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"No need to install". This is every system administrator's nightmare: users running arbitrary executables bypassing operating system packaging. Come time to upg

"No need to install". This is every system administrator's nightmare: users running arbitrary executables bypassing operating system packaging. Come time to upgrade or reinstall what can happen? If there are security updates which are needed to the program, what could happen, since this is statically linked? This is the pinnacle of destructive lazyness and amateurism in IT: as a developer it is one's job to master every operating system packaging format for the target platform one develops for. OS packaging is a tool invented for developers, not a tool meant to be subverted at every turn and opportunity like this.

viraptor 7y ago
I don't believe this is really a problem for administrators. Reasonable multi-user hosts will have both home and tmp mounted no-exec and will not allow fuse - appimage will not work. This solution will work just fine of personal machines though. I'd rather native packages were distributed too, but if the choice is this or nothing... why disappoint people?
pjmlp 7y ago
Any savy UNIX admin will be able to prevent new executables to run under user accounts.
- Annatar 7y ago
  But it won't solve the problem of developers' unwillingness to learn how to make operating system packages now will it? I don't get it: people like that will sink and waste hundreds of hours learning useless garbage like Puppet, Ansible, Chef, Docker or Kubernetes without batting an eyelash or even thinking twice about it, but they'll argue and fight back like hell come time to deliver their software as clean OS packages because they don't want to learn the technology. Technology which exists for them first and foremost: OS packaging is meant to be a developer's tool and best friend.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Because those providing the said technology cannot agree what it means to be a GNU/Linux OS, and we have limited time on our life to bother with thousand variants of it.
    - Annatar 7y ago
      Linux is just a kernel, so every distribution is a somewhat similar yet completely different operating system. Reality is, most software targets CentOS / RHEL, OpenSUSE / SLES and Debian / Ubuntu. That's exactly two packaging formats, RPM and DPKG. Now, let's presume for the purpose of illustration that learning both of those takes 100 hours (it takes much less): to learn Chef, Puppet, Docker, Ansible and Kubernetes to any degree of proficiency takes about 1,000 hours. Where's the business value?
      - pjmlp 7y ago
        Try to install a random RPM package targeted to Red-Hat on SLES to see how far you will go.
        Annatar 7y ago
        That's again due to incompetence and not a fault of RPM. My own spec files build cleanly across both without any additional effort. It's not rocket science but insight.
        pjmlp 7y ago
        Ah, like the C based security exploits are the fault of programmer and not the lack of safety features to start with.
        Annatar 7y ago
        Absolutely correct. Those who do not understand the hardware on the register and machine code level should go master that first before dabbling with C. One has to learn to walk before one attempts to run. Working on and with computers requires competence and insight; no technology can replace that nor ameliorate it.
etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
Literally the reason why PCs won over mainframes. Users want to run the software they want to run. If you don't trust your users to run software on your server you probably shouldn't let them on your server in the first place... or else contain and isolate them with a VM or similar. Multi-user operating systems are feeling a bit like they are going the way of the dodo, to me... That is acutall multi-user systems, not user accounts for system services.
- Annatar 7y ago
  What do you think powers the InterNet that you're connected to right now? Multiuser systems, running applications under different logins. Even the much hated systemd brought physical multiuser computing back to GNU/Linux.
  - etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
    Yeah, but the user accounts are at the application level not the os level. I doubt there is a top internet company around that makes a unix account for each web user. That would be an antipattern...
    - Annatar 7y ago
      Search for "free shell accounts". You might be surprised.
      - etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
        It kind of reminds me of shared hosting providers without root access. Sure they exist but really have been overtaken in a big way by virtual private servers... That's what I mean by they seem going out of style.

viraptor 7y ago

I don't believe this is really a problem for administrators. Reasonable multi-user hosts will have both home and tmp mounted no-exec and will not allow fuse - appimage will not work. This solution will work just fine of personal machines though. I'd rather native packages were distributed too, but if the choice is this or nothing... why disappoint people?

pjmlp 7y ago

Any savy UNIX admin will be able to prevent new executables to run under user accounts.

Annatar 7y ago
But it won't solve the problem of developers' unwillingness to learn how to make operating system packages now will it? I don't get it: people like that will sink and waste hundreds of hours learning useless garbage like Puppet, Ansible, Chef, Docker or Kubernetes without batting an eyelash or even thinking twice about it, but they'll argue and fight back like hell come time to deliver their software as clean OS packages because they don't want to learn the technology. Technology which exists for them first and foremost: OS packaging is meant to be a developer's tool and best friend.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Because those providing the said technology cannot agree what it means to be a GNU/Linux OS, and we have limited time on our life to bother with thousand variants of it.
  - Annatar 7y ago
    Linux is just a kernel, so every distribution is a somewhat similar yet completely different operating system. Reality is, most software targets CentOS / RHEL, OpenSUSE / SLES and Debian / Ubuntu. That's exactly two packaging formats, RPM and DPKG. Now, let's presume for the purpose of illustration that learning both of those takes 100 hours (it takes much less): to learn Chef, Puppet, Docker, Ansible and Kubernetes to any degree of proficiency takes about 1,000 hours. Where's the business value?
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      Try to install a random RPM package targeted to Red-Hat on SLES to see how far you will go.
      - Annatar 7y ago
        That's again due to incompetence and not a fault of RPM. My own spec files build cleanly across both without any additional effort. It's not rocket science but insight.
        pjmlp 7y ago
        Ah, like the C based security exploits are the fault of programmer and not the lack of safety features to start with.
        Annatar 7y ago
        Absolutely correct. Those who do not understand the hardware on the register and machine code level should go master that first before dabbling with C. One has to learn to walk before one attempts to run. Working on and with computers requires competence and insight; no technology can replace that nor ameliorate it.

etaioinshrdlu 7y ago

Literally the reason why PCs won over mainframes. Users want to run the software they want to run. If you don't trust your users to run software on your server you probably shouldn't let them on your server in the first place... or else contain and isolate them with a VM or similar. Multi-user operating systems are feeling a bit like they are going the way of the dodo, to me... That is acutall multi-user systems, not user accounts for system services.

Annatar 7y ago
What do you think powers the InterNet that you're connected to right now? Multiuser systems, running applications under different logins. Even the much hated systemd brought physical multiuser computing back to GNU/Linux.
- etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
  Yeah, but the user accounts are at the application level not the os level. I doubt there is a top internet company around that makes a unix account for each web user. That would be an antipattern...
  - Annatar 7y ago
    Search for "free shell accounts". You might be surprised.
    - etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
      It kind of reminds me of shared hosting providers without root access. Sure they exist but really have been overtaken in a big way by virtual private servers... That's what I mean by they seem going out of style.