Re: kernels exploitable

I thought they did.. but It seems like they are still running the
kernel it shipped with in 2012. In any case, running an old distro
is not optimal if you are concerned with security. Perhaps it is
time for an upgrade (or better yet, wait a little while for the new
Slackware release to hit the mirrors)?

It is very easy to manualy install a new kernel in Slackware though
(but not recommended mind you..). Simply:

* Download the latest kernel, extract it
wget https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v4.x/linux-4.0.6.tar.gz
cd /usr/src
tar -zxvf /path-to-kernel/linux-4.0.6.tar.gz
rm linux
ln -s linux-4.0.6 linux

* Copy the running Slackware kernel configuration
zcat /proc/config.gz > /usr/src/linux/.config

* Compile kernel (use old config as a starting point)
cd linux
make oldconfig
make xconfig
make all

* Install new kernel
cp arch/x86/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-custom-4.0.6
cp System.map /boot/System.map-custom-4.0.6
cp .config /boot/config-custom-4.0.6
cd /boot
rm System.map
ln -s System.map-custom-4.0.6 System.map

* Edit your bootloader
Open /etc/lilo.conf, you should see something like this towards the end:

image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/sda1
label = linux
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking

Now add the following below this:

image = /boot/vmlinux-custom-4.0.6
root = /dev/sda1
label = newkernel
read-only

run /sbin/lilo to apply this new entry

* Test your new kernel
Reboot, and choose 'newkernel' instead of the default 'linux', if everything
works chenge the default = linux to default = newkernel in /etc/lilo.conf
and run /sbin/lilo. Congratulations, you have now the very latest kernel!

For more info on this prosess read:
http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:slackware_admin:kernelbuilding


On 06/23/2015 01:17 AM, Nick Edwards wrote:
> It just dawned upon me that 14.0 is still running its default kernel.
>
> Does slackware not update kernels in its distros anymore, myriad of
> bugs fixed in 3.2 and we are still on 3.2.9  when its actually at
> 3.2.69 - Id hate to think of how rootable these 14.0 pc's are.
>
> ! We run custom kernels on servers (3.16) but policy on desktops are
> to stay only using slackware released software/updates.
>
> cant believe after all these years i've not noticed  how risky we are
> with our kernels (maybe because my job involved  servers not office -
> until now), every other distro updates them, but ours it seems.. thats
> scary!
>
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