From owner-freebsd-advocacy Mon Mar 20 14:14:58 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from flood.ping.uio.no (flood.ping.uio.no [129.240.78.31]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DA0AD37BAA5 for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 14:14:45 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from des@flood.ping.uio.no) Received: (from des@localhost) by flood.ping.uio.no (8.9.3/8.9.3) id XAA98301; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 23:14:13 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from des@flood.ping.uio.no) To: Michael Lucas Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: 21st Century Unix References: <200003181926.OAA04866@blackhelicopters.org> From: Dag-Erling Smorgrav Date: 20 Mar 2000 23:14:12 +0100 In-Reply-To: Michael Lucas's message of "Sat, 18 Mar 2000 14:26:09 -0500 (EST)" Message-ID: Lines: 29 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0802 (Gnus v5.8.2) Emacs/20.4 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Michael Lucas writes: > God help us, ZDnet is fairly well respected by technical managers in > the US. And they're pretty pro-M$. The page that says "FreeBSD is > the web server, hands down, no questions asked," should be bookmarked > and loaded into the US advocate's cannon. It doesn't say that. Well, it does say that in the body, but then it goes on to say (in the summary at the end of the article) something like "FreeBSD is the best OS for smallish web servers, but what you really want is Linux". All in all, the author seems to have had a pro- Linux agenda, and not much meat to back his claims. Executive summary of the piece: "We installed some Unixen on some boxen and ran them for a while. They were better than Windows. SCO only crashed once a month. BSD was nice for small web servers. We think Linux is the best, because we'll sell more copies if we say it is, but we didn't do any proper comparative tests so we don't have any actual facts to show." What's even more interesting (and disappointing) is that the summary contradicts the body; they list Yahoo and Hotmail as examples of FreeBSD being the best web server OS (ISTR words to the effect that "FreeBSD + Solaris is the killer combo"), while the summary lists Linux as favorite for "advanced web service" and relegate FreeBSD to "simple web service". (quotes are from memory, I don't have a browser available right now) DES -- Dag-Erling Smorgrav - des@flood.ping.uio.no To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Mon Mar 20 17:32:32 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from peach.ocn.ne.jp (peach.ocn.ne.jp [210.145.254.87]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A6F8B37BA2D for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 17:32:29 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dcs@newsguy.com) Received: from daniel.sobral (root@p14-dn03kiryunisiki.gunma.ocn.ne.jp [210.232.224.143]) by peach.ocn.ne.jp (8.9.1a/OCN) with ESMTP id KAA07943; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 10:32:25 +0900 (JST) Received: (from dcs@localhost) by daniel.sobral (8.9.3/8.9.3) id KAA74668; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 10:30:59 +0900 (JST) (envelope-from dcs) From: "Daniel C. Sobral" Message-Id: <200003210130.KAA74668@daniel.sobral> Subject: Re: 21st Century Unix In-Reply-To: from "Dag-Erling Smorgrav" at "Mar 20, 2000 11:14:12 pm" To: "Dag-Erling Smorgrav" Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 10:30:53 +0900 (JST) Cc: "Michael Lucas" , freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Disclaimer: Klaatu Barada Nikto! X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL68 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Unheedful of thy elder's warnings, Dag-Erling Smorgrav wrote: > > What's even more interesting (and disappointing) is that the summary > contradicts the body; they list Yahoo and Hotmail as examples of > FreeBSD being the best web server OS (ISTR words to the effect that > "FreeBSD + Solaris is the killer combo"), while the summary lists > Linux as favorite for "advanced web service" and relegate FreeBSD to > "simple web service". A careful reading reveals that, for "advanced web services", Linux has the upper hand "in the end" (in the future, something like this) because web authoring software is more likely to be developed for it than for [others]. Of course, I'm not even going to discuss how absurd that argument is. -- Daniel C. Sobral (8-DCS) dcs@newsguy.com dcs@freebsd.org dcs@bsdconspiracy.net What this country needs is a good five cent nickel. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Mon Mar 20 22:42:18 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mail.rpi.edu (mail.rpi.edu [128.113.100.7]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C3F0B37BBC2 for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 22:42:06 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from drosih@rpi.edu) Received: from [128.113.24.47] (gilead.acs.rpi.edu [128.113.24.47]) by mail.rpi.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id BAA457366; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 01:41:40 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: drosih@mail.rpi.edu Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <200003210130.KAA74668@daniel.sobral> References: <200003210130.KAA74668@daniel.sobral> Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 01:42:27 -0500 To: "Daniel C. Sobral" , "Dag-Erling Smorgrav" From: Garance A Drosihn Subject: Re: 21st Century Unix - web serving Cc: "Michael Lucas" , freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG At 10:30 AM +0900 3/21/00, Daniel C. Sobral wrote: >Unheedful of thy elder's warnings, Dag-Erling Smorgrav wrote: > > > > What's even more interesting (and disappointing) is that the summary > > contradicts the body; they list Yahoo and Hotmail as examples of > > FreeBSD being the best web server OS (ISTR words to the effect that > > "FreeBSD + Solaris is the killer combo"), while the summary lists > > Linux as favorite for "advanced web service" and relegate FreeBSD to > > "simple web service". > >A careful reading reveals that, for "advanced web services", Linux has >the upper hand "in the end" (in the future, something like this) because >web authoring software is more likely to be developed for it than for >[others]. > >Of course, I'm not even going to discuss how absurd that argument is. I assumed "advanced web serving" means packages like ColdFusion. Ignoring the question of whether ColdFusion is really "advanced" or not, I do know one department on campus here might be switching from NT to FreeBSD if they can run ColdFusion on FreeBSD. I do not have much background in web-serving options, but I'm under the impression that ColdFusion is available RIGHT NOW for Linux, and I don't know how well it would work under FreeBSD. Note that what I'm really hoping here is that someone will pipe up and say "Oh, yes, I have no trouble running ColdFusion on FreeBSD", which would be encouraging to me... :-) Maybe it can be run under linux emulation, but given that all this machine will be doing is web-serving and ColdFusion, then there seems little point in using FreeBSD if the only way to run ColdFusion is via linux emulation. (we don't have the machine or the time to test right now, but hope to look into this in a month or two. Right now my guess is that they will end up running linux for this web service) --- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@eclipse.acs.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or drosih@rpi.edu Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Mar 21 2:22: 9 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from peach.ocn.ne.jp (peach.ocn.ne.jp [210.145.254.87]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 91AF837B71D for ; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 02:21:49 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dcs@newsguy.com) Received: from newsguy.com (p27-dn01kiryunisiki.gunma.ocn.ne.jp [211.0.245.28]) by peach.ocn.ne.jp (8.9.1a/OCN) with ESMTP id TAA19049; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 19:21:35 +0900 (JST) Message-ID: <38D74CB3.DF3AA476@newsguy.com> Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 19:19:31 +0900 From: "Daniel C. Sobral" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en,pt-BR,ja MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Garance A Drosihn Cc: Dag-Erling Smorgrav , Michael Lucas , freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: 21st Century Unix - web serving References: <200003210130.KAA74668@daniel.sobral> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Garance A Drosihn wrote: > > I assumed "advanced web serving" means packages like ColdFusion. > Ignoring the question of whether ColdFusion is really "advanced" or > not, I do know one department on campus here might be switching from > NT to FreeBSD if they can run ColdFusion on FreeBSD. I do not have > much background in web-serving options, but I'm under the impression > that ColdFusion is available RIGHT NOW for Linux, and I don't know > how well it would work under FreeBSD. Since I don't know what ColdFusion does, I cannot comment on this. > Note that what I'm really hoping here is that someone will pipe up > and say "Oh, yes, I have no trouble running ColdFusion on FreeBSD", > which would be encouraging to me... :-) Maybe it can be run under > linux emulation, but given that all this machine will be doing is > web-serving and ColdFusion, then there seems little point in using > FreeBSD if the only way to run ColdFusion is via linux emulation. Not Linux "emulation". There is _no_ emulation done. It's plain ABI compatibility. We just "run" the Linux stuff. Now, you think there is little point, but, as a matter of fact, there is. FreeBSD has advantages over Linux. Some claim a faster IP stack, and I'd be really amazed if our SCSI stuff didn't leave Linux SCSI way behind for anything but the simpler configurations, for instance. But more important, in my opinion, is FreeBSD ability to handle *LOAD*. You know, when you just have been slashdotted and get a sudden peak of access way above the normal? Well, FreeBSD handles it. It doesn't do any H0H0 magic or anything, it crawls as you would expect it to, but it _continues to work_. That's not the case with Linux. With Linux, you get into a trashing situation, where useful work simply ceases until the peak is gone. Now, if you plan to use enough hardware to avoid swapping to disk even at peak times, or if you just plain don't care to have your page available at the time when most people are interested in it, fine, go Linux. Otherwise, I'd advise _taking a look_ at FreeBSD. -- Daniel C. Sobral (8-DCS) dcs@newsguy.com dcs@freebsd.org One Unix to rule them all, One Resolver to find them, One IP to bring them all and in the zone bind them. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Mar 21 3:10:17 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from bbcon.com.au (firewall.bbcon.com.au [203.28.19.210]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A7BF137B762 for ; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 03:10:09 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jsutton@bbcon.com.au) Received: from firewall.bbcon.com.au (stargate [10.0.0.1]) by bbcon.com.au (8.9.2/8.9.2) with ESMTP id WAA34292; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 22:10:03 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from jsutton@bbcon.com.au) Received: from localhost (jsutton@localhost) by firewall.bbcon.com.au (8.9.3/8.9.2) with ESMTP id WAA08404; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 22:10:04 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from jsutton@bbcon.com.au) X-Authentication-Warning: stargate.home: jsutton owned process doing -bs Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 22:10:04 +1100 (EST) From: Joel Sutton X-Sender: jsutton@stargate.home To: "Daniel C. Sobral" Cc: Garance A Drosihn , Dag-Erling Smorgrav , Michael Lucas , freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: [ADV] Re: 21st Century Unix - web serving In-Reply-To: <38D74CB3.DF3AA476@newsguy.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tue, 21 Mar 2000, Daniel C. Sobral wrote: > Garance A Drosihn wrote: > > > > I assumed "advanced web serving" means packages like ColdFusion. > > Ignoring the question of whether ColdFusion is really "advanced" or > > not, I do know one department on campus here might be switching from > > NT to FreeBSD if they can run ColdFusion on FreeBSD. I do not have > > much background in web-serving options, but I'm under the impression > > that ColdFusion is available RIGHT NOW for Linux, and I don't know > > how well it would work under FreeBSD. > > Since I don't know what ColdFusion does, I cannot comment on this. ColdFusion is a commercial package very similar, in concept, to PHP. So that covers database integration and the usual dynamic web stuff. I do know of an ISP running CF on Linux but not on FreeBSD. Of course, it might be worth considering changing from Cold Fusion to PHP, or even Zope, but this might not be viable if they have existing apps writting in Cold Fusion. Cheers, Joel... --- Joel Sutton | Busy Bee Consulting Phone: 0409 426-563 | Melbourne, Australia Email: jsutton@bbcon.com.au | http://www.bbcon.com.au/ VicFUG President/Webmaster | http://www.vicfug.au.freebsd.org/ FreeBSDzine Editor | http://www.freebsdzine.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Mar 21 4:55:25 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mailgate.originative.co.uk (mailgate.originative.co.uk [194.217.50.228]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8A0CB37B6B1 for ; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 04:55:21 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from paul@originative.co.uk) Received: from originative.co.uk (lobster.originative.co.uk [194.217.50.241]) by mailgate.originative.co.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 513FF1D131; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 12:55:17 +0000 (GMT) Message-ID: <38D77135.2D13FAF8@originative.co.uk> Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 12:55:17 +0000 From: Paul Richards Organization: Originative Solutions Ltd X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; I; FreeBSD 5.0-CURRENT i386) X-Accept-Language: en-GB, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Daniel C. Sobral" Cc: Garance A Drosihn , Dag-Erling Smorgrav , Michael Lucas , freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: 21st Century Unix - web serving References: <200003210130.KAA74668@daniel.sobral> <38D74CB3.DF3AA476@newsguy.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG "Daniel C. Sobral" wrote: > > Garance A Drosihn wrote: > > > > I assumed "advanced web serving" means packages like ColdFusion. > > Ignoring the question of whether ColdFusion is really "advanced" or > > not, I do know one department on campus here might be switching from > > NT to FreeBSD if they can run ColdFusion on FreeBSD. I do not have > > much background in web-serving options, but I'm under the impression > > that ColdFusion is available RIGHT NOW for Linux, and I don't know > > how well it would work under FreeBSD. > > Since I don't know what ColdFusion does, I cannot comment on this. Well, it's a bit like ASP or PHP. When I read the article I interpreted "advanced web serving" in the same way, I thought the article actually mentioned Cold Fusion in it somewhere. This is a problem. A lot of web developers use ASP and while PHP offers similar functionality it's not supported in the tools that non-hackers use. Likewise Cold Fusion, whereas Linux has support for both. > > Note that what I'm really hoping here is that someone will pipe up > > and say "Oh, yes, I have no trouble running ColdFusion on FreeBSD", > > which would be encouraging to me... :-) Maybe it can be run under > > linux emulation, but given that all this machine will be doing is > > web-serving and ColdFusion, then there seems little point in using > > FreeBSD if the only way to run ColdFusion is via linux emulation. > > Not Linux "emulation". There is _no_ emulation done. It's plain ABI > compatibility. We just "run" the Linux stuff. > > Now, you think there is little point, but, as a matter of fact, there > is. FreeBSD has advantages over Linux. Some claim a faster IP stack, and > I'd be really amazed if our SCSI stuff didn't leave Linux SCSI way > behind for anything but the simpler configurations, for instance. But > more important, in my opinion, is FreeBSD ability to handle *LOAD*. You > know, when you just have been slashdotted and get a sudden peak of > access way above the normal? Well, FreeBSD handles it. It doesn't do any > H0H0 magic or anything, it crawls as you would expect it to, but it > _continues to work_. That's not the case with Linux. With Linux, you get > into a trashing situation, where useful work simply ceases until the > peak is gone. I obviously don't disagree with any of that but I'm a lot more wary of paying out large sums of money for commercial Linux packages in order to run them on FreeBSD. The cost is a large factor, I'm not going to spend the big sums of money necessary to pay for Oracle, for instance, when I know there'll be no support for me should it not work. The other big problem is that when you are using Linux development applications, such as Oracle or Cold Fusion or ASP, then you are stuck in the Linux environment. e,g. you can't write FreeBSD OCI code, you have to write a Linux application. Given all those hassles, it's not as easy as it sounds to use FreeBSD as an "advanced web server" if what you define that to be is using commercial web tools. Now, you can of course use PHP and one of the open source databases but that's a different issue and one that requires winning over the web developers themselves to using the open source tools. The problem of course is that the tools don't really exist and web developers don't really like working in vi :-) Paul. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Mar 21 6:19: 2 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from matrix.buckhorn.net (matrix.buckhorn.net [208.129.165.68]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 017C937B87F for ; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 06:18:59 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from bob@buckhorn.net) Received: from buckhorn.net (nebula.buckhorn.net [208.129.165.66]) by matrix.buckhorn.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id IAA23960; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 08:19:09 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from bob@buckhorn.net) Message-ID: <38D78553.44D3277D@buckhorn.net> Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 08:21:07 -0600 From: Bob Martin X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; I; FreeBSD 4.0-20000307-CURRENT i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: 21st Century Unix References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Kris Kennaway wrote: > > This article gives an (I thought) very balanced evaluation of the > strengths and weaknesses of various UNIX brands including FreeBSD: > > http://www.zdnet.com/sr/stories/issue/0,4537,2457573,00.html > > Comments, anyone? > > Kris The point of the article, where BSD is concerned, is that with out channel support and 3rd party vendor support, BSD will never make it big. I'm not saying it will go away, but it will move off of the visible map. We need Oracle, Informix and Web Sphere. We need reseller channels, 24/7 support and partnerships with big hardware vendors. I'm counting on the merger for a big part of that. But we are also going to have to be a bit more militant. We need to bombard folks like Sun, Adobe and Corel with polite e-mails requesting BSD support. Every time there is a public benchmark of OS's, we need to insure that BSD is included. We need public exposure, and public scrutiny. Or we need to decide that what we really want is an operating system for hobbyists. What articles like this miss is the fact that major vendor support for Linux is the classic bait and switch. You by an Alpha with Linux. Then you discover that it can't do what you want it to do. Then you buy True64 Unix. The same thing applies to Sun and IBM. Linux is driving their hardware sales up front, and their software sales after the fact. There is an opportunity for BSD here. We need to exploit it. There was a time in the not so distant past when anyone who knew anything about power computing considered BSD the best. Novell's stewardship of USL changed that. The internet has changed that again. This article clearly states that BSD is the OS of choice for today's web servers. But today's web servers are tomorrow's communication and application servers. The commercial Unices are ready. BSD and Linux are not. Linux has the tools, but they're a long way from having the OS. We have the OS, but not the tools. We need to change that while we can. Bob -- "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." -- Albert Einstein -- "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." -- Albert Einstein To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Mar 21 9:50:23 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mail.rpi.edu (mail.rpi.edu [128.113.100.7]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DE58737BBEB for ; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 09:50:14 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from drosih@rpi.edu) Received: from [128.113.24.47] (gilead.acs.rpi.edu [128.113.24.47]) by mail.rpi.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA384750; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 12:50:09 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: drosih@mail.rpi.edu Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <38D78553.44D3277D@buckhorn.net> References: <38D78553.44D3277D@buckhorn.net> Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 12:50:54 -0500 To: Bob Martin , advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG From: Garance A Drosihn Subject: Re: 21st Century Unix Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG At 8:21 AM -0600 3/21/00, Bob Martin wrote: >We need Oracle, Informix and Web Sphere. We need reseller channels, >24/7 support and partnerships with big hardware vendors. > >I'm counting on the merger for a big part of that. But we are also going >to have to be a bit more militant. We need to bombard folks like Sun, >Adobe and Corel with polite e-mails requesting BSD support. New BSD motto: We put the "polite" in "militancy"... :-) --- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@eclipse.acs.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or drosih@rpi.edu Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Mar 21 10: 7:44 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mail.rpi.edu (mail.rpi.edu [128.113.100.7]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B467737BC4E for ; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 10:07:30 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from drosih@rpi.edu) Received: from [128.113.24.47] (gilead.acs.rpi.edu [128.113.24.47]) by mail.rpi.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id NAA425740; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 13:07:27 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: drosih@mail.rpi.edu Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <38D74CB3.DF3AA476@newsguy.com> References: <200003210130.KAA74668@daniel.sobral> <38D74CB3.DF3AA476@newsguy.com> Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 13:08:13 -0500 To: "Daniel C. Sobral" From: Garance A Drosihn Subject: Re: 21st Century Unix - web serving Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG At 7:19 PM +0900 3/21/00, Daniel C. Sobral wrote: >Garance A Drosihn wrote: > > Note that what I'm really hoping here is that someone will pipe up > > and say "Oh, yes, I have no trouble running ColdFusion on FreeBSD", > > which would be encouraging to me... :-) Maybe it can be run under > > linux emulation, but given that all this machine will be doing is > > web-serving and ColdFusion, then there seems little point in using > > FreeBSD if the only way to run ColdFusion is via linux emulation. > >Not Linux "emulation". There is _no_ emulation done. It's plain ABI >compatibility. We just "run" the Linux stuff. Good point. Bad choice of words on my part. Still, while Linux ABI compatibility is definitely much better than linux "emulation", it will still raise an extra layer of finger-pointing when anything goes wrong with ColdFusion. Even if the linux compatibility *is* perfectly right, when we contact the vendor of ColdFusion with any problem report, the first thing they will (probably) do is say "Are you sure that isn't a problem from running Linux binaries under FreeBSD?", or simply "We just don't support ColdFusion under FreeBSD, sorry.". If that does happen, then our only recourse will be to have a backup machine lying around which DOES run linux, just so we can recreate any bugs on the platform the vendor actually supports. >Now, you think there is little point, but, as a matter of fact, there >is. FreeBSD has advantages over Linux. Some claim a faster IP stack, and >I'd be really amazed if our SCSI stuff didn't leave Linux SCSI way >behind for anything but the simpler configurations, for instance. But >more important, in my opinion, is FreeBSD ability to handle *LOAD*. You are preaching to the choir. *I* do want this department to use FreeBSD, but at the same time I don't want to be dragged into their setup every time some problem with ColdFusion pops up. They like the idea of using Linux just because it has more press and they do have some experience with it. I can probably convince them into running FreeBSD, but I don't have the time to keep convincing them to use freebsd if any problems come up with running ColdFusion. The only purpose of this machine is to run ColdFusion, so if there is any hint that using FreeBSD causes a problem for that then they will simply not bother with FreeBSD. --- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@eclipse.acs.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or drosih@rpi.edu Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Mar 21 11:20: 2 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from zippy.cdrom.com (zippy.cdrom.com [204.216.27.228]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A8BD537BC39 for ; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 11:19:59 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jkh@zippy.cdrom.com) Received: from zippy.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zippy.cdrom.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA14252; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 11:20:20 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jkh@zippy.cdrom.com) To: Garance A Drosihn Cc: "Daniel C. Sobral" , freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: 21st Century Unix - web serving In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 21 Mar 2000 13:08:13 EST." Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 11:20:20 -0800 Message-ID: <14249.953666420@zippy.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Well, I think you guys pretty much know what to do already, right? You're ColdFusion customers (or potential ones) and your wallets talk far louder than any FreeBSD core members pulling on their sleeves ever can. These people are ISVs and they truly and honestly care about only one thing: Making money. If you and some significant number of other customers can convince them that you'll all spend some on their product once it does something it doesn't do now (like run on FreeBSD), it's basically a done-deal. - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Mar 21 13: 4:52 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from peach.ocn.ne.jp (peach.ocn.ne.jp [210.145.254.87]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 33BD337BAB7 for ; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 13:04:48 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dcs@newsguy.com) Received: from newsguy.com (dcs@p29-dn03kiryunisiki.gunma.ocn.ne.jp [210.232.224.158]) by peach.ocn.ne.jp (8.9.1a/OCN) with ESMTP id GAA21057; Wed, 22 Mar 2000 06:04:27 +0900 (JST) Message-ID: <38D7E383.14D798F6@newsguy.com> Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 06:02:59 +0900 From: "Daniel C. Sobral" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en,pt-BR,ja MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Joel Sutton Cc: Garance A Drosihn , Dag-Erling Smorgrav , Michael Lucas , freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: [ADV] Re: 21st Century Unix - web serving References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Joel Sutton wrote: > > ColdFusion is a commercial package very similar, in concept, to PHP. So > that covers database integration and the usual dynamic web stuff. I see no reason, then, why it wouldn't work on FreeBSD. -- Daniel C. Sobral (8-DCS) dcs@newsguy.com dcs@freebsd.org dcs@zurichgnomes.bsdonspiracy.net One Unix to rule them all, One Resolver to find them, One IP to bring them all and in the zone bind them. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Mar 21 13: 7: 1 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from web106.yahoomail.com (web106.yahoomail.com [205.180.60.73]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id C0F1737BF93 for ; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 13:06:52 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from juwiley@yahoo.com) Received: (qmail 11019 invoked by uid 60001); 21 Mar 2000 21:06:50 -0000 Message-ID: <20000321210650.11018.qmail@web106.yahoomail.com> Received: from [198.82.75.100] by web106.yahoomail.com; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 13:06:50 PST Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 13:06:50 -0800 (PST) From: Justin Wiley Subject: artwork To: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Im interested in doing some pro-BSD artwork based around the little demon fellow. Who should I submit the artwork to, and what guidelines should I follow? I looked for a FAQ/how-to on freebsd.org, but was unable to find one. Appologies if this is an inappropriate forum, it seemed to be the most germane one. ===== Justin Wiley (juwiley@yahoo.com ~ juwiley@vt.edu) _________________ "The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Mar 21 14:13:49 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from server.baldwin.cx (jobaldwi.campus.vt.edu [198.82.67.146]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 45C2337BD02 for ; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 14:13:46 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jhb@FreeBSD.org) Received: from john.baldwin.cx (john [10.0.0.2]) by server.baldwin.cx (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA05293; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 17:12:37 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from jhb@FreeBSD.org) Message-Id: <200003212212.RAA05293@server.baldwin.cx> X-Mailer: XFMail 1.4.0 on FreeBSD X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <20000321210650.11018.qmail@web106.yahoomail.com> Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 17:12:37 -0500 (EST) From: John Baldwin To: Justin Wiley Subject: RE: artwork Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.org Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On 21-Mar-00 Justin Wiley wrote: > > Im interested in doing some pro-BSD artwork based around the little demon > fellow. Who should I submit the artwork to, and what guidelines should I > follow? I looked for a FAQ/how-to on freebsd.org, but was unable to find one. > Appologies if this is an inappropriate forum, it seemed to be the most germane one. Try clicking on the Dameon pic on the main page, it should take you to a page that talks about the history of the daemon figure, etc. As far as submitting your artwork, I suppose just send an e-mail with URL's to the pics to this list and wait for the feedback. If we like it I'm sure it can be added to the picture gallery at http://www.de.freebsd.org/de/gif/bsd/index.html. Or you can make it into a splash screen, which I can add to the gallery of those at http://www.cslab.vt.edu/~jobaldwi/splash/ -- John Baldwin -- http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ PGP Key: http://www.cslab.vt.edu/~jobaldwi/pgpkey.asc "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Mar 21 15:33:24 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from news-ma.rhein-neckar.de (news-ma.rhein-neckar.de [193.197.90.3]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2C41E37BBEB for ; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 15:33:14 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from daemon@bigeye.rhein-neckar.de) Received: from bigeye.rhein-neckar.de (uucp@localhost) by news-ma.rhein-neckar.de (8.8.8/8.8.8) with bsmtp id AAA03036 for freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org; Wed, 22 Mar 2000 00:33:08 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from daemon@bigeye.rhein-neckar.de) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by bigeye.rhein-neckar.de (8.9.3/8.9.3) id XAA68348 for freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 23:38:38 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from daemon) From: naddy@mips.rhein-neckar.de (Christian Weisgerber) Subject: Re: 21st Century Unix - web serving Date: 21 Mar 2000 23:38:38 +0100 Message-ID: <8b8tle$22nj$1@bigeye.rhein-neckar.de> References: <200003210130.KAA74668@daniel.sobral> <38D74CB3.DF3AA476@newsguy.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Daniel C. Sobral wrote: > more important, in my opinion, is FreeBSD ability to handle *LOAD*. You > know, when you just have been slashdotted and get a sudden peak of > access way above the normal? Well, FreeBSD handles it. It doesn't do any > H0H0 magic or anything, it crawls as you would expect it to, but it > _continues to work_. That's not the case with Linux. With Linux, you get > into a trashing situation, where useful work simply ceases until the > peak is gone. I wish somebody would put some substance to such anecdotal stories. I'm currently quite close to a Linux box which gets slashdot-like effects (basically caused by minor access spikes and a badly written backend that causes the load to explode), and so far it seems to hold up quite well. Maybe Thomas Graichen's "Performance Comparison" talk at LT2K will offer some factual observations for a change. And FreeBSD certainly doesn't work magic. A few months ago, I did a simple test. Ten processes, each one allocated some memory and ran in a loop doing nothing but continuously writing a byte to each page of its chunk of memory. I chose the process count and memory allocation to cover 1.5x the size of the real memory of the box. When I started the test, the hard disk light lit up solidly and for all pratical purposes the box ground to a halt. No more movement under X11. No more switching back to a text console. No more network login. I watched for some time with amusement and finally pressed the reset button. (Should we take this to -chat?) -- Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.rhein-neckar.de To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Mar 21 18:30:10 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from bytor.rush.net (bytor.rush.net [209.45.245.145]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7099B37BA94 for ; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 18:30:08 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from lynch@bsdunix.net) Received: from localhost (lynch@localhost) by bytor.rush.net (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id e2M2TxI02191; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 21:30:00 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 21:29:59 -0500 (EST) From: Pat Lynch X-Sender: lynch@bytor.rush.net To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Cc: Garance A Drosihn , "Daniel C. Sobral" , freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: 21st Century Unix - web serving In-Reply-To: <14249.953666420@zippy.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG I did some consulting work for one of the huge Cold Fusion experts in NYC, who evidently runs all the CF mailing lists and stuff. He said that he was trying to get them interested in doing a FreeBSD port on my suggestions. I'll email him and find out where that stands.... -Pat __ Pat Lynch lynch@rush.net lynch@bsdunix.net lynch@unix.sh lynch@blowfi.sh Systems Administrator Rush Networking On Tue, 21 Mar 2000, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > Well, I think you guys pretty much know what to do already, right? > > You're ColdFusion customers (or potential ones) and your wallets talk > far louder than any FreeBSD core members pulling on their sleeves ever > can. These people are ISVs and they truly and honestly care about > only one thing: Making money. If you and some significant number of > other customers can convince them that you'll all spend some on their > product once it does something it doesn't do now (like run on > FreeBSD), it's basically a done-deal. > > - Jordan > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Tue Mar 21 18:43:59 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from peach.ocn.ne.jp (peach.ocn.ne.jp [210.145.254.87]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 90A2A37B9D0 for ; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 18:43:56 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dcs@newsguy.com) Received: from newsguy.com (p18-dn02kiryunisiki.gunma.ocn.ne.jp [211.0.245.83]) by peach.ocn.ne.jp (8.9.1a/OCN) with ESMTP id LAA27232; Wed, 22 Mar 2000 11:43:50 +0900 (JST) Message-ID: <38D82B85.29686551@newsguy.com> Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 11:10:13 +0900 From: "Daniel C. Sobral" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en,pt-BR,ja MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Christian Weisgerber Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: 21st Century Unix - web serving References: <200003210130.KAA74668@daniel.sobral> <38D74CB3.DF3AA476@newsguy.com> <8b8tle$22nj$1@bigeye.rhein-neckar.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Christian Weisgerber wrote: > > I wish somebody would put some substance to such anecdotal stories. > I'm currently quite close to a Linux box which gets slashdot-like > effects (basically caused by minor access spikes and a badly written > backend that causes the load to explode), and so far it seems to > hold up quite well. What's the swap (and general memory footprint) usage and i/o rate during peak? > And FreeBSD certainly doesn't work magic. A few months ago, I did > a simple test. Ten processes, each one allocated some memory and > ran in a loop doing nothing but continuously writing a byte to each > page of its chunk of memory. I chose the process count and memory > allocation to cover 1.5x the size of the real memory of the box. > When I started the test, the hard disk light lit up solidly and > for all pratical purposes the box ground to a halt. No more movement > under X11. No more switching back to a text console. No more network > login. I watched for some time with amusement and finally pressed > the reset button. Precisely what real-world conditions you planned to test with THAT? :-) Hey, open a socket in each process to another server, and write regularly to it. Then benchmark that in a FreeBSD against a Linux box. -- Daniel C. Sobral (8-DCS) dcs@newsguy.com dcs@freebsd.org dcs@zurichgnomes.bsdonspiracy.net One Unix to rule them all, One Resolver to find them, One IP to bring them all and in the zone bind them. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Wed Mar 22 8: 9:46 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from hydrant.intranova.net (hydrant.intranova.net [209.201.95.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id CC55F37BB9A for ; Wed, 22 Mar 2000 08:09:35 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from oogali@intranova.net) Received: (qmail 88247 invoked from network); 22 Mar 2000 16:13:41 -0000 Received: from localhost.abuselabs.com (HELO localhost) (missnglnk@127.0.0.1) by localhost.abuselabs.com with SMTP; 22 Mar 2000 16:13:41 -0000 Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 11:13:41 -0500 (EST) From: Omachonu Ogali To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Funny Graphics Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Check out, http://www.execpc.com/~mop/bsd3.jpg, I think Tux is gone for good in this one... -- +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Omachonu Ogali oogali@intranova.net | | Intranova Networking Group http://tribune.intranova.net | | PGP Key ID: 0xBFE60839 | | PGP Fingerprint: C8 51 14 FD 2A 87 53 D1 E3 AA 12 12 01 93 BD 34 | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Wed Mar 22 9:31:50 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from blackhelicopters.org (geburah.blackhelicopters.org [209.69.178.18]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ACFE437C1D4 for ; Wed, 22 Mar 2000 09:31:48 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org) Received: (from mwlucas@localhost) by blackhelicopters.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id MAA20664 for advocacy@freebsd.org; Wed, 22 Mar 2000 12:31:47 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from mwlucas) From: Michael Lucas Message-Id: <200003221731.MAA20664@blackhelicopters.org> Subject: New article To: advocacy@freebsd.org Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 12:31:47 -0500 (EST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL43 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Well, the kernel article just hit LinuxWorld http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-2000-03/lw-03-freebsd.html Thanks to all who commented/proofread this! Regards, Michael To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Wed Mar 22 10: 1:35 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from smtpf.casema.net (smtpf.casema.net [195.96.96.173]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 90BD937B99A for ; Wed, 22 Mar 2000 10:01:32 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from aernoudt@wanadoo.nl) Received: (qmail 32486 invoked by uid 0); 22 Mar 2000 18:01:31 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO proxy) (212.64.80.89) by smtpf.casema.net with SMTP; 22 Mar 2000 18:01:31 -0000 Message-ID: <000901bf9428$b6b0b560$595040d4@bottemanne.net> From: "Aernoudt Bottemanne" To: "Omachonu Ogali" , References: Subject: Re: Funny Graphics Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 19:01:55 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2014.211 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2014.211 Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Funny Graphics > Check out, http://www.execpc.com/~mop/bsd3.jpg, I think Tux is gone for > good in this one... Discusting ..... Linux and FreeBSD can live perfectly together. I can only say that I hope not to see to many stupid things like this. Aernoudt To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Wed Mar 22 11:48:17 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from bytor.rush.net (bytor.rush.net [209.45.245.145]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C5AAD37B709 for ; Wed, 22 Mar 2000 11:48:10 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from lynch@bsdunix.net) Received: from localhost (lynch@localhost) by bytor.rush.net (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id e2MJm4F12207; Wed, 22 Mar 2000 14:48:04 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 14:48:03 -0500 (EST) From: Pat Lynch X-Sender: lynch@bytor.rush.net To: Aernoudt Bottemanne Cc: Omachonu Ogali , freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Funny Graphics In-Reply-To: <000901bf9428$b6b0b560$595040d4@bottemanne.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG yah I have a problem with this too.... and Kirk wouldn;t be amused either methinks. we're on the same team, we're not trying to skewer linux, we're trying to be the best there is at what we do. -Pat __ Pat Lynch lynch@rush.net lynch@bsdunix.net lynch@unix.sh lynch@blowfi.sh Systems Administrator Rush Networking On Wed, 22 Mar 2000, Aernoudt Bottemanne wrote: > > Subject: Funny Graphics > > > > Check out, http://www.execpc.com/~mop/bsd3.jpg, I think Tux is gone for > > good in this one... > > Discusting ..... Linux and FreeBSD can live perfectly together. > I can only say that I hope not to see to many stupid things like this. > > Aernoudt > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Wed Mar 22 13:17:46 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from gadolinium.btinternet.com (gadolinium.btinternet.com [194.73.73.111]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A046F37B704 for ; Wed, 22 Mar 2000 13:17:43 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from mark@ukug.uk.freebsd.org) Received: from [213.1.193.162] (helo=parish.my.domain) by gadolinium.btinternet.com with esmtp (Exim 2.05 #1) id 12XsVo-0007mE-00; Wed, 22 Mar 2000 21:17:57 +0000 Received: (from mark@localhost) by parish.my.domain (8.9.3/8.9.3) id UAA00471; Wed, 22 Mar 2000 20:29:27 GMT (envelope-from mark) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 20:29:26 +0000 From: Mark Ovens To: Omachonu Ogali Cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Funny Graphics Message-ID: <20000322202926.A248@parish> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0.1i In-Reply-To: ; from oogali@intranova.net on Wed, Mar 22, 2000 at 11:13:41AM -0500 Organization: Total lack of Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wed, Mar 22, 2000 at 11:13:41AM -0500, Omachonu Ogali wrote: > Check out, http://www.execpc.com/~mop/bsd3.jpg, I think Tux is gone for > good in this one... > That's not really the sort of thing FreeBSD should associate itself with. It certainly does not project positive advocacy. > -- > +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ > | Omachonu Ogali oogali@intranova.net | > | Intranova Networking Group http://tribune.intranova.net | > | PGP Key ID: 0xBFE60839 | > | PGP Fingerprint: C8 51 14 FD 2A 87 53 D1 E3 AA 12 12 01 93 BD 34 | > +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message -- Seminars, n.: From "semi" and "arse", hence, any half-assed discussion. ________________________________________________________________ FreeBSD - The Power To Serve http://www.freebsd.org My Webpage http://ukug.uk.freebsd.org/~mark/ mailto:mark@ukug.uk.freebsd.org http://www.radan.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Wed Mar 22 18: 8:16 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from peach.ocn.ne.jp (peach.ocn.ne.jp [210.145.254.87]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5EA2137BA20 for ; Wed, 22 Mar 2000 18:08:14 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dcs@newsguy.com) Received: from newsguy.com (p29-dn03kiryunisiki.gunma.ocn.ne.jp [210.232.224.158]) by peach.ocn.ne.jp (8.9.1a/OCN) with ESMTP id LAA01379; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 11:08:09 +0900 (JST) Message-ID: <38D977A2.3A64317A@newsguy.com> Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 10:47:14 +0900 From: "Daniel C. Sobral" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en,pt-BR,ja MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Michael Lucas Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New article References: <200003221731.MAA20664@blackhelicopters.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Michael Lucas wrote: > > Well, the kernel article just hit LinuxWorld > > http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-2000-03/lw-03-freebsd.html > > Thanks to all who commented/proofread this! There are some errors, though... :-) You say "make depend all install" once, which is incorrect. The claim about complexity of a kernel configuration tool is also completely groundless. There isn't a kernel configuration tool for FreeBSD because no one can be bothered to produce one, and that's that. There is no technical obstacles to it. Alas, we have been evolving to allow mostly dispensing with a kernel configuration file altogether. -- Daniel C. Sobral (8-DCS) dcs@newsguy.com dcs@freebsd.org capo@zurichgnomes.bsdconspiracy.net One Unix to rule them all, One Resolver to find them, One IP to bring them all and in the zone bind them. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 23 5:26:37 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from blackhelicopters.org (geburah.blackhelicopters.org [209.69.178.18]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 10B8437BE84 for ; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 05:26:34 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org) Received: (from mwlucas@localhost) by blackhelicopters.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id IAA24776; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 08:26:31 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from mwlucas) From: Michael Lucas Message-Id: <200003231326.IAA24776@blackhelicopters.org> Subject: Re: New article In-Reply-To: <38D977A2.3A64317A@newsguy.com> from "Daniel C. Sobral" at "Mar 23, 2000 10:47:14 am" To: dcs@newsguy.com (Daniel C. Sobral) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 08:26:31 -0500 (EST) Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL43 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > There are some errors, though... :-) > > You say "make depend all install" once, which is incorrect. ACK! Please pass me the pointy hat, I've written this correctly elsewhere. > The claim about complexity of a kernel configuration tool is also > completely groundless. There isn't a kernel configuration tool for > FreeBSD because no one can be bothered to produce one, and that's that. > There is no technical obstacles to it. This was the general consensus I got from developers who read the article. Also, I think a configuration tool would be far too complex, from a user POV rather than a developer one (although developers would go nuts trying to keep it in sync with the kernel, IMHO). Who wants to walk through a multitiered menu when you can just vi & go? > Alas, we have been evolving to allow mostly dispensing with a kernel > configuration file altogether. Then where are we going? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 23 8:43:53 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from obie.softweyr.com (obie.softweyr.com [204.68.178.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DF54037B57C for ; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 08:43:49 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from softweyr.com (Foolstrustidentd@obie.softweyr.com [204.68.178.33]) by obie.softweyr.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id JAA12407; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 09:43:27 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Message-ID: <38DA4A05.7E4E1F71@softweyr.com> Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 09:44:53 -0700 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 3.3-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Daniel C. Sobral" Cc: Michael Lucas , advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New article References: <200003221731.MAA20664@blackhelicopters.org> <38D977A2.3A64317A@newsguy.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG "Daniel C. Sobral" wrote: > > Michael Lucas wrote: > > > > Well, the kernel article just hit LinuxWorld > > > > http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-2000-03/lw-03-freebsd.html > > > > Thanks to all who commented/proofread this! > > There are some errors, though... :-) > > You say "make depend all install" once, which is incorrect. > > The claim about complexity of a kernel configuration tool is also > completely groundless. There isn't a kernel configuration tool for > FreeBSD because no one can be bothered to produce one, and that's that. > There is no technical obstacles to it. There *IS* a graphical kernel configuration utility for FreeBSD. It's called Emacs. Perhaps someone who really groks elisp could make us a kernel-conf mode? > Alas, we have been evolving to allow mostly dispensing with a kernel > configuration file altogether. A sensible approach. > capo@zurichgnomes.bsdconspiracy.net ;^) -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com http://softweyr.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 23 12:12:51 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from peach.ocn.ne.jp (peach.ocn.ne.jp [210.145.254.87]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 696AA37B5D1 for ; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 12:12:47 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dcs@newsguy.com) Received: from newsguy.com (dcs@p21-dn03kiryunisiki.gunma.ocn.ne.jp [210.232.224.150]) by peach.ocn.ne.jp (8.9.1a/OCN) with ESMTP id FAA14056; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 05:12:42 +0900 (JST) Message-ID: <38DA7A60.B7C23121@newsguy.com> Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 05:11:12 +0900 From: "Daniel C. Sobral" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en,pt-BR,ja MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Michael Lucas Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New article References: <200003231326.IAA24776@blackhelicopters.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Michael Lucas wrote: > > > Alas, we have been evolving to allow mostly dispensing with a kernel > > configuration file altogether. > > Then where are we going? MMMmmmm... PnP, PCI, modules, devfs, load on demand, etc. IIRC, you don't need to compile in some of the network cards anymore. They'll be loaded on demand by ifconfig. The same has always applied for filesystems, though you used to need to compile the one used for / in the kernel (you can now use loader to load the module). There is general interest in being able to load a module, probe, and then unload it if the probe fails. Legacy hardware will still need to be hand configured (though not necessarily built in the kernel), and some kernel options are probably unavoidable. -- Daniel C. Sobral (8-DCS) dcs@newsguy.com dcs@freebsd.org capo@zurichgnomes.bsdconspiracy.net One Unix to rule them all, One Resolver to find them, One IP to bring them all and in the zone bind them. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 23 13:58: 9 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from blackhelicopters.org (geburah.blackhelicopters.org [209.69.178.18]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 91A8C37C79B for ; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 13:58:02 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org) Received: (from mwlucas@localhost) by blackhelicopters.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id QAA26640; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 16:57:50 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from mwlucas) From: Michael Lucas Message-Id: <200003232157.QAA26640@blackhelicopters.org> Subject: Article has been corrected In-Reply-To: <38DA7A60.B7C23121@newsguy.com> from "Daniel C. Sobral" at "Mar 24, 2000 5:11:12 am" To: dcs@newsguy.com (Daniel C. Sobral) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 16:57:50 -0500 (EST) Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL43 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Dan, I just spoke to the LinuxWorld editors. They'll be fixing the article. I *love* online publishing. In paper, you have to live with it. ;) ==ml To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 23 14: 4:30 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from obie.softweyr.com (obie.softweyr.com [204.68.178.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BDEE337C605 for ; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 14:04:22 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from softweyr.com (Foolstrustidentd@obie.softweyr.com [204.68.178.33]) by obie.softweyr.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA13135; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 15:03:41 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Message-ID: <38DA950C.D4DCE9CC@softweyr.com> Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 15:05:00 -0700 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 3.3-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Daniel C. Sobral" Cc: Michael Lucas , advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New article References: <200003231326.IAA24776@blackhelicopters.org> <38DA7A60.B7C23121@newsguy.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG "Daniel C. Sobral" wrote: > > Legacy hardware will still need to be hand configured (though not > necessarily built in the kernel), and some kernel options are probably > unavoidable. But could potentially be configured through a loader script, rather than compiled into the kernel. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com http://softweyr.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 23 16:35: 9 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from peach.ocn.ne.jp (peach.ocn.ne.jp [210.145.254.87]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C758C37BB0B for ; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 16:35:02 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dcs@newsguy.com) Received: from newsguy.com (p39-dn02kiryunisiki.gunma.ocn.ne.jp [211.0.245.104]) by peach.ocn.ne.jp (8.9.1a/OCN) with ESMTP id JAA23749; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 09:34:53 +0900 (JST) Message-ID: <38DAB25B.E2BBC400@newsguy.com> Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 09:10:03 +0900 From: "Daniel C. Sobral" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en,pt-BR,ja MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Wes Peters Cc: Michael Lucas , advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New article References: <200003231326.IAA24776@blackhelicopters.org> <38DA7A60.B7C23121@newsguy.com> <38DA950C.D4DCE9CC@softweyr.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Wes Peters wrote: > > "Daniel C. Sobral" wrote: > > > > Legacy hardware will still need to be hand configured (though not > > necessarily built in the kernel), and some kernel options are probably > > unavoidable. > > But could potentially be configured through a loader script, rather > than compiled into the kernel. The legacy stuff, yes. I said so. :-) The kernel options... As I said *some* as unavoidable. INVARIANTS? -- Daniel C. Sobral (8-DCS) dcs@newsguy.com dcs@freebsd.org capo@zurichgnomes.bsdconspiracy.net One Unix to rule them all, One Resolver to find them, One IP to bring them all and in the zone bind them. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 23 17:26:42 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from smtp02.primenet.com (smtp02.primenet.com [206.165.6.132]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3F76F37BF1C for ; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:26:32 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tlambert@usr02.primenet.com) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp02.primenet.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id SAA06823; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 18:25:35 -0700 (MST) Received: from usr02.primenet.com(206.165.6.202) via SMTP by smtp02.primenet.com, id smtpdAAAAjaGon; Thu Mar 23 18:25:29 2000 Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr02.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA05518; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 18:26:17 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <200003240126.SAA05518@usr02.primenet.com> Subject: Re: New article To: dcs@newsguy.com (Daniel C. Sobral) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 01:26:17 +0000 (GMT) Cc: wes@softweyr.com (Wes Peters), mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org (Michael Lucas), advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <38DAB25B.E2BBC400@newsguy.com> from "Daniel C. Sobral" at Mar 24, 2000 09:10:03 AM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL2] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > > Legacy hardware will still need to be hand configured (though not > > > necessarily built in the kernel), and some kernel options are probably > > > unavoidable. > > > > But could potentially be configured through a loader script, rather > > than compiled into the kernel. > > The legacy stuff, yes. I said so. :-) The kernel options... As I said > *some* as unavoidable. INVARIANTS? Get rid of all invariants. It has never made sense to me that the number of PCI busses or the number of SMP per-CPU contexts, or the number of mbufs, or any of dozens of other things were actually required to compile the kernel. For "I486_CPU" and similar things, well, I think this is really a silly thing to do, instead of loading the generic code, and then later loading the CPU specific code, after you know the CPU type, and then _unloading_ the generic code it replaced. The only real issues to work out are debugging options, which I have no problem with forcing the debugging engineer to place on the command line, or use a special build process. The MATH_EMULATE, INET, NFS, etc., are a no-brainer. The boot filesystem has to be set, but that's always FFS (unless you do a lot of fixing of the kernel, and then specify an alternative on the command line). VISUAL_USERCONFIG? The loader should load it, if it is needed, and unload it after it's done being used. Hell, the root device driver stuff should be done in BIOS or PPCBug or OpenBoot or ARCBIOS or SRM _or whatever_, and that should get replaced by a dynamically loaded hardware specific root device driver later... if there is one. If not, it should single thread through the BIOS, or whatever it has to do, and _just keep working_. Psuedo devices? If they are listed in a config file as being permissable to load, then put a node in devfs in /dev, and if it's referenced, load them then. Invariants, inschmeriants. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 23 17:35:10 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from freefall.freebsd.org (freefall.FreeBSD.ORG [204.216.27.21]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B223637BBA9; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:35:08 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from kris@FreeBSD.org) Received: from localhost (kris@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.9.3/8.9.2) with ESMTP id RAA52789; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:35:09 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from kris@FreeBSD.org) X-Authentication-Warning: freefall.freebsd.org: kris owned process doing -bs Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:35:08 -0800 (PST) From: Kris Kennaway To: Terry Lambert Cc: "Daniel C. Sobral" , Wes Peters , Michael Lucas , advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New article In-Reply-To: <200003240126.SAA05518@usr02.primenet.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Fri, 24 Mar 2000, Terry Lambert wrote: > > The legacy stuff, yes. I said so. :-) The kernel options... As I said > > *some* as unavoidable. INVARIANTS? > > Get rid of all invariants. options INVARIANTS turns on enforcement of invariants in the kernel as a debugging aid. I'm not sure how it could be done dynamically at load time without building two versions of all the modules. Perhaps it should be made mandatory, but the slight performance penalty associated with it might be a turnoff. SMP/non-SMP is another case which has its conditional fingers in the code. When you multiply all of the options together, having 2^n different option combinations for each base module suddenly doesn't look so attractive.. Kris ---- In God we Trust -- all others must submit an X.509 certificate. -- Charles Forsythe To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 23 17:36:25 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mail.rz.fh-wilhelmshaven.de (mail.rz.fh-wilhelmshaven.de [139.13.25.134]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 13E8737C58E for ; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:35:14 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from ohoyer@fbwi.fh-wilhelmshaven.de) Received: from fettesau.stuwo.fh-wilhelmshaven.de (stuwopc5.stuwo.fh-wilhelmshaven.de [139.13.209.5]) by mail.rz.fh-wilhelmshaven.de (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id CAA27924 for ; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 02:35:09 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <4.1.20000324022914.00cbed30@mail.rz.fh-wilhelmshaven.de> X-Sender: ohoyer@mail.rz.fh-wilhelmshaven.de X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.1 Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 02:33:30 +0100 To: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG From: Olaf Hoyer Subject: Re: New article In-Reply-To: <38DAB25B.E2BBC400@newsguy.com> References: <200003231326.IAA24776@blackhelicopters.org> <38DA7A60.B7C23121@newsguy.com> <38DA950C.D4DCE9CC@softweyr.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >> > Legacy hardware will still need to be hand configured (though not >> > necessarily built in the kernel), and some kernel options are probably >> > unavoidable. >> >> But could potentially be configured through a loader script, rather >> than compiled into the kernel. Hi! Question: Is a loadable kernel module not a potential security risk? I mean, if some module (which runs on a deeper, priviliged mode) has some malicous code in it, or simply is buggy, and is loaded during runtime, it could cause a box to simply crash. Imagine some attacker exchanging some kernel module against own code, and causing that module to be loaded (say, some driver for access to certain filesystems, or zip drive etc...), or waiting for the module to be loaded (say, for regular, scheduled activities like backups or batch jobs or so) Wouldn't it be safer, from a technical point of view, to allow as less than possible kernel modules, thus enhancing stability and uptime? Regards Olaf Hoyer -------- Olaf Hoyer www.nightfire.de mailto:Olaf.Hoyer@nightfire.de FreeBSD- Turning PC's into workstations ICQ:22838075 Liebe und Hass sind nicht blind, aber geblendet vom Feuer, dass sie selber mit sich tragen. (Nietzsche) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 23 17:39:13 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mailgate.originative.co.uk (mailgate.originative.co.uk [194.217.50.228]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EFC9437C554; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:39:10 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from paul@originative.co.uk) Received: from originative.co.uk (lobster.originative.co.uk [194.217.50.241]) by mailgate.originative.co.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9F4FE1D131; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 01:39:09 +0000 (GMT) Message-ID: <38DAC73D.80287765@originative.co.uk> Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 01:39:09 +0000 From: Paul Richards Organization: Originative Solutions Ltd X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; I; FreeBSD 4.0-CURRENT i386) X-Accept-Language: en-GB, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Kris Kennaway Cc: Terry Lambert , "Daniel C. Sobral" , Wes Peters , Michael Lucas , advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New article References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Kris Kennaway wrote: > > On Fri, 24 Mar 2000, Terry Lambert wrote: > > > > The legacy stuff, yes. I said so. :-) The kernel options... As I said > > > *some* as unavoidable. INVARIANTS? > > > > Get rid of all invariants. > > options INVARIANTS turns on enforcement of invariants in the kernel as a > debugging aid. I'm not sure how it could be done dynamically at load time > without building two versions of all the modules. Perhaps it should be > made mandatory, but the slight performance penalty associated with it > might be a turnoff. > > SMP/non-SMP is another case which has its conditional fingers in the > code. When you multiply all of the options together, having 2^n different > option combinations for each base module suddenly doesn't look so > attractive.. All you really need for INVARIANTS is a make variable, config can go away without us having to worry about that. Paul. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 23 17:40:33 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from obie.softweyr.com (obie.softweyr.com [204.68.178.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A6F9037B650 for ; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:40:30 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from softweyr.com (Foolstrustidentd@obie.softweyr.com [204.68.178.33]) by obie.softweyr.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA13721; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 18:40:21 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Message-ID: <38DAC7DA.C2432A1C@softweyr.com> Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 18:41:46 -0700 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 3.3-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Michael Lucas Cc: "Daniel C. Sobral" , advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Article has been corrected References: <200003232157.QAA26640@blackhelicopters.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Michael Lucas wrote: > > Dan, > > I just spoke to the LinuxWorld editors. They'll be fixing the article. > > I *love* online publishing. In paper, you have to live with it. ;) Yeah, but in paper, it's lining the bird cage or litter box 4 days later. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com http://softweyr.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 23 17:45:33 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from orion.ac.hmc.edu (Orion.AC.HMC.Edu [134.173.32.20]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3809A37B506 for ; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:45:30 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from brdavis@orion.ac.hmc.edu) Received: (from brdavis@localhost) by orion.ac.hmc.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA29070; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:45:22 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:45:21 -0800 From: Brooks Davis To: Olaf Hoyer Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New article Message-ID: <20000323174521.A25459@orion.ac.hmc.edu> References: <200003231326.IAA24776@blackhelicopters.org> <38DA7A60.B7C23121@newsguy.com> <38DA950C.D4DCE9CC@softweyr.com> <38DAB25B.E2BBC400@newsguy.com> <4.1.20000324022914.00cbed30@mail.rz.fh-wilhelmshaven.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0pre4i In-Reply-To: <4.1.20000324022914.00cbed30@mail.rz.fh-wilhelmshaven.de>; from ohoyer@fbwi.fh-wilhelmshaven.de on Fri, Mar 24, 2000 at 02:33:30AM +0100 Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Fri, Mar 24, 2000 at 02:33:30AM +0100, Olaf Hoyer wrote: > Question: Is a loadable kernel module not a potential security risk? > > I mean, if some module (which runs on a deeper, priviliged mode) has some > malicous code in it, or simply is buggy, and is loaded during runtime, it > could cause a box to simply crash. > > Imagine some attacker exchanging some kernel module against own code, and > causing that module to be loaded (say, some driver for access to certain > filesystems, or zip drive etc...), or waiting for the module to be loaded > (say, for regular, scheduled activities like backups or batch jobs or so) > > Wouldn't it be safer, from a technical point of view, to allow as less > than possible kernel modules, thus enhancing stability and uptime? The short answer is yes. The longer answer is not if you do things right. First, the kernel controls the ability to load modules once it is running so you can tell it to not allow the loading of any more modules. I think you can currently compile this in or set the securelevel sufficiently high to get this behavior today. Second, the plan is the allow you to create a kernel image which contains all the modules you need in a single bundle. This gives you a static configuration even in a modular system. There's quite a bit of work to be done to get there, but that's my understanding of the final goal. -- Brooks -- Any statement of the form "X is the one, true Y" is FALSE. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 24 0:42:29 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from peach.ocn.ne.jp (peach.ocn.ne.jp [210.145.254.87]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0AB8B37B6EE; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 00:42:26 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dcs@newsguy.com) Received: from newsguy.com (p24-dn03kiryunisiki.gunma.ocn.ne.jp [210.232.224.153]) by peach.ocn.ne.jp (8.9.1a/OCN) with ESMTP id RAA21336; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 17:41:55 +0900 (JST) Message-ID: <38DB29F1.5695EED7@newsguy.com> Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 17:40:17 +0900 From: "Daniel C. Sobral" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en,pt-BR,ja MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Paul Richards Cc: Kris Kennaway , Terry Lambert , Wes Peters , Michael Lucas , advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New article References: <38DAC73D.80287765@originative.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Paul Richards wrote: > > All you really need for INVARIANTS is a make variable, config can go > away without us having to worry about that. Well, I'd like any of these unavoidable kernel configuration options to be saved somewhere, so I won't need typing them again and again. Whatever file I save that too, it will be a kernel configuration file, by definition. :-) Yeah, config(8) can go, but that's beside the point, really. -- Daniel C. Sobral (8-DCS) dcs@newsguy.com dcs@freebsd.org capo@zurichgnomes.bsdconspiracy.net One Unix to rule them all, One Resolver to find them, One IP to bring them all and in the zone bind them. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 24 1: 7:55 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from peach.ocn.ne.jp (peach.ocn.ne.jp [210.145.254.87]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E249C37BBF3 for ; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 01:07:52 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dcs@newsguy.com) Received: from newsguy.com (p06-dn03kiryunisiki.gunma.ocn.ne.jp [210.232.224.135]) by peach.ocn.ne.jp (8.9.1a/OCN) with ESMTP id SAA27964; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 18:07:46 +0900 (JST) Message-ID: <38DB2B63.82552C96@newsguy.com> Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 17:46:27 +0900 From: "Daniel C. Sobral" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en,pt-BR,ja MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Olaf Hoyer Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New article References: <200003231326.IAA24776@blackhelicopters.org> <38DA7A60.B7C23121@newsguy.com> <38DA950C.D4DCE9CC@softweyr.com> <4.1.20000324022914.00cbed30@mail.rz.fh-wilhelmshaven.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Olaf Hoyer wrote: > > Question: Is a loadable kernel module not a potential security risk? Not really. > I mean, if some module (which runs on a deeper, priviliged mode) has some > malicous code in it, or simply is buggy, and is loaded during runtime, it > could cause a box to simply crash. What's the difference between a buggy module loaded at runtime, and one compiled in the kernel? As for malicious code... what are you doing loading such a module??? :-) > Imagine some attacker exchanging some kernel module against own code, and > causing that module to be loaded (say, some driver for access to certain > filesystems, or zip drive etc...), or waiting for the module to be loaded > (say, for regular, scheduled activities like backups or batch jobs or so) So??? If the hacker compromised root, he can just replace the whole kernel if he wants. *IF ROOT WAS COMPROMISED, THE GAME IS OVER ALREADY*. Really. No, I mean it. There is no such thing as "making things easier" once root was compromised. You lost, and any attempt to "make things difficult" is an exercise in self-delusion. > Wouldn't it be safer, from a technical point of view, to allow as less > than possible kernel modules, thus enhancing stability and uptime? Nope. -- Daniel C. Sobral (8-DCS) dcs@newsguy.com dcs@freebsd.org capo@zurichgnomes.bsdconspiracy.net One Unix to rule them all, One Resolver to find them, One IP to bring them all and in the zone bind them. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 24 4:30: 8 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from blackhelicopters.org (geburah.blackhelicopters.org [209.69.178.18]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1E9C437B68B for ; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 04:30:06 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org) Received: (from mwlucas@localhost) by blackhelicopters.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id HAA29019; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 07:30:00 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from mwlucas) From: Michael Lucas Message-Id: <200003241230.HAA29019@blackhelicopters.org> Subject: Re: Article has been corrected In-Reply-To: <38DAC7DA.C2432A1C@softweyr.com> from Wes Peters at "Mar 23, 2000 6:41:46 pm" To: wes@softweyr.com (Wes Peters) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 07:30:00 -0500 (EST) Cc: dcs@newsguy.com, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL43 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > I just spoke to the LinuxWorld editors. They'll be fixing the article. > > > > I *love* online publishing. In paper, you have to live with it. ;) > > Yeah, but in paper, it's lining the bird cage or litter box 4 days later. True, but book publishers pay much more attention to what's on the bottom of a bird cage than what's mutably immortalized on a Web site. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 24 7:53:22 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mailgate.originative.co.uk (mailgate.originative.co.uk [194.217.50.228]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CA64537B75C; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 07:53:17 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from paul@originative.co.uk) Received: from originative.co.uk (lobster.originative.co.uk [194.217.50.241]) by mailgate.originative.co.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4E76C1D131; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 15:53:16 +0000 (GMT) Message-ID: <38DB8F6C.24A54CE6@originative.co.uk> Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 15:53:16 +0000 From: Paul Richards Organization: Originative Solutions Ltd X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; I; FreeBSD 4.0-CURRENT i386) X-Accept-Language: en-GB, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Daniel C. Sobral" Cc: Kris Kennaway , Terry Lambert , Wes Peters , Michael Lucas , advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New article References: <38DAC73D.80287765@originative.co.uk> <38DB29F1.5695EED7@newsguy.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG "Daniel C. Sobral" wrote: > > Paul Richards wrote: > > > > All you really need for INVARIANTS is a make variable, config can go > > away without us having to worry about that. > > Well, I'd like any of these unavoidable kernel configuration options to > be saved somewhere, so I won't need typing them again and again. > Whatever file I save that too, it will be a kernel configuration file, > by definition. :-) Yeah, config(8) can go, but that's beside the point, > really. I don't think INVARIANTS is the same sort of information as "pseudo-device bpf". The latter is part of the kernel configuration, in that it determines the features built in to the kernel. The former is a compilation option and while I agree that you'd want somewhere to store those options they should be regarded as the same sort of information as the compiler optimization flags rather than a parameter of the kernel configuration. Whether you build a kernel with INVARIANTS or not is like deciding whether to build it with -g. With a fully dynamic kernel configuration you wouldn't expect to be able to change the compiler optimization after the fact but you would expect to be able to change the device drivers or table sizes. I don't really disagree with you but I think that things like INVARIANTS aren't what's generally considered when we're thinking about kernel configuration. There would still need to be a way to specify compile options somewhere though. It might not be a bad idea to think about that now, as a step on the way to dynamic configuration. It would probably be fairly easy to move the compiler directives out of the kernel config file to somewhere picked up by the make process. It'll need to be done eventually and it's pretty easy to do it now. Paul. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 24 10:35:10 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from obie.softweyr.com (obie.softweyr.com [204.68.178.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 35ABB37BA55 for ; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 10:35:06 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from softweyr.com (Foolstrustidentd@obie.softweyr.com [204.68.178.33]) by obie.softweyr.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA15398; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 11:34:38 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Message-ID: <38DBB599.14C48CAC@softweyr.com> Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 11:36:09 -0700 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 3.3-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Olaf Hoyer Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New article References: <200003231326.IAA24776@blackhelicopters.org> <38DA7A60.B7C23121@newsguy.com> <38DA950C.D4DCE9CC@softweyr.com> <4.1.20000324022914.00cbed30@mail.rz.fh-wilhelmshaven.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Olaf Hoyer wrote: > > >> > Legacy hardware will still need to be hand configured (though not > >> > necessarily built in the kernel), and some kernel options are probably > >> > unavoidable. > >> > >> But could potentially be configured through a loader script, rather > >> than compiled into the kernel. > > Hi! > > Question: Is a loadable kernel module not a potential security risk? > > I mean, if some module (which runs on a deeper, priviliged mode) has some > malicous code in it, or simply is buggy, and is loaded during runtime, it > could cause a box to simply crash. > > Imagine some attacker exchanging some kernel module against own code, and > causing that module to be loaded (say, some driver for access to certain > filesystems, or zip drive etc...), or waiting for the module to be loaded > (say, for regular, scheduled activities like backups or batch jobs or so) > > Wouldn't it be safer, from a technical point of view, to allow as less > than possible kernel modules, thus enhancing stability and uptime? No. If you allow somebody to overwrite your modules, what's to keep them from overwriting your kernel? -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com http://softweyr.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 24 11:48: 6 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from smtp02.primenet.com (smtp02.primenet.com [206.165.6.132]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 855F637B780; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 11:47:52 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tlambert@usr09.primenet.com) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp02.primenet.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id MAA11205; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 12:46:50 -0700 (MST) Received: from usr09.primenet.com(206.165.6.209) via SMTP by smtp02.primenet.com, id smtpdAAAFYaiTv; Fri Mar 24 12:46:44 2000 Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr09.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA07990; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 12:47:33 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <200003241947.MAA07990@usr09.primenet.com> Subject: Re: New article To: kris@FreeBSD.org (Kris Kennaway) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 19:47:32 +0000 (GMT) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com (Terry Lambert), dcs@newsguy.com (Daniel C. Sobral), wes@softweyr.com (Wes Peters), mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org (Michael Lucas), advocacy@FreeBSD.org In-Reply-To: from "Kris Kennaway" at Mar 23, 2000 05:35:08 PM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL2] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > > The legacy stuff, yes. I said so. :-) The kernel options... As I said > > > *some* as unavoidable. INVARIANTS? > > > > Get rid of all invariants. > > options INVARIANTS turns on enforcement of invariants in the kernel as a > debugging aid. I'm not sure how it could be done dynamically at load time > without building two versions of all the modules. Perhaps it should be > made mandatory, but the slight performance penalty associated with it > might be a turnoff. That's done at compile time, as a command line option. A debug kernel is an exceptional condition. I thought you were referring to "invariants", as in "not permitted to vary after compilation". > SMP/non-SMP is another case which has its conditional fingers in the > code. When you multiply all of the options together, having 2^n different > option combinations for each base module suddenly doesn't look so > attractive.. Right. So get rid of the things, and enable SMP support on all kernels. Yeah, this particular case might be overkill, but it's probably not: UnixWare actually got 30% faster on UP after the SMP support went in, since allowing the kernel to be reentrant made SMP-style locking mandatory on UP kernels, but the increase in concurrency more than made up for the overhead. This was in 1993/1994, BTW. There's no rational reason for hard coding things like the number of PCI busses, or anything else that can reduce functionality by virtue of being hard-coded (or even cause a panic, as in the mbuf case, even when there are resources available which could have been used to satify the request, instead of panic'ing). Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 24 11:58: 5 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from smtp05.primenet.com (smtp05.primenet.com [206.165.6.135]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C498037BAB1 for ; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 11:57:56 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tlambert@usr09.primenet.com) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp05.primenet.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id MAA02275; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 12:57:38 -0700 (MST) Received: from usr09.primenet.com(206.165.6.209) via SMTP by smtp05.primenet.com, id smtpdAAAGEaqAe; Fri Mar 24 12:57:29 2000 Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr09.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA08200; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 12:57:45 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <200003241957.MAA08200@usr09.primenet.com> Subject: Re: New article To: ohoyer@fbwi.fh-wilhelmshaven.de (Olaf Hoyer) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 19:57:44 +0000 (GMT) Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <4.1.20000324022914.00cbed30@mail.rz.fh-wilhelmshaven.de> from "Olaf Hoyer" at Mar 24, 2000 02:33:30 AM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL2] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > Question: Is a loadable kernel module not a potential security risk? About as much security risk as someone replacing a monolithic kernel file on you and rebooting. You have to be root do do a replacement of the kernel, you have to be root to replace a module file; you have to be root or have physical access to reboot, you have to be root in order to load a kernel module. The one difference is that with physical access, you can force a reboot to use your new kernel; but you could also stick in a CDROM or a floppy with your kernel, too, if you had physical acccess, and you wouldn't even need root to do that. Without physical access, if you have sufficient priviledge to replace the kernel or a module, then you can do a rebbot anyway. > I mean, if some module (which runs on a deeper, priviliged mode) has some > malicous code in it, or simply is buggy, and is loaded during runtime, it > could cause a box to simply crash. If the kernel is simply buggy, the system will crash. Kernel modules are the same thing as any kernel code. You can think of loading a kernel module as a form of kernel paging. > Imagine some attacker exchanging some kernel module against own code, and > causing that module to be loaded (say, some driver for access to certain > filesystems, or zip drive etc...), or waiting for the module to be loaded > (say, for regular, scheduled activities like backups or batch jobs or so) The module can't be installed for this kind of attack, without the same priviledges you'd need to attack the system by replacing the kernel itself. > Wouldn't it be safer, from a technical point of view, to allow as less > than possible kernel modules, thus enhancing stability and uptime? Yes. This has to do with how demand-loading is handled. Right now, demand loading is handled by utilities that operate against the code which has been loaded, or special purpose loader code that only does a load (like the Linux ABI module is laoded). You would gain some additional security by creating a file that contained a list of permissible modules, their paths, and the reference, in the kernel, which would cause them to load. This would require kernel level file I/O, which has stubbornly remained unstandardized, despite well designed examples like the AIX kernel thread file I/O services. It would also require, at least for devices, a devfs (and/or a major/minor mapping to a module name, and the creation of a device node that will trap and track open and closes). Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message