Gentoo Archives: gentoo-hardened

From: schism@×××××××××.org
To: gentoo-hardened@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-hardened] Remove toolchain?
Date: Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:02:40
Message-Id: 20100201143519.GB3688@ctf.subverted.org
In Reply to: [gentoo-hardened] Remove toolchain? by Hinnerk van Bruinehsen
1 On Mon, Feb 01, 2010 at 01:35:10PM +0100, Hinnerk van Bruinehsen wrote:
2 > But there is one thing which disturbs me: Since Gentoo (and hardened
3 > Gentoo) is sourcebased, i'll need a complete toolchain to keep the
4 > system up to date.
5 >
6 > I don't like the idea of giving this tools to someone who might
7 > compromise the server.
8
9 Removing the toolchain is an old, common misconception whose originator
10 I would love to meet and slap some sense into.
11
12 What exactly are you defending against? If the server is compromised,
13 it's game over - they'll run whatever code they want, be that [highly
14 unlikely] compiling a binary to attack further or [highly likely] use a
15 pre-compiled static binary of their own. If you don't have a toolchain
16 and they must have one, they'll download a static one and bootstrap it.
17
18 Better to learn the use of a good access control system like the
19 grsecurity RBAC that is integrated into hardened-gentoo to prevent
20 misuse of the toolchain than to go through fragile and unsupportable
21 gyrations trying to prevent a phantom threat.

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-hardened] Remove toolchain? Shinkan <shinkan@×××××.com>
Re: [gentoo-hardened] Remove toolchain? basile <basile@××××××××××××××.edu>