From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.0 (2014-02-07) on aws-us-west-2-korg-lkml-1.web.codeaurora.org Received: from second.openwall.net (second.openwall.net [193.110.157.125]) by smtp.lore.kernel.org (Postfix) with SMTP id AD867C77B7C for ; Fri, 5 May 2023 10:18:10 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 28091 invoked by uid 550); 5 May 2023 10:17:55 -0000 Mailing-List: contact kernel-hardening-help@lists.openwall.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-ID: Received: (qmail 3571 invoked from network); 5 May 2023 07:47:55 -0000 References: <20230504213002.56803-1-michael.mccracken@gmail.com> User-agent: mu4e 1.10.3; emacs 29.0.90 From: Sam James To: David Hildenbrand Cc: Michael McCracken , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, serge@hallyn.com, tycho@tycho.pizza, Luis Chamberlain , Kees Cook , Iurii Zaikin , Andrew Morton , linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org, kernel-hardening@lists.openwall.com Subject: Re: [PATCH] sysctl: add config to make randomize_va_space RO Date: Fri, 05 May 2023 08:46:41 +0100 In-reply-to: Message-ID: <87pm7f9q3q.fsf@gentoo.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="=-=-="; micalg=pgp-sha512; protocol="application/pgp-signature" --=-=-= Content-Type: text/plain David Hildenbrand writes: > On 04.05.23 23:30, Michael McCracken wrote: >> Add config RO_RANDMAP_SYSCTL to set the mode of the randomize_va_space >> sysctl to 0444 to disallow all runtime changes. This will prevent >> accidental changing of this value by a root service. >> The config is disabled by default to avoid surprises. > > Can you elaborate why we care about "accidental changing of this value > by a root service"? > > We cannot really stop root from doing a lot of stupid things (e.g., > erase the root fs), so why do we particularly care here? (I'm really not defending the utility of this, fwiw). In the past, I've seen fuzzing tools and other debuggers try to set it, and it might be that an admin doesn't realise that. But they could easily set other dangerous settings unsuitable for production, so... --=-=-= Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iOUEARYKAI0WIQQlpruI3Zt2TGtVQcJzhAn1IN+RkAUCZFS0mV8UgAAAAAAuAChp c3N1ZXItZnByQG5vdGF0aW9ucy5vcGVucGdwLmZpZnRoaG9yc2VtYW4ubmV0MjVB NkJCODhERDlCNzY0QzZCNTU0MUMyNzM4NDA5RjUyMERGOTE5MA8cc2FtQGdlbnRv by5vcmcACgkQc4QJ9SDfkZAf4wEAz3Kkey3pguBXyIJfqK+FI8qjiLI6X7SH6YJt YEPU6oUBAMssaGW+4GhiA6nNxReLZcz2PFxEEi9/os6YSrEBD9UP =65gP -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=-=-=--