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Bug#504043: initramfs: bail to shell on error: insecure default



Package: initramfs-tools
Version: 0.92l

Hello,

initrams created by initramfs-tools default to opening shell access to
the system on errors. This is an insecure default. Errors can be induced
on otherwise secured systems in many ways, like plugging in USB sticks,
eSATA devices, entering wrong passphrases, or whatever.
The rest of the system tries to ensure not to give away unauthorized
(root) shells by asking for passwords when entering maintenance or
single user mode, etc.

I know that initrams can be tweaked not to bail to a shell as a
side-effect of setting the panic= kernel parameter. However, users have
to explicitely choose this secure way. A cleaner approach w.r.t. secure
defaults, IMHO, would be to let users choose the insecure way by
setting a `bailtoshell' parameter or something like that (probably at
the kernel commandline to allow emergency intervention).

I'm not sure about the severity of this bug report, so I leave that up
to you.


regards
   Mario
-- 
> As Luke Leighton said once on samba-ntdom, "now, what was that about
> rebooting?   that was so long ago, i had to look it up with man -k."

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