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Re: Getting root on Linux

[CCs trimmed]

Bruce Perens <bruce@debian.org> writes:

> From: John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>
> > I think that the kernel should have an compile-time option to enable
> > the "init=", and that such an option should be disabled by default.
> 
> If so, you also need to disable root=, so that people can't boot with an
> alternate root partition . At that point all that is left on the command
> line is device driver flags, and no doubt some of them can be used to break
> security. Better to just use a LILO password.

Hmm, setting to any partition that does not have a working /sbin
directory would cause the system to fail to boot, I would think...
For instance, setting it to /usr would be useless since there would be
no /sbin...  although I suppose that if a system had a separate /tmp
partition and somebody loaded stuff into it before rebooting the
machine, that may be a problem...  hmm...  this is something I hadn't
thought of before.

Just using a LILO password has some other problems.  We may sometimes
want to let people set options for device drivers or something, but
not let them get root on the machine.

It seems that maybe the Linux boot mechanism needs some more
intelligence, like FreeBSD's has.  In FreeBSD, the boot loader (the
equivolent of LILO) has nothing to do with kernel options.  It just
picks a partition and boots the OS that is there.  Then the FreeBSD
kernel itself allows the user to specify options (or not, as per
config).

As far as device driver flags go, the worst thing that can be done
there is lock up the machine, which is not a serious problem for lab
machines (what do we care if people lock up their own workstation).

-- 
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