Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 20:24:28 +0100 (BST) From: rich@rdrose.org To: Peter Pentchev <roam@orbitel.bg> Cc: freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: kern.randompid Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0107121953090.22325-100000@pkl.net> In-Reply-To: <20010712183721.B849@ringworld.oblivion.bg>
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On Thu, 12 Jul 2001, Peter Pentchev wrote: > The kern.randompid sysctl is not a boolean flag, but an estimate > of the random value that will be added to each newly created pid. Oh. That would make much more sense as to why it's not working. Having been using OpenBSD though (where the pids can be anything between about 30 and 32760), just adding a random amount between 1 and kern.randompid seems not very random really. Please do correct me if this is wrong. The comments in the code say "Using a modulus that is too big causes a LOT more process table scans". What is "too big"? I had a quick peer at kern_fork.c, and pidchecked is mentioned a lot, but nothing lept out at me saying "which would make <foo> too big". pidchecked is calculated on the fly, and not in a manner I can look at and estimate a good value for randompid. Pointers (not of the void * variety) would be welcome. rik To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-security" in the body of the message
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