Manuel C. wrote: > What about stack-smashing protection, address space layout randomization, > maybe executable space protection (for machines without nx-bit too) etc. ?
OpenSolaris already has protection for having the stack non executable on SPARC and on AMD64 or similar with the nx-bit. All binaries from the ON consolidation, and most others, are built with a map file that automatically enables this. We have had stack execute protection on SPARC for several releases of Solaris now and Solaris 10 introduced support for the nx-bit. > OpenSolaris could become a good solution for high-security systems (replacing > things like OpenBSD, Hardened Gentoo etc.). What do you mean could ? It already is, in away via its "parent" Solaris. Some of the most high security government systems in the world run on Trusted Solaris and most of that Trusted Solaris functionality is already available in the latest OpenSolaris source drops. We also have the concept of basic privileges. Use pcred(1) and ppriv(1) against something like statd and you will see that it is even less privileged than a normal user login shell. This comes from what we call basic privileges. With the current basic privileges we can remove from a process the ability to fork or exec or see other processes or even signal other processes owned by the same user. There are lots of things in OpenSolaris already that in my opinion make it much more secure than other systems. -- Darren J Moffat
