From owner-cvs-all Mon Dec 10 22:52:17 2001 Delivered-To: cvs-all@freebsd.org Received: from elvis.mu.org (elvis.mu.org [216.33.66.196]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E325237B405; Mon, 10 Dec 2001 22:52:11 -0800 (PST) Received: by elvis.mu.org (Postfix, from userid 1192) id 8EAB981D03; Tue, 11 Dec 2001 00:52:11 -0600 (CST) Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 00:52:11 -0600 From: Alfred Perlstein To: Mike Barcroft Cc: Paul Richards , Mike Silbersack , John Baldwin , mini@haikugeek.com, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org, cvs-committers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/boot/i386/loader version src/share/examp Message-ID: <20011211005211.V92148@elvis.mu.org> References: <20011210201909.O92148@elvis.mu.org> <20011210221836.N1956@espresso.q9media.com> <616630000.1008044969@lobster.originative.co.uk> <20011211010336.Q1956@espresso.q9media.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20011211010336.Q1956@espresso.q9media.com>; from mike@FreeBSD.org on Tue, Dec 11, 2001 at 01:03:36AM -0500 Sender: owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG * Mike Barcroft [011211 00:05] wrote: > Paul Richards writes: > > You need the superuser password to get to single user if the console is > > secure. The loader can be used to circumvent that now. > > Interesting, I hadn't seen that before. This is probably only useful > at preventing people that don't have an account on the system, and > don't have physical access to the harddisk, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM, or floppy > drives from gaining root. To gain root from an account and console > access, one need only craft an init(8) and change the loader > init_path. > > Perhaps a secure loader would be useful, such that it doesn't allow > interrupting. Similar things could be done with the pre-loader boot, > but this write from loader feature seems so useful to me that I can't > imagine why we would want to turn it off by default, particularly > given the intrinsic insecurities of our current loader. Honestly I feel that the requirement to learn Forth as a prerequisite to hacking a FreeBSD box this way makes it highly unlikely that one would do so. :) -- -Alfred Perlstein [alfred@freebsd.org] 'Instead of asking why a piece of software is using "1970s technology," start asking why software is ignoring 30 years of accumulated wisdom.' http://www.morons.org/rants/gpl-harmful.php3 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message