exec-notify is a Linux kernel feature that provides a way for a process to receive notifications about the execution of a file. It can be used to monitor for security-related activities, such as when a user runs a suspicious or dangerous command, or when a file is executed that has been marked as potentially malicious.
To utilize exec-notify, you will need to have a kernel version that supports this feature and an application that is capable of receiving and processing these notifications. One such application is the exec-notify-helper script, which can be used to log the execution of files.
To enable exec-notify, you can add the following line to your sysctl.conf file:
kernel.exec-shield=1
This setting enables exec-shield, which is a security feature that provides protection against certain types of buffer overflow attacks by randomly positioning the stack and other data structures.
Once exec-notify is enabled, you can use the exec-notify-helper script to monitor file execution on your system. For example, to monitor all files in the /bin directory, you can run the following command:
exec-notify-helper /bin
This will log all file executions in the /bin directory, and can be useful for detecting and preventing malicious activity on your system.