Mechanism to notify users when critical action is required

[andrewdavidwong]

We need a mechanism to notify users when critical action is required. For example, Fedora 25 recently reached EOL (#3429), and we failed to notify users in time. However, even if we had made an announcement through our usual channels (website, mailing lists, social media) as soon as the F26 template was available in mid-November, it's likely that at least some users would not have gotten the message in time to upgrade safely. (We shouldn't expect everyone to subscribe to our RSS feed, subscribe to the lists, or use social media.) Users who diligently check for Fedora template upgrades would simply see "No updates available." After a while, they may wonder why there haven't been any new updates for weeks or months, but by then it could be too late. We need a more reliable mechanism for notifying users when they need to take a critical action like upgrading their templates.

[adrelanos]

I agree this is important and useful to have. Spent a lot thought (and code) previously on that subject.

• https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Dev/project-news
• https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Dev/Permanent_Takedown_Attack_Defender
• https://phabricator.whonix.org/T140
• https://github.com/Whonix/whonixcheck/blob/master/usr/lib/whonixcheck/check_news.bsh

In many cases however, fixing things automatically (or after confirmation) for the user (implemented using salt or so) seems to me would fix the issue for a greater number of users since many will ignore the notification anyhow. (Confused; forgotten; or underestimate importance. - So automatic updates are good to have in principle but also hard to implement.)

[adrelanos]

I agree this is important and useful to have. Spent a lot thought (and code) previously on that subject.

• https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Dev/project-news
• https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Dev/Permanent_Takedown_Attack_Defender
• https://phabricator.whonix.org/T140
• https://github.com/Whonix/whonixcheck/blob/master/usr/lib/whonixcheck/check_news.bsh

In many cases however, fixing things automatically (or after confirmation) for the user (implemented using salt or so) seems to me would fix the issue for a greater number of users since many will ignore the notification anyhow. (Confused; forgotten; or underestimate importance. - So automatic updates are good to have in principle but also hard to implement.)

[andrewdavidwong]

I agree that, when possible, automatically fixing something for users is superior to instructing users to fix it themselves. However, there are cases in which it is not possible to do things for users, e.g., when the action requires knowledge or decisions regarding how users partition their lives into security domains, or when the action is something like reinstalling of the whole OS. Therefore, it is still important to have a more general mechanism to notify users when critical action is required.

[andrewdavidwong]

I agree that, when possible, automatically fixing something for users is superior to instructing users to fix it themselves. However, there are cases in which it is not possible to do things for users, e.g., when the action requires knowledge or decisions regarding how users partition their lives into security domains, or when the action is something like reinstalling of the whole OS. Therefore, it is still important to have a more general mechanism to notify users when critical action is required.