Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 00:48:16 -0500 (CDT) From: Jason Young <doogie@anet-stl.com> To: Frank Tobin <ftobin@bigfoot.com> Cc: FreeBSD-security Mailing List <freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: file flags during low securelevels Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.990625004700.25811E-100000@earth.anet-stl.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9906250032240.63311-100000@srh0710.urh.uiuc.edu>
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The immutable and other flags protect against accidental as well as malicious damage. If they don't do their job in low securelevels, then they don't do their job in out-of-the-box FreeBSD installations and any other installation where the admin has not or does not know to raise the securelevel. Jason Young ANET/accessUS Chief Network Engineer On Fri, 25 Jun 1999, Frank Tobin wrote: > I'm curious as to why file flags are in effect during low kernel > securelevels ( < 1 ). Would it be undesirable to have these flags not in > effect during low securelevels, because they can be turned off at any > time? The reason I ask is that situations may arise where the whole > system is simmutablized, but the administrator wants to do wide-scale > file-replacement (e.g., make world) while the system is in single-user > mode. Currently that would be a big PITA, since you'd have to make sure > you unflag all files before replacing them. Also, during system bootup, > it is not unreasonable to assume that some process would want to edit some > files at boot time, but these files can be flagged after startup (e.g., > /var/log/messages rotated upon startup, but then sappend'd). > > Is there a performance hit I'm not thinking off here? Or could we make > this another sysctl knob (kern.fileflagsignored) or such? > > -- > Frank Tobin "To learn what is good and what is to be > http://www.bigfoot.com/~ftobin valued, those truths which cannot be > shaken or changed." Myst: The Book of Atrus > FreeBSD: The Power To Serve > > PGPenvelope = GPG and PGP5 + Pine PGP: 4F86 3BBB A816 6F0A 340F > http://www.bigfoot.com/~ftobin/resources.html 6003 56FF D10A 260C 4FA3 > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-security" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-security" in the body of the message
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