As devfs is running by default, it seems to me that it would be relatively easy to run with a readonly root partition, assuming that the directories under which writing is necessary (ie; /tmp, /var, /home) are located in separate, writable partitions.
The main advantages are that none of the configuration files or binaries in /etc and /usr (which may still be on a separate readonly partition) are vulnerable to attack (even from a local privilege escalation) without remounting the partition as writable. This used to be a very common setup in the *NIX world, so I am surprised to find little to no mention of it in the archives. I set up my machine this way a couple of months back, and have noticed some minor things (some few things assume a writable /etc, notably including dump(8), and the boot process update to /etc/motd). Once these have been rectified by relocating the files and setting up symlinks, there have been no problems. My questions are: - does anyone else do this? - if not, why not? _______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
