List of Software Packages, Libraries, and Projects Critical to the Internet
Criteria
This list is the outcome of a question posed by Jonathan Wilkes on the liberationtech mailing list on August 1, 2014, to wit: "Is there anything like a database for software that is critical to a functioning internet?" Bill Woodcock suggested the following criteria: "What makes something critical? It seems like it needs to occupy a critical niche (a function that is, itself, important), be widely used, and have few easily-substituted alternatives."
Packages and Libraries
- Apache/httpd
- bgpd
- BIND
- chef
- Chrome
- CouchDB
- courier
- CyrusSASL
- dovecot
- exim
- fetchmail
- Firefox
- FreeRADIUS
- git
- GnuPG and/or OpenPGP
- haproxy
- INN
- MariaDB
- memcached
- MongoDB
- MySQL
- nagios
- nessus
- Nginx
- nmap
- NSD
- OpenDNSSEC
- OpenNNTP
- OpenSSH
- OpenSSL
- Perl
- PHP
- postfix
- PostgreSQL
- procmail
- puppet
- Python
- Safari
- Sendmail
- snort
- spacewalk
- squid
- sshd
- stunnel
- subversion
- tcpdump
- tomcat
- tripwire
- unbound
- uw-imap and descendants
- wireshark
- zabbix
- zenoss
Operating Systems
- Cisco IOS
- Juniper JunOS
- Some Linux variants, like CentOS
- VMware hypervisor
- KVM hypervisor
- *BSD
- Solaris/Illumos/OpenIndiana family
Things someone thought important enough to suggest, but which most people didn't think were critical
Discussion
Controversy: Include client-side code as well?
Widely-used web browsers like Safari, Firefox, and Chrome are obviously critical to the security of their users, but they're clearly not infrastructural. Whether to include them, or categorize them differently, depends on the purpose being served by this list.