Kdump with signed images

Matthew Garrett mjg at redhat.com
Thu Oct 25 22:39:16 EDT 2012


On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 09:15:58PM -0400, Mimi Zohar wrote:

> On a running system, the package installer, after verifying the package
> integrity, would install each file with the associated 'security.ima'
> extended attribute.  The 'security.evm' digital signature would be
> installed with an HMAC, calculated using a system unique key. 

The idea isn't to prevent /sbin/kexec from being modified after 
installation - it's to prevent it from being possible to install a 
system that has a modified /sbin/kexec. Leaving any part of this up to 
the package installer means that it doesn't solve the problem we're 
trying to solve here. It must be impossible for the kernel to launch any 
/sbin/kexec that hasn't been signed by a trusted key that's been built 
into the kernel, and it must be impossible for anything other than 
/sbin/kexec to make the kexec system call.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org



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