[plug] Help needed - hackers/crackers and monolithic kernels

[Carl Gherardi]

On 8/5/05, Richard Meyer <meyerri at westnet.com.au> wrote:
> > "It takes all the necessary modules and drivers and incorporates them
> > into the kernel to form on large kernel. You can't exploit
> > communication between external modules and the kernel to form one
> > large
> > kernel. You can't exploit communication between external modules and
> > the kernel like you can in Windows and Linux."
> 
> Now, AFAIK, the Mac (OSX) kernel is a derivative of the Mach kernel,
> which is a micro-kernel - therefore Patrick Whossname is talking crap
> about monolithic, and I have never heard that microkernels are LESS
> secure than monolithic kernels.

OSX is definetly based on mach, but i dont believe its a true micro
kernel as such.

> Anybody got any (printable) rebuttals - yes, I'm looking at you, Craig
> Ringer, and anybody else with Mac experience? I've never heard the
> monolithic kernel story before - it's always been buffer overflows and
> such fun. Anybody?

Nothing printable, but from experience the Cisco VPN client adds a
kernel level networking stack to talk to which has crashed my mac with
the equivalent of an oops a few times.

Carl G