On Fri, 03 Jul 2009, Jiri Kosina wrote: > > There a few legacy applications out there (such as some ancient > > ... would you please fix this typo/grammo as well? (There a few ...) > > > versions of libc.so.5 from 1996) that assume that brk area starts > > Also, the text itself doesn't seem to be super-clear ... namely, it > describes what CONFIG_COMPAT_BRK is about, but doesn't really clarify how > exactly does this correlate with randomize_va_space == 2. Would you mind > also fixing this bit? I hope I didn't misread the sources :-) Opinions? --- The documentation for /proc/sys/kernel/* does not mention the possible value 2 for randomize-va-space yet. While being there, doing some reformatting, fixing grammar problems and clarifying the correlations between randomize-va-space, kernel parameter "norandmaps" and the CONFIG_COMPAT_BRK option. Signed-off-by: Horst Schirmeier <horst@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt | 30 +++++++++++++++++------------- 1 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt index 322a00b..dd8322f 100644 --- a/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt +++ b/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt @@ -303,25 +303,29 @@ This option can be used to select the type of process address space randomization that is used in the system, for architectures that support this feature. -0 - Turn the process address space randomization off by default. +0 - Turn the process address space randomization off. This is the + default for architectures that do not support this feature anyways, + and kernels that are booted with the "norandmaps" parameter. 1 - Make the addresses of mmap base, stack and VDSO page randomized. This, among other things, implies that shared libraries will be - loaded to random addresses. Also for PIE-linked binaries, the location - of code start is randomized. + loaded to random addresses. Also for PIE-linked binaries, the + location of code start is randomized. This is the default if the + CONFIG_COMPAT_BRK option is enabled. - With heap randomization, the situation is a little bit more - complicated. - There a few legacy applications out there (such as some ancient +2 - Additionally enable heap randomization. This is the default if + CONFIG_COMPAT_BRK is disabled. + + There are a few legacy applications out there (such as some ancient versions of libc.so.5 from 1996) that assume that brk area starts - just after the end of the code+bss. These applications break when - start of the brk area is randomized. There are however no known + just after the end of the code+bss. These applications break when + start of the brk area is randomized. There are however no known non-legacy applications that would be broken this way, so for most - systems it is safe to choose full randomization. However there is - a CONFIG_COMPAT_BRK option for systems with ancient and/or broken - binaries, that makes heap non-randomized, but keeps all other - parts of process address space randomized if randomize_va_space - sysctl is turned on. + systems it is safe to choose full randomization. + + Systems with ancient and/or broken binaries should be configured + with CONFIG_COMPAT_BRK enabled, which excludes the heap from process + address space randomization. ============================================================== -- PGP-Key 0xD40E0E7A -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-doc" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html