Re: [Tails-dev] from sdmem to memtest, and testing procedure…

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Author: intrigeri
Date:  
To: Maxim Kammerer
CC: The Tails public development discussion list
Subject: Re: [Tails-dev] from sdmem to memtest, and testing procedures
Hi,

Maxim Kammerer wrote (26 Dec 2011 01:09:19 GMT) :
> Well, I didn't, and that was my mistake. I assumed that when kernel
> developers claim to do a memory test, they do a *memory* test, not
> a test of whatever-RAM-we-can-easily-access-atm — so I only checked
> that memtest correctly wipes RAM. Turns out that only LOWMEM is
> tested, which is <= 896 MiB (see http://linux-mm.org/HighMemory).


Ok. I'm glad there's an explanation eventually.

> I will file a kernel bug report, and see if the kernel developers
> can be convinced to map HIGHMEM with kmap() (as is apparently
> necessary) for memtest.


Please be kind enough to forward us the bug report URL once it's been
filed: I'm obviously interested in tracking how far this goes.


While we're at it, I would consider it only fair if that sentence,
that can be found on the Liberté Linux homepage, was promptly fixed:

"Liberté also correctly implements other features, such as wiping
memory in order to prevent cold boot attacks, whereas Tails uses the
simplistic sdmem, which erases at most 3 GiB of memory on a standard
32-bit kernel."

(Yeah, I've seen the warning on top of the page, but still.)

Regards,
--
intrigeri <intrigeri@???>
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