local denial of Service, Yellowdog linux to 3.0.1

[<pmoses () physics ucsd edu>]

Since they are releasing a new version....

Title: Local Denial of Service/render system unusable YelloDog Linux
Author: Phil Moses pmoses () physics ucsd edu
Date: June 4, 2004
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Summary:
Currently it seems that YellowDog is fairly easy to render unuseable, or what could be called launch a "local denial of 
service" on the operating system by filling the root disk to capacity and doing a "hard" reboot.
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
Description:
If the root filesystem is filled to capacity and the machine goes through an improper shutdown and is forced into an 
fsck, basically all hell breaks loose. It looks to me as if the file /etc/fstab attempts to write itself to a swap file 
and if the filesystem is full, replaces the original /etc/fstab with a zero sized file. It is possible to mount the 
root filesystem in rw mode and re-create the fstab file but until this is done, the system is not going to boot.
The YDL machines that I use are desktop machines that I have gathered for users and cannot be put under lock and key, 
meaning they could be unplugged at any time.
                                                                                                               
Vulnerable Systems:
YDL 3.0.1 , possibly previous versions as well.