cdhcpsystems-programmingchrootsetuid

What is PARANOIA meaning on chroot and setuid?


I know paranoia meaning but I'm reading isc-dhcp source code and I got confused about this term in system programming and linux world.

configure.ac file has following codes :

# PARANOIA is off by default (until we can test it with all features)
AC_ARG_ENABLE(paranoia,
    AS_HELP_STRING([--enable-paranoia],[enable support for chroot/setuid (default is no)]))
AC_ARG_ENABLE(early_chroot,
    AS_HELP_STRING([--enable-early-chroot],[enable chrooting prior to configuration (default is no)]))
# If someone enables early chroot, but does not enable paranoia, do so for
# them.
if test "$enable_paranoia" != "yes" && \
   test "$enable_early_chroot" = "yes" ; then
    enable_paranoia="yes"
fi

if test "$enable_paranoia" = "yes" ; then
    AC_DEFINE([PARANOIA], [1],
          [Define to any value to include Ari's PARANOIA patch.])

And isc used this macros on his source codes.

Anyway i don't know what is paranoia meaning in this position.

Is this point to security restriction and containerization ?

I can't find good resource for understanding this terms.


Solution

  • As Nate mentions in a comment:

    It seems to just be the author's own name for some configuration option. The help text suggests that what this option does is to enable support for chroot and setuid, which are concepts you can look up. "Paranoia" isn't a technical term at all, it's just an English word meaning "excessive fear that someone may attack you", so the author probably thought it seemed fitting for an option that increases security