Is it possible to setup read-only root ?

[jdow]

On 2012/07/01 10:25, Reindl Harald wrote:
>
>
> Am 01.07.2012 19:23, schrieb John Wendel:
>> On 07/01/2012 10:11 AM, Reindl Harald wrote:
>>>
>>> Am 01.07.2012 19:08, schrieb Joe Zeff:
>>>> On 07/01/2012 10:01 AM, John Wendel wrote:
>>>>> Is it possible to setup Fedora, using Fedora provided tools/software,
>>>>> with a read-only root partition?
>>>>>
>>>>> There's an ancient wiki entry from the FC6 days that indicates that some
>>>>> work was done, but I would assume that this depended on the SysV init
>>>>> system. I've haven't seen any mention of read-only root setup with systemd.
>>>>>
>>>>> Any clues would be greatly appreciated.
>>>>>
>>>> If I'm not mistaken, /var needs to be on that partition and needs to be writable.
>>> it is not uncommon to have /var on a own partition
>>>
>>>> If so, then you can't have a
>>>> read-only root partition.
>>> it works, but be really carefull
>>>
>>>> And, just so we all know where we're going here, why would you want to?
>>> in theory more security
>>>
>>> imagine a root-exploit changing a system binary
>>> much more difficult if the rootfs is readonly
>>>
>> Extra security is certainly a plus. My main reason for wanting to run a read-only root it to avoid wearing out the
>> consumer grade compact flash card that I'm using as my root device (yes, I'm cheap)
>
> even if it works - you have ALWAYS to remember remount it rw
> on any yum-update - i personally would not do it because
> of some hardware

The equivalent is done with live CDs you know.

{^_^}