Re: Hardwired drivers are going away?

Anton Altaparmakov
2002-01-21T01:05:02Z

At 23:20 20/01/02, Frank van de Pol wrote:

>On Sat, Jan 19, 2002 at 10:22:43AM +1100, Keith Owens wrote:
> > On Fri, 18 Jan 2002 17:20:02 -0500 (EST),
> > "Mr. James W. Laferriere" <babydr@baby-dragons.com> wrote:
> > > Linux doesn't have a method to load encrypted & signed modules at
> > > this time .
> >
> > And never will. Who loads the module - root. Who maintains the list
> > of signatures - root. Who controls the code that verifies the
> > signature - root.
> >
> > Your task Jim, should you choose to accept it, is to make the kernel
> > distinguish between a good use of root and a malicious use by some who
> > has broken in and got root privileges. When you can do that, then we
> > can add signed modules.
>
>If you want to secure your box, why don't you simply put a lock on it and
>throw away the key? Really, what might help the paranoid admins in this case
>is a setting in the kernel which basically disables the ability to load or
>unload modules. Of course once set this setting can not been turned with
>rebooting the box.

Er that sounds like just disabling modules in the kernel altogether (kernel
compile option exists for this since the beginning of time)... I do that on
all servers I control. Not only for security reasons but also because I
suspect it produces smaller and probably faster kernels (I haven't tested
this in any way, just a guess).

Best regards,

Anton

--
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Anton Altaparmakov <aia21 at cam.ac.uk> (replace at with @)
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