On Mon, 2009-01-26 at 20:25 +1100, Declan Mullen wrote: > Hi > > When I ssh into my Linux server, the login succeeds but I notice that I > get the following type of entry appended to the auth.log : > > Jan 26 17:10:45 maxv1 sshd[32624]: error writing /proc/self/oom_adj: > Permission denied > > What are the implications of the sshd not being able to write to the > oom_adj ? Ie Is this error significant or should I just ignore it ? > > The sshd's write is failing because the server I'm logging into is a > VServer guest/virtual server, and the VServer virtualisation technology > places restrictions on what can be written to the /proc filesystem from > within the guest. > > The guest server OS is Debian Lenny and the sshd versions is > "1:5.1p1-5". Within the sshd_config Privilege Separation is turned on. > > The host server's kernel is Lenny's "linux-source-2.6.26" (version > "2.6.26-13") with Lenny's vserver patches applied from > "linux-patch-debian-2.6.26" (version "2.6.26-13"). The host's > util-vserver package is version "0.30.216~r2772-6". The host's > "vserver-debiantools" package is version "0.6.3". <snip> I'm facing the same issue and would like for the guest to be able to set oom_adj. I would imagine this is done by editing the vprocunhidefiles file However, before doing so, I'd like to ask the list if there is a security issue in doing so. I suppose a savvy guest could make their system a hog - the last one to have any processes shut down in an out of memory condition thus creating an availability problem but I wouldn't imagine it creates a data confidentiality or integrity problem. Is this true? Thanks - John -- John A. Sullivan III Open Source Development Corporation +1 207-985-7880 jsullivan@opensourcedevel.com http://www.spiritualoutreach.com Making Christianity intelligible to secular society