Re: [gentoo-hardened] Some teething problems with 2004.1 and cascaded profiles

[Ed Wildgoose]

> sorry for this, new guy in this gentoo business, I just wanted to ask
> a few questions,I joined the mailing list because it said it was about
> the hardened sources, and that's what I installed, but I wanted to
> know what the diference is exactly ( you guys are talking on another
> level!!)
>
> if this is not the place to ask this ( as it obviouly isn't a simple q
> & a mailing list), then just tell me to take a hike , although i'd
> still like to receive the emails, as a information only..


I guess have a look at http://hardened.gentoo.org.  At least as I 
understand things: you have a couple of basic technologies that are 
being slowly fitted into modern distributions.  You have kernels that 
can enforce access controls (selinux and grsecurity), and then you have 
a whole heap of clever ideas around randomising memory layouts, and 
adding various random markers into memory so that you can detect stack 
overflows.  The later seems to be what a lot of people refer to as 
"hardened".

The hardened sources have some of that included, but you have to turn it 
on when configuring your kernel.  The point was that you can also have a 
lot of this stuff built into the app itself if you are using very recent 
versions of gcc and have the right compiler flags set

Beyond that you need to read the docs and surf around a little...

Good luck

Ed W

--
gentoo-hardened@g.o mailing list