pkgbase kernel executable bit

[Vick Khera]

I just upgraded a test system to pkgbase on 14.2-RELEASE.

Everything looks good but I have a minor concern that the /boot/kernel/kernel file is missing execute bits:

# ls -l /boot/kernel/kernel*
-r--r--r--  1 root wheel 29151088 Nov 28 19:04 /boot/kernel/kernel
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root wheel 29151088 Dec  5 09:47 /boot/kernel/kernel.pkgsave*

Is this safe to reboot? Every other system I have has execute bits on the kernel (as maintained by freebsd-update).

 

[Emrion]

Kernel is just a file. It doesn't need to have the x bit set to be loaded into memory and executed. This seems to be the same for the kernel modules.

 

[SirDice]

The kernel isn't an 'executable', it doesn't need those permissions. The kernel is loaded and started by loader(8). It's never 'executed' in the same way an elf(5) file or script (shebang) might be.

Every other system I have has execute bits on the kernel (as maintained by freebsd-update).

Are you sure about that?

dice@fbsd-test:~ % ll /boot/kernel/kernel
-r--r--r--  1 root wheel 29151088 Dec  6 19:23 /boot/kernel/kernel
dice@fbsd-test:~ % freebsd-version -urk
14.2-RELEASE
14.2-RELEASE
14.2-RELEASE

(this test system has been upgraded with freebsd-update(8) from 14.0-RELEASE to 14.1 to 14.2).