Am 07.12.2011 01:03, schrieb Greg KH:
On 06/12/11 16:10, Brian K. White wrote:
Having a lot lot of stuff exposed and believing that it's all ok is fundamentally less secure than not exposing anything in the first place.
So, what you are really saying is that you don't trust the kernel developers to get things right?
Of course I don't :-) Seriously: There are errors. Even in the Kernel. I found lots of them. Are all available packages installed on your servers with all services turned on listening on external interfaces? Why not? Oh! You don't trust the developers of those packages to get things right? ;-)
Seriously, I've yet to see one specific example of a debugfs file that is "unsafe" in todays kernel.
Seriously, I've yet to see proof that no debugfs file will be unsafe in tomorrows kernel.
but if I take that to its logical conclusion, the same people will want the option to disable system calls that they feel no one should ever use as well?
If it is obscure, seldom used stuff: why not? I do, for example, never load the AX25 and ROSE drivers (even though I have a license to use the equipment they talk to). Why not? Because I don't need them. So there were quite some Kernel updates in the past I could safely skip because they fixed security bugs in those protocols.
I still see this whole thing as basic "fear of the unknown". To solve that, make it "known". Seriously, audit the code, it's there for all to see. If you see problems with it, it will be fixed.
Even though perf might be a great tool for developers, my wife and kids have never used it. And I have machines without debugfs that work very well, so it is obviously not essential in order tu run a useful linux system. I guess that debugfs even occupies some memory that could be spent for yet another firefox tab ;-) Best regards, Stefan -- Stefan Seyfried "Dispatch war rocket Ajax to bring back his body!" -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org