Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 23:30:03 -0800 (PST) From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au> To: freebsd-bugs Subject: Re: docs/2850: init(8) man page does not document securelevel properly Message-ID: <199703030730.XAA07491@freefall.freebsd.org>
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The following reply was made to PR docs/2850; it has been noted by GNATS. From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au> To: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.org, mab@sjca.edu Cc: Subject: Re: docs/2850: init(8) man page does not document securelevel properly Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 18:18:26 +1100 >There are a couple problems with the documentation of kernel security levels: > >1) The init(8) manual page states that the kernel boots at securelevel >0. This isn't true; by default it is set to -1. Fixed in -current. >2) The interface to changing the security level (editing >/usr/src/sys/kern/kern_sysctl.h or something like that) is not >documented. Also, the interface stinks, but this is supposed to be a >doc bug. :-) That's not the interface. The sysadmin interface is `sysctl -w kern.securelevel=whatever'. This is sort of documented even in 2.1.7. The bit about editing sys/param.c was misleading even before the default was changed -1. E.g., there's not much point to setting the level to > 0 in the kernel, since init will reduce the level to 0 if the system is shut down to single user mode. >3) The manual page ought to warn that configuring a kernel to boot at >securelevel 1 or 2 can cause autobooting to fail, because the kernel >will not be able to do fsck on dirty filesystems. I speak from >experience on this one. Level 1 should work. However, level 1 provides no security for disks under FreeBSD (although it is supposed to secure mounted partitions). >4) Saying that securelevel can be raised to 2 in /etc/rc is a little >vague. It ought to state at exactly what point in booting securelevel >can be raised---like, say, right at the end. If you did it before the >filesystem checks, things would be bad. That would be clueless of >course, but... Really, there should be an /etc/sysconfig interface to >securelevel; this would un-obfuscate things considerably. > >>How-To-Repeat: >>Fix: >>Audit-Trail: >>Unformatted: >
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