Is slf4j really needed for security?

Only cve I see here is from 2018...
https://www.slf4j.org/news.html

Should we revert the slf4j change in its entirety/all branches until it can
be made in a b/w compatible way?

Patrick

On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 2:59 PM Andor Molnar <[email protected]> wrote:

> Maybe the slf4j upgrade (1.7.30 -> 2.0.13) has higher impact, because it’s
> a major upgrade. Logback is just an example of how to do logging with
> ZooKeeper real life setups probably replace it with something else like
> log4j2. The logging facade (slf4j) could have bw incompatible changes that
> will force users to make changes related to logging on their classpath.
>
> I’m speculating and haven’t checked slf4j for details.
>
> Andor
>
>
>
> > On Aug 6, 2025, at 16:46, Patrick Hunt <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Is the only problem the minor "semantic" upgrade of logback in a fix
> > release of zk? That should be stable (contract wise) on the dependency,
> > right? Or is there some real impact, eg b/w incompat change visible to ZK
> > users? If the former that seems fine, if the latter then we have a harder
> > problem to address. (security issue breaking b/w compat)
> >
> > Patrick
> >
> > On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 2:36 PM Andor Molnar <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >> Sorry for the confusion, I picked 3.8 as an example, but logback/slf4j
> >> upgrades haven’t been backported to 3.9 either. Therefore I created the
> >> following backport PR:
> >>
> >> https://github.com/apache/zookeeper/pull/2290
> >>
> >>
> >>> "Why would they be applied to master and not to any active (release)
> >> line?
> >>
> >> Since we’ve already released 3.9.3 with logback 1.2.13 and don’t want
> >> users to realize 1.2->1.3 logback upgrade in a 3.9.3->3.9.4 ZooKeeper
> >> upgrade process, although this upgrade is necessary anyways to address
> the
> >> CVE in question.
> >>
> >> (in my understanding)
> >>
> >> Andor
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> On Aug 6, 2025, at 15:34, Patrick Hunt <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I'm confused - this thread started with "OWASP reports CVEs on the 3.8
> >>> branch and noticed in the PRs that we should only upgrade logback on
> the
> >>> master branch" - I read that as "some fixes on 3.9 are not backported
> to
> >>> 3.8". But you are saying that this is not fixed (still owasp warnings)
> on
> >>> 3.9 which is separate from master? Why would they be applied to master
> >> and
> >>> not to any active (release) line? What is the impact of the changes on
> >>> master and 3.9? iiuc there are backward incompatible changes if applied
> >> to
> >>> 3.8? There should not be b/w incompatible changes applied to any 3.x
> >> (incl
> >>> master, a future 3.x...) release.
> >>>
> >>> Patrick
> >>>
> >>> On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 1:16 PM Andor Molnar <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Yeah, that would remove the burden of maintaining the 3.8 version
> line,
> >>>> but 3.9.x versions still don’t have logback and slf4j upgraded, still
> >>>> flagged by the Owasp build and users will probably still complain
> about
> >>>> CVEs.
> >>>>
> >>>> My question is what should we do on branches other than the master?
> >>>>
> >>>> 1. Backport logback and slf4j upgrades from master, or
> >>>> 2. Add Owasp suppression rule to skip checking these libraries
> >> completely.
> >>>>
> >>>> I need to answer this question before going forward with the 3.9.4
> >> release.
> >>>>
> >>>> Regards,
> >>>> Andor
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> On Aug 6, 2025, at 13:39, Christopher <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> +1 to that idea.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The releases page[1] says "Apache ZooKeeper 3.9.3 is our current
> >>>>> release, and 3.8.4 our latest stable release". Is 3.9 sufficiently
> >>>>> stable to replace 3.8 as the current "stable"? If the answer is yes,
> >>>>> then I think it makes sense to EOL 3.8.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> [1]: https://zookeeper.apache.org/releases.html#download
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 2:52 PM Patrick Hunt <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Should we sunset that minor release due to the "unfixable" security
> >>>> issue
> >>>>>> and EOL of dependenc(ies)?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Patrick
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 10:03 AM Andor Molnar <[email protected]>
> >> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Yeah, I agree with that, but we can’t leave things here just like
> >> that.
> >>>>>>> Either we should keep updating the logging libraries on all active
> >>>> branches
> >>>>>>> or add the necessary suppression to Owasp. Otherwise the report
> >> result
> >>>> will
> >>>>>>> be completely meaningless.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Andor
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> On Aug 4, 2025, at 08:21, Christopher <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Yes, that is basically my concern. I commented at
> >>>>>>>>
> >> https://github.com/apache/zookeeper/pull/2290#issuecomment-3145955665
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> On Fri, Aug 1, 2025, 18:43 Andor Molnar <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Christopher raised concern about it in
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>
> >>
> https://github.com/apache/zookeeper/pull/2162#pullrequestreview-2037135095
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> I suspect because SLF4j has to be major upgraded with logback 1.x
> >> ->
> >>>> 2.x
> >>>>>>>>> which should not be done in bugfix releases.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> I’m not sure. Maybe we should just add another Owasp suppression,
> >> but
> >>>>>>> that
> >>>>>>>>> wouldn’t be appropriate either.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Andor
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> On Jul 30, 2025, at 18:39, Andor Molnar <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> That’s my understanding too, but looks like folks skipped even
> the
> >>>> 3.9
> >>>>>>>>> backport in the case of logback.
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> Andor
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>> On Jul 30, 2025, at 16:36, Patrick Hunt <[email protected]>
> >> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>> My understanding, I thought the rule was to backport any patch
> to
> >>>> all
> >>>>>>> of
> >>>>>>>>>>> the active releases unless it's a new feature. Perhaps ask the
> >>>> folks
> >>>>>>> who
> >>>>>>>>>>> committed?
> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>> Patrick
> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Jul 30, 2025 at 2:06 PM Andor Molnar <[email protected]
> >
> >>>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> Hi folks,
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> Currently I’m working on some backports, because OWASP reports
> >>>> CVEs
> >>>>>>> on
> >>>>>>>>> the
> >>>>>>>>>>>> 3.8 branch and noticed in the PRs that we should only upgrade
> >>>> logback
> >>>>>>>>> on
> >>>>>>>>>>>> the master branch. Why is that?
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> logback-core-1.2.13.jar
> >>>> (pkg:maven/ch.qos.logback/[email protected]
> >>>>>>> ,
> >>>>>>>>>>>> cpe:2.3:a:qos:logback:1.2.13:*:*:*:*:*:*:*) : CVE-2024-12798,
> >>>>>>>>> CVE-2024-12801
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> Regards,
> >>>>>>>>>>>> Andor
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>
> >>
>
>

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