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Debian Hardened Aims For Security
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Sep 14, 2004 07:03 PM
from the it's-certainly-safe-from-me dept.
from the it's-certainly-safe-from-me dept.
larryg writes "Debian Hardened is a new project that wants be an official Debian sub-project. It aims to provide a complete tree of hardened kernel and software packages for a standard Debian distribution, without changing to another like Adamantix and making easy the hardening of any machine running Debian GNU/Linux. The hardened kernels use the grSecurity patch and some of the Adamantix kernel patches; also, its packages are compiled with the ProPolice/SSP gcc extension and some libraries to prevent and trace buffer overflow attacks. Also, and as a second project, we are working on some enhacements against the Linux Entropy Pool engine, using an external TRNG (True Random Numbers Generator) device which uses thermal noise and also the atomic decay from a Geiger counter, making true unpredictable random numbers."
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Debian Hardened Aims For Security
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Cool (Score:5, Funny)
Hardened Gentoo (Score:5, Interesting)
(not to mention the very similar name)
http://hardened.gentoo.org
Re:Hardened Gentoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't provide as many choices or the technological /security understanding of Hardened Gentoo
While I confess to being a hard-core Gentoo nut, isn't choice often the mother of all fuck ups? What's wrong with doing one thing and doing it right?
Re:Hardened Gentoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:HOW? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hardened Gentoo (Score:5, Insightful)
I read this in of the
Re:Hardened Gentoo (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.hyperlogos.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday July 18, @08:19PM)
Re:Hardened Gentoo (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://--/ | Last Journal: Monday December 09 2002, @05:12PM)
gentoo is nice and all, but it certainl doesn't make it's users magically understand the underlying system. btw, just because you can copy and 'discuss' compiler flags on a forum doesn't make yourself an expert on building fast software or make you understand what kind of speed ups are even technically possible and of all things it doesn't make you magically understand how software is executed at run time or the operating system built so you could see that saying stuff like "my mozilla has no ps/2 support" doesn't really show you in good light.
one choice in reducing possible user fuckups is reducing easy user choices("do you want to have a theoretical speedup by disabling using shadow file y/n?").
Re:Hardened Gentoo (Score:4, Informative)
(http://hardened.gentoo.org/)
Re:Hardened Gentoo (Score:4, Funny)
OK, that's what we call 'security through obscurity'. See no evil, hear no evil, all that.
Re:Hardened Gentoo (Score:5, Insightful)
It's good for both, actually; (Score:5, Interesting)
The goal is not a religious war, the goal is for you and I to get ahead.
Second project (Score:2)
sourceforge is designed so that authors of software can find resources easily. I've never been able to figure out their interface without getting a migraine, however...
Hardened debain is meh to me. However, TRNG hacking is something I'd love to see! Where's the linkage at???
www.lids.org (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://dev/null)
How is this going to be different than just installing Woody and applying the lids kernel patch to your particular kernel and locking the system down that way?
why need a distro for that? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://tnet.no/)
What about Windows? (Score:2, Funny)
(http://www.crudpot.net/)
Debian could use that as a spam headline! (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting....... (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://acidtonic.homedns.org/)
I still think the less you have the more secure it is.... as long as what you have isnt bloated. Thats why in my opinion slackware is great on security.
So if this thing is more than one iso image ill be rather skeptical since debian tends to be a very large distro...
Re:Interesting....... (Score:5, Informative)
This could be a good thing in the future (Score:2, Insightful)
For example, if you are setting up a single user box to access the internet with a modem (something that GNU/Linux should shine at) you often run into problems related to pppd requiring all sorts of obnoxious nonsense to get it to run as a regular user.
Policies such as new accounts having their own group by default, and not being readable by all other accounts, make sense in the ISP, server, and in business settings in general. But tipping point is being reached, to where soon most people setting up Debian are setting it up to use it at home, not to run a business or train themselves to get business related job skills. Things like pam have to go to where they belong, and not get in the way of the rest of us.
Enhacements against the Linux Entropy Pool engine? (Score:5, Interesting)
Would the time not be better spent looking for the next OpenSSH/SSL hole?
I'm not trolling, most security flaws come from everyday apps rather than esoteric problems.
Re:Enhacements against the Linux Entropy Pool engi (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.tholus.net/)
Re:Enhacements against the Linux Entropy Pool engi (Score:4, Informative)
The problem was not the quality of the random number generation.
Re:Enhacements against the Linux Entropy Pool engi (Score:4, Informative)
Now consider this example - random number generators are anything but secure.
New pickup line for geeks... (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Thursday July 07 2005, @10:35PM)
Re:New pickup line for geeks... (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Thursday July 07 2005, @10:35PM)
TRNG (Score:1)
Question: Stability? (Score:2)
I have no first-hand experience, so... Anyone?
Not that this is like Fark or anything, but (Score:2)
good trend (Score:3, Informative)
(http://pitchforkmedia.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday March 23 2004, @09:08PM)
personally I'm really interested in the Security-Enhanced Linux [nsa.gov] that the NSA is working on. To have something that complete is really intriquing. Now if they don't have something like apt to keep it steady I dunno...but you have to admit it's got 'wow' factor written all over it!
BCDFY^&D&S^F
Re:good trend (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/~LittleLebowskiUrbanA/journal/ | Last Journal: Thursday March 30 2006, @06:26PM)
Re:good trend (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.hyperlogos.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday July 18, @08:19PM)
Re:good trend (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.hyperlogos.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday July 18, @08:19PM)
If you look at the SElinux download page [nsa.gov] you can read the following tidbit:
In other words, SElinux comes with the kernel.
They'd need more drastic changes (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Monday October 09 2006, @07:35PM)
At any rate, these people don't understand that they'll need more drastic changes. Why not bring attention to http://d-sbd.alioth.debian.org/ while you're at it? This is my project, just a demonstrational effort to bring these things to the attention of the Debian maintainers.
The idea isn't to have a hardened "Enhancement," but rather to incorporate anything you can put in that won't hurt. For example, you can compile glibc, gnome, and bash with SSP/ProPolice, and nothing else will use ProPolice but those. Those programs also won't be hurt by ProPolice. We can extend this to, "Compile any program or library that won't break with it with SSP." The user will never notice; but it'll stop a range of attacks.
My point is that you need to aim low. A hardened system like Hardened Gentoo or Adamantix will supply you with *everything* -- PaX, SSP, ET_DYN binaries, rediculously complicated MAC systems, firewalling maybe, network sniffers, etc. A non-hardened distribution should look at each of these, determine which don't change the end user's experience (administrator included), and implement them. This is "Do what's easy" rather than "Do EVERYTHING we possibly can," but it's still better than just being lame in the area of security.
Securing Debian Manual (Score:1)
(http://www.1wit.com/)
Who are these people? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.lostinthenoise.net/)
Debian already has a security project, a few of them actually.
I looked at google for either of these guys names and unless I am mistaken, this is what I got: developer one [google.com] and developer two [google.com].
Interesting that anyone else that they haven't ever used those names to contribute to say at least a single debian security mailing list, or say ANY debian lists?
Even more interesting is that they don't seem to have much but a slashdot plug and they are accepting donations.
I am not impressed. Working with the debian security team is the way to go.
Steve Kemp [steve.org.uk] is one of the main guys heading up the debian audit project, these guys should be working with him. Not for some other project.
The official debian project for this is the debian audit project [debian.org].
Hell advertising that they use SSP enabled GCC! Steve makes those packages for use with debian already!
TRNG (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.mindrot.org/)
selinux? (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.axiom-developer.org/)
One issue with selinux I (think) I understand is that in order for applications to run properly you need to have predefined rules which allow them to do what they need to do (the nature of MAC is they can't do anything except what is explicitly allowed, as I understand it). This is possible for servers, which do only a few jobs repeatedly, but for a desktop machine with hundreds of potential applications to fire up and more being developed such a burden becomes huge. A normal user would end up turning off MAC in order to use the computer the way they want to, unless each application they want or may want to use already has a default ruleset present. I would be really happy to see this happen - various distributions collaborate on default rules for large numbers of applications, so end users could actually use systems that are seriously hardened. I know it's probably overkill, but given what casual Windows users on the network have done over the years (as well as unsecured Linux boxes and other OSes, for that matter) I think if some combination of projects could deliver a usable desktop machine with mandatory access control and any other features which might defend their box while letting it be useful would be a Very Good Thing. One thing is for sure - too little security does more harm to the internet community than having more protection than you need.
http://packages.debian.org/harden (Score:4, Interesting)
how is Hardened Debian going to be different from installing the harden* packages?
awesome ... good job (Score:2)
such as providing a
a openswan package that works directly from a dialog script.
not to mention a basic iptables front end like redhat has, where is the 'low, medium, high' trusted interface prompt upon install for debian?
Itch scratching, and audit (Score:3, Interesting)
Several posts thus far, have questioned the viability of establishing yet another secure-debian project, similar to other existing projects, and have indicated that there would be a better use of available resources if everyone would just get along and work together (or at least, form under a single project). Fair enough.
However, there are a whole range of reasons why diversity and natural selection w.r.t many competing projects can provide benefits over and above a single large project - organisational inertia, effective and efficient communication, and development priority differences, for example.
'Organisational inertia' in particular, whereby the larger a organisation/project gets, the slower it can react to changing requirements, is a good reason why this effort-amalgamation can potentially be a bad thing.
Each of these projects probably has a slightly different 'itch' to 'scratch'. There's no reason why, later on down the track, that the best elements of each of these projects cannot be merged into something cohesive.
A good example is the current situation in Linux Auditing (as in C2/CAPP style auditing and event logging, not code verification) and host-based audit-related intrusion detection. Over time, we've had Snare (http://www.intersectalliance.com), SLES (http://www.suse.com), and Riks Audit Daemon (http://www.redhat.com). Each project had a slightly different focus, and each development team have come up with some great solutions to the problems of auditing / event logging.
The developers of each of these projects are now communicating and collaborating, with a view to bringing a effective audit subsystem to Linux that incorporates the best ideas from each approach.
BTW: How about auditing in this project? Here's a starting point:
http://www.gweep.net/~malk/snare_debian.s
Red. (Snare Developer)
what's wrong with /dev/urandom (Score:4, Insightful)
I would think that there exists a limited number of people in the world who could exploit a diffie-helman exchange between systems using the usual sources of randomness on an x86 machine.
Heh... (Score:2, Funny)
as *if*! (Score:5, Funny)
(http://elysse.net/ | Last Journal: Monday September 13 2004, @10:24PM)
but seriously... as a debian user, i fully condone harder, faster, and stronger debians.
Oh really? (Score:1, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/...id=97784&cid=8357085)
So Debian made harder is news
So many the installer abused
It's hard enough as it is
Much like taking a quiz
I wish I could apt-get "ease of use."
grsecurity annoyance (Score:1)
(http://www.amxmodx.org/)
grSecurity == greek Security? (Score:1)
If you need a secure system... (Score:3, Insightful)
It might surprise some linux fanbois, but other OSs are better suited than their beloved linux for certain tasks.
Too much security (Score:3, Interesting)
Sometimes I get a feeling saying that people spend too much time thinking about security in the OSS world. Security is important, but as mentioned earlier, has a system's security for example ever been compromised because of insecure random number generation?
It's just like the VPN softwares around. Take for example IPsec/FreeSWAN and OpenVPN. OpenVPN offers great security using SSL and TLS. Both those protocols are in the present time considered secure and it's fairly simple to setup.
IPsec on the other hand, takes the concept of security to a whole new level. This affects the overall software, turning it into a pain to set up and understand. And in order to make full use of the security you have to understand how it works.
I bet many security issues arises out of misconfiguration due to unnecessary complexity in the software. Keep it simple stupid is the way to go.
My point is: isn't secure security enough? Does it have to be better?
two questions (Score:1)
2.) Why does the "true" random number generator combine two sources of entropy? If one source delivers true unpredictable random numbers you don't need a second source. On the other hand if you combine two sources that are predictable the result will be predictable as well. Right?! So why two sources??
ok... (Score:1)
unpredictable my ass...
people should let go of this "chaos" fad and move on
Re:Why the fuss? (Score:1, Redundant)
(http://www.promethean-fire.com/)
Re:Deban could use it (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.patshead.com)
Take for example the fact that I can remotely shutdown a debiaTake for example the fact that I can remotely shutdown a debian machine over ssh with the "halt" command. A RedHat distro had that little feature blocked
Why exactly is this a bad thing? Have you never had to shutdown or reboot a remote server? I know I've had to do both at least a few times... Although rebooting would be much more common, and it would probably be safer as well :p.
On my Debian machines you seem to need to be root to do it. If someone I don't know is logged in over ssh as root on one of my boxes the last thing I am worried about is his ability to shut it down :p.
Re:Deban could use it (Score:2)
(http://www.christophermahan.com/)
If you are afraid ssh will be compromised, then don't use ssh.
Re:Deban could use it (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.nimheil.org/ | Last Journal: Monday June 13 2005, @01:18AM)
But I guess to each their own
Re:True random numbers are impossible! (Score:3, Interesting)
It rather reminds me of St. Thomas Aquinas' proof of the existance of God using the logic of the unmoved mover (that as all things have cause, there must exist one seed without cause to begin the chain, and that seed is God). This mostly seems like bunk, today, what with the fact that cause can follow effect, Quantum Mechanics exhibits truly random behaviour, etc, etc.
Re:harden what?? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sarge... (Score:3, Informative)