[xen-tools-discuss] Security concerns with calling "apt-get --force-yes"

[Sebastian Pipping]

Hello!


It came to my attention that functions

  installDebianPackage
  installDebianPackageAndRecommends

of ./hooks/common.sh and also

  ./bin/xen-update-image

call to "apt-get --force-yes", directly.

The complete list of Xen tools calling "apt-get --force-yes" (both
direct and indirect) seems to be:

  xen-create-image
  xen-update-image
  xt-customize-image

If I am not mistaken, --force-yes makes apt-get ignore GPG verification
errors which may lead to installation of malicious Debian packages in a
man-in-the-middle scenario.

"man apt-get" says about "--force-yes":

  --force-yes
      Force yes; this is a dangerous option that will cause apt to
      continue without prompting if it is doing something potentially
      harmful. It should not be used except in very special situations.
      Using force-yes can potentially destroy your system!

My current suggestion would be to remove the --force-yes parameter.

What do you think?

Best,



Sebastian