Re: [PATCH] 2.6.16.16 Parameter-controlled mmap/stack randomization

[John Richard Moser]

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Pavel Machek wrote:
> Hi!
> 
>>> Well, fix emacs then. We definitely do not want 10000 settable knobs
>>> that randomly break things. OTOH per-architecture different randomness
>>> seems like good idea. And if Oracle breaks, fix it.
>> Fix this, fix that.  In due time perhaps.  I'm pretty sure Linus isn't
>> going to break anything, esp. since his mail client breaks too.
> 
> Good. So fix emacs/oracle/pine, and year or so and some time after it
> is fixed, we can change kernel defaults. That's still less bad than
> having
> 
> [ ] Break emacs
> 
> in kernel config.

Nobody is going to fix emacs/oracle/pine, they don't have to.  Nothing
is making them.  The kernel will wait for them so who cares.

> 
>> Why should it NOT be configurable anyway?  If you don't configure it,
>> then it behaves just like it would if it wasn't configurable at all.
>> This is called "having sane defaults."
> 
> Because if it is configurable, someone _will_ configure it wrong, and
> then ask us why it does not work.

Oh big deal.  People configure out ide drivers and ask why their kernel
doesn't boot all the time.  Distro maintainers do most of the work.

This is a weak argument, bordering FUD.  It's the same argument as
everything else, except we just said, "Well not really important"
everywhere else.

> 
> And if it is configurable, applications will not get fixed for
> basically forever.

FUD.  If it's not configurable, applications will not get fixed for
basically forever, and nobody will put the breaking code into mainline.
 Linus is NOT giving 256M/256M randomization on mainline as default ever.

> 
>>> Per-architecture ammount of randomness would be welcome, I
>>> believe. That will force Oracle to fix their code, but that's okay,
>>> and you can use disable PF_RANDOMIZE for Oracle in meantime.
>> No, this would leave Oracle shipping binaries with PF_RANDOMIZE
>> (PT_GNU_STACK still?) disabled.  Also if PF_RANDOMIZE is still connected
>> to PT_GNU_STACK, then this means that randomization is turned off BY
>> MAKING THE STACK EXECUTABLE.  You should notice the obvious problem
>> here.  You should also understand that as long as they can simply switch
>> randomization off, they're not going to fix it; and as long as it breaks
>> Oracle/Emacs/anything, Linus is not going to impose non-disablable,
>> non-adjustable randomization.
> 
> I believe that Linus is going to apply this one even less likely.

Apply what?  It's already like that.  The kernel is set to be able to
switch randomization off based on a header in the binary.  That header,
as of 2.6.12, was PT_GNU_STACK if I recall correctly; this same header
switches the stack to non-executable.  Unless Linus accepted a patch to
follow ANOTHER field, and upstream binutils has changed it, and all
distributions have reflexed to use the new toolchain, it's still like this.

> 
> 								Pavel

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