Gentoo Archives: gentoo-hardened

From: Javier Juan Martinez Cabezon <tazok.id0@×××××.com>
To: gentoo-hardened@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-hardened] The status of grsecurity upstream and hardened-sources downstream
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2017 17:09:05
Message-Id: 594D4B3A.1040106@gmail.com
In Reply to: [gentoo-hardened] The status of grsecurity upstream and hardened-sources downstream by "Anthony G. Basile"
1 Have you thought in use other alternative apart grsec as kernel side
2 solution?, PaX is PaX, its a great loss, but rsbac and selinux has their
3 w or x, almost all cpu today has NX bit and reduce the needings of
4 PageExec/SegmExec, and I think that exists some gcc plugins with PaX
5 alike functions.
6
7 rsbac has their git public and selinux is in vanilla. Maybe you could
8 consider to use rsbac git kernel as hardened-sources new kerneland
9 solution but I have not tested selinux under this kernel
10
11 Under rsbac pax userland is not needed, MPROTECT controls it and can be
12 switched individually in kernel land because it is something like a
13 request under rsbac. Not all functions of PaX, but good enough in my opinion
14
15 On 23/06/17 18:28, Anthony G. Basile wrote:
16 > Hi everyone,
17 >
18 > Since late April, grsecurity upstream has stop making their patches
19 > available publicly. Without going into details, the reason for their
20 > decision revolves around disputes about how their patches were being
21 > (ab)used.
22 >
23 > Since the grsecurity patch formed the main core of our hardened-sources
24 > kernel, their decision has serious repercussions for the Hardened Gentoo
25 > project. I will no longer be able to support hardened-sources and will
26 > have to eventually mask and remove it from the tree.
27 >
28 > Hardened Gentoo has two sides to it, kernel hardening (done via
29 > hardened-sources) and toolchain/executable hardening. The two are
30 > interrelated but independent enough that toolchain hardening can
31 > continue on its own. The hardened kernel, however, provided PaX
32 > protection for executables and this will be lost. We did a lot of work
33 > to properly maintain PaX markings in our package management system and
34 > there was no part of Gentoo that wasn't touched by issues stemming from
35 > PaX support.
36 >
37 > I waited two months before saying anything because the reasons were more
38 > of a political nature than some technical issue. At this point, I think
39 > its time to let the community know about the state of affairs with
40 > hardened-sources.
41 >
42 > I can no longer get into the #grsecurity/OFTC channel (nothing personal,
43 > they kicked everyone), and so I have not spoken to spengler or pipacs.
44 > I don't know if they will ever release grsecurity patches again.
45 >
46 > My plan then is as follows. I'll wait one more month and then send out
47 > a news item and later mask hardened-sources for removal. I don't
48 > recommend we remove any of the machinery from Gentoo that deals with PaX
49 > markings.
50 >
51 > I welcome feedback.
52 >

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