Bug#498671: Is libxml-rsslite really suitable for stable?

Anthony DeRobertis anthony at derobert.net
Fri Sep 12 03:47:26 UTC 2008


Package: libxml-rsslite-perl
Version: 0.11-3
Severity: serious
File: /usr/share/perl5/XML/RSSLite.pm

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(1) It seems abandoned upstream — the last update is Feb 2003 according
to CPAN.

(2) bug 443629 (CDATA handling) makes it useles for a large number of
feeds, and worse even feeds that work now may break at any time — CDATA
is standard XML, after all.

(3) bug 443629 is not just a CDATA problem. Its actually a
nearly-arbitrary regexp injection. e.g.,
	<f(?2)o>{hello}</f(?2)o>
gives
	Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in
	m/f(?2) <-- HERE o/ at /usr/share/perl5/XML/RSSLite.pm line 266.
Thankfully, { and } are changed to spaces, so (?{code}) is not
possible, so its probably just a DoS attack (e.g., via exponential time
regexp).

(4) libxml-rsslite-perl has no reverse dependencies in lenny or sid.

(5) popcon data:
    vote
    13   http://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=libxml-rsslite-perl
    357  http://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=libxml-rss-perl
    1    http://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=libxml-feedpp-perl [new]


Overall, the module isn't very widely used, is of questionable quality,
is probably a security issue, is abandoned upstream, and I suggest
doesn't belong in lenny.

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