hardened-dev-sources vs. gentoo-dev-sources

[Proteus]

Hi everybody!

I am using Gentoo on a router and want to know what kernel is more
secure to use:

gentoo-dev-sources or hardened-dev-sources

I only want to use a 2.6 kernel so it must be a *-dev-* kernel.

I am confused since the gentoo-dev-sources seems to get a lot more updates than the hardened-dev-sources - so maybe the gentoo-dev-sources are more up-to-date and therefore more secure?

Also I cannot seem to find how the hardened-dev-sources are "hardened"?

Is it enough to simply compile it with almost the same .config settings
as the gentoo-dev-sources or so I have to enable special settings
with "make manuconfig" or use some userspace tools to enable the
security features of the kernel?

Any hints are much apprechiated!
_________________
Greetings,
Proteus

[dannycool]

If it's a router that routes everything through to your local ethernet, I don't think you'll need to consider security that much at all

The hardened sources add grsecurity, pax, and other security-related patches. So if people can actually log in to your router from outside, or any services are running on it, hardened-dev-sources is probably more secure. That's why the project is called "hardened gentoo" after all

Also note that 2.6.8 was updated to 2.6.8.1 due to a bug in the nfs client that 2.6.7 didn't have (I think, at least), so there was simply no reason to update 2.6.7 again.

[devon]

Gentoo Linux -- Hardened Project Page for your perusal.