Re: [tlug] Kernel panic

["SL Baur" <steve@example.com>]

On 4/23/08, Brian Chandler <brian@example.com> wrote:

>  /bin/sh: can't find yaird
>
>  Thanks, but it doesn't look as though that is it. I found other ubuntu
> questions being answered with reference to mkinitrd, so I'm guessing it
> should be somewhere.

You might have to chroot into your system from the rescue book and
run it that way.  At this point, I'd suggest asking an Ubuntu guy.  We
know the root cause of your boot problem - a b0rked initrd and
someone with basic knowledge of Ubuntu should be able to tell
you how to recreate it.

>  ---
>
>  Among several thousand other things, I don't understand quite what is going
> on when I "boot from the CD". Obviously the CD bootstrap installs a Linux
> kernel, and gets (not quite) everything working. But presumably I am the
> root user in the shell it gives me? Yet it seems that the users referred to
> in the file system "ought" to be somehow different from any users associated
> with the version of the OS installed from the CD... (or something - perhaps
> this question doesn't make sense, in which case it's better ignored)

Yes, you are root.  User IDs are basically just numbers.  The fact that
they can be so easily "spoofed" is why we say if one has physical
access to a machine they own it.  The same holds true in a networked
environment.

Unlike the "stone knives and bear skins" quote which you are
expected to understand (it's in the Jargon file), very few people
understand security issues.  "Real" security (the upper levels of
the Orange Book) hasn't been achieved on any commercial consumer
system and they won't be.  *No one* likes MLS except PHBs who
want to use it as a talking point as opposed to using it in the usual
sense or arrogant reviewers who just want to make trouble in an
IR&D review. :-)

The "C2" level of security that a single installation of Microsoft
Windows NT and certain commercial Unixes achieved pertains
to auditing issues only and is only applicable in a non-networked
environment.

My advice is don't worry about it.

-sb