Re: The disappearing sys_call_table export.

[Richard B. Johnson]

On Thu, 15 May 2003, Yoav Weiss wrote:

> > Not so, with the latest Red Hat distribution (9). You can no longer
> > set init=/bin/bash at the boot prompt.... well you can set it, but
> > then you get an error about killing init. This caused a neighbor
> > a lot of trouble when she accidentally put a blank line in the
> > top of /etc/passwd. Nobody could log-in. I promised to show her
> > how to "break in", but I wasn't able to. I had to take her hard-disk
> > to my house, mount it, and fix the password file. All these "attempts"
> > at so-called security do is make customers pissed.
> >
>
> 1. Insert Live-System CD (Knoppix for example)
> 2. Boot from it.
> 3. Mount rootfs.
> 4. Fix things.
> 5. Remove CD and reboot.
>

Not so easy. Many persons have drivers that must be installed using
initrd (SCSI, Firewire,  etc.) before their root file-systems are
accessible.

This means that there isn't a general-purpose tool that you can
take with you (except another PC, you can use to mount the
locked disk). NotGood(tm). Sun allows their install CD/ROM to
be used for repair. Other vendors did this also. New "security"
out of Red-Hat seems to prevent this, ALF-F2, etc., used to bring
up other virtual terminals. They don't anymore. I think every
OS vendor should be required to spend a few weeks in the field,
preferably in Afghanistan <grin>, before they even consider mucking
with accepted principles.

Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.4.20 on an i686 machine (797.90 BogoMips).
Why is the government concerned about the lunatic fringe? Think about it.