[techtalk] partitioning security (was lilo)

[coldfire]

> As far as I know, there have been a lot of security problems relating to 
> symlinks in /tmp... So I'm wondering what it really buys you security-wise to 
> restrict only the hard links.

there are several exploits which only work in conjunction with hardlinks
.. and not the symlinks.  i'm assuming it's up to the application to
recognize the link.

> I think with ext2 a symlink will only not use data blocks if the name it 
> points to is short enough, otherwise it will.

i looked it up .. and we're both right .. well, you're more right than i
was.  it's a 'fast symbolic link' that has a 60 character limitation for
the file it points too.  otherwise, you can create symlinks to files with
60+ characters.

> > whereas, a hardlink .. an inode contains in it a number associated with
> > the file that it points at.  creating a new hardlink just creates another
> > inode that points to the same file and increments the 'links count' in the
> > inode.
> 
> I think you mean that a directory entry contains an inode number for the file 
> that it points at. The hard link creates a new directory entry but not a new 
> inode...

and you're right once again :)


coldie