Can write to hard disc

[rustleg]

I have a 10GB FAT32 partition on a hard disc. I am running KNOS from a USB stick. I was surprised to find I could write to this. I thought discs which weren't USB sticks couldn't be written to.

I tried to run the Diagnostics in case you wanted to see this but nothing appeared on the desktop, so I looked in /var/log and found a large file "messages". If you need to see this let me know and I'll email it to you. (I'm having some Trouble with Firefox freezing on this system so there's clearly something amiss, it may be because I logged off this session and the session immediately logged back on?)

[Kevin McAleavey]

Nov 16, 2011 5:58:54 GMT -5 rustleg said:

I have a 10GB FAT32 partition on a hard disc. I am running KNOS from a USB stick. I was surprised to find I could write to this. I thought discs which weren't USB sticks couldn't be written to.

I tried to run the Diagnostics in case you wanted to see this but nothing appeared on the desktop, so I looked in /var/log and found a large file "messages". If you need to see this let me know and I'll email it to you. (I'm having some Trouble with Firefox freezing on this system so there's clearly something amiss, it may be because I logged off this session and the session immediately logged back on?)

Yep ... that's by design that you're able to write to it. The prohibition on writing by design applies to everything except for a FAT32 file system such as is normally used only on USB sticks. Windows since NT formats disks as NTFS and writing is absolutely prohibited to any NTFS file system without a special build of KNOS which can be made to allow that. KNOS is seeing your 10GB drive as a USB stick because it's in FAT32 format, so that's to be expected ... by design. If we were to suppress that, you wouldn't be able to write to a stick either.

Logging out shouldn't be done because of KNOS' security design. If you log out and restart the desktop, you're coming up in an entirely different jail from the original one. This is done in order to prevent the possibility of a remote hijack from attaching to the session that you're in just in case someone were to come up with a means of attacking KNOS. The problems you were seeing with Firefox was because it was disconnected from its own files on the restart which of course don't exist in a second session. Same for those diagnostics, they would be disconnected from the session as well. This also keeps the likes of a keylogger or a hijacker should one be written for KNOS from getting into your normal session. The only way out of a session in KNOS is a reboot. Sorry for the confusion there, I'll have to fire up an 8 version later and see why "log out" even appeared as an option - that should have been hidden to prevent it from being used.