Linux-Development-Sys Digest #637, Volume #6 Tue, 20 Apr 99 05:14:29 EDT
Contents:
Get your ## F R E E ## email @ HOTMAILBOX.COM - 5075 ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Trusted Linux (Des Herriott)
Come spezzare un file .. ("Alessandro")
lp device interrupt registration? (Anthony Shipman)
RSBAC 1.0.8 for Linux Kernel 2.2.5 (A. Ott)
Re: seek for files >2GB (Andreas Schwab)
Re: New to Linux -- How to mount MSDOS floppy (David M. Cook)
Re: Linux system ID, is there such a thing? (Phil Howard)
Re: Can device driver use the filing system? (Jan Willamowius)
Showing process priority/scheduler (pmueller)
Re: I want Ctrl-Alt-Pause do a shutdown (system halt) (Kalle Olavi Niemitalo)
Re: [Q] Linux pstat() or table() equivalent (Jens-Uwe Mager)
Re: seek for files >2GB (Georg Ritter)
what is rpm? ("Enosh Chang")
Re: what is rpm? (Josef =?iso-8859-1?Q?M=F6llers?=)
SMP, interruptible_sleep_on and spinlock (Lorenz Hahn)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Get your ## F R E E ## email @ HOTMAILBOX.COM - 5075
Date: Monday, 19 Apr 1999 14:03:39 -0600
Get your own free lifetime email @ HOTMAILBOX.COM
http://www.hotmailbox.com
- Free lifetime exclusive email account!
- Complete independence from your Internet provider!
- Easy Access from any web browser in the world!
- 5 MB for your mail.
- Great gifts and prizes
- Check your own POP3 email accounts
- Up to 3 Signatures
- Address book
- Multiple folders
- For personal or business purposal
- Did we say FREE and EASY?
And more:
- Message Board
- Java Chat Rooms
Act now!
http://www.hotmailbox.com
j
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Des Herriott)
Subject: Re: Trusted Linux
Date: 19 Apr 1999 15:33:19 GMT
On 4 Apr 1999 23:52:30 -0500, Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [Christopher B. Browne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> > Hm. Yes, I see it there.
> >
> > 'Tis not clear how integrated it is into the rest of the system.
>
> Well, there is basically no user-space support for capabilities, but
> the kernel uses them. Changing this would require hacking a lot of
> user space, IMHO.
Coincidentally, I've been looking through the kernel source recently,
and came across these capabilities. I'm pretty much a newbie when it
comes to the kernel, but I'm guessing that capabilities could allow,
for example, a non-root user to be given privileges to bind to a
specific port? For example, give the 'www' user privileges to bind to
port 80/443/whatever.
I ask because I've been wondering why this hasn't been done before in
Unix - I gather that trusted version of certain Unices have allowed
it, but it seems like such a generally useful security addition that
it's surprising it hasn't been seen more widely.
Am I right in supposing that capabilities could be used for this
purpose? And perhaps configurable via a /proc interface?
--
Des Herriott, Oracle Corporation UK Ltd.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
- speaking for myself, not my employer.
------------------------------
From: "Alessandro" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.linux.slakware,alt.os.linux,alt.os.linux.mandrake,comp.os.linux.setup,it.comp.linux,it.comp.linux.setup,tin.it.computer.pc.linux
Subject: Come spezzare un file ..
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 22:15:22 +0200
Vorrei poter spezzare un file in piu parti per poterlo trasportare sui
dischetti . Piccolo dettaglio si tratta di macchina con s.o. sun .
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Anthony Shipman)
Subject: lp device interrupt registration?
Date: 19 Apr 1999 07:54:32 GMT
I load the lp.o driver module, initialised to use IRQ7. But it doesn't
turn up in the /proc/interrupts table. This happens on both 2.0.35 and
2.0.36. Is this supposed to happen?
--
Anthony Shipman, "You've got to be taught before it's too late,
AAII, Melbourne, Australia Before you are six or seven or eight,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] To hate all the people your relatives hate,
+61 3 92477679 You've got to be carefully taught." R&H
------------------------------
Date: 18 Apr 1999 11:55:00 +0200
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (A. Ott)
Crossposted-To: comp.security.unix
Subject: RSBAC 1.0.8 for Linux Kernel 2.2.5
Hi RSBAC folks!
The new Rule Set Based Access Control (RSBAC) version 1.0.8 for Linux
kernel 2.2.5 is out and can be downloaded from the *new Homepage* at
http://www.compuniverse.com/rsbac
Feedback is wellcome.
Amon.
========================
Name: rsbac
Version: 1.0.8
Kernelver: 2.2.5
Status: 6
Author: Amon Ott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Maintainer: Amon Ott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Description: Rule Set Based Access Control
Date: 16-APR-1999
Descfile-URL: http://www.compuniverse.com/rsbac/rsbac.desc
Download-URL: http://www.compuniverse.com/rsbac/download.htm
Homepage-URL: http://www.compuniverse.com/rsbac
Manual-URL: http://www.compuniverse.com/rsbac/instadm.htm
Mailing-List: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RSBAC Changes
=============
1.0.8: - Port to 2.2.1
- Added /proc/rsbac-info/backup to provide an easier means of backup
for not device dependent stuff. To be extended.
- Added new Role Compatibility (RC) module.
- New on-disk binary layout, auto update from all versioned data
(1.0.5 upwards).
- AUTH module added to support proper authentification by enforcing
externally granted CHANGE_OWNER capabilities.
- Save to disk inconsistency in PM sets fixed.
- MAC categories added, but limited to a fixed number of 64. Apart
from that, the MAC module categories are as proposed in the
Bell-LaPadula model.
- Port to 2.2.2
- Port to 2.2.3 with minor changes
- Port to 2.2.4
- Port to 2.2.5
What is RSBAC?
==============
RSBAC is mostly a big patch for current Linux kernels. It is based
on the Generalized Framework for Access Control (GFAC) by Abrams and
LaPadula and provides a flexible system of access control based on
several modules.
All security relevant system calls are extended by security
enforcement code. This code calls the central decision component,
which in turn calls all active decision modules and generates a
combined decision. This decision is then enforced by the system call
extensions.
Decisions are based on the type of access (request type), the access
target and on the values of attributes attached to the subject calling
and to the target to be accessed. Additional independent attributes can
be used by individual modules, e.g. the privacy module (PM). All
attributes are stored in fully protected directories, one on each mounted
device. Thus changes to attributes require special system calls provided.
As all types of access decisions are based on general decision requests,
many different security policies can be implemented as a decision module.
In the current RSBAC version (1.0.8), nine modules are included:
MAC: Bell-LaPadula Mandatory Access Control (limited to 64 compartments)
CWI: Clark-Wilson-Integrity (only basics implemented, not working)
FC: Functional Control. A simple role based model, restricting access
to security information to security officers and access to system
information to administrators.
SIM: Security Information Modification. Only security
administrators are allowed to modify data labeled as security information
PM: Privacy Model. Simone Fischer-Huebner's Privacy Model in its first
implementation. See our paper on PM implementation for the National
Information Systems Security Conference (NISSC 98)
MS: Malware Scan. Scan all files for malware on execution
(optionally on all file read accesses or on all TCP/UDP read accesses),
deny access if infected. Currently the Linux viruses Bliss.A and Bliss.B
and a handfull of others are detected. See our paper on malware detection
and avoidance for The Third Nordic Workshop on Secure IT Systems
(Nordsec'98).
FF: File Flags. Provide and use flags for dirs and files,
currently execute_only (files), read_only (files and dirs), search_only
(dirs), secure_delete (files) and add_inherited (files and dirs).
Only security officers may modify these flags.
RC: Role Compatibility. Defines 64 roles and 64 types for each
target type (file, dir, dev, ipc, scd, process). For each role compatibility
to all types and to other roles can be set individually.
AUTH: Authorization enforcement. Controls all CHANGE_OWNER
requests for process targets, only programs/processes with general setuid
allowance and those with a capability for the target user ID may setuid.
Capabilities are controlled by other programs/processes.
The underlying models are described in an extra text.
A general goal of RSBAC has been to some day reach (obsolete) Orange Book
(TCSEC) B1 level. Now it is mostly targeting to be useful as secure and
multi-purposed networked system, with special interest in firewalls.
How it will go on
=================
- Everlasting: Improve documentation - there are man pages, concept and
detail descriptions, how-tos, examples and other stuff missing
(volunteers?)
- Improve recovering from system crashes - it is still possible (though
unlikely) to loose attributes, if system crashed while modifying
/rsbac dir.
- Improve attribute access performance, maybe by seperating between file
and dir targets.
- Finish user and password management daemon enforcement (AUTH module),
inspired by an idea of Julio Sanchez. Misses a bit of helper stuff,
like PAM stubs etc. Kernel part is finished, though.
- Add Access Control Lists (ACL) module, based on roles (sic!), users and
request types. Likely for 1.0.9.
- Add registration procedure for new decision modules. Likely for 1.0.9.
- Include more scan strings into the Malware Scan module
- Further improve Linux security specially as internet server system,
addressing special needs for that. The Role Compatibility and the AUTH
model should give a good kick to that.
- (Maybe) Join RSBAC with <a HREF="http://www.gem.net:8080/psl">Pretty
Secure Linux</a>
- (Some day) With or without PSL: Meet B1 security requirements. Now that
MAC categories and secure delete are implemented the way has shortened,
but it is not really urgent though, since Orange Book is a bit out of
date.
--
------------------------------
From: Andreas Schwab <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: linux.dev.c-programming
Subject: Re: seek for files >2GB
Date: 19 Apr 1999 11:53:39 +0200
Joel Klecker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
|> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Georg Ritter
|> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
|>
|> > does anyone know if there is a 64 bit seek interface
|> > for linux like in IRIX:
|> >
|> >
|> > off_t lseek (int fildes, off_t offset, int whence);
|> > off64_t lseek64 (int fildes, off64_t offset, int whence);
|>
|> GNU libc 2.1 has the LFS interface (see `info libc "Feature Test
|> Macros"' if you have access to the glibc 2.1 info docs)[1], however the
|> kernel side is only implemented on 64-bit architectures.
Except for lseek64 which is implemented everywhere via the _llseek
syscall. This is currently enough to support LFS on 32 bit architectures,
since you cannot have >2GB files anyway, only whole partitions.
--
Andreas Schwab "And now for something
[EMAIL PROTECTED] completely different"
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David M. Cook)
Subject: Re: New to Linux -- How to mount MSDOS floppy
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 10:16:33 GMT
On Mon, 19 Apr 1999 06:04:52 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I have a 1.44 MB floppy formatted with MSDOS and I want to mount it and
>copy files off of it. What is the exact command I use?
I suggest you use mtools to access floppies instead of mounting them. These
are mostly like the DOS commands prepended by an 'm' (mdir, mcopy, mren,
etc.)
If you add your username to the floppy group in /etc/group:
floppy:x:19:neil
then you can access the floppy without being root.
Dave Cook
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Phil Howard)
Subject: Re: Linux system ID, is there such a thing?
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.apps
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 20:19:50 GMT
On 18 Apr 1999 23:56:04 -0400 Justin Vallon ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
| > [Clint Byrum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
| > In an environment where the computers weren't networked anyway, why
| > would it be important to identify them (more or less) uniquely?
|
| Licensing?
The vendor of the licensed software should have a solution.
If _you_ are the vendor, then realize there is no solution.
I've always hated per-machine licensing. So much hassle.
So much gouging (usually the license costs the same whether
you're running a Sparc 10000 or a 386-sx16).
--
Phil Howard KA9WGN
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jan Willamowius)
Subject: Re: Can device driver use the filing system?
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 18:37:32 GMT
Philip Boucherat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>According to people on the RedHat mailing list, I am strongly advised
>not to try and use the filing system from a device driver I'm developing
>for RedHat V5.2.
Wise people... ;-)
Why don't you create a /proc/foo interface where a user process just cat's
the firmware into early in your rc scripts ?
- Jan
--
Jan Willamowius, http://www.willamowius.de/
Microsoft does have a year 2000 problem. I'm part of it. I'm running Linux.
------------------------------
From: pmueller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Showing process priority/scheduler
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 16:06:33 +0200
Hi,
I have developed an application that set the process priority/scheduler
algorithm to "max proiority"/FIFO. How can I check the result? Top
displays as NI value always 0. Is there a special tool necessary to
display the scheduling strategy/priority of a process??
Peter
------------------------------
From: Kalle Olavi Niemitalo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: I want Ctrl-Alt-Pause do a shutdown (system halt)
Date: 19 Apr 1999 16:27:41 +0300
David Guyon Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I want Ctrl-Alt-Pause to do a shutdown (system halt).
I have set Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Break to do the shutdown. Pressing it again
after shutdown is complete will reboot the machine.
This is done with the `loadkeys' program; see
http://stekt.oulu.fi/~tosi/kbd/
If you want to retain Ctrl-Alt-Del too (I didn't), you could bind
Ctrl-Alt-Pause to KeyboardSignal (also known as Spawn_Console) and
leave Ctrl-Alt-Del as Boot. Today's /sbin/init can catch both
keypresses and handle them differently.
Note that normal 102-key keyboards interpret Ctrl-Pause as Ctrl-Break,
so you need to change the bindings of the Break key, not Pause.
> Let me know it is a good idea and easy to do, I know C programming but
> nothing about kernel development...
No need to write C.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jens-Uwe Mager)
Subject: Re: [Q] Linux pstat() or table() equivalent
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 23:13:18 GMT
On Mon, 19 Apr 1999 07:45:23 -0500, Paul Roebuck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Is the /proc filesystem guaranteed to be accessible? On some systems I
>have used in the past, there were security considerations as to whether
>this filesystem would be mounted. Is this not the case for Linux?
You can umount it, yes. But there quite a few things that rely on /proc
functionality nowadays, so I would not expect anyone doing it.
--
Jens-Uwe Mager <pgp-mailto:62CFDB25>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 14:16:17 +0200
From: Georg Ritter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: linux.dev.c-programming
Subject: Re: seek for files >2GB
Thanks
for your answers.
What do you think about using a 'raw' (eg. /dev/hda4) partition to
hold the data? It was another suggestion.
btw I forgot to mention that I was searching with havin Linux x86
in mind.
Greetings,
Georg
Georg Ritter wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> does anyone know if there is a 64 bit seek interface
> for linux like in IRIX:
>
> off_t lseek (int fildes, off_t offset, int whence);
> off64_t lseek64 (int fildes, off64_t offset, int whence);
>
> Greetings,
>
> Georg
>
> please also send a CC to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
=====================================================================
student at department of physics
University of Innsbruck, Austria [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "Enosh Chang" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: tw.bbs.comp.linux
Subject: what is rpm?
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 14:35:24 +0800
Hi,
Could somebody tell me what is RPM, and how to use it? Is it another
compress file format?
------------------------------
From: Josef =?iso-8859-1?Q?M=F6llers?= <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: tw.bbs.comp.linux
Subject: Re: what is rpm?
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 09:06:45 +0200
Enosh Chang wrote:
> =
> Hi,
> =
> Could somebody tell me what is RPM, and how to use it? Is it another
> compress file format?
RPM is either "revolutions per minute" and applies among others to disk
drives, or the RedHat Packet Manager, in which case the finely printed
manual will help:
man rpm
-- =
PS Die hier dargestellte Meinung ist die persoenliche Meinung des
Autors!
PS This article reflects the autor=B4s personal views only!
------------------------------
From: Lorenz Hahn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: SMP, interruptible_sleep_on and spinlock
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 14:55:15 +0200
Hi,
I've got a runtime condition, but can't see any way to get rid of it.
This problem arises only on SMP machines because the interrupt service may run
on CPU A while the process waiting for this interrupt is running on CPU B.
This has to be done by the process:
===================================
close interrupts
do some checks
if interrupt has not arrived
tell ISR that I'm waiting
wait for interrupt_ready ( interruptible_sleep_on( interrupt_ready ) )
open interrupts
This has to be done by the interrupt service:
=============================================
do some initial clean up
if process is waiting for me
wake up process waiting for interrupt_ready
In older versions before SMP the closing and opening of interrupts was
implemented with cli and sti. With SMP I'm forced to use spin_lock_irq
and spin_unlock_irq. The ISR needs to spin_lock and spin_unlock to get
the mutual exclusion working. Since interruptible_sleep_on may be called
within closed interrupts, there is no problem. When I've entered a mutual
exclusion implemented through spinlocks I always run in a dead lock:
While the process keeping the lock and blocking interrupts on CPU B is
sleeping on a semaphore, the ISR running on CPU A waits for the lock to
be enabled to signal the semaphore.
The first thing I've done was releasing the lock while waiting for the
semaphore. But now I've got a runtime condition: Sometimes it happens
that the ISR is ready before the sleep is executed: The system is alive,
but the process is 'dead'.
Now I need a way to sleep on a semaphore while releasing a lock.
Any hints?
Thanks for listening, Lorenz.
--
Lorenz Hahn email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
SYSGO RTS GmbH, Carl-Zeiss-Str. 41 phone: +49 (0) 6131 9138-46
D-55129 Mainz / Germany fax: +49 (0) 6131 9138-10
PGP public key fingerprint: 5E 51 B2 DF DF E2 49 AD BD 7A FC 26 3F 19 58 25
------------------------------
** FOR YOUR REFERENCE **
The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests
to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is:
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux.development.system) via:
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites:
ftp.funet.fi pub/Linux
tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux
sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux
End of Linux-Development-System Digest
******************************
