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Why would it be a security problem if installing an OS twice was byte for byte identical? Don’t distributions (like Fedora Silverblue) already do this?
by odo1242 2y ago
Why would it be a security problem if installing an OS twice was byte for byte identical? Don’t distributions (like Fedora Silverblue) already do this?
- o11c 2y agoI'm not sure if they actually share /usr or unconditionally rebuild it on each device (after all, they do need to handle different sets of installed programs). But /etc/ and /var/ in particular need to be system-specific regardless (even though you may be used to thinking of them as being on the same filesystem as /usr/).
- JoshTriplett 2y ago> But /etc/ and /var/ in particular need to be system-specific regardless. System-specific bits like /etc/machine-id get created by the booted system; the installer doesn't need to create them.
- db48x 2y agoYou can just leave those entirely empty these days.
- creatonez 2y agoMainly cryptographic keys like the SSH host key, or stored RNG state. But this can very easily be mitigated using `cloud-init` or similar.