XO updater/lang-es

Actualizador del XO

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Actualizaciones de Software en el XO de Una Computadora Para Cada Chico

Software updates on the One Laptop per Child's XO laptop

Definición del problema y objetivos

Este documento tiene como fin especificar el mecanismo para actualizar el software en la laptop XO-1. Cuando hablamos de actualizar software, estamos refiriéndonos tanto al software del sistema como el SO y los servicios principales que son requeridos para la operación básica del laptop, y casi cualquier aplicación instalada que sea vista por el usuario ("Actividades"), estas dos provistas por OLPC o aquellas provistas por terceras personas.

Problem statement and scope

This document aims to specify the mechanism for updating software on the XO-1 laptop. When we talk about updating software, we are referring both to system software such as the OS and the core services controlled by OLPC that are required for the laptop's basic operation, and about any installed user-facing applications ("activities"), both those provided by OLPC and those provided by third parties.

Updater del Systema

Objetivos principales

los tres principales objetivos de una herramienta de actualización de software (desde acá llamado "updater") para el XO son los siguientes:

Seguridad

Dado la idea inicial del grupo de nuestros usuarios. es la única solución razonable es dejar que la actualización y detección de las actualizaciones sean automáticas. para permitir la capacidad de aplicar parches de seguridad de una forma temporal y permitir a los usuarios beneficiarse de las rápidas mejoras y desarrollos del software que están usando. Las actualizaciones automáticas sin embargo, son un tema de seguridad en si mismas: comprometiendo en cualquier forma que pueda dar a un atacante la habilidad de entrar a través de todas las bases instaladas de laptops y sobrepasar -- por diseño -- todas las medidas de seguridad de la maquina.

Por ello, la seguridad del updater es crucial y debe ser su primer objetivo de diseño.

Énfasis inflexible en la tolerancia de fallas

Dada la escala de nuestro lanzamiento, la relativamente alta complejidad de nuestro stack de red cuando se compara con los lanzamientos comunes y corrientes, la poca confianza de la conectividad de internet aun cuando esta disponible, y quizás mas importante nuestro deseo de participar a los países para que empiecen temprano que empiecen temprano a adaptar a sus propias necesidades, es claro que nuestro updater debe ser tolerante a las fallas. Esto es tanto para el sentido sencillo -- checksums criptográficos deben ser usados para asegurar que las actualizaciones sean recibidas corrientemente -- y en un sentido mas complejo que la probabilidad de un error humano con respecto a la preparación de la actualización se incrementa proporcionalmente al diferente numero de imágenes de SO base en juego. Un updater tolerante a las fallas por ello permitirá un rollback incondicional del update mas recientemente aplicado. "incondicional" aca significa que teniendo la falla de otras partes del sistema que son dependencias del updater (ej: el sistema de archivos), el updater debe siempre saber como correctamente des-aplicar una actualización aplicada, aun si la actualización estaba malformada.

Bajo ancho de banda

Por casi las mismas razones (escala del proyecto, escasez y desconfianza en el acceso a internet) se requiere tolerancia a fallas del updater, la herramienta debe tener máximo cuidado para minimizar los requerimientos de transferencia de datos. Esto significa, concretamente, que un enfoque basado en deltas debe ser utilizado por el updater, con un "keyframe" o actualización "pesada" siendo estrictamente una via alterna en el poco probable caso de que una ruta de actualización no pueda ser construida de los deltas alcanzables o disponibles.

The three core goals of a software update tool (hereafter "updater") for the XO are as follows:

Security

Given the initial age group of our users, it is the only reasonable solution to default to automatic detection and installation of updates, both to be able to apply security patches in a timely fashion, and to enable users to benefit from rapid development and improvements in the software they're using. Automatic updates, however, are a security issue unto themselves: compromising the update system in any way can provide an attacker with the ability to wreak havoc across entire installed bases of laptops while bypassing -- by design -- all the security measures on the machine.

Therefore, the security of the updater is paramount and must be its first design goal.

Uncompromising emphasis on fault-tolerance

Given the scale of our deployment, the relatively high complexity of our network stack when compared to currently-common deployments, the unreliability of Internet connectivity even when available, and perhaps most importantly our desire for participating countries to soon begin customizing the official OLPC OS images to best suit them, it is clear that our updater must be fault-tolerant. This is both in the simple sense -- cryptographic checksums need to be used to ensure updates were received correctly -- and in the more complex sense that the likelihood of a human error with regard to update preparation goes up proportionally to the number of different base OS images at play. A fault-tolerant updater will therefore allow _unconditional_ rollback of the most recently applied update. "Unconditional" here means that, barring the failure of other parts of the system which are dependencies of the updater (e.g. the filesystem), the updater must always know how to correctly unapply an applied update, even if the update was malformed.

Low bandwidth

For much the same reasons (project scale, Internet access scarcity and unreliability) that require fault-tolerance from the updater, the tool must take maximum care to minimize data transfer requirements. This means, concretely, that a delta-based approach must be utilized by the updater, with a "keyframe" or "heavy" update being strictly a fallback in the unlikely case an update path cannot be constructed from the available or reachable delta sets.

Diseño

Este es dado debido a los requerimientos impuestos por la plataforma de seguridad Bitfrost/lang-es, que una laptop intentara hacer contacto diario con los servidores de antirobo de OLPC. Durante esa interacción, la laptop posteara su propia versión de software del sistema, y la respuesta dada por el servicio antirobo opcionalmente contendrá una URL relativa a una imagen de SO mas reciente.

Si ese apuntador ha sido recibido y la laptop esta detrás de un servidor de colegio conocido, el probara el servidor vía rsync en la URL relativa dada para determinar si el servidor a adquirido la actualización localmente. Si la actualización no esta disponible localmente, la laptop esperara 24 horas, probando aproximadamente cada hora para ver si el servidor del colegio ha obtenido la actualización. Si al final de este periodo de espera el servidor aun no tiene una copia local de la actualización, se asume que esta funcionando mal, y el laptop contactara a un servidor master upstream directamente usando la URL dada originalmente por el servicio antirobo.

En cualquiera de estos tres casos (school server ha sido actualizado inmediatamente, school server ha sido actualizado después de un retraso, upstream master tiene la actualización), decimos que la laptop ha encontrado una ¨fuente de actualización¨.

Una vez que una fuente de actualización haya sido encontrada, la laptop invocara la herramienta estandart rsync sobre una conexión de texto plano (insegura) a travez del protocolo rsync -- no entubada a travez de una shell de cualquier clase -- para poner sus propios archivos en regla con la versión mas reciente del sistema, rsync usa un algoritmo red-eficiente de diff binario que satisface el objetivo 3.

It is given, due to requirements imposed by the Bitfrost security platform, that a laptop will attempt to make daily contact with the OLPC anti-theft servers. During that interaction, the laptop will post its system software version, and the response provided by the anti-theft service will optionally contain a relative URL of a more recent OS image.

If such a pointer has been received and the laptop is behind a known school server, it will probe the school server via rsync at the provided relative URL to determine whether the server has cached the update locally. If the update is not available locally, the laptop will wait up to 24 hours, checking approximately hourly whether the school server has obtained the update. If at the end of this wait period the school server still does not have a local copy of the update, it is assumed to be malfunctioning, and the laptop will contact an upstream master server directly by using the URL provided originally by the anti-theft service.

In any of these three cases (school server has update immediately, school server has update after delay, upstream master has update), we say the laptop has 'found an update source'.

Once an update source has been found, the laptop will invoke the standard rsync tool over a plaintext (unsecured) connection via the rsync protocol -- not piped through a shell of any kind -- to bring its own files up to date with the more recent version of the system. rsync uses a network-efficient binary diff algorithm which satisfies goal 3.

Nota de Diseño: Actualizaciones peer-to-peer

Es deseable tener una funcionalidad "viral update" en fechas posteriores. esto para que dos laptops con diferentes versiones de software (y sin ninguna noción de confianza) puedan encadenar un a actualización para el laptop con el software viejo.

sin embargo, determinar como tener esta funcionalidad de una manera segura, eficientemente y elegantemente no es probable dentro de los plazos de tiempo de Gen1 FRS. Por ello. las actualizaciones laptop a laptop NO harán parte del updater que se entregara con la imagen FRS y son candidatas para entrega de 2 a 3 meses después de FRS.

It is desirable to provide "viral update" functionality at a later date, such that two laptops with different software versions (and without any notion of trust) can engage in an update to bring the laptop with the older software fully up to date.

However, determining how to provide this functionality securely, efficiently and elegantly is not feasible on the Gen1 FRS timeline. Therefore, laptop-to-laptop updates will NOT be a part of the updater that ships with the FRS image, and are a candidate for release 2-3 months after FRS.

Nota de Diseño: Escalabilidad de rsync

rsync es un conocido cpu hog del lado del servidor. seria absolutamente improbable soportar un gran numero de usuarios desde un solo servidor rsync. Este no es un problema en nuestro escenario por estas tres razones:

rsync is a known CPU hog on the server side. It would be absolutely infeasible to support a very large number of users from a single rsync server. This is far less of a problem in our scenario for three reasons:

High branching factor

In all normal circumstances, the vast majority of the rsync traffic to our upstream servers will come from school servers, not individual laptops. If school servers are unavailable of malfunctioning, it is not the case that there will be a flood of requests from individual laptops, because it's likely that the school servers are those laptops' only gateway to the Internet.

Element of randomness in anti-theft requests

Instead of hitting the update servers every hour on the hour, the laptops are already including an element of randomness in choosing when to contact the anti-theft service. This random delay propagates to the rsync requests, as well.

In-depth stagger abilities on the server side

Because notification of new updates is performed by the anti-theft service which is aware of a laptop's locale, updates can be staggered over several days by country, region, or any other metric such as server load.

Additionally, some optimizations can be added to rsync proper to aid with our use case, but such engineering will need to wait until after FRS.

Implementación

Para poder implementar una protección de archivos en tiempo de ejecución, Bitfrost se apoya en la funcionalidad COW del patchset de Linux-Vserver. La funcionalidad imbuye enlaces duros inmutables dentro de un contexto designado con un significado especial: cuando se rompe por alguna operación destructiva de archivos. Vserver reemplazara estos enlaces duros con el contenido de un archivo al cual ellos estaban apuntando y aplica la operación deseada en la copia resultante.

In order to implement runtime file protection, Bitfrost relies on the COW functionality of the Linux-VServer patchset. The functionality imbues immutable hardlinks within a designated context with special meaning: when broken by some destructive file operation, VServer will replace these hardlinks with the content of the file they were pointing to and apply the desired operation on the resulting copy.

The XO updater will run in a special context to which the security service has exposed the entire underlying filesystem as a COW copy. The updater will update this COW copy in-place with rsync. This COW mechanism simply ensures no excess authority lies with the updater; any failures or vulnerabilities in it do not propagate to the rest of the system.

One file contained within each OS image will be its cryptographically signed manifest; at the end of the rsync operation, the laptop will have obtained that file. At this point, the updater will request that the security service applies the update. Note that due to the nature of rsync, we can stop and restart the network phase of a single update several times as connectivity becomes available, and until we've received the complete update.

The security service will terminate the updater and then analyze the manifest and confirm the modified files in the updater's context exactly match the expected OS image end-state. If any discrepancy is discovered, the updater context will be discarded and the update operation aborted.

If the update is verified to be complete and correct, the security service will mark it as such, and designate the files within it to be the files exported into all newly-created containers. System service containers will be restarted gracefully. If the the image manifest did not contain a header identifying that image as a high-priority update, the update process ends here. Restartable services have been restarted, and the rest of the system will be initialized from the update on reboot.

If the update has been marked as high-priority, the user will be asked to close applications and reboot his machine immediately. A timer will run that will reboot the machine in 60 minutes if the user does not do so. The high-priority timer can be disabled in the security center; its purpose is merely to provide some extra protection to the youngest users who cannot necessarily be expected to understand or comply with the reboot request.

On boot, the first initialization script to run will perform a pivot_root operation to the directory that currently holds the OS image marked bootable by the security service. With the example above, it would be the directory that belonged to the updater's context. If a key is depressed during boot, however, the pivot_root is performed to the _old_ bootable context, and the user presented a dialog asking whether she would like to make the rollback permanent.

The kernel is the only special case to this handling: in the event that a verified update contains an updated kernel, that kernel will be placed into a predetermined place in the underlying filesystem by the security service. OpenFirmware will preferentially boot this newer kernel unless the rollback key combination is depressed during boot.

Notice that the update operation has been reduced to a simple state toggle between (any) two OS images. In so doing, we have satisfied goals 1 and 2.

Updater de las Aplicaciones

Diseño

El XO evita los enfoques tradicionales basados en dependencias para el manejo de paquetes, haciendo las mejoras de aplicaciones algo mas dificiles. El problema esta compuesto por el hecho de que Bitfrost no permite que las aplicaciones se actualizen ellas mismas (dentro de su lugar) el cual es un metodo comun de actualizaciones en plataformas como Mac OS X y Windows.

Cuando se trata de actualización de aplicaciones, queremos estar acorde con nuestros objetivos de seguridad y de actualizaciones de bajo ancho de banda, pero están dispuestos a moderarse hacia una tolerancia de fallas como la necesitada por el hecho de que la mayoría de actividades no serán mantenidas o escritas por OLPC.

The XO eschews traditional dependency-based approaches to package management, making application upgrades somewhat difficult. The problem is compounded by the fact that Bitfrost does not permit applications to update themselves in-place, which is a common update method on platforms such as Mac OS X and Windows.

When it comes to application updates, we wish to stay true to our goals of security and low-bandwidth updates, but are willing to settle for less fault tolerance as necessitated by the fact that most activities won't be OLPC-written or maintained.

The design should make it possible to have a single tool that can ascertain the existence of updated versions of any currently installed activities, and then fetch and install those updates. It should do so bandwidth-efficiently, such that files that are unchanged between activity versions aren't downloaded as part of the update, and also such that identical resources files packaged by multiple activities are never downloaded more than once, or not at all if they already exist on the system.

Implementación

Un archivo manifiesto es añadido al formato de especificacion del "bundle". El manifiesto consiste de el nombre del archivo y un fuerte hash criptografico de cada archivo en el "bundle". Otro archivo es añadido, llamado origen, el cual especifica la URL donde los "bundles" actualizados de las actividades pueden ser encontrados y una clave publica que sera usada para firmar esos "bundles" actualizados.

A manifest file is added to the bundle format specification. The manifest consists of the filename and strong cryptographic hash of every file in the bundle. Another file is added, called 'origin', that specifies a URL where updated activity bundles may be found, and a public key which will be used to sign such updated bundles.

When a global activity update is initiated, the updater enumerates the origins for all installed activities, then probes each one in turn to determine which activities have available updates. The resulting activity list is the 'available update set'.

The most up-to-date bundle for each activity in the set is accessed, and the first several kilobytes downloaded. Since bundles are simple ZIP files, the downloaded data will contain the ZIP file index which stores byte offsets for the constituent compressed files. The updater then locates the bundle manifest in each index and makes a HTTP request with the respective byte range to each bundle origin. At the end of this process, the updater has cheaply obtained a set of manifests of the files in all available activity updates.

A local database of manifests of all installed activities is kept, pruned only to records for files larger than a set size, e.g. 50 KB. The updater cross-references each manifest from the available update set with the installed database, and then with other manifests in the set. Files which exist locally and are also present in the available update set aren't downloaded; the updater simply "plants" the files in the right places. The same happens for identical files present in multiple bundles in the available update set; they are only downloaded once.

After a bundle (minus any redundant files) has been downloaded, it is unpacked and reassembled (if it needs any of the files that haven't been downloaded because they already exist). Cryptographic signature verification is performed. If remaining disk space is larger than a particular margin, e.g. 20%, then the context containing the older version of the activity bundle is kept around, and the user given the ability to perform rollback on the activity update. Otherwise, the old version bundle is destroyed.

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Author

    Ivan Krstić
    ivan AT laptop.org
    One Laptop per Child
    http://laptop.org

Metadata

    Revision: Draft-14
    Timestamp: Tue Jun  26 17:51:45 UTC 2007

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