Re: ISA slot detection on PCI systems?

Mike Castle
2002-01-03T06:46:44Z

On Thu, Jan 03, 2002 at 02:49:04PM +1100, Cameron Simpson wrote:
> - opening a publicly readable file in /proc to get some info,
> which will run some kernel code (which can presumably be trusted;
> if you don't trust your kernel you have a serious problem)

Some unnecessary kernel code. Which, because it's unnecessary, won't
necessarily be checked for correctness.

> versus
>
> - running a setuid binary (however audited) to get the info; said
> binary may have bugs, security holes, race conditions etc; it may be
> hacked post boot (no so easy to do to the live kernel image), etc

vs

- running a single app as root upon boot.

> Further, binaries which grovel in /dev/kmem tend to have to be kept in sync
> with the kernel; in-kernel code is fundamentally in sync.

Bull. There have been several drivers that simply can not compile because
they are out of sync, in the 2.4 kernel

mrc
--
Mike Castle dalgoda@ix.netcom.com www.netcom.com/~dalgoda/
We are all of us living in the shadow of Manhattan. -- Watchmen
fatal ("You are in a maze of twisty compiler features, all different"); -- gcc