[systemd-devel] Sending a SIGABRT to PID1

[Lennart Poettering]

On Sun, 03.05.15 17:18, Víctor Fernández (vfrico at gmail.com) wrote:

> Hello
> 
> I'm using rigth now a Manjaro distribution (derived from arch). Making some
> test, i've discovered that sending SIGABRT (6) to PID 1 (systemd) will
> cause system to enter on unstable mode:
> 
> after doing this, the system reboot graphic server (at least, it request to
> login again) and if you resend the SIGABRT, the system goes to Kernel Panic
> Mode.
> 
> Here is the code I've tested (executing as sudo, of course).
> 
> echo "int main(){kill(1,6);kill(1,6);}" > a.c && gcc a.c && sudo ./a.out
> 
> It appears not to be a very large problem (since root permisions are
> required), but I think is an undiserable behaviour.
> 
> Is this really a bug?

Well, there are tons of ways how you can break your system if you are
root. For example:

      dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda

We cannot (and actually should not) try to prevent the user from
shooting his own foot if he really desires to do so.

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering, Red Hat