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RE: [rhelv5-list] ramdisk vs tmpfs in terms of security

Gerrard Geldenhuis

2008-03-12

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That is a good point. However if there are no files on the tmpfs partition at the time of swap out, then this should not be a problem I believe.

 

Regards

 


From: rhelv5-list-bounces@redhat.com [mailto:rhelv5-list-bounces@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Zavodsky, Daniel (GE Money)
Sent: 12 March 2008 10:08
To: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (Tikanga) discussion mailing-list
Subject: RE: [rhelv5-list] ramdisk vs tmpfs in terms of security

 

Hello,

    Be careful, tmpfs *may* be swapped out at a later time if you are not using it actively and other programs need the memory.

    Thus, always use encrypted swap if you want to be on the safe side.

 

Best regards,

    Daniel

 

 


From: rhelv5-list-bounces@redhat.com [mailto:rhelv5-list-bounces@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Gerrard Geldenhuis
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2008 10:58 AM
To: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (Tikanga) discussion mailing-list
Subject: [rhelv5-list] ramdisk vs tmpfs in terms of security

Hi

Can anyone comment of the security concerns of tmpfs vs ramdisk if used as scratch space to decrypt/encrypt data?

 

According to my understanding tmpfs should be just as safe as ramdisk as long as you limit the size to be smaller than the actual memory available. My only concern is what would happen if your memory is full and you then mount a new tmpfs. Will it be written to disk in swap space, that at least is what I understand would happen, which would not be great. But if you assign the tmpfs at boot time then there should not be any problem unless you grow beyond the intial size.

 

Regards

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