Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 21 Jul 2000 04:32:27 -0700 (PDT) | From | <> | Subject | Re: TO HELL WITH IT THEN......(re: disk-destroyer.c) |
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On Fri, 21 Jul 2000, Peter Svensson wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Jul 2000 bodnar42@bodnar42.dhs.org wrote: > > Most people are not arguing that the patch is useless. It isn't, it > prevents accidental destruction of a disk. If it is worth the space in the > kernel for that added layer of protection against brogen programs is for > the kerlen gods to decide.
The question becomes: if an invaild IDE command is sent from userspace, are the programs broken, or is the kernel? In this case, I think there kernel is broken. It provides a method of communicating with ATA disks using the ATA specification. However, if you give it the wrong input, it will violate that specification. This behavior is wrong, and although the invalid request originated in userspace, it is the kernels job to identify it as invalid and refuse to send the command.
To carry on the networking metaphor, imagine writing an app that tries to write() on a unconnected socket, and when you ran it as root it would cause your kernel to panick. Fixing this would not be considered an "added layer of protection against broken apps", it would be considered a bug fix. This is only different in that the interface is used less often, and misuse can cause more damage.
Andre, do you have any idea how much space this will take up in the kernel? I have no idea how advanced the heuristics will have to be...
> What it does not do is provide protection against malicious destruction of > a disk. To destroy the disk you need root before the patch and root after > the patch and that is it. The recent proliferation of rather complex > exploits of holes in programs shows that even problems that are hard to > exploit will be exploited. Using direct io to destroy the > bios/disk/whatnot with direct io is not beyond their reach I suspect.
Yes, I totally agree
Later, Ryan
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