nasa / nasa/cFS

Improve version control, reporting, and integrity support to enhance security

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enhancement security
Dominant language
C
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Forks
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Avg merge
1d 11h
Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Elements could be modified between original generation and use without easily being noticed. A holistic design approach to version control, reporting, integrity should be considered to support the various use cases.

Currently state:

  1. Repo information (git describe in a subset of repos) is gathered during build and reported on execution for top branch, cFE and OSAL- need to expand this to include all the elements (apps, libs, psp, etc)
  2. Build information is gathered during build and reported on execution - user name and date for last full build covering cFE (doesn't cover uploaded apps or elements built separately/after the original full build)
  3. Version information updated by hand and reported at execution time for most of cFS - elf2cfetbl and tblCRCtool don't report version information, hasn't been consistently updated
  4. Checksums are typically just calculated and reported at load/execution, doesn't cover libs, really should employ digital signatures that can be verified

Describe the solution you'd like
See above suggestions

Describe alternatives you've considered
None, but should discuss with security experts and come up with a complete, well vetted solution.

Additional context
Likely very beneficial to community requiring a more robust security approach

Requester Info
Jacob Hageman/NASA-GSFC

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Begin with the current build-time and execution-time reporting described for cFE and OSAL, then trace how apps, libraries, PSPs, elf2cfetbl, and tblCRCtool are handled. Consult security experts to define a complete, vetted approach to versioning, build provenance, checksums, and signatures. Done means an agreed design covers all elements and relevant verification use cases.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
c, git
Domain
build-system, release, security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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