Bug#56821: Important security hole: mbr allows anyone to boot from a floppy.

[Nathaniel Smith <njs@njs.dhis.net>]

On Wed, Feb 02, 2000 at 12:45:08PM +0100, Thomas Quinot wrote:
> Le 2000-02-02, Randolph Chung écrivait :
> 
> > are going to try to install the mbr with the floppy option turned off....
> > (install-mbr --enable -F)
> 
> Hum. Oh, it looks like this would leave "advanced" mode enabled,
> a non-documented mode wherein, according to the manual page, any
> partition can be booted.

So make it install-mbr --enable -F-A.  That this is done should be
documented, and maybe stuck in as an option in base-config, though, since
I have depended on the advanced features of the mbr to get into my system
when things were hosed.

(as an aside, it's not often that you see a description of a non-documented
mode in a manual page...)


-- Nathaniel