Vanishing "/etc/modules" ...

[Jacques Normand <jnormand@nerim.net>]

Hi,

I have been experiencing something weird lately. I am setting up a
couple of kerberos/ldap authentification servers with a woody
"enhanced". By enhanced, I mean that I use several testing packages like
syslog-ng, slapd or openssl. I also use a custom 2.6.1 kernel.

Now the problem is that, since these servers are experimental, I often
reboot them but this time, no access at all on the network.. After a
short investigation (5 sec :-P), i realise that no network is available
because the nic module is not loaded, which is in turn due to the file
/etc/modules being erased.

Even if I am still testing this setup, the network was working untouch
for weeks, and I have not touch this file at all on any of these
computers. For the same reason, I have not maid any md5sums of the
binaries as tampering-detection test.

This is most certainly a bug in a package I upgraded (related to the
fact that 2.6.0 kernels should not need this file but
/etc/modprobe.conf??? or at least that is what I read without being able
to actually use this ). But just in case, is there anyone experiencing
the same kind of issue?

Now, why do I post that on a security ML? I think that this kind of
thing has a serious security implication. If one upgrades a package and
then reboot 6 mounths later, He is fucked without knowing why. I am also
not sure at 100% that it is a package bug but maybe a vile tampering.

So has there been anyone experiencing that? And even if this server will
be reinstalled from scratch before reaching production, should I do
something now?

thanks for your advices

jacques