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Hi! |
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|
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On Wed, 22 Sep 2004, John Richard Moser wrote: |
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> The most immediately apparent route to take would be to have ebuilds |
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> such as openssh, apache, and su stack smash protected. This would |
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> prevent common buffer overflow attacks from being used to compromise |
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> security; such attacks would only cause the program attacked to abort, |
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> which could still be used as a Denial of Service attack, but would not |
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> allow successful intrusion. |
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|
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One might make a case for "this provides a (false) sense of |
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security". But I wouldn't think of this kind of view as feasible. |
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Using that argument, one could drop just about every security |
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measure that isn't perfect (and which is?). |
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|
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> Gentoo ships gcc with stack smash protection built in. This is |
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> activated by -fstack-protector or -fstack-protector-all. It would be |
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> feasible to add one of these flags to an ebuild based on a FEATURES or |
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> USE setting. |
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Nice idea, I agree. |
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> I believe it would be a good idea to have such a FEATURES or USE flag on |
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> by default in all profiles where SSP is supported. In this manner, the |
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> major targets of security attacks would automatically be protected; |
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> while still allowing the user to disable the protection if the user |
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> desires. Users wanting more protection can simply add -fstack-protector |
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> to CFLAGS, or use Hardened Gentoo. |
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> |
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> Any comments? Would this be more suitable as a USE or a FEATURES setting? |
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I *think* it'd be better used as a USE flag for the "daemon-only" |
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approach. As for the "whole system" approach, I'd lean towards |
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FEATURE. But then I'm not well-versed in the policies regarding |
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those two settings/variables. |
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One problem (albeit small) I see is upstream maintainers refusing |
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to support users who use these settings with their software. A |
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similar example is the Mplayer team's stance towards |
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optimization. Usually, this could be solved the same way as in |
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the mplayer case (if the afflicted^Waffected maintainers aren't |
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too many). |
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|
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Just my two eurocents, |
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Tobias |
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-- |
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export DISPLAY=vt100 |
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