Hi,

What's the difference between RSBAC and GRSecurity and which should one use?

That is a very hard to answer question because I would have to know all the gory details of security architecture wrt SELinux, LIDS, RSBAC, GRSecurity and whatnot (I don't). You could twist my arm and I'd say that I guess RSBAC is similar to SELinux, but the last one has finer grained controls, allows dynamic policy changes and much more. Both RSBAC and SELinux allow much finer grained controls compared to GRSecurity, and that comes at a price, making GRSEC is easier to set up for Linux newbies with not much security admin knowledge (depending on your skills ofcourse).

I think Gentoo deserves credit here, being the only distro I know of that offers prebuilt kernels for LIDS, RSBAC and GRSecurity, which would make it much easier for ppl who like to see what different security architectures are like to work with.

unSpawn,

Thank you. Correct me if I am wrong. I have read that RSBAC is much better in terms of security in comparison to GRSecurity. Also my understanding from what you wrote "Both RSBAC and SELinux allow much finer grained controls compared to GRSecurity, and that comes at a price, making GRSEC is easier to set up for Linux newbies with not much security admin knowledge" that GRSecurity is much easier to setup than RSBAC. However is it enough or would it suffice? Who would use RSBAC in place of GRSecurity?

Thank you

However is it enough or would it suffice?
I don't know how to define "enough" in this case. I'd say it depends on your needs and knowledge. If you're a newbie setting up your first SOHO webserver of shellserver I'd say GRSecurity would be a good start (next to other security measures ofcourse). If you're responsable for a network running applications that for instance do complex financial transactions, you'll want something more "advanced", some form of Orange Book compliance.


*BTW Markus, one of our forum members, brought to my attention bad news GRSecurity might not live long. Seems Spender, the main developer, is out of funds cuz one of GRSecurity's sponsors didn't fulfill their promises. If it turns out that way, it definately is sad news.

unSpawn,

Thank you for clearing that up for me. In reference to Markus's news, what would happen should anyone use GRSecurity and it is no longer continued? What are the risks? Digressing, how was GRSecurity being sponsored?

what would happen should anyone use GRSecurity and it is no longer continued?
For the current situation: nothing. Once new kernel minor versions are released and people can still patch it: nothing. For 2.6.x: choose something else. AFAIK LSM and GRSEC aren't playing nice together. I'm going to keep patching my 2.4.x boxen until GRSEC breaks, but eventually I'll move to SELinux.


What are the risks?
You mean risks like in GRSEC breaking stuff or coming up with new ways to attack a system?


Digressing, how was GRSecurity being sponsored?
"Badly" probably describes the situation the best :-[

So is it best to stay with Linux Red Hat 9 in a server environment and to keep patching it as you are?

What I mean by risks is what is the risk when GRSecurity is no longer continued? I guess also what would GRSecurity break? (potentially)

What I meant by sponsored, was it cash, etc