Bugtraq mailing list archives

Re: vlock + magic SysRQ key


From: tim () NIGHT-SHADE DEMON CO UK (Tim Fletcher)
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 01:42:35 +0100


Following an email exchange with the Slackware maintainer Patrick J.
Volkerding <volkerdi () slackware com> he put the Magic SysRq in all the
prebuilt kernels shipped with slackware 4.0. I guess this was a bad idea
on my part.

I would still like to see Magic SysRq in install disk kernels as it helps
to debug installs that die.

Also I note from the 2.2.11 changelog that Magic SysRq can be runtime
enabled / disabled

Thou the kernel src tree from Slackware 4.0 is pristene 2.2.6, so any home
make kernels will have the SysRq turned off by default

<Snip>

    CONFIG_MAGIC_SYSRQ is enabled by default in the 2.2.5 kernel which is
shipped with RedHat-6.0:

viper:/usr/src/linux-2.2.5% grep SYSRQ arch/i386/defconfig .config
arch/i386/defconfig:CONFIG_MAGIC_SYSRQ=y
.config:CONFIG_MAGIC_SYSRQ=y
viper:/usr/src/linux-2.2.5% uname -a
Linux some.inet.address 2.2.5-15 #1 Mon Apr 19 22:21:09 EDT 1999 i586 unknown

    In 2.2.5-22 kernel (the last version in updates/) arch/i386/defconfig has
CONFIG_MAGIC_SYSRQ also enabled.

   The most interesting is that standard kernel distribution
(linux-2.2.5.tar.gz) doesn't have SYSRQ enabled -- it was set to "y" by
RedHat (probably during beta-testing), and is "y" for all architectures.

    So, those who use RedHat don't even have to say "Y" and decide if they
are hackers or not -- the decision was made for them beforehand ;-).

--

      Tim Fletcher                  .~.
                                    /V\       L   I   N   U   X
   tjdf () st-andrews ac uk           // \  >Don't fear the penguin<
tim () night-shade demon co uk       /(   )\
                                   ^^-^^

Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds.  Biochemistry
is the study of carbon compounds that crawl.
                -- Mike Adams



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