Greater Security with GrSecurity

GrSecurity, formally known as Greater Security, is a kernel patch and userspace program for enhancing the security of a Linux system. GrSecurity, also referred to as Grsec, closes some avenues for attack and makes others much more difficult. Grsec implements a sophisticated Access Control List (ACL) for objects in Linux. The ACL can be used to provide much more granular control over files and other resources. For example, using a Grsec ACL, you can control what files will be shown as the result of a find command or which processes are included in process accounting logs.

Grsec also enables a system called PaX to restrict the capability of processes to alter memory space. This aspect alone renders many types of attacks involving overflows completely ineffective. Grsec also provides other protections such as stack randomization to make attacking the computer a more difficult task.

Throughout this chapter, I'll be taking a recipe-style approach to get the quickest results with a Grsec kernel. At the end of the chapter, I'll take more time to explain some of the features of Grsec. In other words, I'll show you how before telling you why, for the most part.