Posts by chasil

TSMC & RCA

It's important to understand that RCA agreed to train TSMC workers in the late 70s at the RCA semiconductor foundry in Ohio.

TSMC acquired vast experience from RCA.

RCA was a leader in semiconductor manufacturing at that time, but attempted to become a conglomerate with acquisitions of unrelated businesses that detracted from their core competence. The nickname of the firm was "Rugs, Chickens, and Automobiles" as they bought a carpet company, a frozen food company, and a rental car company.

RCA as a semiconductor manufacturer withered on the vine in the ensuing management distraction.

There are many reasons that TSMC would never survive in the United States. Perhaps Intel is better served in another country.

AMD SPARC

The assertion of this article is that a common low-level RISC could be shared between an ARM and AMD64 implementation.

AMD has actually done this already, between the 29k and the K5.

Details on AMD SPARC:

"Based on the seminal Berkeley RISC, the 29k added a number of significant improvements. They were, for a time, the most popular RISC chips on the market.. Berkeley RISC-derived designs is the concept of register windows... In the original Berkeley design, SPARC, and i960, the windows were fixed in size.... It was here that the 29000 differed from these earlier designs, using a variable window size."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Am29000

K5 reused previous RISC elements:

"The K5 was based upon an internal highly parallel Am29000 RISC processor architecture with an x86 decoding front-end."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_K5

So... here we go again?

Re: HPE iLO

Do you see this right here? This means iLO.

'Another item of interest is the beginnings of support for the HPE GXP architecture.

'As explained by HPE chap Nick Hawkins, the architecture uses ARMv7 and the Cortex A9 core and will become a key feature of the company's next-gen servers.

'But not as CPU.

'"The GXP is the HPE BMC SoC that is used in the majority of HPE Generation 10 servers," Hawkins wrote. "Traditionally the ASIC will last multiple generations of server before being replaced."'

btrfs and xfs

'we're just moving carefully on it to ensure folks don't get bitten by the vaunted "btrfs stability problems".'

I don't think that an "enterprise" Linux distribution will be able to solely base itself on btrfs.

Oracle specifically prohibits database installations on this filesystem in 2290489.1: "Oracle DB has specifically said that they do not support using BTRFS filesystems... BTRFS is optimized for *non-database* workloads."

XFS also dominates the TPC benchmarks (at tpc.org) for Linux. There is no way that btrfs is going to supplant that status within the next few years. SGI definitely contributed an extremely valuable asset.

I'm also a bit surprised that Fedora's boot is ext4, as it's XFS under CentOS (7).

X11

OpenBSD is unique in that the X server does not run as root. This alone makes it makes it safer than most everything else that implements X11.

After the switch of malloc() from sbrk() to mmap(), several use-after-free bugs were found and fixed in the X server, which benefitted all platforms that implemented the patches.

OpenBSD is a great place to run X-Windows.

NTRU is not a finalist.

The NTRU situation is actually more complex than this article implies.

NIST is conducting a competition for post-quantum key exchange and signature algorithms. NTRU Prime did not make the cut as a key exchange finalist.

It appears that NTRU Prime is going ahead in OpenSSH, without any formal endorsement from NIST.

https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/post-quantum-cryptography/round-3-submissions

In the notes listing NTRU Prime as an alternate (and rejection as a finalist), Daniel J. Bernstein filed a complaint with his experience at NIST:

https://03283664099418252878.googlegroups.com/attach/6f5422d4f193d/complaint-re-apon.pdf

"Formal complaint regarding 8 June 2021 incident - 2021.06.15, Daniel J. Bernstein..."

"Executive summary. A week ago Dr. Daniel Apon from NIST publicly accused me of professional misconduct. Specifically, he accused me of initiating private contact with NIST so as to provide false information to NIST regarding the timing of an upcoming announcement relevant to NIST’s ongoing decisions..."

It is unfortunate that this disfunction has a practical impact upon OpenSSH.

Phones run in homes, and might be set on a desktop. Does that count?

Amazon tablets seem to be the market leaders for non-iPad options.

It is a shame that most of the mass-market Linux environments are locked down and running malware.

Re: OpenIndiana

You might try SmartOS.

The whole thing runs on a USB flash drive, and lets you offer all your storage as ZFS pools with no footprint of the hypervisor OS.

KVM has been grafted into the Illumos kernel for running Linux VMs, but you can also run Zones.

It's likely possible to run an Oracle database on it, but you probably have other preferences in that arena.

AMD does the same thing...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Processor

...and they do it using ARM's design, inside an ARM core.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#Security_extensions

If you want a commercial CPU that is clean and open, then you will have to buy a SPARC. I think that the T2 is the best available.

https://www.oracle.com/servers/technologies/opensparc-overview.html

Re: Throwaway society mentality comes to IT

Version 10g introduced a new in-place shrink, enabled by "alter table x enable row migration;" followed by "alter table x shrink space;".

If you were using a prior version, then the method to defragment/consolidate a table was only by the 8i "alter table x move tablespace y;" which does unpleasant things to indexes. It would be well-worth an upgrade to 10g just to get the in-place shrink functionality rather than rely on the 8i method.

And as far as sticking with Itanium, that's because migrating to a new platform means exp/imp (maybe with data pump). I have also done this from HP-UX to x86, and it is also not pleasant. I think that Exadata is the biggest iron available, and it runs on Oracle Linux.

OpenWRT

MIPS remains firmly established in low end routers.

Support will likely be maintained in OpenWRT for a long, long time.

https://openwrt.org/about/history#timeline

https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/instructionset/mips64_mips64

Poison Pill

Microsoft ought to be careful.

In outsourcing their browser engine to Google, they have now placed significant power over their OS in the hands of people who are now growing upset with them.

Google could, for example, inject a Go runtime into Chrome, get it endorsed as a web standard over Microsoft's objections, and force Go into Windows with the public intention of killing the .NET environment.

Should these two companies engage in serious disagreements, Windows will suffer badly.

upgrade gymastics

I'll say that 32-bit 11.2.0.4 is part of an upgrade that I have been asked to plan.

Moving from that to 19.3 or higher is a problem - DBUA does not (appear to) handle 32-bit databases, and it must be done with the dbupgrade command-line tool.

I am wondering what my options are for the catdwgrd.sql script to revert, and I've been advised not even to offer it as an option. Dropping back down from 64 to 32-bit would be asking for a disaster.

TPC.org says otherwise.

If you examine Microsoft's reported scores, everything is on XFS.

The XFS filesystem appears to be a sweet spot for database performance. Several other top scores are also on it (Exasol being the most prominent).

ROP Gadgets

What is more interesting is that a ROP gadget exploit was used to attack the server.

OpenBSD goes to great lengths to defeat ROP gadget attacks. The compiler is modified to exclude certain machine instructions at the ends of functions, and the ASLR runs so deep that the kernel and C libraries are relinked at every boot to randomize locations in memory.

"Tracked as CVE-2021-35211, the Serv-U vuln allowed an attacker to achieve remote code execution through what Microsoft described as a Return Oriented Programming attack, as we reported at the time."

For SFTP services, OpenBSD is in the top tier for security.

https://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2019-rop-paper.pdf

Remeber IE

This situation is preferable to Internet Explorer v6.

Going back to "Best Viewed with IE" would likely cause resignations of 3/4ths of all web designers.

Re: Why?

The article asserts that "differences are not dramatic" between the Windows and Linux platforms, but this does not hold true with a careful observation of TPC-H benchmarks.

Locating the top benchmarks for SQL Server on tpc.org, nearly all of them are on Linux. The few that are on Windows do not perform as well.

My suspicion is that XFS has a great deal to do with this performance.

Ubuntu also runs SQL Server, usually on ext4. An interesting point about Ubuntu is that Oracle offers free KSplice kernel patches for it, so a high-availability OS platform with current patches is possible to obtain at zero licensing cost. The Windows equivalent does not exist.

The performance and availability characteristics would likely be compelling for SQL Server administrators who live in dread of Patch Tuesday.

Takeover

An Oracle acquisition of HPE might be a more straightforward solution.

I don't think there is anything left that could be considered anticompetetive.

Android: easy fixes

The "Bromite" browser, a Chromium fork that removes privacy-averse functionality, has the following setting:

"Disable JIT: Improve security at the expense of performance by not compiling JavaScript to native code (requires browser restart)."

https://www.bromite.org/

Gee, I wonder where Microsoft came up with the idea.

If you want focused control over JavaScript, use the "Privacy Browser" from F-Droid or Play, where it is disabled by default. A simple toggle will allow interactive code, or halt bad behavior.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.stoutner.privacybrowser.standard/

4G

I don't know if many Chromebooks have LTE in addition to WiFi, but the 4G cellular modem (Snapdragon X15) is not often seen in PI-class machines.

It would be interesting to swap my simcard into one of these for occasional remote support. It would also be nice to have a SODIMM socket, with no RAM included, so I can decide what I want and when.

Ubuntu Chromium snap

In my last Ubuntu upgrade, my native Chromium install was converted to a snap package, both of which I assume were completely open-source.

Perhaps Windows users might be confused by a Chromium vulnerability which is likely exploitable in close-source Chome; Firefox production/esr releases are perhaps slightly more straightforward.

Does anyone even package Chromium for Windows?

Oracle OS support

If we are being pragmatic, RedHat has terminated two major distributions, the original Red Hat Linux that ended at v9, and now CentOS v8.

Oracle ended OpenSolaris when Sun was acquired, and also terminated Oracle Linux 6 for SPARC after two beta releases.

Objectively, Oracle has supported their Linux offerings far more reliably than RedHat.

Options in the RPM world

Oracle has run a fully-supported clone of RHEL since the JBoss purchase, and Oracle does provide some very useful additions (the UEK, and their EPEL mirror are my favorites).

The reaction to Red Hat originally dropping their free product first saw WhiteBox Linux, then Tao Linux as free rerolls of RHEL, finally evolving to CentOS, while maintaining Scientific Linux for v7.

Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux are two new CentOS 8 clones. There is already a simple migration for CentOS to the Oracle yum repos, and migrations are likely to emerge to these new distros as well. Any CentOS user who wants a supported platform today can have it (even Red Hat has a converter).

IBM may have an agenda for Fedora, but it is unlikely as extreme as CentOS. For those who have truly had enough, but prefer RPM, SUSE is also an option.

Microsoft contributions to the Linux kernel

Unfortunately, if you cannot tolerate Microsoft code, you will be unable to run Linux.

Microsoft has contributed code into the Linux kernel source tree for a number of reasons (HyperV comes to mind):

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/what-is-microsoft-doing-with-linux-everything-you-need-to-know-about-its-plans-for-open-source/

Microsoft has also contributed code to OpenSSH, so you might need to switch out your SSH clients and servers (although I don't know if any Microsoft code has made it all the way up to OpenBSD's /usr/src):

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/12/microsoft-quietly-snuck-an-ssh-client-and-server-into-the-latest-windows-10/

100% avoidance of Microsoft's code can require profound changes to software infrastructure.

fab for Honda?

Honda just announced that all manufacturing is halted in the U.S. and Canada. Semiconductors are cited as critical.

Can a nand fab make logic parts, at lower densities?

Would any upgrades be cost-effective?

Although Intel itself may soon be conducting a fire sale on logic fans.

nation/state foundaries

I think that the correct response would be for both the EU and the US to negotiate with Intel and/or Global Foundries for the purchase of 45nm, or perhaps 22nm facilities.

I know that AMD/Global Foundries had semiconductor fabs both in Dresden DE, and East Fishkill, NY. Intel's Chandler, AZ site might have an older fab that they might also be willing to sell.

We know that the US NSA has their own fab. An expansion of their management, over a buyout of East Fishkill or Chandler could guarantee 45nm production for the US automobile industry. Europe might feel the same about Dresden.

This is a big enough problem that government(s) could/should address.

exculpatory evidence

Checking google, it appears that U.S. criminal prosecution is required to share evidence with defense due to a law passed in 1963:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brady_rule

I don't know if the prosecution is required to share any requested evidence before extradition (I would think that Huawei council would have acted if so).

We also know from the Flynn proceedings that much exculpatory evidence was "misplaced" and not reported, which dims the hopes of a fair trial.

hardening-check

I know that the article specifically says that ASLR was defeated, but I wonder if these other compiler/linker mitigations prevent (some of) these vulnerabilities?

The "hardening-check" perl script is available from EPEL on redhat platforms. Here I use it to report mitigations in an old FWTK component that I use for an internal legacy system.

$ hardening-check /home/fwjail/usr/local/etc/ftp-gw

/home/fwjail/usr/local/etc/ftp-gw:

Position Independent Executable: yes

Stack protected: yes

Fortify Source functions: yes (some protected functions found)

Read-only relocations: yes

Immediate binding: yes

$ rpm -qi hardening-check | grep ^URL

URL : http://packages.debian.org/hardening-wrapper

Red Hat

Why not fork this one? It's under full support.

$ rpm -qi qt

Name : qt

Epoch : 1

Version : 4.8.7

Release : 9.el7_9

Architecture: x86_64

Install Date: Thu 12 Nov 2020 12:55:44 PM CST

Group : System Environment/Libraries

Size : 17895063

License : (LGPLv2 with exceptions or GPLv3 with exceptions) and ASL 2.0 and BSD and FTL and MIT

Signature : RSA/SHA256, Tue 10 Nov 2020 11:39:49 AM CST, Key ID 72f97b74ec551f03

Source RPM : qt-4.8.7-9.el7_9.src.rpm

Build Date : Tue 10 Nov 2020 11:32:07 AM CST

Build Host : jenkins-172-17-0-2-3664c536-7d7d-4ac4-8b0e-26767e19daa3.blddevtest1iad.osdevelopmeniad.oraclevcn.com

Relocations : (not relocatable)

Vendor : Oracle America

URL : http://qt-project.org/

Summary : Qt toolkit

Description :

Qt is a software toolkit for developing applications.

RHEL switch

I have only done this once, with RHEL v4 onto Oracle Linux. The switch just changed my update provider, and Oracle supported the previous OS packages that had been shipped by Red Hat.

Red Hat now has a script to convert an installed CentOS or Oracle Linux to RHEL; previously a wipe and reinstall was required ("have fun reinstalling your system" is still on Oracle's CentOS site). The description looks much more thorough in replacing all possible packages with Red Hat versions:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/2360841

I don't know of any other current repo conversion options for a CentOS install, but some will likely emerge (Rocky and Scientific Linux come to mind).

Oracle's CentOS notice, with (some) recent updates:

https://linux.oracle.com/switch/centos/

New CentOS conversion blog entry:

https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/reasons-for-switching-centos-to-oracle-linux

New repo conversion script, supposedly works with CentOS 8:

https://github.com/oracle/centos2ol

After conversion from CentOS to Oracle Linux, free updates are available indefinitely. For those who desire paid support, there are several (yearly) price tiers ($119; $499; $1,199; $1,399; $2,299). I will say that I've had more problems with Oracle support this year than ever before.

For those uncomfortable with "free" products from Oracle, bear this in mind: in the last two decades, Red Hat has terminated two Linux distributions, while Oracle has terminated none.

TPC

This is not actually true.

Prior to China, Oracle dominated the TPC-C benchmark with SPARC and 11g. Yes, SPARC.

"OceanBase" has put an end to that.

I don't speak Chinese, and I can't read the documentation. However, second-best is still what you have to use when you really, really need it.

http://tpc.org/tpcc/results/tpcc_advanced_sort5.asp?PRINTVER=false&FLTCOL1=ALL&ADDFILTERROW=&filterRowCount=1&SRTCOL1=c_tpmc&SRTDIR1=DESC&ADDSORTROW=&sortRowCount=1&DISPRES=100+PERCENT&include_withdrawn_results=none&include_historic_results=yes

btrfs-convert

Many are likely aware of "btrfs-convert - convert from ext2/3/4 or reiserfs filesystem to btrfs in-place."

I'm assuming that this is possible with the new Fedora release, but there are several important warnings, among them: "The conversion utilizes free space of the original filesystem. The exact estimate of the required space cannot be foretold. The final btrfs metadata might occupy several gigabytes on a hundreds-gigabyte filesystem."

2008 GnuTLS criticism.

This chatter has been going on for quite a long time.

https://www.openldap.org/lists/openldap-devel/200802/msg00072.html