Mike Gerdts wrote:
> On 4/4/06, Chris Rijk <chris at aceshardware.com> wrote:
>> Going even further would be to integrate overall package mangament
>> with security settings for them and things like security alerts. Many>
>> security alerts aren't very useful in terms of what sys-admin should
>> do. "Wait for a patch and disable program if possible in the meantime"
>> isn't that handy. For example, if a vulnerability depends on a
>> buffer-overflow attack but you have an UltraSPARC chip or an x86
>> chip with NX-bit support then such attacks *may* be rendered useless -
>> would be nice to get a security alert from Solaris along the lines of "You
>> have XYZ installed but because you have anti-stack cracking support
>> active, you don't have to worry about this vulnerability". In other cases,
>> the following would be interesting too: "The current application suffers
>> from this security vulnerability. There are no known exploits currently
>> available but it is recommended that you disable this program until a
>> patch is available. If this program is needed, then in the meantime, the
>> following list of PRM setting changes can be made to reduce the scope
>> for damage in case of an attack - see this web-page for more information".
> 
> This seems to be going the same direction I was going with "Optional Modules"
> I proposed as possibly being useful with fault management.
> 
> http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?forumID=49&threadID=3214
> 
> This particular type of "fault management" would really be more of
> risk management, which seems to be what predictive self-healing is
> all about.  In this case, it would be just optional self-diagnosis.
> 

Yes, we do seem to have a lot of pieces (as is often the case).  Putting 
them together is really where much of our investment needs to focus.

Dave

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