pids not randomized

[mr.fox]

I have just compiled a 2.6.19.2 kernel with grsecurity 2.1.10.

however, process ids are NOT randomized! in the kernel config menu, there is no option to change this, too.

what am I doing wrong? does this depend on other kernel features, and which?

thanks,
- Dave.

[bplant]

Hi Dave,

It's mentioned in the release notes: http://grsecurity.net/news.php#grsec2110

Cheers,

Brad

[mr.fox]

d'oh! rtfm

just out of curiosity, why is this suddenly considered to "not provide additional security"? from earlier versions:

"This is extremely effective along
with the /proc restrictions to disallow an attacker from guessing
pids of daemons, etc. PIDs are also used in some cases as part
of a naming system for temporary files, so this option would keep
those filenames from being predicted as well."

thanks.
- Dave

[jj2]

I think mostly it was to provides better salt to apps that use getpid as seeding their random number generatr.