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Date:      Sun, 11 Aug 1996 06:05:04 +1000
From:      Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
To:        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, j@uriah.heep.sax.de
Subject:   Re: kern_mib.c:int securelevel = -1;
Message-ID:  <199608102005.GAA07178@godzilla.zeta.org.au>

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>> Have you tried it? :-)  X works fine even at securelevel 2.

>I haven't tried it, but i think at doesn't work if you've got a

I tried an S3-868.

>graphics device where the Xserver wants to access the linear
>framebuffer via /dev/mem.  At least, i remember vaguely the term

That certainly won't work.

>``NetBSD aperture driver'' and the stated reason that this was
>intended to be a backdoor in order to circumvent the /dev/mem
>problem.

I thought it was to circumvent the /dev/io problem.

>Plain (banked) VGA probably works, since it only needs to mmap() the
>standard frame buffer where syscons or pcvt do already know about its
>location.

This mapping should be provided by the driver in all cases.  It's
much easier to provide than safe access to i/o ports for the following
reasons:
0) Access to the frame buffer is always safe.
1) FreeBSD doesn't support restricted access to i/o ports.
2) i/o is slower when CPL > IOPL.
3) It isn't clear which ports can be accessed safely.  Standard graphics
   ports can probably be used to blow up old monitors.
4) I/O ports sometimes need to be programmed in groups while interrupts
   (especially context switches) are disabled.  This requires an insecure
   IOPL.

Bruce



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