Linux's modprobe Adds The Ability To Load A Module From Anywhere On The File-System

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux's modprobe Adds The Ability To Load A Module From Anywhere On The File-System

With today's release of kmod 31, Linux's modprobe utility for loading kernel modules can finally allow arbitrary paths to allow loading new kernel modules from anywhere on the file-system...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-modprobe-anywhere

[NotMine999]

On one hand I kind of admire the added flexibility of this new feature...

...but on the other hand I am wary about Linux becoming more and more like Windoze.

Only thing Linux might still need to reach "Windoze parity" is a bunch of undocumented side-door system calls to bypass various aspects of the OS control structure.

[debrouxl]

Loading kernel modules requires elevated privileges anyway, but... making it easier to load kernel modules from non-system directories, and therefore having to weaken security policies which enforce the former defaults, does not strike me as a security improvement.
It's typically the kind of things that I feel spender would lambast. Not that I can easily check for that on his Twitter feed, though, with this new brain-dead, worse than useless behaviour of Twitter displaying tweets in random order instead of chronological order...

[Kjell]

This is concerning..

[Monsterovich]

insmod <filename>

[RealNC]

On one hand I kind of admire the added flexibility of this new feature...

...but on the other hand I am wary about Linux becoming more and more like Windoze.

You can load drivers in Windows outside the C:\Windows\system32\drivers directory?

[erniv2]

You can load drivers in Windows outside the C:\Windows\system32\drivers directory?

Yes if you start a thing like cpu-z from c:\downloads\cpu-z it will load a driver called hwinfo64x.sys from the same folder, wich actually offers low level access to hardware like temp sensors cpu and more so in windows the .sys files can be installed in every folder you want and sometimes even multiple instances are running cause they load from difrent folders in diffrent versions.

[flower]

Loading kernel modules requires elevated privileges anyway, but... making it easier to load kernel modules from non-system directories, and therefore having to weaken security policies which enforce the former defaults, does not strike me as a security improvement.
It's typically the kind of things that I feel spender would lambast. Not that I can easily check for that on his Twitter feed, though, with this new brain-dead, worse than useless behaviour of Twitter displaying tweets in random order instead of chronological order...

you could always use insmod to load a module from anywhere you want.
now modprobe can do that too. this changes nothing about security

[jacob]

On one hand I kind of admire the added flexibility of this new feature...

...but on the other hand I am wary about Linux becoming more and more like Windoze.

Only thing Linux might still need to reach "Windoze parity" is a bunch of undocumented side-door system calls to bypass various aspects of the OS control structure.

Module signature verification is there to protect against that.

[Vorpal]

This is great, when I did some work on the Toshiba ACPI module, it was quite annoying to have to remember to use insmod instead of modprobe.

And as others already said, this doesn't change security at all. You can already load modules using insmod and you have to write a path with a slash in it for modprobe, so no existing uses changes meaning.