On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 09:43:45AM -0700, Colin Cross wrote:
[...]

I was referring to the security implications, not size.  Leaving KDB
on is effectively instant root access over the serial console.

Oh, I see. Yes, for this we'd need to disable all modification commands.

[...]

quoted

The thing is, we even have a standard sequence for entering KDB,
it is GDB-protocol command $3#33, so it actually makes sense to
implement this. This would be the only async command, and it doesn't
affect anything but the new code. I prepared a separate patch for this.

I would suggest making the sequence longer than just return.  A single
character is not that unlikely to be generated by random noise - I've
seen multiple devices reboot when the serial console was connected
because it received a SysRq-Crash (a break is all zeroes, which is
very common while shorting the lines as the console is plugged in, and
then random noise sent a 'c').

No no, it's not just return. It is either return or the longer '$3#33'
escape sequence. Default is $3#33, so it should be pretty safe (but of
course we can make it even longer, or even configurable).

Thanks,

-- 
Anton Vorontsov
Email: cbouatmailru at gmail.com