Signing cygwin.com binaries with signtool by default ?

[James Hanley]

Break the license rules? How - is it GPLv3?
-Jim

> On May 3, 2025, at 3:09 PM, Brian Inglis via Cygwin <cygwin@cygwin.com> wrote:
> 
> On 2025-05-03 12:21, Roland Mainz via Cygwin wrote:
>> Is it somehow possible that the CI+Release binaries (*.exe, *.dll) can
>> be signed with signtool
>> (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/seccrypto/signtool)?
> 
> No - would break the Cygwin licence terms unless MS releases source!
> 
>> It seems that Microsoft Defender has become overly aggressive to some
>> Cygwin binaries (mostly /usr/bin/hostname, /usr/bin/find, /usr/bin/tar
>> etc.) in the last couple of weeks and just blocks them.
> 
> Aha - more MS Embrace, Extend, Extinguish!
> 
> Which Windows, Defender, and Cygwin releases did this start with?
> 
> $ which -a find hostname tar | cyg-sanitize-output.sed
> /usr/bin/find
> /proc/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/system32/find
> /usr/bin/hostname
> /proc/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/system32/hostname
> /usr/bin/tar
> /proc/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/system32/tar
> 
> Perhaps Cygwin installer or cygcheck should start renaming MS Windows binaries whose names conflict with Cygwin utilities! ;^>
> 
> What about other packages that install exes whose names conflict with MS Windows utilities - does MS block them also, or just Cygwin's, or also other open source; what about WSL installs?
> 
> [I noticed today that MS supports using only its own proprietary FIDO passkey authenticator app - which nobody sensible would ever trust! I liked when we used to be able to delete MS crypto keys from the MS Windows keystore.]
> 
>> Our IT supports that they can "whitelist" binaries based on their
>> cryptographic signature... but neither the binaries from the CI nor
>> the Release binaries have any signatures...
> 
> Perhaps your paid IT support could just figure out how they could bypass Defender checking the Cygwin roots or /*bin/ dirs?
> 
> I suspect many of us do that to reduce the overhead of the BLODA.
> 
> Or perhaps your paid IT support could just figure out how they could provide their own Cygwin mirror with binaries signed with their own signatures and tools.
> 
> Cygwin supports osslsigncode:
> 
>    https://cygwin.com/packages/summary/osslsigncode-src.html
> 
> OpenSSL-based Authenticode signing and timestamping tool
> 
> Platform-independent tool for Authenticode signing of PE(EXE/SYS/DLL/etc), CAB and MSI files. It also supports timestamping (Authenticode and RFC3161).
> 
> That would require our volunteers to find and spend more of their free time to integrate the tool into the package build processes, and it would not be available until the volunteers find more of their free time once the next release of each upstream package becomes available.
> 
> --
> Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis              Calgary, Alberta, Canada
> 
> La perfection est atteinte                   Perfection is achieved
> non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter  not when there is no more to add
> mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retrancher  but when there is no more to cut
>                                -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
> 
> --
> Problem reports:      https://cygwin.com/problems.html
> FAQ:                  https://cygwin.com/faq/
> Documentation:        https://cygwin.com/docs.html
> Unsubscribe info:     https://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple