Re: Security question: "Text file busy" overwriting executables but not shared libraries?

George Greer
2001-10-04T06:50:27Z

On Thu, 4 Oct 2001, Linus Torvalds wrote:

>Which is why the kernel only allows it when the binary loader itself
>sets the flag, because security-conscious application writers are
>already aware of the "oh, a running binary may not be writable" issues.

One of the methods I tried to use to stop a fork()-bomb was to zero the
executable in question to force it to crash. No such luck, reboot it was.
Not that I can think of any other useful application of said behavior.

--
George Greer, greerga@m-l.org