http://www.redhatconfig.com/
http://www.redhatconfig.com/
As nice as tmpfs is the risk is not worth
it unfortunately. I can’t have any decrypted data wriiten to physical
disk.
Regards
From:
rhelv5-list-bounces@redhat.com [mailto:rhelv5-list-bounces@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Zavodsky, Daniel (GE Money)
Sent: 12 March 2008 10:55
To: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
(Tikanga) discussion mailing-list
Subject: RE: [rhelv5-list] ramdisk
vs tmpfs in terms of security
I meant that even a full tmpfs may be
swapped out if you are not accessing the files and other programs need the
memory. However, if you create some files there, do operations on them and then
immediately delete them, a swap out should not occur at the time you are using
the tmpfs.
Best regards,
Daniel
From:
rhelv5-list-bounces@redhat.com [mailto:rhelv5-list-bounces@redhat.com] On Behalf Of
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
11:35 AM
To: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
(Tikanga) discussion mailing-list
Subject: RE: [rhelv5-list] ramdisk
vs tmpfs in terms of security
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
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