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Patrick Lauer wrote: |
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> On Wed, 2006-01-25 at 12:09 +0200, Jean Blignaut wrote: |
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> |
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>> I have often considered and even tried a couple of times to setup a |
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>> hardened box however I get confused between all the different options |
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>> and all the different implications. What with Selinux Grsecurity 1/2 |
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>> RSBAC PIE etc. etc. |
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> |
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> Each implementation solves a different subset of all "security" |
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> problems. |
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> |
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> PIE and SSP try to stop buffer overflows and code insertion attacks. |
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> They are "invasive" as they change how memory allocation and other low |
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> level things work and may break applications in quite interesting ways. |
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> Enabling them is easy. |
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> |
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> SELinux is a security policy framework, it doesn't care about buffer |
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> overflows, but manages what applications can do. You can lock down |
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> filesystem access, network access,... per application |
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> It's a lot more complicated to set up, but still manageable. The most |
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> problematic step is as far as I can tell teaching the access rules. |
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> Takes time and patience, but no black magic :-) |
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> |
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> GRSecurity is a somewhere in between, it may be the most useful for |
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> "normal" users, but I don't have enough experience with all of those to |
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> really comment on that. |
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I'll just comment that Gentoo uses pie/ssp/grsecurity on all their |
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infrastructure boxes. I haven't noticed any performance degradation |
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because of the implementations. I really haven't had any issues running |
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most applications under grsec/pax. |
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>> Also Because these are production servers in use by 1000s of customers |
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>> I would have to find a hardened kernel (or what ever) that would have |
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>> as small an impact on the current workings and config of the systems |
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>> involved. |
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> You'd have to test on a spare box anyway :-) |
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> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/infrastructure/server-standards.xml might |
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> be a good starting point for the kernel settings, then you'll have to |
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> test until you can be reasonably sure that nothing fails. |
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I can't really say how up to date that page is. So take what you read |
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from that as a grain of salt. |
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>> I have all my partitions formatted (and kernels built) with support |
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>> for security labels, but that's as far as I've gotten. Also the idea |
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>> of splitting up roots permissions into roles is an interesting |
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>> prospect but I've yet to find decent documentation on how to |
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>> implement/use POSIX ROLES |
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> There are many ways of increasing security - I've been using vserver for |
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> some time, helps a lot in service separation. The hardened profile is a |
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> nice starting point, but as I've had too many problems using it ~x86 on |
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> a desktop box I've reverted to the default profile and a vanilla kernel. |
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> The problems were mostly toolchain / compilation bugs, no "unstable" |
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> problems. It's recommendable for server usage. |
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I can't vouch for SELinux and the framework around it, but I highly |
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recommend you at least use the hardened profile for servers and some |
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sort of pax/grsecurity enabled kernel. Its not a complete stop gate for |
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security, but it certainly adds another layer to the onion. |
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-- |
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Lance Albertson <ramereth@g.o> |
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Gentoo Infrastructure | Operations Manager |
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--- |
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GPG Public Key: <http://www.ramereth.net/lance.asc> |
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Key fingerprint: 0423 92F3 544A 1282 5AB1 4D07 416F A15D 27F4 B742 |
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ramereth/irc.freenode.net |
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