Help! Linux won't boot and my nephew is coming for dinner!

[ddm at pizzashack.org (Derek Martin)]

On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 12:37:20PM -0400, Bill Horne wrote:
> Thanks, I hadn't known that. Since I'm upgrading to the binary version of 2.2.16,

Please note that you should never _UPGRADE_ kernel RPMs (actually, I
think this may have changed with the latest versions of rpm and newer
kernel RPMs).  Documentation on Red Hat's site explains that the
proper way to install new kernel RPMs is to use rpm -ivh --force.
This may also be in their printed manuals, but I'm too lazy to look
for it.  :)

> lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root           21 Sep  1 14:25 System.map ->
> System.map-2.2.14-5.0
> -rw-r--r--   1 root     root       202415 Mar  8  2000 System.map-2.2.14-5.0
> -rw-r--r--   1 root     root       187304 Jun 19  2000 System.map-2.2.16-3BOOT
> 
> I don't know how to get LILO to integrate the 2.2.14 and 2.2.16 versions.

Boot from your floppy.  Then try:

  # ln -sf System.map-2.2.16-3BOOT System.map
  # /sbin/lilo

This assumes that your kernel is actually vmlinuz-2.2.16-3BOOT, which
seems likely based on the above.

It's worth noting that all kernel versions prior to 2.2.19 have at
least one local root compromise problem, and prior to 2.2.18 have two
or more major security problems.  This is only an issue if you run
sendmail or if you have local users on your system that you don't
trust with root access (or a remote attacker can compromise a local
account).  Note that the sendmail-related problem is not in sendmail
per se, but is a kernel bug dealing with capabilities which sendmail
makes use of.  So, the problem may exist in other software too, but is
only currently known (reported) to affect sendmail.

-- 
---------------------------------------------------
Derek Martin          |   Unix/Linux geek
ddm at pizzashack.org    |   GnuPG Key ID: 0x81CFE75D
Retrieve my public key at http://pgp.mit.edu

-
Subcription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with
"subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" on the first line of the
message body to discuss-request at blu.org (Subject line is ignored).