_scale_register_client: Bus driver not ready.
[    1.083716] i2c-msm-v2 78b7000.i2c: msm_bus_scale_register_client(mstr-id:86):0 (not a problem)
[    1.093850] i2c-msm-v2 78b9000.i2c: probing driver i2c-msm-v2
[    1.098889] AXI: msm_bus_scale_register_client(): msm_bus_scale_register_client: Bus driver not ready.
[    1.107779] i2c-msm-v2 78b9000.i2c: msm_bus_scale_register_client(mstr-id:86):0 (not a problem)
[    1.167871] KPI: Bootloader start count = 24097
[    1.171364] KPI: Bootloader end count = 48481
[    1.175855] KPI: Bootloader display count = 3884474147
[    1.180825] KPI: Bootloader load kernel count = 16420
[    1.185905] KPI: Kernel MPM timestamp = 105728
[    1.190286] KPI: Kernel MPM Clock frequency = 32768
[    1.195209] socinfo_print: v0.10, id=297, ver=1.0, raw_id=72, raw_ver=0, hw_plat=8, hw_plat_ver=65536
[    1.195209]  accessory_chip=0, hw_plat_subtype=0, pmic_model=65539, pmic_die_revision=131074 foundry_id=0 serial_number=2120983948
[    1.216731] sdcard_ext_vreg: no parameters
[    1.220555] rome_vreg: no parameters
[    1.224133] emac_lan_vreg: no parameters
[    1.228177] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
[    1.233156] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
[    1.238578] usbcore: registered new device driver usb
[    1.244507] cpufreq: driver msm up and running
[    1.248425] ION heap system created
[    1.251895] msm_bus_fabric_init_driver
[    1.262563] qcom,qpnp-power-on qpnp-power-on-c7303800: PMIC@SID0 Power-on reason: Triggered from PON1 (secondary PMIC) and 'cold' boot
[    1.273747] qcom,qpnp-power-on qpnp-power-on-c7303800: PMIC@SID0: Power-off reason: Triggered from UVLO (Under Voltage Lock Out)
[    1.285430] input: qpnp_pon as /devices/virtual/input/input0
[    1.291246] PMIC@SID0: PM8019 v2.2 options: 3, 2, 2, 2
[    1.296706] Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Initialized.
[    1.302493] Add group failed
[    1.305291] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
[    1.311216] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:
[    1.317109] Switched to clocksource arch_mem_counter
[    1.334091] cfg80211:  DFS Master region: unset
[    1.337418] cfg80211:   (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp), (dfs_cac_time)
[    1.354087] cfg80211:   (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[    1.361055] cfg80211:   (2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[    1.370545] NET: Registered protocol family 2
[    1.374082] cfg80211:   (2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[    1.381851] cfg80211:   (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 80000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[    1.389876] cfg80211:   (5250000 KHz - 5330000 KHz @ 80000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[    1.397857] cfg80211:   (5490000 KHz - 5710000 KHz @ 80000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[    1.405841] cfg80211:   (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 80000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[    1.413795] cfg80211:   (57240000 KHz - 63720000 KHz @ 2160000 KHz), (N/A, 0 mBm), (N/A)
[    1.422355] TCP established hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    1.428921] TCP bind hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    1.435192] TCP: Hash tables configured (established 1024 bind 1024)
[    1.441528] TCP: reno registered
[    1.444738] UDP hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    1.450521] UDP-Lite hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    1.456950] NET: Registered protocol family 1
[    1.462779] futex hash table entries: 256 (order: -1, 3072 bytes)
[    1.474555] msgmni has been set to 115
[    1.478551] Block layer SCSI generic (bsg) driver version 0.4 loaded (major 251)
[    1.485041] io scheduler noop registered
[    1.488818] io scheduler deadline registered
[    1.493200] io scheduler cfq registered (default)
[    1.502142] msm_rpm_log_probe: OK
[    1.506717] msm_serial_hs module loaded
[    1.509803] msm_serial_hsl_probe: detected port #0 (ttyHSL0)
[    1.515324] AXI: get_pdata(): Error: Client name not found
[    1.520626] AXI: msm_bus_cl_get_pdata(): client has to provide missing entry for successful registration
[    1.530171] msm_serial_hsl_probe: Bus scaling is disabled                      [    1.074814] AXI: msm_bus_scale_register_client(): msm_bus_scale_register_client: Bus driver not ready.
[    1.083716] i2c-msm-v2 78b7000.i2c: msm_bus_scale_register_client(mstr-id:86):0 (not a problem)
[    1.093850] i2c-msm-v2 78b9000.i2c: probing driver i2c-msm-v2
[    1.098889] AXI: msm_bus_scale_register_client(): msm_bus_scale_register_client: Bus driver not ready.
[    1.107779] i2c-msm-v2 78b9000.i2c: msm_bus_scale_register_client(mstr-id:86):0 (not a problem)
[    1.167871] KPI: Bootloader start count = 24097
[    1.171364] KPI: Bootloader end count = 48481
[    1.175855] KPI: Bootloader display count = 3884474147
[    1.180825] KPI: Bootloader load kernel count = 16420
[    1.185905] KPI: Kernel MPM timestamp = 105728
[    1.190286] KPI: Kernel MPM Clock frequency = 32768
[    1.195209] socinfo_print: v0.10, id=297, ver=1.0, raw_id=72, raw_ver=0, hw_plat=8, hw_plat_ver=65536
[    1.195209]  accessory_chip=0, hw_plat_subtype=0, pmic_model=65539, pmic_die_revision=131074 foundry_id=0 serial_number=2120983948
[    1.216731] sdcard_ext_vreg: no parameters
[    1.220555] rome_vreg: no parameters
[    1.224133] emac_lan_vreg: no parameters
[    1.228177] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
[    1.233156] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
[    1.238578] usbcore: registered new device driver usb
[    1.244507] cpufreq: driver msm up and running
[    1.248425] ION heap system created
[    1.251895] msm_bus_fabric_init_driver
[    1.262563] qcom,qpnp-power-on qpnp-power-on-c7303800: PMIC@SID0 Power-on reason: Triggered from PON1 (secondary PMIC) and 'cold' boot
[    1.273747] qcom,qpnp-power-on qpnp-power-on-c7303800: PMIC@SID0: Power-off reason: Triggered from UVLO (Under Voltage Lock Out)
[    1.285430] input: qpnp_pon as /devices/virtual/input/input0
[    1.291246] PMIC@SID0: PM8019 v2.2 options: 3, 2, 2, 2
[    1.296706] Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Initialized.
[    1.302493] Add group failed
[    1.305291] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
[    1.311216] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:
[    1.317109] Switched to clocksource arch_mem_counter
[    1.334091] cfg80211:  DFS Master region: unset
[    1.337418] cfg80211:   (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp), (dfs_cac_time)
[    1.354087] cfg80211:   (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[    1.361055] cfg80211:   (2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[    1.370545] NET: Registered protocol family 2
[    1.374082] cfg80211:   (2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[    1.381851] cfg80211:   (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 80000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[    1.389876] cfg80211:   (5250000 KHz - 5330000 KHz @ 80000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[    1.397857] cfg80211:   (5490000 KHz - 5710000 KHz @ 80000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[    1.405841] cfg80211:   (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 80000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[    1.413795] cfg80211:   (57240000 KHz - 63720000 KHz @ 2160000 KHz), (N/A, 0 mBm), (N/A)
[    1.422355] TCP established hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    1.428921] TCP bind hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    1.435192] TCP: Hash tables configured (established 1024 bind 1024)
[    1.441528] TCP: reno registered
[    1.444738] UDP hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    1.450521] UDP-Lite hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    1.456950] NET: Registered protocol family 1
[    1.462779] futex hash table entries: 256 (order: -1, 3072 bytes)
[    1.474555] msgmni has been set to 115
[    1.478551] Block layer SCSI generic (bsg) driver version 0.4 loaded (major 251)
[    1.485041] io scheduler noop registered
[    1.488818] io scheduler deadline registered
[    1.493200] io scheduler cfq registered (default)
[    1.502142] msm_rpm_log_probe: OK
[    1.506717] msm_serial_hs module loaded
[    1.509803] msm_serial_hsl_probe: detected port #0 (ttyHSL0)
[    1.515324] AXI: get_pdata(): Error: Client name not found
[    1.520626] AXI: msm_bus_cl_get_pdata(): client has to provide missing entry for successful registration
[    1.530171] msm_serial_hsl_probe: Bus scaling is disabled
[    1.535696] 78b3000.serial: ttyHSL0 at MMIO 0x78b3000 (irq = 153, base_baud = 460800 [    1.544155] msm_hsl_console_setup: console setup on port #0
[    1.548727] console [ttyHSL0] enabled
[    1.548727] console [ttyHSL0] enabled
[    1.556014] bootconsole [uart0] disabled
[    1.556014] bootconsole [uart0] disabled
[    1.564212] msm_serial_hsl_init: driver initialized
[    1.578450] brd: module loaded
[    1.582920] loop: module loaded
[    1.589183] sps: BAM device 0x07984000 is not registered yet.
[    1.594234] sps:BAM 0x07984000 is registered.
[    1.598072] msm_nand_bam_init: msm_nand_bam_init: BAM device registered: bam_handle 0xc69f6400
[    1.607103] sps:BAM 0x07984000 (va:0xc89a0000) enabled: ver:0x18, number of pipes:7
[    1.616588] msm_nand_parse_smem_ptable: Parsing partition table info from SMEM
[    1.622805] msm_nand_parse_smem_ptable: SMEM partition table found: ver: 4 len: 17
[    1.630391] msm_nand_version_check: nand_major:1, nand_minor:5, qpic_major:1, qpic_minor:5
[    1.638642] msm_nand_scan: NAND Id: 0x1590aa98 Buswidth: 8Bits Density: 256 MByte
[    1.646069] msm_nand_scan: pagesize: 2048 Erasesize: 131072 oobsize: 128 (in Bytes)
[    1.653676] msm_nand_scan: BCH ECC: 8 Bit
[    1.657710] msm_nand_scan: CFG0: 0x290408c0,           CFG1: 0x0804715c
[    1.657710]             RAWCFG0: 0x2b8400c0,        RAWCFG1: 0x0005055d
[    1.657710]           ECCBUFCFG: 0x00000203,      ECCBCHCFG: 0x42040d10
[    1.657710]           RAWECCCFG: 0x42000d11, BAD BLOCK BYTE: 0x000001c5
[    1.684101] Creating 17 MTD partitions on "7980000.nand":
[    1.689447] 0x000000000000-0x000000140000 : "sbl"
[    1.694867] 0x000000140000-0x000000280000 : "mibib"
[    1.699560] 0x000000280000-0x000000e80000 : "efs2"
[    1.704408] 0x000000e80000-0x000000f40000 : "tz"
[    1.708934] 0x000000f40000-0x000000fa0000 : "rpm"
[    1.713625] 0x000000fa0000-0x000001000000 : "aboot"
[    1.718582] 0x000001000000-0x0000017e0000 : "boot"
[    1.723281] 0x0000017e0000-0x000002820000 : "scrub"
[    1.728174] 0x000002820000-0x000005020000 : "modem"
[    1.732968] 0x000005020000-0x000005420000 : "rfbackup"
[    1.738156] 0x000005420000-0x000005820000 : "oem"
[    1.742770] 0x000005820000-0x000005f00000 : "recovery"
[    1.747972] 0x000005f00000-0x000009100000 : "cache"
[    1.752787] 0x000009100000-0x000009a40000 : "recoveryfs"
[    1.758389] 0x000009a40000-0x00000aa40000 : "cdrom"
[    1.762967] 0x00000aa40000-0x00000ba40000 : "jrdresource"
[    1.768407] 0x00000ba40000-0x000010000000 : "system"
[    1.773239] msm_nand_probe: NANDc phys addr 0x7980000, BAM phys addr 0x7984000, BAM IRQ 164
[    1.781074] msm_nand_probe: Allocated DMA buffer at virt_addr 0xc7840000, phys_addr 0x87840000
[    1.791872] PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
[    1.801126] cnss_sdio 87a00000.qcom,cnss-sdio: CNSS SDIO Driver registered
[    1.807554] msm_otg 78d9000.usb: msm_otg probe
[    1.813333] msm_otg 78d9000.usb: OTG regs = c88f8000
[    1.820702] gbridge_init: gbridge_init successs.
[    1.826344] msm_otg 78d9000.usb: phy_reset: success
[    1.830294] qcom,qpnp-rtc qpnp-rtc-c7307000: rtc core: registered qpnp_rtc as rtc0
[    1.838474] i2c /dev entries driver
[    1.842459] unable to find DT imem DLOAD mode node
[    1.846588] unable to find DT imem EDLOAD mode node
[    1.851332] unable to find DT imem dload-type node
[    1.856921] bq24295-charger 4-006b: bq24295 probe enter
[    1.861161] qcom,iterm-ma = 128
[    1.864476] bq24295_otg_vreg: no parameters
[    1.868502] charger_core_register: Charger Core Version 5.0.0(Built at 20151202-21:36)!
[    1.877007] i2c-msm-v2 78b8000.i2c: msm_bus_scale_register_client(mstr-id:86):0x3 (ok)
[    1.885559] bq24295-charger 4-006b: bq24295_set_bhot_mode 3
[    1.890150] bq24295-charger 4-006b: power_good is 1,vbus_stat is 2
[    1.896588] bq24295-charger 4-006b: bq24295_set_thermal_threshold 100
[    1.902952] bq24295-charger 4-006b: bq24295_set_sys_min 3700
[    1.908639] bq24295-charger 4-006b: bq24295_set_max_target_voltage 4150
[    1.915223] bq24295-charger 4-006b: bq24295_set_recharge_threshold 300
[    1.922119] bq24295-charger 4-006b: bq24295_set_terminal_current_limit iterm_disabled=0, iterm_ma=128
[    1.930917] bq24295-charger 4-006b: bq24295_set_precharge_current_limit bdi->prech_cur=128
[    1.940038] bq24295-charger 4-006b: bq24295_set_safty_timer 0
[    1.945088] bq24295-charger 4-006b: bq24295_set_input_voltage_limit 4520
[    1.972949] sdhci: Secure Digital Host Controller Interface driver
[    1.978151] sdhci: Copyright(c) Pierre Ossman
[    1.982441] sdhci-pltfm: SDHCI platform and OF driver helper
[    1.989092] sdhci_msm 7824900.sdhci: sdhci_msm_probe: ICE device is not enabled
[    1.995473] sdhci_msm 7824900.sdhci: No vreg data found for vdd
[    2.001530] sdhci_msm 7824900.sdhci: sdhci_msm_pm_qos_parse_irq: error -22 reading irq cpu
[    2.009809] sdhci_msm 7824900.sdhci: sdhci_msm_pm_qos_parse: PM QoS voting for IRQ will be disabled
[    2.018600] sdhci_msm 7824900.sdhci: sdhci_msm_pm_qos_parse: PM QoS voting for cpu group will be disabled
[    2.030541] sdhci_msm 7824900.sdhci: sdhci_msm_probe: sdiowakeup_irq = 353
[    2.036867] sdhci_msm 7824900.sdhci: No vmmc regulator found
[    2.042027] sdhci_msm 7824900.sdhci: No vqmmc regulator found
[    2.048266] mmc0: SDHCI controller on 7824900.sdhci [7824900.sdhci] using 32-bit ADMA in legacy mode
[    2.080401] Welcome to pca955x_probe!!
[    2.084362] leds-pca955x 3-0020: leds-pca955x: Using pca9555 16-bit LED driver at slave address 0x20
[    2.095400] sdhci_msm 7824900.sdhci: card claims to support voltages below defined range
[    2.103125] i2c-msm-v2 78b7000.i2c: msm_bus_scale_register_client(mstr-id:86):0x5 (ok)
[    2.114183] msm_otg 78d9000.usb: Avail curr from USB = 1500
[    2.120251] come to USB_SDP_CHARGER!
[    2.123215] Welcome to sn3199_probe!
[    2.126718] leds-sn3199 5-0064: leds-sn3199: Using sn3199 9-bit LED driver at slave address 0x64
[    2.136511] sn3199->led_en_gpio=21
[    2.139143] i2c-msm-v2 78b9000.i2c: msm_bus_scale_register_client(mstr-id:86):0x6 (ok)
[    2.150207] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
[    2.154864] usbhid: USB HID core driver
[    2.159825] sps:BAM 0x078c4000 is registered.
[    2.163573] bimc-bwmon 408000.qcom,cpu-bwmon: BW HWmon governor registered.
[    2.171080] devfreq soc:qcom,cpubw: Couldn't update frequency transition information.
[    2.178513] coresight-fuse a601c.fuse: QPDI fuse not specified
[    2.184242] coresight-fuse a601c.fuse: Fuse initialized
[    2.192407] coresight-csr 6001000.csr: CSR initialized
[    2.197263] coresight-tmc 6026000.tmc: Byte Counter feature enabled
[    2.203204] sps:BAM 0x06084000 is registered.
[    2.207301] coresight-tmc 6026000.tmc: TMC initialized
[    2.212681] coresight-tmc 6025000.tmc: TMC initialized
[    2.220071] nidnt boot config: 0
[    2.224563] mmc0: new ultra high speed SDR50 SDIO card at address 0001
[    2.231120] coresight-tpiu 6020000.tpiu: NIDnT on SDCARD only mode
[    2.236440] coresight-tpiu 6020000.tpiu: TPIU initialized
[    2.242808] coresight-replicator 6024000.replicator: REPLICATOR initialized
[    2.249372] coresight-stm 6002000.stm: STM initialized
[    2.255034] coresight-hwevent 606c000.hwevent: Hardware Event driver initialized
[    2.262312] Netfilter messages via NETLINK v0.30.
[    2.266306] nf_conntrack version 0.5.0 (920 buckets, 3680 max)
[    2.272312] ctnetlink v0.93: registering with nfnetlink.
[    2.277565] ip_set: protocol 6
[    2.280568] ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
[    2.285723] arp_tables: (C) 2002 David S. Miller
[    2.290146] TCP: cubic registered
[    2.293915] NET: Registered protocol family 10
[    2.298740] ip6_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
[    2.303407] sit: IPv6 over IPv4 tunneling driver
[    2.308481] NET: Registered protocol family 17
[    2.312340] bridge: automatic filtering via arp/ip/ip6tables has been deprecated. Update your scripts to load br_netfilter if you need this.
[    2.325094] Bridge firewalling registered
[    2.328930] Ebtables v2.0 registered
[    2.333260] NET: Registered protocol family 27
[    2.341362] battery_core_register: Battery Core Version 5.0.0(Built at 20151202-21:36)!
[    2.348466] pmu_battery_probe: vbat_channel=21, tbat_channel=17
[    2.420236] ubi0: attaching mtd16
[    2.723941] ubi0: scanning is finished
[    2.732997] ubi0: attached mtd16 (name "system", size 69 MiB)
[    2.737783] ubi0: PEB size: 131072 bytes (128 KiB), LEB size: 126976 bytes
[    2.744601] ubi0: min./max. I/O unit sizes: 2048/2048, sub-page size 2048
[    2.751333] ubi0: VID header offset: 2048 (aligned 2048), data offset: 4096
[    2.758540] ubi0: good PEBs: 556, bad PEBs: 2, corrupted PEBs: 0
[    2.764305] ubi0: user volume: 3, internal volumes: 1, max. volumes count: 128
[    2.771476] ubi0: max/mean erase counter: 192/64, WL threshold: 4096, image sequence number: 35657280
[    2.780708] ubi0: available PEBs: 0, total reserved PEBs: 556, PEBs reserved for bad PEB handling: 38
[    2.789921] ubi0: background thread "ubi_bgt0d" started, PID 96
[    2.796395] android_bind cdev: 0xC6583E80, name: ci13xxx_msm
[    2.801508] file system registered
[    2.804974] mbim_init: initialize 1 instances
[    2.809228] mbim_init: Initialized 1 ports
[    2.815074] rndis_qc_init: initialize rndis QC instance
[    2.819713] jrd device_desc.bcdDevice: [0x0242]
[    2.823779] android_bind scheduled usb start work: name: ci13xxx_msm
[    2.830230] android_usb gadget: android_usb ready
[    2.834845] msm_hsusb msm_hsusb: [ci13xxx_start] hw_ep_max = 32
[    2.840741] msm_hsusb msm_hsusb: CI13XXX_CONTROLLER_RESET_EVENT received
[    2.847433] msm_hsusb msm_hsusb: CI13XXX_CONTROLLER_UDC_STARTED_EVENT received
[    2.855851] input: gpio-keys as /devices/soc:gpio_keys/input/input1
[    2.861452] qcom,qpnp-rtc qpnp-rtc-c7307000: setting system clock to 1970-01-01 06:36:41 UTC (23801)
[    2.870315] open file error /usb_conf/usb_config.ini
[    2.876412] jrd_usb_start_work open file erro /usb_conf/usb_config.ini, retry_count:0
[    2.884324] parse_legacy_cluster_params(): Ignoring cluster params
[    2.889468] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[    2.894186] WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 1 at /home/linux3/jrd/yanping.an/ee40/0810/MDM9607.LE.1.0-00130/apps_proc/oe-core/build/tmp-glibc/work-shared/mdm9607/kernel-source/drivers/cpuidle/lpm-levels-of.c:739 parse_cluster+0xb50/0xcb4()
[    2.914366] Modules linked in:
[    2.917339] CPU: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper Not tainted 3.18.20 #1
[    2.923171] [<c00132ac>] (unwind_backtrace) from [<c0011460>] (show_stack+0x10/0x14)
[    2.931092] [<c0011460>] (show_stack) from [<c001c6ac>] (warn_slowpath_common+0x68/0x88)
[    2.939175] [<c001c6ac>] (warn_slowpath_common) from [<c001c75c>] (warn_slowpath_null+0x18/0x20)
[    2.947895] [<c001c75c>] (warn_slowpath_null) from [<c034e180>] (parse_cluster+0xb50/0xcb4)
[    2.956189] [<c034e180>] (parse_cluster) from [<c034b6b4>] (lpm_probe+0xc/0x1d4)
[    2.963527] [<c034b6b4>] (lpm_probe) from [<c024857c>] (platform_drv_probe+0x30/0x7c)
[    2.971380] [<c024857c>] (platform_drv_probe) from [<c0246d54>] (driver_probe_device+0xb8/0x1e8)
[    2.980118] [<c0246d54>] (driver_probe_device) from [<c0246f30>] (__driver_attach+0x68/0x8c)
[    2.988467] [<c0246f30>] (__driver_attach) from [<c02455d0>] (bus_for_each_dev+0x6c/0x90)
[    2.996626] [<c02455d0>] (bus_for_each_dev) from [<c02465a4>] (bus_add_driver+0xe0/0x1c8)
[    3.004786] [<c02465a4>] (bus_add_driver) from [<c02477bc>] (driver_register+0x9c/0xe0)
[    3.012739] [<c02477bc>] (driver_register) from [<c080c3d8>] (lpm_levels_module_init+0x14/0x38)
[    3.021459] [<c080c3d8>] (lpm_levels_module_init) from [<c0008980>] (do_one_initcall+0xf8/0x1a0)
[    3.030217] [<c0008980>] (do_one_initcall) from [<c07e7d4c>] (kernel_init_freeable+0xf0/0x1b0)
[    3.038818] [<c07e7d4c>] (kernel_init_freeable) from [<c0582d48>] (kernel_init+0x8/0xe4)
[    3.046888] [<c0582d48>] (kernel_init) from [<c000dda0>] (ret_from_fork+0x14/0x34)
[    3.054432] ---[ end trace e9ec50b1ec4c8f73 ]---
[    3.059012] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[    3.063604] WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 1 at /home/linux3/jrd/yanping.an/ee40/0810/MDM9607.LE.1.0-00130/apps_proc/oe-core/build/tmp-glibc/work-shared/mdm9607/kernel-source/drivers/cpuidle/lpm-levels-of.c:739 parse_cluster+0xb50/0xcb4()
[    3.083858] Modules linked in:
[    3.086870] CPU: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper Tainted: G        W      3.18.20 #1
[    3.093814] [<c00132ac>] (unwind_backtrace) from [<c0011460>] (show_stack+0x10/0x14)
[    3.101575] [<c0011460>] (show_stack) from [<c001c6ac>] (warn_slowpath_common+0x68/0x88)
[    3.109641] [<c001c6ac>] (warn_slowpath_common) from [<c001c75c>] (warn_slowpath_null+0x18/0x20)
[    3.118412] [<c001c75c>] (warn_slowpath_null) from [<c034e180>] (parse_cluster+0xb50/0xcb4)
[    3.126745] [<c034e180>] (parse_cluster) from [<c034b6b4>] (lpm_probe+0xc/0x1d4)
[    3.134126] [<c034b6b4>] (lpm_probe) from [<c024857c>] (platform_drv_probe+0x30/0x7c)
[    3.141906] [<c024857c>] (platform_drv_probe) from [<c0246d54>] (driver_probe_device+0xb8/0x1e8)
[    3.150702] [<c0246d54>] (driver_probe_device) from [<c0246f30>] (__driver_attach+0x68/0x8c)
[    3.159120] [<c0246f30>] (__driver_attach) from [<c02455d0>] (bus_for_each_dev+0x6c/0x90)
[    3.167285] [<c02455d0>] (bus_for_each_dev) from [<c02465a4>] (bus_add_driver+0xe0/0x1c8)
[    3.175444] [<c02465a4>] (bus_add_driver) from [<c02477bc>] (driver_register+0x9c/0xe0)
[    3.183398] [<c02477bc>] (driver_register) from [<c080c3d8>] (lpm_levels_module_init+0x14/0x38)
[    3.192107] [<c080c3d8>] (lpm_levels_module_init) from [<c0008980>] (do_one_initcall+0xf8/0x1a0)
[    3.200877] [<c0008980>] (do_one_initcall) from [<c07e7d4c>] (kernel_init_freeable+0xf0/0x1b0)
[    3.209475] [<c07e7d4c>] (kernel_init_freeable) from [<c0582d48>] (kernel_init+0x8/0xe4)
[    3.217542] [<c0582d48>] (kernel_init) from [<c000dda0>] (ret_from_fork+0x14/0x34)
[    3.225090] ---[ end trace e9ec50b1ec4c8f74 ]---
[    3.229667] /soc/qcom,lpm-levels/qcom,pm-cluster@0: No CPU phandle, assuming single cluster
[    3.239954] qcom,cc-debug-mdm9607 1800000.qcom,debug: Registered Debug Mux successfully
[    3.247619] emac_lan_vreg: disabling
[    3.250507] mem_acc_corner: disabling
[    3.254196] clock_late_init: Removing enables held for handed-off clocks
[    3.262690] ALSA device list:
[    3.264732]   No soundcard [    3.274083] UBIFS (ubi0:0): background thread "ubifs_bgt0_0" started, PID 102
[    3.305224] UBIFS (ubi0:0): recovery needed
[    3.466156] UBIFS (ubi0:0): recovery completed
[    3.469627] UBIFS (ubi0:0): UBIFS: mounted UBI device 0, volume 0, name "rootfs"
[    3.476987] UBIFS (ubi0:0): LEB size: 126976 bytes (124 KiB), min./max. I/O unit sizes: 2048 bytes/2048 bytes
[    3.486876] UBIFS (ubi0:0): FS size: 45838336 bytes (43 MiB, 361 LEBs), journal size 9023488 bytes (8 MiB, 72 LEBs)
[    3.497417] UBIFS (ubi0:0): reserved for root: 0 bytes (0 KiB)
[    3.503078] UBIFS (ubi0:0): media format: w4/r0 (latest is w4/r0), UUID 4DBB2F12-34EB-43B6-839B-3BA930765BAE, small LPT model
[    3.515582] VFS: Mounted root (ubifs filesystem) on device 0:12.
[    3.520940] Freeing unused kernel memory: 276K (c07e7000 - c082c000)
INIT: version 2.88 booting

17 February 2021

Louis-Philippe V ronneau: What are the incentive structures of Free Software?

When I started my Master's degree in January 2018, I was confident I would be done in a year and half. After all, I only had one year of classes and I figured 6 months to write a thesis would be plenty. Three years later, I'm finally done: the final version of my thesis was accepted on January 22nd 2021. My thesis, entitled What are the incentive structures of Free Software? An economic analysis of Free Software's specific development model, can be found here 1. If you care about such things, both the data and the final document can be built from source with the code in this git repository. Results and analysis My thesis is divided in four main sections:
  1. an introduction to FOSS
  2. a chapter discussing the incentive structures of Free Software (and arguing the so called Tragedy of the Commons isn't inevitable)
  3. a chapter trying to use empirical data to validate the theories presented in the previous chapter
  4. an annex on the various FOSS business models
If you're reading this blog post, chances are you'll find both section 1 and 4 a tad boring, as you might already be familiar with these concepts. Incentives So, why do people contribute to Free Software? Unsurprisingly, it's complicated. Many economists have studied this topic, but for some reason, most research happened in the early 2000s. Although papers don't all agree with each other and most importantly, about the variables' importance, the main incentives2 can be summarized by: Giving weights to these variables is not an easy thing: the FOSS ecosystem is highly heterogeneous and thus, people tend to write FOSS for different reasons. Moreover, incentives tend to shift with time as the ecosystem does. People writing Free Software in the 1990s probably did it for different reasons than people in 2021. These four variables can also be divided in two general categories: extrinsic and intrinsic incentives. Monetary gain expectancy is an extrinsic incentive (its value is delayed and mediated), whereas the three other ones are intrinsic (they have an immediate value by themselves). Empirical analysis Theory is nice, but it's even better when you can back it up with data. Sadly, most of the papers on the economic incentives of FOSS are either purely theoretical, or use sample sizes so small they could as well be. Using the data from the StackOverflow 2018 survey, I thus tried to see if I could somehow confirm my previous assumptions. With 129 questions and more than 100 000 respondents (which after statistical processing yields between 28 000 and 39 000 observations per variable of interest), the StackOverflow 2018 survey is a very large dataset compared to what economists are used to work with. Sadly, it wasn't entirely enough to come up with hard answers. There is a strong and significant correlation between writing Free Software and having a higher salary, but endogeneity problems3 made it hard to give a reliable estimate of how much money this would represent. Same goes for writing code has a hobby: it seems there is a strong and significant correlation, but the exact numbers I came up with cannot really be trusted. The results on community as an incentive to writing FOSS were the ones that surprised me the most. Although I expected the relation to be quite strong, the coefficients predicted were in fact quite small. I theorise this is partly due to only 8% of the respondents declaring they didn't feel like they belonged in the IT community. With such a high level of adherence, the margin for improvement has to be smaller. As for altruism, I wasn't able get any meaningful results. In my opinion this is mostly due to the fact there was no explicit survey question on this topic and I tried to make up for it by cobbling data together. Kinda anti-climatic, isn't it? I would've loved to come up with decisive conclusions on this topic, but if there's one thing I learned while writing this thesis, it is I don't know much after all.
  1. Note that the thesis is written in French.
  2. Of course, life is complex and so are people's motivations. One could come up with dozen more reasons why people contribute to Free Software. The "fun" of theoretical modelisation is trying to make complex things somewhat simpler.
  3. I'll spare you the details, but this means there is no way to know if this correlation is the result of a causal link between the two variables. There are ways to deal with this problem (using an instrumental variables model is a very popular one), but again, the survey didn't provide the proper instruments to do so. For example, it could very well be the correlation is due to omitted variables. If you are interested in this topic (and can read French), I talk about this issue in section 3.2.8.

15 February 2021

Rapha&#235;l Hertzog: Freexian s report about Debian Long Term Support, January 2020

A Debian LTS logo Like each month, have a look at the work funded by Freexian s Debian LTS offering. Debian project funding In January, we put aside 2175 EUR to fund Debian projects. As part of this Carles Pina i Estany started to work on better no-dsa support for the PTS which recently resulted in two merge requests which will hopefully be deployed soon. We re looking forward to receive more projects from various Debian teams! Learn more about the rationale behind this initiative in this article. Debian LTS contributors In January, 13 contributors have been paid to work on Debian LTS, their reports are available: Evolution of the situation In January we released 28 DLAs and held our first LTS team meeting for 2021 on IRC, with the next public IRC meeting coming up at the end of March. During that meeting Utkarsh shared that after he rolled out the python-certbot update (on December 8th 2020) the maintainer told him: I just checked with Let s Encrypt, and the stats show that you just saved 142,500 people from having their certificates start failing next month. I didn t know LTS was still that used!

Finally, we would like to welcome sipgate GmbH as a new silver sponsor. Also remember that we are constantly looking for new contributors. Please contact Holger if you are interested. The security tracker currently lists 43 packages with a known CVE and the dla-needed.txt file has 23 packages needing an update. Thanks to our sponsors Sponsors that joined recently are in bold.

Axel Beckert: Starting a GNU Screen session via SSH's ~/.ssh/config

This is more or less a followup to this blog posting of mine about AutoSSH and GNU Screen from nearly ten years ago which by the way is still valid and still the way, I use SSH and GNU Screen. Recently a friend asked me how to automatically start or reconnect to a GNU Screen session directly via OpenSSH s configuration file. Here s how to do it: Add an entry to ~/.ssh/config similar to this one: 
Host screen_on_server
    Hostname server.example.org
    RequestTTY yes
    RemoteCommand screen -RD
and then just call ssh screen_on_server and you ll get connected to an existing screen session if present, otherwise you ll a new new one. Should work with tmux, too, but might need commandlien different options.

Russ Allbery: Review: Spheres of Influence

Review: Spheres of Influence, by Ryk E. Spoor
Series: Arenaverse #2
Publisher: Baen
Copyright: November 2013
ISBN: 1-4516-3937-6
Format: Kindle
Pages: 576
Spheres of Influence is a direct sequel to Grand Central Arena, which introduces the world background and is also a much better book. There is a detailed recap of the previous volume (thank you!) and a summary of things that happened between the volumes (that was odd), so it's easy to refresh your memory, but there's no point in reading this book if you've not read the first one. In this series, Spoor is explicitly writing a throw-back space adventure inspired by E.E. "Doc" Smith and similar SF from the 1920s to the 1950s. Grand Central Arena was the discovery and exploration story, which in my opinion is where that literary tradition is at its strongest. Spheres of Influence veers into a different and less appealing part of that tradition: the moment when the intrepid space explorer is challenged by the ignorant Powers That Be at home, who don't understand the importance of anything that's happening. Captain Ariane Austin and her crew made a stunning debut into the Arena, successfully navigated its politics (mostly via sheer audacity and luck), and achieved a tentatively strong position for humanity. However, humanity had never intended them to play that role. There isn't much government in Spoor's (almost entirely unexplained) anarcho-libertarian future, but there is enough for political maneuvering and the appointment of a more official ambassador to the Arena who isn't Ariane. But the Arena has its own rules that care nothing about human politics, which gives Ariane substantial leverage to try to prevent Earth politicians from making a mess of things. This plot could be worse. Unlike his source material, Spoor is not entirely invested in authoritarian politics, and the plot resolution is a bit friendlier to government oversight than one might expect. (It's disturbing, though, that this oversight seems to consist mostly of the military, and it's not clear how those people are selected.) But the tradition of investing vast powers in single people of great moral character is one of the less defensible tropes of early American SF, and Spoor chooses to embrace it to an unfortunate degree. Clearing out all the bureaucratic second-guessing to let the honorable person who has stumbled across vast power make all the decisions is a type of simplistic politics with a long, bad history in US fiction. The author can make it look like a good idea by yanking hard on the scales; Ariane makes all the right decisions because she's the heroine and therefore of course she does. I was unsettled, in this year of 2021, by the book's apparent message that her major failing is her unwillingness to consolidate her power. This isn't the only problem I had with this book. Before we get to the political maneuvering, the plot takes a substantial digression into the Hyperion Project. The Hyperion Project showed up in the first book as part of the backstory of one of the characters. I'll omit the details to avoid spoilers, but in the story it functioned as an excuse to model a character directly on E.E. "Doc" Smith characters. The details never seemed that interesting, but as background it was easy to read past, and the character in question was still moderately enjoyable. Unfortunately, the author was more invested in this bit of background than I was. Spheres of Influence introduces four more characters from the same project, including Wu Kong, a cliched mash-up of numerous different Monkey King stories who becomes a major viewpoint character. (The decision to focus on a westernized, exoticized version of a Chinese character didn't seem that wise to me.) One problem is that Spoor clearly thinks Wu Kong is a more interesting character than I do, but my biggest complaint is that introducing these new characters was both unnecessary and pulled the story away from the pieces I was interested in. I want to read more about the Arena and its politics, alien technology, and awesome vistas, not about some significantly less interesting historical human project devoted to bringing fictional characters to life. And that's the third problem with this book: not enough happens. Grand Central Arena had a good half-dozen significant plot developments set among some great sense-of-wonder exploration and alien first contact. There are only two major plot events in Spheres of Influence, both are dragged out with unnecessary description and posturing, and neither show us much that's exciting or new. The exploration of the Arena grinds nearly to a halt, postponing the one offered bit of deep exploration for the third book. There are some satisfying twists and turns in the bits of plot we do get, but nothing that justifies nearly 600 pages. This is not a very good book, and huge step down from the first book of the series. In its defense, it still offers the sort of optimistic (and, to be honest, simplistic) adventure that I was looking for after reading a book full of depressing politics. It's hard not to enjoy the protagonists taking audacious risks, revealing hidden talents, and winning surprising victories. But I wanted the version with more exploration, more new sights, less authoritarian and militaristic politics, and less insertion of fictional characters. Also, yes, we know that one of the characters is an E.E. "Doc" Smith character. Please give the cliched Smith dialogue tics a rest. All of the "check to nine decimal places" phrases are hard enough to handle in Smith's short and fast-moving books. They're agonizing in a slow-moving book three times as long. Not recommended, although I'm still invested enough in the setting that I'll probably read the third book when I'm feeling in the mood for some feel-good adventure. It appears to have the plot developments I was hoping would be in this one. Followed by Challenges of the Deeps. Rating: 5 out of 10

14 February 2021

Chris Lamb: The Silence of the Lambs: 30 Years On

No doubt it was someone's idea of a joke to release Silence of the Lambs on Valentine's Day, thirty years ago today. Although it references Valentines at one point and hints at a deeper relationship between Starling and Lecter, it was clearly too tempting to jeopardise so many date nights. After all, how many couples were going to enjoy their ribeyes medium-rare after watching this? Given the muted success of Manhunter (1986), Silence of the Lambs was our first real introduction to Dr. Lecter. Indeed, many of the best scenes in this film are introductions: Starling's first encounter with Lecter is probably the best introduction in the whole of cinema, but our preceding introduction to the asylum's factotum carries a lot of cultural weight too, if only because the camera's measured pan around the environment before alighting on Barney has been emulated by so many first-person video games since.
We first see Buffalo Bill at the thirty-two minute mark. (Or, more tellingly, he sees us.) Delaying the viewer's introduction to the film's villain is the mark of a secure and confident screenplay, even if it was popularised by the budget-restricted Jaws (1975) which hides the eponymous shark for one hour and 21 minutes.
It is no mistake that the first thing we see of Starling do is, quite literally, pull herself up out of the unknown. With all of the focus on the Starling Lecter repartee, the viewer's first introduction to Starling is as underappreciated as she herself is to the FBI. Indeed, even before Starling tells Lecter her innermost dreams, we learn almost everything we need to about Starling in the first few minutes: we see her training on an obstacle course in the forest, the unused rope telling us that she is here entirely voluntarily. And we can surely guess why; the passing grade for a woman in the FBI is to top of the class, and Starling's not going to let an early February in Virginia get in the way of that. We need to wait a full three minutes before we get our first line of dialogue, and in just eight words ("Crawford wants to see you in his office...") we get our confirmation about the FBI too. With no other information other than he can send a messenger out into the cold, we can intuit that Crawford tends to get what Crawford wants. It's just plain "Crawford" too; everyone knows his actual title, his power, "his" office. The opening minutes also introduce us to the film's use of visual hierarchy. Our Hermes towers above Starling throughout the brief exchange (she must push herself even to stay within the camera's frame). Later, Starling always descends to meet her demons: to the asylum's basement to visit Lecter and down the stairs to meet Buffalo Bill. Conversely, she feels safe enough to reveal her innermost self to Lecter on the fifth floor of the courthouse. (Bong Joon-ho's Parasite (2019) uses elevation in an analogous way, although a little more subtly.)
The messenger turns to watch Starling run off to Crawford. Are his eyes involuntarily following the movement or he is impressed by Starling's gumption? Or, almost two decades after John Berger's male gaze, is he simply checking her out? The film, thankfully, leaves it to us.
Crawford is our next real introduction, and our glimpse into the film's sympathetic treatment of law enforcement. Note that the first thing that the head of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit does is to lie to Starling about the reason to interview Lecter, despite it being coded as justified within the film's logic. We learn in the book that even Barney deceives Starling, recording her conversations with Lecter and selling her out to the press. (Buffalo Bill always lies to Starling, of course, but I think we can forgive him for that.) Crawford's quasi-compliment of "You grilled me pretty hard on the Bureau's civil rights record in the Hoover years..." then encourages the viewer to conclude that the FBI's has been a paragon of virtue since 1972... All this (as well as her stellar academic record, Crawford's wielding of Starling's fragile femininity at the funeral home and the cool reception she receives from a power-suited Senator Ruth Martin), Starling must be constantly asking herself what it must take for anyone to take her seriously. Indeed, it would be unsurprising if she takes unnecessary risks to make that happen.
The cold open of Hannibal (2001) makes for a worthy comparison. The audience remembers they loved the dialogue between Starling and Lecter, so it is clumsily mentioned. We remember Barney too, so he is shoehorned in as well. Lacking the confidence to introduce new signifiers to its universe, Red Dragon (2002) aside, the hollow, 'clip show' feel of Hannibal is a taste of the zero-calorie sequels to come in the next two decades.
The film is not perfect, and likely never was. Much has been written on the fairly transparent transphobia in Buffalo Bill's desire to wear a suit made out of women's skin, but the film then doubles down on its unflattering portrayal by trying to have it both ways. Starling tells the camera that "there's no correlation between transsexualism and violence," and Lecter (the film's psychoanalytic authority, remember) assures us that Buffalo Bill is "not a real transsexual" anyway. Yet despite those caveats, we are continually shown a TERFy cartoon of a man in a wig tucking his "precious" between his legs and an absurdly phallic gun. And, just we didn't quite get the message, a decent collection of Nazi memorabilia. The film's director repeated the novel's contention that Buffalo Bill is not actually transgender, but someone so damaged that they are seeking some kind of transformation. This, for a brief moment, almost sounds true, and the film's deranged depiction of what it might be like to be transgender combined with its ambivalence feels distinctly disingenuous to me, especially given that on an audience and Oscar-adjusted basis Silence of the Lambs may very well be the most transphobic film to come out of Hollywood. Still, I remain torn on the death of the author, especially when I discover that Jonathan Demme went on to direct Philadelphia (1993), likely the most positive film about homophobia and HIV.

Nevertheless, as an adaption of Thomas Harris' original novel, the movie is almost flawless. The screenplay excises red herrings and tuns down the volume on some secondary characters. Crucially for the format, it amplifies Lecter's genius by not revealing that he knew everything all along and cuts Buffalo Bill's origin story for good measure too good horror, after all, does not achieve its effect on the screen, but in the mind of the viewer. The added benefit of removing material from the original means that the film has time to slowly ratchet up the tension, and can remain patient and respectful of the viewer's intelligence throughout: it is, you could almost say, "Ready when you are, Sgt. Pembury". Otherwise, the film does not deviate too far from the original, taking the most liberty when it interleaves two narratives for the famous 'two doorbells' feint.
Dr. Lecter's upright stance when we meet him reminds me of the third act of Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946), another picture freighted with meaningful stairs. Stanley Kubrick's The Killing (1956) began the now-shopworn trope of concealing a weapon in a flower box.
Two other points of deviation from the novel might be worthy of mention. In the book, a great deal is made of Dr. Lecter's penchant for Bach's Goldberg Variations, inducing a cultural resonance with other cinematic villains who have a taste for high art. It is also stressed in the book that it is the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould's recording too, although this is likely an attempt by Harris to demonstrate his own refined sensibilities Lecter would surely have prefered a more historically-informed performance on the harpsichord. Yet it is glaringly obvious that it isn't Gould playing in the film at all; Gould's hypercanonical 1955 recording is faster and focused, whilst his 1981 release is much slower and contemplative. No doubt tedious issues around rights prevented the use of either recording, but I like to imagine that Gould himself nixed the idea. The second change revolves around the film's most iconic quote. Deep underground, Dr. Lecter tries to spook Starling:
A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
The novel has this as "some fava beans and a big Amarone". No doubt the movie-going audience could not be trusted to know what an Amarone was, just as they were not to capable of recognising a philosopher. Nevertheless, substituting Chianti works better here as it cleverly foreshadows Tuscany (we discover that Lecter is living in Florence in the sequel), and it avoids the un-Lecterian tautology of 'big' Amarone's, I am reliably informed, are big-bodied wines. Like Buffalo Bill's victims. Yet that's not all. "The audience", according to TV Tropes:
... believe Lecter is merely confessing to one of his crimes. What most people would not know is that a common treatment for Lecter's "brand of crazy" is to use drugs of a class known as MAOIs (monoamine oxidase inhibitors). There are several things one must not eat when taking MAOIs, as they can case fatally low blood pressure, and as a physician and psychiatrist himself, Dr. Lecter would be well aware of this. These things include liver, fava beans, and red wine. In short, Lecter was telling Clarice that he was off his medication.
I could write more, but as they say, I'm having an old friend for dinner. The starling may be a common bird, but The Silence of the Lambs is that extremely rara avis indeed the film that's better than the book. Ta ta...

Fran ois Marier: Creating a Kodi media PC using a Raspberry Pi 4

Here's how I set up a media PC using Kodi (formerly XMBC) and a Raspberry Pi 4.

Hardware The hardware is fairly straightforward, but here's what I ended up getting: You'll probably want to add a remote control to that setup. I used an old Streamzap I had lying around.

Installing the OS on the SD-card Plug the SD card into a computer using a USB adapter. Download the imager and use it to install Raspbian on the SDcard. Then you can simply plug the SD card into the Pi and boot.

System configuration Using sudo raspi-config, I changed the following:
  • Set hostname (System Options)
  • Wait for network at boot (System Options): needed for NFS
  • Disable screen blanking (Display Options)
  • Enable ssh (Interface Options)
  • Configure locale, timezone and keyboard (Localisation Options)
  • Set WiFi country (Localisation Options)
Then I enabled automatic updates: 
apt install unattended-upgrades anacron
echo 'Unattended-Upgrade::Origins-Pattern  
        "origin=Debian,codename=$ distro_codename ,label=Debian";
        "origin=Debian,codename=$ distro_codename ,label=Debian-Security";
        "origin=Raspbian,codename=$ distro_codename ,label=Raspbian";
        "origin=Raspberry Pi Foundation,codename=$ distro_codename ,label=Raspberry Pi Foundation";
 ;'   sudo tee /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/51unattended-upgrades-raspbian

Headless setup Should you need to do the setup without a monitor, you can enable ssh by inserting the SD card into a computer and then creating an empty file called ssh in the boot partition. Plug it into your router and boot it up. Check the IP that it received by looking at the active DHCP leases in your router's admin panel. Then login: 
ssh -o PreferredAuthentications=password -o PubkeyAuthentication=no pi@192.168.1.xxx
using the default password of raspberry.

Hardening In order to secure the Pi, I followed most of the steps I usually take when setting up a new Linux server. I created a new user account for admin and ssh access: 
adduser francois
addgroup sshuser
adduser francois sshuser
adduser francois sudo
and changed the pi user password to a random one: 
pwgen -sy 32
sudo passwd pi
before removing its admin permissions: 
deluser pi adm
deluser pi sudo
deluser pi dialout
deluser pi cdrom
deluser pi lpadmin
Finally, I enabled the Uncomplicated Firewall by installing its package: 
apt install ufw
and only allowing ssh connections. After starting ufw using systemctl start ufw.service, you can check that it's configured as expected using ufw status. It should display the following: 
Status: active
To                         Action      From
--                         ------      ----
22/tcp                     ALLOW       Anywhere
22/tcp (v6)                ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)

Installing Kodi Kodi is very straightforward to install since it's now part of the Raspbian repositories: 
apt install kodi
To make it start at boot/login, while still being able to exit and use other apps if needed: 
cp /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/
echo "@kodi" >> ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart

Network File System In order to avoid having to have all media storage connected directly to the Pi via USB, I setup an NFS share over my local network. First, give static IP allocations to the server and the Pi in your DHCP server, then add it to the /etc/hosts file on your NFS server: 
192.168.1.3    pi
Install the NFS server package: 
apt instal nfs-kernel-server
Setup the directories to share in /etc/exports: 
/pub/movies    pi(ro,insecure,all_squash,subtree_check)
/pub/tv_shows  pi(ro,insecure,all_squash,subtree_check)
Open the right ports on your firewall by putting this in /etc/network/iptables.up.rules: 
-A INPUT -s 192.168.1.3 -p udp -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -s 192.168.1.0/24 -p tcp --dport 111 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -s 192.168.1.0/24 -p udp --dport 111 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -s 192.168.1.0/24 -p udp --dport 123 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -s 192.168.1.0/24 -p tcp --dport 600:1124 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -s 192.168.1.0/24 -p udp --dport 600:1124 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -s 192.168.1.0/24 -p tcp --dport 2049 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -s 192.168.1.0/24 -p udp --dport 2049 -j ACCEPT
Finally, apply all of these changes: 
iptables-apply
systemctl restart nfs-kernel-server.service
On the Pi, put the server's static IP in /etc/hosts: 
192.168.1.2    fileserver
and this in /etc/fstab: 
fileserver:/data/movies  /kodi/movies  nfs  ro,bg,hard,noatime,async,nolock  0  0
fileserver:/data/tv      /kodi/tv      nfs  ro,bg,hard,noatime,async,nolock  0  0
Then create the mount points and mount everything: 
mkdir -p /kodi/movies
mkdir /kodi/tv
mount /kodi/movies
mount /kodi/tv

11 February 2021

Dirk Eddelbuettel: td 0.0.1 on CRAN: New Finance Data Package

Thrilled to announce that a new package of mine just made it to CRAN: the td package accesses the twelvedata API for financial data. Currently only the time_series REST access point is supported, but it is already supported with all meaningful options (we skipped only JSON or CSV which makes no sense here) so for example any resolution between 1 minute and 1 month can be requested for any stock, etf or currency symbol for a wide array of exchanges. Historical access is available too via (optional) start and end dates. We return either raw JSON or a data.frame or an xts object making it trivial to call high-end plotting functions on the data the project and repo pages show several examples. As just one example, here is GME during the follies. We simply request via 
> gme <- time_series("GME", "1min",
+                    start_date="2021-01-25 09:30:00",
+                    end_date="2021-02-04 16:00:00", as="xts")
(where the API key is either in a user-local config file accessed via the new-ish R function tools::R_user_dir("td") pointing at this package s directory, or via an environment variable; either is accessed at package load or attachment) from which we can then plot via quantmod 
> quantmod::chart_Series(gme, name=paste0(attr(gme, "symbol"), "/", attr(gme, "exchange")))
which shows how we also helpfully store metadata returned by twelvedata as extra attributes of the object. The chart is You will need an API key to have up to 800 daily accesses for free, higher-performance plans (including websocket access) are available for paying customers too. I have only used the free API so far myself. I plan to add quote and price support this weekend, and generalize the time series access to returning lists of objects as the API does in fact support multi-security access. As always, feedback is welcomed. Please post comments and suggestions at the GitHub repo. If you like this or other open-source work I do, you can now sponsor me at GitHub.

This post by Dirk Eddelbuettel originated on his Thinking inside the box blog. Please report excessive re-aggregation in third-party for-profit settings.

Julien Danjou: Debugging C code on macOS

Debugging C code on macOSI started to write C 25 years ago now, with many different tools over the year. As many open source developers, I spent most of my life working with the GNU tools out there.As I've been using an Apple computer over the last years, I had to adapt to this environment and learn the tricks of the trade. Here are some of my notes so a search engine can index them and I'll be able to find them later.

Debugger: lldbI was used to gdb for most of years doing C. I never managed to install gdb correctly on macOS as it needs certificates, authorization, you name it, to work properly.macOS provides a native debugger named lldb, which really looks like gdb to me it runs in a terminal with a prompt.I had to learn the few commands I mostly use, which are:
  • lldb -- myprogram -options to run the program with options
  • r to run the program
  • bt or bt N to get a backtrace of the latest N frames
  • f N to select frame N
  • p V to print some variable value or memory address
Those commands cover 99% of my use case with a debugger when writing C, so once I lost my old gdb habits, I was good to go.

Debugging Memory Overflows

On GNU/LinuxOne of my favorite tools when writing C has always been Electric Fence (and DUMA more recently). It's a library that overrides the standard memory manipulation function (e.g., malloc) and instantly makes the program crash when an out of memory error is produced, rather than corrupting the heap.Heap corruption issues are hard to debug without such tools as they can happen at any time and stay unnoticed for a while, crashing your program in a totally different location later.There's no need to compile your program with those libraries. By using the dynamic loader, you can preload them and overload the standard C library functions.
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libefence.so.0.0 my-program
Run my-program with Eletric Fence loaded on GNU/Linux
My gdb configuration has been sprinkle with my friends efence and duma, and I would activate them from gdb easily with this configuration in ~/.gdbinit:
define efence
        set environment EF_PROTECT_BELOW 0
        set environment EF_ALLOW_MALLOC_0 1
        set environment LD_PRELOAD /usr/lib/libefence.so.0.0
        echo Enabled Electric Fence\n
end
document efence
Enable memory allocation debugging through Electric Fence (efence(3)).
        See also nofence and underfence.
end
define underfence
        set environment EF_PROTECT_BELOW 1
        set environment EF_ALLOW_MALLOC_0 1
        set environment LD_PRELOAD /usr/lib/libefence.so.0.0
        echo Enabled Electric Fence for underflow detection\n
end
document underfence
Enable memory allocation debugging for underflows through Electric Fence
(efence(3)).
        See also nofence and efence.
end
define nofence
        unset environment LD_PRELOAD
        echo Disabled Electric Fence\n
end
document nofence
Disable memory allocation debugging through Electric Fence (efence(3)).
end
define duma
        set environment DUMA_PROTECT_BELOW 0
        set environment DYMA_ALLOW_MALLOC_0 1
        set environment LD_PRELOAD /usr/lib/libduma.so
        echo Enabled DUMA\n
end
document duma
Enable memory allocation debugging through DUMA (duma(3)).
        See also noduma and underduma.
end

On macOSI've been looking for equivalent features in macOS, and after many hours of research, I found out that this feature is shipped natively with libgmalloc. It works in the same way, and its features are documented by Apple.My ~/.lldbinit file now contains the following:
command alias gm _regexp-env DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=/usr/lib/libgmalloc.dylib
This command alias allows enabling gmalloc by just typing gm at the lldb prompt and then run the program again to see if it crashes with gmalloc enabled.

Debugging CPythonIt's not a mystery that I spend a lot of time writing Python code that's the main reason I've been doing C lately.When playing with CPython, it can be useful to, e.g., dump the content of PyObject structs on the heap or get the Python backtrace.I've been using cpython-lldb for this with great success. It adds a few bells and whistles when debugging CPython or extensions inside lldb. For example, the alias py-bt is handy to get the Python traceback of your calls rather than a bunch of cryptic C frames.Now, you should be ready to debug your nasty issues and memory problems on macOS efficiently!

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