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Date:      Fri, 27 Feb 1998 20:28:18 -0800 (PST)
From:      dima@best.net (Dima Ruban)
To:        cschuber@uumail.gov.bc.ca
Cc:        eivind@yes.no, wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu, cschuber@uumail.gov.bc.ca, freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: OpenBSD Security Advisory: mmap() Problem
Message-ID:  <199802280428.UAA19048@burka.rdy.com>
In-Reply-To: <199802280132.RAA00955@cwsys.cwsent.com> from Cy Schubert - ITSD Open Systems Group at "Feb 27, 98 05:32:08 pm"

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Cy Schubert - ITSD Open Systems Group writes:
> I've managed to solve the problem while waiting in the doctor's office 
> this afternoon.  According to the 4.4BSD Bible, at securelevel > 0 
> /dev/mem and /dev/kmem are read only, which would break XIG's X server 
> anyway.  Securelevel 0 is used only in single user mode, so the XIG X 

This is not entirely correct. Take a look at OpenBSD's /etc/rc.securelevel.
Everything that shoudl have write access to /dev/*mem should be started
before securelevel is bumbed.

I think, we should not make such a modifications to the patch.

> server could only be used in securelevel -1.  Here's a new copy of my 
> hack of the OpenBSD patch.  It only allows the insecure mmap access to 
> character devices at securelevel -1.  This seems like a good compromise 
> because the XIG X server should be broken at securelevels 1 and 2 
> anyhow and to allow superuser to write to a read-only /dev/mem device 
> at securelevel -1 doesn't add any new security exposures.
> 

-- dima

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