[K12OSN] OT: Forkbomb

[Travis Smith]

>>> "Terrell Prudé Jr." <microman at cmosnetworks.com> 12-04-08 1:53 AM
>>>
Travis Smith wrote: 

We were messing around with fork bombs in my computer security class
night and found out that we could prevent run away processes in Linux
with modifying the limits.conf file but didn't see any prevention
techniques for Windows. Today I was looking the registry on a Windows
box and seen a dword USERProcessHandleQuota. Would this be the registry
setting to preventing say a user from running a fork bomb on a W2k3
terminal server and crippling it?
Sorry for a Microsoft question but I am not on any M$ listservs and I
thought it was pretty interesting but scary at the same
time(forkbombing). 
Travis

The answer is, forget the registry settings on MS Windows and go for a
real OS (GNU/Linux is an excellent choice). If you really wanna play
with MS Windows, then the Resource Kit traditionally has had info re:
registry keys.

But seriously--when you have something like GNU/Linux, why the hell
waste your time with MS Windows??


:) I do advocate GNU/Linux but getting rid of Windows hasn't been that
easy for me. I'll give some reasoning for why. Some decisions are out of
my hands like what type of student information system we use because its
county wide regulated by the intermediate school district. If it was up
to me I would look to implement something more cross-platform like the
Kuali project so we could at least think about using Linux for teacher
stations. Some labs need to use special software that isn't supported on
Linux like Microtype, Clicker 5,  and Plato because of lack of
authorware plugin. I adopted two W2k3 terminal servers where they had
win95 fat clients connecting to the terminal server in a couple labs so
I did get some newly donated machines and swap out those with Edubuntu
so they could at least experience Linux if they wanted. In the
elementary I put in a new lab with donated hardware and did install a
Centos ltsp box so they can boot up to Linux with pxe and labeled it the
open source lab. I'm using SLED at work because it offers some tools
that help me manage e-directory that I couldn't get on other flavors but
I always find myself still having to load up a Windows box now and then.
I swapped out the webserver and redid the website using Joomla on a
Fedora box. So I am fighting the good fight and I hear your battle cries
that Windows sucks but its an uphill battle. I do appreciate you and the
others on the list for their contributions and collective wisdom and
hope GNU/Linux continues to grow and break down those barriers. 


Scanned by GenNET AV out
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