From owner-freebsd-security  Wed May  9 12:14:13 2001
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Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 20:09:21 +0100
From: Steve Peck <steve.peck@uk.easynet.net>
To: security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: kernel security level
Message-ID: <20010509200921.A65710@pavilion.net>
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Hi,

I've installed the FreeBSD 4.3

And I got this strange problem where the kern.sercurelevel was set to 1.

I had a version of 4.2 which just defaults to -1.

Is this something new? 

Although it seems like a good idea, I had much trouble finding out why
I couldn't run X windows. Soon as I found a reference to this /dev/mem
suddenly was permitted and X started up - but only as root :-(.

I have since found that I can run X (as root) on kern.securelevel = 0
But if I set it to this via /etc/sysctl.conf it just gets upgraded to
level 1! So, I now have it set to level -1 in /etc/sysctl.conf.

If I did want to run at level 0 then I would have to upgrade it manually
By loggin in as root and doing 
# sysctl - w kern.securelevel=0
every reboot :-(

Now, have I done something stangely bad during my install.

I just ftp'd it from the ftp.uk.FreeBSD.org site. 

If I try to startx as a user then I now get

Fatal server error:
xf86OpeConsole:Server must be suid root

Hmmmm, anyone got any ideas?

Cheers
Steve


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