RELENG_4 on flash disk and swap

[Michael Proto]

>On Fri, 10 Mar 2006, Michael Proto wrote:
>> My suggestion would then be to utilize resource limits in
>> /etc/login.conf for the sshd user (in your example) or other user
>> accounts for applications that you don't want running out of control.
>> See login.conf(5) and login_cap(3) for more details on this. In
>> particular, the datasize, stacksize, memoryuse, and vmemoryuse options
>> may be of benefit.
>
>  OK, I'm aware about this measure. But have your tried it yourself against,
>e.g., OpenSSH? I doubt it. Look at the following:
>
>dmitry at test$ ps axu |grep ssh
>root   20213  0.0  1.3 54724  3356  ??  Is    4:00PM   0:00.10 sshd: dmitry
> 								[priv]
>dmitry 20216  0.0  1.3 54724  3356  ??  I     4:00PM   0:00.03 sshd:
> 								dmitry at tty
>root   20229  0.0  1.3 54724  3356  ??  Ss    4:00PM   0:00.10 sshd: dmitry
> 								[priv]
>dmitry 20232  0.0  1.3 54724  3356  ??  S     4:00PM   0:00.03 sshd:
> 								dmitry at tty
>
>It's the result of 2 incoming OpenSSH sessions: 2 processes per session,
>one of them root's and another user's. SSH.COM's sshd always works as a root.
>Also, during the DoS attack (simultaneous setup of many incoming TCP 
>connections to 22th port) there will be many root's processes like this:
>
>root   20278  0.0  1.1 52016  2884  ??  Is    4:07PM   0:00.04 sshd:
> 								[accepted]
>
>Do you really advise to lower root's limits? I'm sure you don't ;)
>
>
>Sincerely, Dmitry
>-- 
>Atlantis ISP, System Administrator
>e-mail:  dmitry at atlantis.dp.ua
>nic-hdl: LYNX-RIPE

You're correct, I could have sworn that sshd ran as the sshd user with the (somewhat) new privsep settings but it appears that I'm mistaken. My only other (albeit limited) suggestion would be to do something like inbound connection limiting that is available in pf to prevent the DOS-like scenarios you are mentioning.


-Proto