linux-kernel - Re: moving affs + RDB partition support to staging?

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:   Sun, 6 May 2018 10:52:10 +0200
From:   John Paul Adrian Glaubitz <glaubitz@...sik.fu-berlin.de>
To:     jdow <jdow@...thlink.net>,
        Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@...ux-m68k.org>,
        Martin Steigerwald <martin@...htvoll.de>
Cc:     Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>,
        David Sterba <dsterba@...e.cz>,
        Linux FS Devel <linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Jens Axboe <axboe@...nel.dk>,
        linux-m68k <linux-m68k@...ts.linux-m68k.org>
Subject: Re: moving affs + RDB partition support to staging?

On 04/27/2018 03:26 AM, jdow wrote:
> And before I forget there are two features of the RDBs that I heartily recommend never implementing on Linux. They were good ideas at the time; but, times
> changed. The RDBs are capable of storing a filesystem driver and some drive init code for the plugin disk driver card. That is giving malware authors entirely
> goo easy a shot at owning a machine. Martin S., I would strongly suggest that going forward those two capabilities be removed from the RDB readers in AmigaOS
> as well as Linux OS.

I assume removing the feature for AmigaOS isn't really possible since we don't have
the source code for that, do we?

Also, if I remember correctly, Mac partitions can store filesystem drivers as well
and its actually a feature being used in MacOS. parted received a patch some time
ago to fix the correct handling for storing the filesystem driver in the partition
table.

I would be generally against removing these features as I don't think the security
risk is relevant for the majority of users. The Amiga is a hobbyist machine these
days and AmigaOS has certainly way more on than way to be compromised through
vulnerabilities.

Adrian

-- 
 .''`.  John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' :  Debian Developer - glaubitz@...ian.org
`. `'   Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz@...sik.fu-berlin.de
  `-    GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546  0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913