Re: Why Ext2/3 needs immutable attribute?

[Xin Zhao <uszhaoxin@gmail.com>]

Thanks for your reply. 

Yes. I know,  with immutable,  even root cannot modify sensitive
files. What I am curious is if an intruder has root access, he may
have many ways to turn off the immutable protection and modify files. 
So immutable is designed just to prevent a valid root from making
silly mistakes?

Xin


On 4/17/05, Willy Tarreau <willy@w.ods.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 17, 2005 at 11:54:34AM -0400, Xin Zhao wrote:
> > Why not simply unset the write bit for all three groups of users?
> > That seems to be enough to prevent file modification.
> >
> > Immutable seems to only add one more protection level in case of
> > misconfiguration on standard access right bits.  Is that right?
> 
> With immutable, even root cannot modify the file accidentely. It is
> very useful for critical configuration files.
> 
> Willy
> 
>