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GNU Mes

Introduction

hello, i am janneke.

this talk is about GNU Mes and our efforts to create an auditable, full source bootstrap for our free software systems.

Scheme-only bootstrap: GNU Mes

MesCC is a C99 compiler written in a subset of Guile Scheme and comes with Mes, a Scheme interpreter to run it.

A big problem, predicted 40y ago

in the eighties, ken thompson showed us the growing trust problem that was being introduced in computing.

Long path: Ignoring the problem

his message has mostly been ignored.

Journey to the Source?

we are injecting more and larger binary seeds to build our free software systems.

Carl Dong – bitcoin build system security

the importance to stop this trend was evident to bitcoin developer Carl Dong of Chaincode Labs.

i warmly recommend the talk he gave at the breaking bitcoin conference.

Reproducible-Builds.org

bitcoin has implemented Gitian, a system that uses reproducible builds.

What is a Bootstrap?

let's say you wrote the first ever GNU CC compiler and you wrote it in C; it is impossible to compile this C source code into an executable gcc program.

How to Bootstrap: An Old Recipe…

ah but that's like making yoghurt: use fresh milk and just add some yoghurt leftover from yesterday.

How to Bootstrap: Create your second GCC

using this insight, we can now create our second GCC!

Pour milk

we take fresh, security-audited milk.

Add yoghurt

we publish the recipe, so that others may verify the result.

We're reproducible

and low and behold, your second compiler exactly matches ours!

as long as you follow our recipe.

Add evil yoghurt

and use the exact same, FIRST compiler…

We're reproducible

everyone is …

Evil yoghurt

just as bug-free and secure

We're reproducibly malicous

as our shared, FIRST compiler was

Reproducibility is not enough

reproducibility is no substitute for bootstrappability

Reproducibility plus clean source code is not enough

and while bug-free source code remains important, we need something else.

Guix pronounced geeks

enter GNU Guix.

in Guix, we implemented a Reduced Binary Seed bootstrap.

Long path: Reduced Binary Seed bootstrap

a full GNU/Linux system is bootstrapped from only 60 megabytes of trusted binaries.

NLnet Foundation

so we are very excited that NlNet provided a grant to make that possible

GCC core-mesboot0-scheme-only

this is what the graph looks like now: the only interesting binaries left, are a scheme interpreter and scheme compiler: gnu mes and gnu guile.

Full Source Bootstrap

given that we dislike downloading binaries and trusting them, why not stop doing so altogether?

Long path: Full Source Bootstrap

we are creating a full source bootstrap path

Joy of Source

are we doing this only to counter the trusting trust attack?

i think that building from source is the proper way to do computing; and the trusting trust attack is only a symptom of confusing a binary substitute with the compilation of source code.

Thanks

i am very grateful for getting so much help and seeing this crazy project grow!

Want to join?

that's all folks!

You can help

  • raise awareness

  • make core GNU packages bootstrappable again

    • XZ-only => .GZ tarballs (thank you: sed, coreutils!)
    • GCC (c++!), GNU Libc (python?!)
  • reduced bootstrap NixOS, Debian
  • port MesCC to the Hurd, FreeBSD
  • retweet/toot @janneke_gnu janneke@octodon.social

Connect

legalese

Copyright © 2020 Jan (janneke) Nieuwenhuizen <janneke@gnu.org>

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.