Re: [gentoo-user] Switching to a hardened profile and back again

[Michael Orlitzky]

On 03/15/2011 03:20 PM, Grant wrote:
>>> A dev is asking me to switch to a hardened profile in order to test a
>>> fix.  I'm happy to go through the process, but is there a chance my
>>> laptop could be unusable after the switch?  If that happens I'll be in
>>> real trouble.  Will I be able to switch back to a non-hardened profile
>>> afterward?  I plan to follow this guide:
>>>
>>> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/hardened/hardenedfaq.xml#hardenedprofile
>>>
>>> BTW, are emerge -e world and emerge -e system both necessary?  I
>>> thought emerge -e world would rebuild everything.
>>
>> Switching to hardened is safe. The switch back should be, too, although
>> I haven't personally tried it. (Why would you switch back?)
>
> I originally had my laptop on a hardened profile (I think it was a
> couple laptops back) but there were so many problems I eventually gave
> up.  I remember doing a lot of system reinstalling as I switched
> profiles around.  I don't have time to reinstall my system right now
> so I'm trying to be sure I can switch to hardened (and from hardened
> if necessary) without reinstalling.

If you don't run a hardened kernel, "sudo gcc-config 5" (assuming 5 is
the vanilla gcc on your machine...) will switch you back to the vanilla
gcc. No need to switch profiles or recompile anything.


>> You emerge system first, and then world so that your world is built by a
>> hardened toolchain. When you compile gcc/glibc with USE=hardened, it
>> gives them super powers.
>
> Would 'emerge gcc glibc && emerge -e world' have the same affect?

There are a couple of other packages you're supposed to re-emerge along
with gcc and glibc. Binutils was one, but I don't remember the whole
list. Just suck it up and spend the extra hour to re-emerge system; that
way, you're sure you haven't missed anything.