Re: [RFC PATCH 0/8] x86_64: Harden compressed kernel, part 1

Evgeniy Baskov
2022-08-04T10:42:09Z

On 2022-08-03 17:05, Dave Hansen wrote:
>
> That shows me that it's _possible_ to build a more strict PE loader
> that
> wouldn't load Linux. But, in practice is anyone using a more strict PE
> loader? Does anyone actually want that in practice? Or, again, is
> this
> more strict PE loader just an academic demonstration?
>
> The README starts:
>
> This branch demonstrates...
>
> That doesn't seem like something that's _important_ to deal with.
> Sounds like a proof-of-concept.
>
> Don't get me wrong, I'm all for improving thing, even if the benefits
> are far off. But, let's not fool ourselves.

We have commercial closed-source UEFI firmware implementation at ISP RAS
that follows the behavior of the secure_pe branch. That firmware is used
as a part of [1].

[1] https://www.ispras.ru/en/technologies/asperitas/

Thanks,
Evgeniy Baskov