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> is still irrelevant noise for non-users of safari. Can you explain this more? Despite being a longtime Apple user, I've never heard of RSR before. If it's ju

> is still irrelevant noise for non-users of safari. Can you explain this more? Despite being a longtime Apple user, I've never heard of RSR before. If it's just an update for Safari, why does it require the computer to be rebooted? Does it not affect me if I use other browsers for 99% of my web usage?

bink 4y ago
The Safari libraries are used by tons of apps running on OSX. It's probably just easier to reboot than to ensure that all affected apps are reloaded.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Are there apps using the Safari libraries running in the background? Sounds like something only user-facing applications would be using. Also, isn't one of the arguments for Apple's stronghold on all the software running on their machines that they know 100% what everything is doing? Should be trivial to look up which processes are using specific parts and restart those.
  - ikekkdcjkfke 4y ago
    I feel like Android is much more modular in that regard, even the apps for the playstore is an app that can be killed/wiped essily from an all apps menu
  - olliej 4y ago
    > Also, isn't one of the arguments for Apple's stronghold on all the software running on their machines that they know 100% what everything is doing? What stronghold? You can run whatever apps you want on a Mac. As for identifying libraries in use. you can do that on any platform: Pause all processes, scan the address space of all processes to find anything the looks like a pointer to an impacted library, then hope/assume that there's no pointer tagging or munging going on, and voila that's your list. Hopefully you didn't miss anything. The problem is that that's just a heuristic and you'd want to be _really_ sure you were right, or weird crashes will happen. On macOS specifically there are other hurdles, the biggest being that the system partition is readonly, and so system libraries can't be replaced outside of early on in the boot process.
    - bink 4y ago
      > The problem is that that's just a heuristic and you'd want to be _really_ sure you were right, or weird crashes will happen. Or worse, you leave running applications vulnerable to a critical security vulnerability while telling the user that they've applied all security patches.
pjot 4y ago
RSR is a new feature. https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/manage-rapid-security-responses-dep93ff7ea78/web https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/manage-rapid-secu...
- Amorymeltzer 4y ago
  Indeed, here's the crucial quote: >Rapid Security Responses that involve the operating system require the device to restart. On macOS, the updated operating system content may be made available to Safari and its associated processes with just a relaunch of those processes, though a restart is required to make this content broadly available to the rest of the operating system.
Amorymeltzer 4y ago
From the info page on apple (linked elsewhere here but https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201224 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201224 and (no discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35776738 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35776738)) >They deliver important security improvements between software updates — for example, improvements to the Safari web browser, the WebKit framework stack, or other critical system libraries. They may also be used to mitigate some security issues more quickly, such as issues that might have been exploited or reported to exist "in the wild." I believe they are vague on purpose (and because they're Apple) but it does not strike me as something strictly limited to affecting just Safari, especially given the libraries may be used elsewhere. ETA: To further quote from https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/manage-rapid-security-responses-dep93ff7ea78/web https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/manage-rapid-secu...: >Rapid Security Responses that involve the operating system require the device to restart. On macOS, the updated operating system content may be made available to Safari and its associated processes with just a relaunch of those processes, though a restart is required to make this content broadly available to the rest of the operating system.
Malwheer 4y ago
Kernel patch requires a reboot. This will include important kernel fixes
Malwheer 4y ago
It almost certainly includes some kernel modification that was required. or it could be that the WebKit component that Safari and other applications use as an API layer needed to be patched and a reboot ensures all components running get the patch. There is also some sandboxing technology that is used for other things besides Safari and that is implemented in the Kernel.
olliej 4y ago
If the bug is used in WebKit, then that's a system framework used by many apps on the system (and has been for well over a decade), not just Safari. However updating the system requires updating the system partition, which is readonly, so requires rebooting.

bink 4y ago

The Safari libraries are used by tons of apps running on OSX. It's probably just easier to reboot than to ensure that all affected apps are reloaded.

capableweb 4y ago
Are there apps using the Safari libraries running in the background? Sounds like something only user-facing applications would be using. Also, isn't one of the arguments for Apple's stronghold on all the software running on their machines that they know 100% what everything is doing? Should be trivial to look up which processes are using specific parts and restart those.
- ikekkdcjkfke 4y ago
  I feel like Android is much more modular in that regard, even the apps for the playstore is an app that can be killed/wiped essily from an all apps menu
- olliej 4y ago
  > Also, isn't one of the arguments for Apple's stronghold on all the software running on their machines that they know 100% what everything is doing? What stronghold? You can run whatever apps you want on a Mac. As for identifying libraries in use. you can do that on any platform: Pause all processes, scan the address space of all processes to find anything the looks like a pointer to an impacted library, then hope/assume that there's no pointer tagging or munging going on, and voila that's your list. Hopefully you didn't miss anything. The problem is that that's just a heuristic and you'd want to be _really_ sure you were right, or weird crashes will happen. On macOS specifically there are other hurdles, the biggest being that the system partition is readonly, and so system libraries can't be replaced outside of early on in the boot process.
  - bink 4y ago
    > The problem is that that's just a heuristic and you'd want to be _really_ sure you were right, or weird crashes will happen. Or worse, you leave running applications vulnerable to a critical security vulnerability while telling the user that they've applied all security patches.

pjot 4y ago

RSR is a new feature. https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/manage-rapid-security-responses-dep93ff7ea78/web https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/manage-rapid-secu...

Amorymeltzer 4y ago
Indeed, here's the crucial quote: >Rapid Security Responses that involve the operating system require the device to restart. On macOS, the updated operating system content may be made available to Safari and its associated processes with just a relaunch of those processes, though a restart is required to make this content broadly available to the rest of the operating system.

Amorymeltzer 4y ago

From the info page on apple (linked elsewhere here but https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201224 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201224 and (no discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35776738 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35776738)) >They deliver important security improvements between software updates — for example, improvements to the Safari web browser, the WebKit framework stack, or other critical system libraries. They may also be used to mitigate some security issues more quickly, such as issues that might have been exploited or reported to exist "in the wild." I believe they are vague on purpose (and because they're Apple) but it does not strike me as something strictly limited to affecting just Safari, especially given the libraries may be used elsewhere. ETA: To further quote from https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/manage-rapid-security-responses-dep93ff7ea78/web https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/manage-rapid-secu...: >Rapid Security Responses that involve the operating system require the device to restart. On macOS, the updated operating system content may be made available to Safari and its associated processes with just a relaunch of those processes, though a restart is required to make this content broadly available to the rest of the operating system.

Malwheer 4y ago

Kernel patch requires a reboot. This will include important kernel fixes

Malwheer 4y ago

It almost certainly includes some kernel modification that was required. or it could be that the WebKit component that Safari and other applications use as an API layer needed to be patched and a reboot ensures all components running get the patch. There is also some sandboxing technology that is used for other things besides Safari and that is implemented in the Kernel.

olliej 4y ago

If the bug is used in WebKit, then that's a system framework used by many apps on the system (and has been for well over a decade), not just Safari. However updating the system requires updating the system partition, which is readonly, so requires rebooting.