linux running while halted?

[jhu]

read something about this over at slashdot. why/how does the kernel still run when the system is halted? and could this possibly be done using other kernels?

 

[Nothinman]

What?

 

[jhu]

here's more info. looks interesting, but the firewall rules and port forwarding probably can't be changed without rebooting in such a setup?

 

[Nothinman]

Yea I found the article you were referring to. You are correct that nothing could be changed without rebooting, which is part of the security. And if run level 0 is the default they'd need physical access to make changes.

 

[CTho9305]

its an interesting idea... although that invisible BSD box seems more useful.
edit: i should explain that better. go to slashdot, and read the comments... someone mentioned it.

 

[Suppafly]

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=27686&cid=2976731

I just found out how

 

[Buddha Bart]

The kernel is still in memory untill you shut down the machine. So as long as devices are still lighting up the wires, and the neccisary parts of the kernel are still there, it'll work.

Most of the time, those neccisary parts aren't there, as the shutdown procedure unmounts and unloads everything it can. But as you saw in the article he was able to get it to keep network devices.

bart