linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] powerpc: enable heap randomization for linkstations

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Message-Id: <66BF36BF-E218-4F2C-BE98-2A84E1E98C0D@ime.usp.br>
Date:	Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:56:38 -0200
From:	Rogério Brito <rbrito@....usp.br>
To:	Scott Wood <scottwood@...escale.com>
Cc:	Guennadi Liakhovetski <g.liakhovetski@....de>,
	linuxppc-dev@...abs.org, akpm@...ux-foundation.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] powerpc: enable heap randomization for linkstations

Hi, Scott, Guennadi.

On 13/10/2008, at 16:44, Scott Wood wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 08:05:09PM +0200, Guennadi Liakhovetski wrote:
>> On Mon, 13 Oct 2008, Rogério Brito wrote:
>>
>>> The current defconfig for Linkstation/Kuroboxes has the "Disable  
>>> Heap
>>> Randomization" option enabled.
>>>
>>> Since some of these machines are facing the internet, it helps to  
>>> have
>>> heap randomization enabled. This patch enables it.
>>
>> Same as the previous patch - this is one of options, that users  
>> select
>> according to their needs. If any specific distribution enables  
>> this option
>> by default in their kernels, they can do this too, don't think  
>> this is
>> critical enough to patch the defconfig.

I think that the matter is not being critical or not, but of  
including a sane default as the kernel should be a place for best- 
current-practices.

> Just because users/distros can change it doesn't mean it's  
> pointless to
> discuss what default is sane, and make changes if the current default
> isn't.

Exactly my point.

> For security-related options it's usually best to default to the more
> secure state, especially since the option description talks about it
> being needed mainly for libc5 compatibility -- did libc5 ever even  
> exist
> for powerpc?

I don't know, but even Debian's very ancient distributions all came  
with libc6 on powerpc.

> The only reason it was turned on in the first place was likely the
> "default y", which in turn is there to avoid breaking old x86 distros.

Exactly. Agreed 100%.


Regards, Rogério Brito.

-- 
Rogério Brito : rbrito@...ckenzie,ime.usp}.br : GPG key 1024D/7C2CAEB8
http://www.ime.usp.br/~rbrito : http://meusite.mackenzie.com.br/rbrito
Projects: algorithms.berlios.de : lame.sf.net : vrms.alioth.debian.org



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