Re: [Announcement] "Exec Shield", new Linux security feature

From: Sean Neakums <sneakums@zork.net>
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [Announcement] "Exec Shield", new Linux security feature
Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 16:48:08 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <6ubryiemrr.fsf@zork.zork.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.33L2.0305041132530.17172-100000@rtlab.med.cornell.edu> (Calin A. Culianu's message of "Sun, 4 May 2003 11:40:35 -0400 (EDT)")

"Calin A. Culianu" <calin@ajvar.org> writes:

> On Sun, 4 May 2003, Ingo Molnar wrote:
>>
>> wrt. address-space randomization, "prelink -R" already provides quite good
>> randomization of the shared library addresses, which should give some
>> statistical protection against remote attacks, i dont think we'll need
>> kernel support for that.
>
> What is prelink -R?

       -R --random
              When assigning addresses to libraries, start with random
              address within architecture dependant virtual address
              space range.  This can make some buffer overflow attacks
              slightly harder to exploit, because libraries are not
              present on the same addresses accross different
              machines.  Normally, assigning virtual addresses starts
              at the bottom of architecture dependant range.

-- 
Sean Neakums - <sneakums@zork.net>