OpenBSD Journal

POSIX Page Protection

Contributed by jose on from the tech-info- dept.

One of the recent security enhancements coming into 3.3 (available now in -current) is POSIX page protection . In a really cool pair of messages , Theo and Dale Rahn explain how this works on the PPC processor. Some really cool stuff if you have been wondering just how this sort of thing works.

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Comments
  1. By Anonymous Coward () on

    Damn, they're really on a mission lately...

  2. By Christ () on

    Christ I thought I was a propellor head.

    Does Theo know asm for every architecture out there?

    Comments
    1. By Theo () on

      Of course, citizen! How dare you question. Now obey and go test -current.

      That is all.

    2. By Anonymous Coward () on

      It scares me. I draw close to completing my MSC. Do I know architecture? A little bit. Do I know C? A little bit. Do I know assembler(any kind)? A little bit. Have I done well? Yes, pretty well. Will I ever be able to contribute more than good will and sales profit to any project like OpenBSD? Unlikely ... err, lets be honest; No. (In fact the project would be better served if I delete my compiler and burn my text books -- a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing). How, when, and where did these guys ever learn so much???

      Comments
      1. By Anonymous Coward () on

        It is certainly daunting. However, one learns through doing - so that's at least encouraging. That and the fact that every now and then you run into some teenager who seems to have figured things out forwards and backwards in a lot less time than it takes me to understand one small portion. So that at least shows that it doesn't need to take forever to become modestly proficient.

        Looking at some more matured developers' work does show that one has a lot more catch up to do (and potentially never reach) but it's good to have goals. It's also good to realize that there's more to life than computers et al, and that one doesn't need to be the -best- at everything (especially when there is freely available BSD licensed code to utilize as needed).

        Ever watch a kid do something new, like climb a tree? It's pretty amazing, and seemingly simple. As a weathered and heavy adult it might be very difficult, if not impossible - but the kids who start young and keep with it will probably never have problems. Not to say that an adult can't reach that same level, but it might take a lot longer to reach the same physical fitness required if you haven't been doing it forever.

        So, er... start young, or work hard to catch up.

        Yeah (I don't even know wtf I'm talking about anymore).

  3. By MicroBSD Slave () on

    MicroBSD had POSIX page protection for the PPC two months... [snip] [bzzzzzzzz]

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