Difference between revisions of "Talk:Processors"

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Is it true that the the Linux [[security]] permissions system relies on the MMU? -- DavidCary
 
Is it true that the the Linux [[security]] permissions system relies on the MMU? -- DavidCary
  
No. --[[User:TimBird|TimBird]]
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It depends on what you mean by "security permissions".  The file system permissions
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are enforced by the file system.  Any process operating through normal system calls
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will be unable to open files for which is does not have appropriate security.
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However, security between processes is NOT enforced via memory protection, since
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there is no memory management unit.  Any process can access the memory areas
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of the kernel or any other process.  Thus it is not wise to run untrusted code
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on an MMU-less system. --[[User:TimBird|TimBird]]

Revision as of 12:00, 11 June 2007

Is it true that the the Linux security permissions system relies on the MMU? -- DavidCary

It depends on what you mean by "security permissions". The file system permissions are enforced by the file system. Any process operating through normal system calls will be unable to open files for which is does not have appropriate security.

However, security between processes is NOT enforced via memory protection, since there is no memory management unit. Any process can access the memory areas of the kernel or any other process. Thus it is not wise to run untrusted code on an MMU-less system. --TimBird