Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[BarryK]

I've got this "dnotify" daemon that monitors directories and
will warn if system directories are modified.

I don't want the root user to be able to kill this process.

Note, for people who want absolute control, including being
able to kill dnotify or modify it's behaviour, this will still be possible
by modifying a boot script, but not after Puppy has booted.

Does anyone know how or if it is possible to make a process
unkillable?

If it can't be done, I will probably have to dump using dnotify,
and instead go for dazuki, which is a kernel module that has the
same monitoring capability as dnotify.

[drongo]

I have no idea how you would do this, but could you "spoof" a zombie process? Then it would be difficult to kill.

Otherwise, I think you have to use a kernel process?

Or maybe there is a way of hiding a running process?

[GuestToo]

can it be started from inittab so that it will automatically be respawned if it's killed?

by the way, kill -18 1 might be able to kill zombie processes without rebooting

[Lobster]

You can not kill what does not exist
or what is already dead
or what is something else

It would seem to be safer to do this from the kernel

maybe these guys
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/

I am out of my depth but using this
http://www.google.com/linux

with these search parameters
http://www.cyberwyre.com/data-mining-using-google/

might give something better than:

Concurrency

[Mathiasdm]

Might be a bit of long way, but:
look for a program that can respawns dnotify as soon as it's killed.
Make the program run twice, so it respawns itself too, if one of the processes is killed.

Or would it be possible to kill both processes at once? I fear it will

[BarryK]

[BarryK]

Ha ha, this leads to another problem.

The initial ramdisk stays in ram, and is read-only.
The unionfs operation takes place in the initial ramdisk, before
the pivot_root.

The initial ramdisk is supposed to remain pristine, untouchable,
but what is to stop anybody from remounting it read-write?
I need some way of blocking that too.

After pivot_root, the initial ramdisk is readily accessable, as /initrd.

Well, it will be pristine at bootup, because it is just the
initrd.gz file (similar to image.gz). But, I don't want anyone to be able to fiddle with the contents of the initial ramdisk after pivot_root has taken place, as that will be a security weakness.

[Neutered]

There suddenly seems to be obsession about "possible security weaknessess in Puppy.
Lets hope we are not falling into the "Windows" scaremongering tactics where everybody who uses Windows is conned into using no end of -
Virus
Trojan
Rootkit
Spyware
Browser Protection
Intrusion Prevention
Detection Utilities..... etc etc etc programs.

I ask
Has Puppy got fleas
Has Puppy been wormed
Is Puppy about to be neuterd and muzzled

Come on chaps lets keep Puppy "rooted" as it were.
Is there any evidence that Puppy has ever been compromised
If those doomsday Puppy gurus have their way then Puppy will become an overburdened sad pityful image of itself, yelping and crying

"Do touch me I might have worms"

Despatch PupSafe where it belongs in the Doggie Bin and let Puppy get back to enjoying himself, frisky, carefree, playful and with the attitude

"If you want to neuter me you will have to catch me first"

[Lobster]

I agree that a balance between
FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt)
and
DUF (Dumb unchecked freedom)
is not always the issue

Puppy works because the components are integrated and
required components are addressed and implemented. When I start a new (clean install of Puppy) before going on the net I install the firewall from setup. I find that is sufficient.

Puppy2 is implementing security [shrug] because it is different or perhaps even revolutionary as Barry says. Good news as far as most of us are concerned, as things have worked fine up to now, long may it continue . . .

[Softy]

I don't wish to be flippant (security is an important issue) but somebody on the forum mentioned a "Hardened version of Puppy".

Puppy with a "Permanent Hard-on"...... he should be so lucky (but uncomfortable).

Perhaps as Lobster suggests (shrug) Puppy2 will need some extra security.

My hope is that Puppy2 doesn't get bogged down in obsessive security issues.

Puppy is not even a blip on the radar screen as far as potential hackers are concerned, they have bigger Vista to work on.