Date: Mon, 6 Jul 1998 14:48:30 +0200 (CEST) From: Andrzej Bialecki <abial@nask.pl> To: Hostas Red <kong@kong.spb.ru> Cc: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD in less than 4MB RAM Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.95.980706143401.13991A-100000@korin.warman.org.pl> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980706162550.287K-100000@kong.dorms.spbu.ru>
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On Mon, 6 Jul 1998, Hostas Red wrote:
> Hi!
>
> On Mon, 6 Jul 1998, Andrzej Bialecki wrote:
>
> > The second issue is this: currently we're unable to boot (using BIOS) and
> > mount as / other filesystems than FFS, NFS and CD9660. It would be great
> > if we could use MSDOSFS as well (using special version of biosboot, with
> > FAT support compiled-in instead of FFS). Device nodes would be on DEVFS.
> >
> > What for? This could help get rid of fbsdboot.exe and related troubles -
> > we could just directly start and run (and install!) on MSDOS partition.
>
> I think, in that case we will need some system files with "extended
> attributes", like in OS/2-on-FAT, to keep longnames (FAT16), ownership and
> file modes. :) It's not so good solution, but without this we will have no
> security at all :(
Hmmm.. Perhaps I didn't make clear what was my intent: I'd like to be able
to use MSDOS as root partition in cases where I don't need all semantics
of FFS, like boot floppies and flash disk configurations. Or, in situation
where users don't have any direct access to disk (like on a router running
custom shell; yet another situation is when I want to boot from MSDOS
partition and mount a file which resides there, as its e.g. /usr FFS).
I don't want to use FFS there because it wastes a lot of space and is
unnecessarily complicated. What I need there is something between rawboot
(which treats medium as a chain of data blocks) and FFS. MSDOSFS is a good
candidate, because we already have working support for it. And I wouldn't
mind using long names on it either, though the short ones would suffice...
So, security in these situations would be achieved by some other means.
Anyway, once you have physical access to the medium on which the OS is
installed, all other security issues are moot.
Andrzej Bialecki
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abial@nask.pl | if(halt_per_mth > 0) { fetch("http://www.freebsd.org") }
Research & Academic | "Be open-minded, but don't let your brains to fall out."
Network in Poland | All of the above (and more) is just my personal opinion.
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