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PREMIER 2003 VOL.1 ISSUE 1
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Inside...
What’s
THE LEADING MAGAZINE FOR ENTERPRISE AND IT MANAGEMENT
PREMIER 2003 VOL.1 ISSUE 1
[7]
From the Editor
Beyond the Hype
BY KEVIN BEDELL
[9]
Guest Editorial
‘Back from the Future’
BY ALAN WILLIAMSON
[16]
Separating the Wheat
from the Chaff
Evaluating a candidate’s skills
BY ROB JONES
[22]
Practical Methods for
Combatting Spam
Tackling the problem
of overflowing inboxes
BY DAVID F. SKOLL
[32]
Striking the Balance
Free software projects have
to find a reasonable balance
between business interests
and other interests
BY IAN LANCE TAYLOR
[34]
NetOp Remote
Control for Linux
Instant access to Linux machines
REVIEW BY TOM MONTGOMERY
[36]
Hyper-Threading Linux
HT performance gains make a strong
case for Linux
BY PAUL BEMOWSKI
[40]
Enterprise Management
for Linux Server
Consolidation
A holistic approach to migration
BY JAH’J UAN ROGERS
[10]
[44]
The Rise of Linux in the Enterprise
[46]
Big Gains in
Small Business
Linux provides a complete
solution for a growing
manufacturing company
BY MARKUS KLAUSER
Dominance is the forecast for coming years
A Talk with the
Father of sendmail
Eric Allman on evolution
in the IT universe
BY VINCE RE
INTERVIEW BY ALAN WILLIAMSON
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Linux Initiatives at IBM
Nobody ever got fired for picking...Linux?
An interview with Scott Handy
INTERVIEW BY KEVIN BEDELL
[54]
Making Linux
Unbreakable, Keeping
Linux Open
LWM speaks with Wim Coekaerts,
Oracle’s Linux liaison
INTERVIEW BY JEREMY GEELAN
[58]
Taking the Cost
Out of Firewalls
It pays to know your Linux
BY RAM SAMUDRALA
[60]
[70]
Linux Virtual Private
Networking Fundamentals
Choosing the right solution for your network
BY J.C. UTTER AND JOSH SNYDER
[64]
[66]
You’ve Come a
Long Way, Unix
A talk with Michael Robertson, CEO of Lindows.com
BY JAMES TURNER
INTERVIEW BY JAMES TURNER
Show Me the License
Buying open source software at
your company? Make sure you’ve
got the right license...
BY MIKE OLSON
[68]
Introducing the
Linux 2.6 Kernel
Technical improvements will
accelerate adoption
BY DAVE FULLER
[74]
Taking the Geek Out of Linux
Reflections on the rich history of Unix
Ensuring Availability of
Applications on Linux
[28]
[18]
Why Migrate to Linux?
A comprehensive solution
for enterprise IT BY GAËL DUVAL
The right solution for your business
– LWM
EXCLUSIVE–
INTERVIEW!
BY BOB WILLIAMSON
[87]
Cross-Platform
Integration
with X Windows
[78]
Creating a transparent mixed
environment for users
[96]
Introduction to the
Linux Desktop
BY HERMAN VERKADE
Who Owns Unix?
Around the LinuxWorld
An exclusive interview with esr
A look at Linux in the
Windows-centric enterprise
Brought to you by
Linux Business Week
INTERVIEW BY KEVIN BEDELL
BY MARK R. HINKLE
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PREMIER 2003
FROM THE EDITOR
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[INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD]
Wim Coekaerts, Director of Linux Engineering
Oracle
Gaël Duval, Cofounder/Director of Communication
MandrakeSoft
Samuel J. Greenblatt, Senior Vice President
and Chief Architect, Linux Technology Group
Computer Associates
Scott Handy, Director of Linux Software Solutions
IBM
Simon Phipps, Chief Software Evangelist
Sun Microsystems
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Editorial Director
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Beyond the Hype
Welcome, and thank you for
Have you been looking for a straight
head-to-head comparison of Windows
and Linux for use as a desktop operating
picking up LinuxWorld Magazine!
system? You should read “Introduction
to the Linux Desktop” by Mark Hinkle,
f you’re familiar with our sister
also in this issue. Mark does a great job
publications, including Java
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Developer’s Journal, .NET
screen shots and application notes.
Developer’s Journal, and
Mark is vice president of operations for
WebSphere Developer’s Journal,
BY KEVIN BEDELL
NeTraverse, a consulting company spethen you know the extremely
cializing in Windows-to-Linux migrahigh standards for content we strive
tions, and is on the Formation Board of the Desktop
for at SYS-CON Media. LWM will be no different.
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understand what’s happening in the Linux world.
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But really, our goal is more ambitious than that. It
source community. For example, in this issue
seems you can get information on Linux everywhere
AlanWilliamson (editor-in-chief of Java Developer’s
today – not a day goes by without more Linux news
hitting the wires and popping up on technology sites. Journal, and deputy editor of LWM) interviews Eric
Allman, the original developer of sendmail, the open
We don’t want to add to the noise. We want to rise
source e-mail processing application that dominates
above it and tell you what’s important. We want to
e-mail processing on the Internet. And in “Linux
help you learn how to maximize the impact of Linux.
Virtual Private Networking Fundamentals,” JC Utter,
So finding information on Linux is easy. But
president of ImageStream Internet Solutions, and Josh
finding value from Linux is harder. It requires you
Snyder, also of ImageStream, go over the pros and
to know which actions to take and, sometimes
cons of using Poptop, one of the most popular Linux
more important, when to take them. That’s where
VPN server solutions, which is fully open source and
LWM comes in. That’s the value we provide to you.
We talk to the industry experts. We have relation- free. Want to know when it makes sense to use Poptop
ships both high and deep inside the companies that and when it won’t meet your needs? JC and Josh lay it
all out to help you make an informed decision.
are changing the technology landscape using Linux.
What do all of these articles have in common?
For example, when Larry Ellison needed to know
They’re all written by experts and they all give
how Oracle Corporation could benefit from Linux,
he asked Wim Coekaerts to investigate for him. Wim you firsthand, practical information on what’s
really important.
now leads Oracle’s Linux technology group – and
Linux has arrived. It’s ready for prime time.
he’s here in the premier issue of LWM as well.
Think of us as your source of information on
IBM is getting into Linux in a big, industry-changwhat the real opportunities are, how to leverage
ing way. They run Linux on a whole range of hardthem, and how to manage the associated risks.
ware, from low-end workstations all the way up to the
Linux is poised for an explosion of growth in the
mainframe. They have an entire portfolio of applicanext 18–24 months – we’ll have the thought leadtions that run under Linux and literally thousands of
ers here, helping you make sense of it all.
software developers working on Linux. Scott Handy is
Thanks again for picking us up. Hang on for a
director of Linux Software Solutions for IBM and
wild ride!
when you hear IBM discussing Linux, it’s most likely
Scott doing the talking. If you’re interested in what
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Scott thinks are the low hanging fruit‚ projects with
A B O UT TH E A UTH O R
which companies can get started and realize great
returns using Linux, you need to check out our interKevin Bedell is editor-in-chief of LinuxWorld
view with Scott here in the premier issue of LWM.
Magazine. With a degree in engineering as well as an
Interested in why you should migrate to Linux?
MBA and years of experience as a developer, architect,
Why not get the word straight from Gaël Duval,
team lead, and department manager, Kevin has seen
creator of Mandrake Linux and cofounder of
all sides of this puzzle. He recently authored a book
MandrakeSoft? Gaël is a member of our International
on Jakarta Struts for SAMS Publishing and is working
Board of Advisors and authored the article “Why
on a book on Apache Axis for O’Reilly.
Migrate to Linux?” that appears in this issue.
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installed, happily sit there and keep
up with your office e-mail, act as an
Internet gateway/firewall, and even
out there, I turned to Linux when
provide some file sharing capabilities…all out of the box, without the
the deep-pocket budgets dried up.
need to install or purchase any additional software. It was an offering that
e could no longer afford the
was simply irresponsible to ignore.
big-iron alternatives of the
Naturally, at first the big irons of the
day that were traditionally
BY A L A N W I LLI A M S O N
world tried to ignore it, citing such
first on the shopping list.
reasons as scalability and redundancy.
There was a perception that if we
But if your office only had 50 users then such
were to be deploying server-side solutions, then
dreams of running eBay were just that: dreams.
we needed reliability and performance that
The whole notion of what a server is was comweren’t typically on offer from the PCs of the day.
pletely turned on its head.
This was back in the days when a “workstation”
Linux, with its simple message of “it just
was more than just a high-end PC (although if
works,” was proving that PCs weren’t the old
you looked at specifications of what the workstaunreliable machines that we were led to believe
tion actually was, you’d probably be chortling
they were. In fact, they were performing such an
right now).
admirable job, as Jonathan Schwartz at Sun comLinux was viewed as this “hobbyist” thing that
mented recently, that “uptime was measured in
only true hard-core geeks played with. No serious
business was done with it. Fast forward five years, years.”
There’s no denying that Linux has brought us
and how different the world looks now. The very
back from the future and saved the business
same big-iron companies we blindly followed,
community millions in terms of computing hardwith their promise of unbridled power and
ware. But Linux has matured along the way.
uptime, are now heralding Linux as the second
Moving to Linux no longer means you’re entrustcoming.
ing the company’s IT strategy to a summer stuSo what changed? What happened between
dent who happened to throw together a Red
then and now?
Hat/Debian server from some old PCs he found
Economics is, of course, a main driving force
in the cupboard.
in this change of heart. Big iron costs big bucks,
Quite the opposite. Approach the likes of IBM,
and with the general economic downturn comHP, and Sun and ask about their Linux offerings
panies could no longer afford to keep up-to-date
and you’ll be surprised at the prices they quote
with the continual cycle of upgrading their hardback at you – not only within your budget, but
ware. An alternative had to be sought. In addiwith support. Linux has been ready for the corpotion, developing countries such as India, Asia,
rate world for some time now, but like those
and Africa never had the big budgets in the first
colossal oil tankers that take a week to change
place – they were always left with the “seconds”
direction, the corporate world is finally beginning
of the western world, never really getting a
to take notice.
chance to catch up, let alone leapfrog ahead.
The journey has just begun; we are just getting
Yet, the desktop PCs that we happily threw out
warmed up!
every year had more than enough processing
power inside them. Sure, they struggled to make
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
Microsoft Windows usable, but as a raw processA B O UT TH E A UTH O R
ing power goes they were powerful. Linux managed to harness this power and bring it back into
When not answering your e-mails and working on
vogue. Linux was the trampoline that bounced
the next issue of LWM or JDJ, Alan heads up a small
the PCs from the dumpster back into the server
team dubbed the “Thunderbirds of the Java industry,”
room.
providing on- and offsite rescue for Java projects in
Your typical 2–3 year-old PC that you wouldn’t
trouble. For more information visit www.javaSOS.com.
dream of running with anything more demandYou can also read his blog: http://alan.blog-city.com.
ing than Windows 95/98 would, with Linux
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9
PREMIER 2003
FEATURE
The
Rise
of Linux
in the
Enterprise
Dominance is the forecast for coming years
PREMIER 2003
10
www.LinuxWorld.com
FEATURE
BY
V I N C E
R E
Given the rise and rise of Linux in the enterprise, LWM invites one of the giants
of the commercial computing world, Computer Associates, to sketch for us its “take”
on what the rest of 2003 has in store...
ver the past couple of
years, Linux has transitioned from the IT fringes
to the technology mainstream. With giants such
as IBM, HP/Compaq, and
Computer Associates (CA) now firmly on
the Linux bandwagon, Linux has surpassed
UNIX to move into the number-two position in terms of new server operating systems.
According to the latest research figures,
this rate of expansion will continue to
accelerate. Gartner predicts that the Linux
market will surpass $9 billion in revenue
within four years. International Data Corp
(IDC) concurs, anticipating a growth rate of
28.2% annually for Linux until 2006.
As the number of Linux applications
multiplies, its penetration into the corporate world continues to gather steam. Just a
few years ago, Linux enterprise involvement was restricted largely to services such
as file and print sharing or simple Web
serving. While these functions continue to
be important, Linux is increasingly being
utilized for enterprise-scale e-mail, firewalls, and database servers, and for a wide
range of network and network management services.
Linux is also up to date in the technical
sense, and it is playing a vital role within
organizations in the deployment of all sorts
of next-generation technology.
Organizations developing sophisticated
new applications based on emerging Web
services or grid computing standards are
finding Linux to be an ideal server platform. As these new technologies become
more commonplace, Linux stands to have
an increasingly important role.
Further, Linux has distinct scalability
and portability advantages compared to
other architectures. Applications developed
for Linux can scale from small Intel commodity boxes up to the largest mainframes
O
www.LinuxWorld.com
with very little effort. CA has validated this
with the ability to take applications originally developed for Linux on the Intel
architecture and have them run on mainframe Linux with very little effort. CA’s
experience – spanning millions of lines of
code and dozens of products – demonstrates that Linux is robust enough to provide the kind of portability across architectures that was only dreamt of in the past.
The scalability and low cost of creating
applications that function across multiple
architectures is an important advantage
that will help Linux continue to gain
strength in the server marketplace. Instead
of making platform-hosting decisions
based on the relatively small “sweet spot”
offered by a single platform and architecture, Linux makes it possible to mix and
match according to the needs of the organization. Companies can pick the platform –
from Intel boxes up to mainframe – based
on the number of users, as well as
price/performance, market conditions, reliability, and security issues.
An example of this at CA is an important
in-house HR application that operates
using an Ingres relational database. For 10
months of the year, it is hosted on a medium-sized Sun server that copes well with
routine demands. But with 16,000 employees worldwide, enormous traffic is generated during the annual performance review
cycle. During that period, CA moves the
backing Ingres database to a mainframe
Linux environment to handle the peak
load. Except for improved response times,
users are generally unaware of the difference, and CA doesn’t have to dedicate otherwise unused capacity to the application
year-round.
Mainframe Linux
Without a doubt, enterprise Linux
deployments to date have paralleled the
ascendancy of commodity Intel server
11
boxes. The rise of the Internet and the
sweeping adoption of distributed applications over the past decade have generated
an explosion in the number of servers IT
must manage. Due to its sheer cost effectiveness, Linux has successfully invaded
this market and is steadily rising to dominance within it.
The rapid increase in distributed servers
seemed more attractive than a centralized
mainframe-based computing model – at
first. But in some organizations, server proliferation has begun to spin out of control.
These days, it’s quite common for organizations to be running hundreds or thousands
of Intel and UNIX servers, many of them
single-application boxes. It’s also common
for companies to have no idea exactly how
many servers they have, or what applications rely on which combinations of servers.
This proliferation of commodity servers
has proven far more costly than many previously predicted. Though smaller, scaledout systems are less expensive than mainframes, IT needs many more of them to
support the business. That translates into
high costs, more exposure to potential
security breaches, and a greater management burden.
In response, server consolidation continues to blossom. Gartner says 70% of its
enterprise clients are now trying to consolidate, compared to only 33% three years
ago. Many of these consolidation projects
involve Linux, and vendors like IBM and CA
are heavily involved in the process.
A B O UT
TH E
A UTH O R
Vince Re is chief architect and a technology
strategist in the office of the CTO at Computer
Associates (CA). With extensive experience in
the areas of mainframe and Linux systems
management applications, he works closely
with CA’s technology groups. He has been
responsible for much of CA’s middleware and
common services infrastructure, and recently,
many of CA’s Linux initiatives on the mainframe. Vince holds a bachelor’s degree in
physics and a master’s degree in computer science from the Stevens Institute of Technology.
For more information, go to www.ca.com.
[email protected]
PREMIER 2003
FEATURE
It is possible, for example, to consolidate
UNIX and Linux servers onto a mainframe
such as the IBM zSeries. Under this model,
you can transform a single mainframe into
hundreds of virtual servers, each running
individual copies of Linux.
One midwest hospital chain, for example, had 40 small Intel servers hosting email, Web server, directory, and various
health care applications. It consolidated
them onto one IBM eServer z900 running
multiple instances of Linux. Its health care
claim-processing system originally
spanned multiple servers. As the amount
of claims on this system grew from $800
million to almost $6 billion over four
years, it became a constant source of trouble for IT. It took integration onto the
mainframe/Linux environment to bring
about the needed improvements in efficiency. That organization now processes
350,000 claims daily – 12 per second. The
IT manager reports that he can create a
new virtual server in two minutes compared to a day or more per server for Intel
boxes. Other advantages cited include a
50% cost reduction per server, a performance increase of 3 to 1, and a mean time to
failure that’s gone from 6 years to more
than 30 years.
With the successful integration of so
many infrastructure servers, the hospital
chain is currently involved in the next step
– application integration. This includes a
PeopleSoft migration as well as database
consolidation from SQL Server to IBM’s
DB2 Universal Database. Once again, Linux
is the operating system of choice.
While the mainframe Linux model may
not be right for every situation, it is certainly growing in popularity in the enterprise.
So when does consolidation make the most
sense?
Slim. Fast.
Tim Dougherty, IBM eServer director, blade
server strategy, displays IBM’s “blade,” the
thinnest computer server in IBM’s four
decades of manufacturing computers. Almost
the size of a clipboard, one blade packs more
computing muscle than a room full of IBM
servers from ten years ago.
SOURCE: HTTP://WWW.IBM.COM
• When multiple distributed infrastructure
servers need to handle tasks such as file
and print, Web, and e-mail
• When consolidation of multiple databases is needed
• When there is a need to manage more
with limited resources
• When there are sites with excess mainframe capacity
• When application peak traffic periods
are complementary
• When scalability and performance needs
are extreme
• When applications can benefit from close
proximity to existing mainframe data
• When more space is needed in the data center or where environmental costs are high
• When the volume of distributed servers
becomes too great to keep up with routine maintenance, updates, etc.
Obviously, each platform has its own
sweet spot in terms of the number of users
“the market for blade servers
will rise to $3.7 billion in 2006,
from $133 million this year...
In all likelihood, Linux will
become the preferred OS”
PREMIER 2003
12
it can comfortably support and the amount
of complexity it can manage. It wouldn’t
make sense to host one small application
on a mainframe or to attempt to cobble
together a huge application on a few distributed Intel boxes. Therefore, it is up to IT
to mix and match according to needs. But
clearly, mainframe Linux has a major role
to play as the server consolidation trend
takes hold. And as the platform has roughly
the same management costs on Intel as it
does on mainframe, look for Linux to
become the OS of choice in server consolidation projects over the coming years.
Blade Server Linux
Another form of consolidation that has
Linux in the forefront is blade servers.
Instead of moving from commodity boxes
to the mainframe, though, blade servers
house multiple boards on one chassis,
thereby cutting the power, cooling, and
hardware costs of computing. IBM, Intel,
Dell, and HP, to name a few, are investing
heavily in blade servers.
Market research firm IDC forecasts the
market for blade servers will rise to $3.7 billion in 2006, from $133 million this year. In
all likelihood, Linux will become the preferred OS. HP, for example, launched a
range of blade server offerings based on
Linux. Because Linux is lightweight, has
lower memory requirements, and makes
better use of CPU power than alternative
operating systems, it is ideal for blade
servers, which require flexibility and scalability due to heat restrictions.
AOL, for instance, recently announced
that it is testing blade servers with a view to
widespread adoption. With an average of 2.5
million subscribers active on AOL at any
www.LinuxWorld.com
FEATURE
given time, its 800 RISC-based UNIX servers
are kept busy managing log-ons and username and password verifications, as well as
parental-control activations. As many of these
servers are coming up for retirement, blade
servers running Linux are likely to take over
as a more efficient way to handle the load. So
far, AOL has installed 56 IBM BladeCenter
servers. These have 14 “server-on-a-board”
systems per chassis. Each runs Red Hat Linux
7.3. Once the pilot demonstrates the cost,
scalability, and performance advantages
anticipated, AOL will replace all 800 UNIX
systems with Linux-based blade servers.
Desktop Linux
For many years, analysts have
announced Linux as the rising force in the
server marketplace. With mainframe and
blade server Linux systems now adding to
the established trend of widespread Linux
adoption on commodity Intel boxes, that
prediction has come true even more forcefully than many expected. Those same analysts, however, have always maintained that
Linux would never become a major player
on the desktop – until recently.
Over the past six months, in fact, there
has been a significant shift in the willingness of enterprises to investigate the largescale commercial usage of Linux-based
PCs. Faced with harsher economic times,
many businesses are rethinking their
approach to the desktop and have become
amenable to new strategies.
Many modern business applications,
after all, are browser based. Rather than a
high-powered and expensive desktop loaded
with proprietary software, some are evaluating a thin-client desktop model based on
open source elements. As desktops come up
for replacement, some companies are looking to cut costs. Instead of buying the latest
desktop hardware/software, they see the
value of harnessing Linux to gain several
more years of use out of existing hardware.
Companies like Merrill Lynch, for example, are looking into this approach as
reported widely in the media. Since Merrill
Lynch began working with open source
software, it has significantly reduced hardware and software costs. Currently the company is investigating Linux on the desktop
with the initial goal of 20% of its desktops
using open source products.
Embedded Linux
In the area of embedded applications,
Linux has risen to prominence with a minimum of fanfare. As these systems are largely invisible to users, they receive scant
www.LinuxWorld.com
attention in the media. Yet here, too, Linux
has quietly conquered the market.
Embedded Linux involves porting the Linux
kernel to run on a particular CPU and board,
which will be put into an embedded device. For
the most part, the APIs and kernel are the same
for embedded Linux as for desktop Linux.
Many of today’s common computer
devices, such as wireless hardware, routers,
switches, and other networking hardware,
all use Linux to run embedded systems.
High-profile consumer devices like the
Sony PlayStation and TiVo utilize Linuxbased embedded systems. A number of
major automakers such as DaimlerChrysler,
BMW, and Ford are also using Linux in electronic products. Why? Instead of designing
application-specific hardware, these
automakers are now beginning to get
behind cross-industry standardization
using a Linux kernel to plug any device into
it. The cost advantages could be staggering.
BMW, for instance, has developed a wireless environment to collect serviceability data
on each vehicle, which can be relayed to the
dealer. Once that system is up and running,
the dealer can monitor the smooth operation
of sold vehicles. The dealer can then tell a driver to bring the car in for a check-up based on
performance criteria falling outside preset
thresholds. Interestingly, such systems open up
a whole new area of risk management and
security, which CA is helping to resolve. Before
you relay any vehicle data wirelessly, you have
to ensure user privacy and overall system security. Only when that is well in hand will it be
possible to broadly use such a system, or introduce innovative approaches to vehicle security
such as biometrics, i.e., validating user IDs in
order to start a car with a thumb scan.
Linux and Grid Computing
Yet another area of the IT landscape being
successfully invaded by Linux is grid computing. Simply put, grid computing technology enables access to applications and data,
processing power, storage capacity, and a
vast array of other computing resources. It
involves clusters of servers that are joined
together over the Internet and uses standard
protocols, and it is increasingly harnessing
open technologies such as Linux.
Among other things, grid computing allows:
• Coordination in or between physically
dispersed virtual organizations.
• Availability of computers, data, software,
storage, and other resources.
• Controlled access by resource providers
and consumers, which defines who can
share, what is shared, and which conditions allow sharing.
13
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FEATURE
Linux Creates Reorganization at CA
In the mid to late ’90s CA decided it was worth placing a strategic bet on Linux based
on early customer adaptors. For most of its 27-year history, CA has concentrated on the
development of products that break down the barriers between different platforms – either
to manage the heterogeneous enterprise or to act as middleware between complex systems.
CA products support everything from IBM mainframes running z/OS and OS/390 down to
PDAs running Pocket Windows. In keeping with this tradition, CA is now firmly behind Linux
with over 60 CA Linux applications now available for the distributed and mainframe environment.
What initially caught CA’s attention was the fact that a range of efficient tools didn’t adequately support Linux. In particular, Linux servers didn’t integrate well in an enterprise environment with equipment running on other platforms. With more and more clients deploying
Linux, it was up to us to come up with the software.
CA released its first Linux products in
April 1999, management agents for the
Unicenter TNG management package, to be
followed up later that year with the complete network and systems management
package. Since then, CA has steadily continued to port products over to the Linux platform. Each is compatible with popular versions of the Caldera, Red Hat, SuSE, and
TurboLinux versions of the Linux operating
system.
For enterprise management, CA offers
modules for Unicenter covering service-level
management, job scheduling, Web server,
WebSphere, and cluster server management as
well as network and systems management for
devices, applications, and databases running
on Linux. The BrightStor storage management
line also has products specifically designed to
back up and restore Linux systems, and CA
enterprise back-up software supports Linux in
a heterogeneous environment.
In addition, CA offers a variety of security management applications covering virus
protection, policy compliance, security monitoring, and access control either in a Linux
environment or for Linux boxes operating in
a mixed environment.
To support this major investment in Linux, CA has established a dedicated Linux Technology
Group that spans all of its major brands:
1. Enterprise management (Unicenter)
2. Storage (BrightStor)
3. Security (eTrust)
4. Portal and business intelligence (CleverPath)
5. Database management and application development (Advantage/Jasmine)
6. Software life cycle management (AllFusion)
Rather than being one product group within the company as a whole, the Linux team operates at a strategic level. This has resulted in the formalization of CA’s Linux efforts and the
integration of the operating system into all of CA’s product lines.
The Linux Technology Group has three main aims: greater optimization of Linux in terms of
reliability, availability, and performance; securing and preserving data, applications, and systems to minimize risk; and integration of Linux into the cross-platform environment in order to
allow seamless integration with the heterogeneous nature of the modern enterprise.
The interoperability of this network
transforms the grid of servers into a single, large virtual computer for the end
user. How this model will evolve remains
to be seen. It may eventually morph into
an entirely new computing platform, or it
could grow into an alternative to today’s
lower-level platforms. Whatever happens,
though, Linux is already widely used in
this development and will lead the way.
Already, IBM and Ford have invested
heavily in the development of economical
commercial uses for grids, and CA is
working to provide the management
framework that viable grid computing
demands.
Perception Trouble
While gazing into the crystal ball is
never an easy proposition, it seems certain
that Linux will continue to steadily increase
its market share in the server, desktop, and
embedded marketplaces. It remains to be
seen whether Linux will rise to the occasion
and defeat Microsoft in the desktop marketplace, but its dominance in the server
space is assured.
Why? The tide appears to have turned
with regard to corporate perception of
Linux. Up until about two years ago, most
executives were reticent toward Linux.
Their apprehensiveness was routed in
ongoing support and security concerns
about the open source movement as a
whole. Some feared that any hacker out
there could gain access to Linux systems
and that they were better protected using
proprietary systems. But as the recent spate
of security and virus alerts has demonstrated, proprietary software is, if anything,
more open to attack that open source products.
More and more these days, CTOs are
vocalizing that once they become familiar
with the open source model and experience
how it works, they realize that more eyes on
the source code means greater security in
the long run. The bottom line is that more
people are actively looking out for the security of your systems.
That’s why Linux is experiencing more
interest from clients than ever before. In
2001, Linux came up less than 10% of the
time during client interviews. Today, it
comes up two-thirds of the time. That percentage is increasing markedly from month
to month, and it seems only a matter of time
before every major software and hardware
vendor is forced to adopt a full-blown Linux
strategy in order to remain competitive.
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
PREMIER 2003
14
www.LinuxWorld.com
The
WE MAKE LINUX
5 TIMES
FASTER
storage sof t ware company.
FACT: Performance tests show VERITAS makes Linux five times faster. Ever seen a penguin fly?
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Copyright © 2003 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, the VERITAS Logo and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered
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LINUX CAREERS
Separating the Wheat
from the Chaff
Evaluating a candidate’s skills
BY
Welcome to my first LinuxWorld Magazine column. Some credentials are in order:
R O B
J O N E S
Rob Jones is the president of Glacier
Technology Services, an IT recruiting
firm based in Savannah, GA.
[email protected]
looking for candidates who can do the job.
We want to know that they are qualified
and can immediately be productive members of the company. With reduced company resources, making the correct hire is
now more important than ever.
With Linux/open source technologies,
you have the advantage of being able to look
at candidates’ résumés and get an insight
into their experience, even before you
pick up the phone and interview
them. No, we have not developed a
crystal ball that can see into a candidate’s background and ascertain his
or her skills. But with some
research on your part, you can
quickly identify experienced
candidates.
Experience with
open source projects
and participation in
LUGs or Linux User
Groups are two key items to
look for. These are not the only
things to look for on a Linux/open
source résumé, but they are items you can
use if you understand their meaning.
Open source projects are usually community-based initiatives. Individuals contribute
their time and energy to further Linux adoption. Candidates usually work on the projects
for no compensation, just a desire to learn
and contribute. That sounds noble, but one
of the biggest reasons for this was that the
developer wanted Linux to work on a particular product, and at the time there was no
formal Linux support provided. So enterpris-
ing developers just did it on their own, which
I think is amazing and one benefit of the
open source development platform.
For a candidate to have demonstrated
skills that can be verified is a huge asset
when reviewing résumés. Hiring managers
want to see an individual with experience
programming in C and a storage-related
skill set; managers can go to the Web site of
a relevant open source project and review
the work of that candidate to determine if
he or she has the desired skill set.
Since open source projects for the most
part are community based, the development
work has been reviewed by many different
individuals. The code is widely scrutinized
before it’s included in the project. The quality of experience that developers gain from
this exposure is hard to quantify. For
someone working on a driver, it takes
quite a bit of work to get that driver
included in the official kernel
tree. You can be sure, as the
hiring manager, that when
candidates have had their
work accepted into the
official tree, they have
experience that is documented and measurable.
Keep in mind that it’s
not only developers who
participate in open source projects. Many projects have large teams. So
a candidate could gain skills with project
management, QA/testing, as well as enduser support and documentation. Wouldn’t
it be great to be looking for a Linux system
administrator who has been testing the
very technology that you are implementing
at your organization. Talk about on-the-job
training! You can feel comfortable that the
candidate has the technology skill set, as
well as hands-on experience with technology used in many different environments.
Recently, more corporations have been
PREMIER 2003
16
www.LinuxWorld.com
I am the president of Glacier Technology Services, an IT recruiting firm based in
Savannah, Georgia. In March of 2000, we formed a division called HotLinuxJobs that
focuses on recruiting Linux and open source candidates on a nationwide basis.
his column will focus on different
aspects of recruiting and certification within Linux. It will offer
advice on the different Linux certifications and which ones would be
the best for your employees to
have, as well as guidelines on recruiting the
best candidates. This month’s column
focuses on résumés and how to recognize
the best candidates.
Some quick history you should be aware
of: Linux/open source may be new to your
company, but it’s not a new technology. The
Linux kernel has been around since 1991, and
many individuals have dedicated their careers
to its development. One of the first things to
understand is that Linux is a community
effort and the deep commitment of its developers is the reason behind its rapid adoption.
Without the community, there would be no
Linux. Since the average turnover costs 1.5
times the annual salary in lost productivity,
recruiting costs, and general turmoil, you
need to do everything you can to optimize
your chances of picking the best player.
Assuming your company is implementing Linux/open source technologies, your
job is to find experienced candidates.
Reviewing Linux/open source résumés for
quality is no different than reviewing
résumés for other IT positions. We are all
T
A B O UT
TH E
A UTH O R
www.linuxworld.com
LINUX CAREERS
sponsoring projects. Many of the larger
technology companies that we are all familiar with (IBM, HP, and Intel, just to name a
few) have numerous employees within
their organizations who are actively
involved with open source projects. The
companies understand the return that
working on open source projects can bring.
Their employees have an invaluable insight
into developing technologies, as well as the
experience from working on the projects.
The following scenario demonstrates the
important potential of one’s involvement in
open source projects. An electronics company located in San Jose was looking for a software engineer who had experience with certain graphics and video drivers. As we began
our search, we were flooded with résumés
from individuals interested in this job. While
sorting through them, we came across a
candidate who could have easily been overlooked. Here was an applicant in his senior
year of college with minimal work experience. Fortunately for us, however, a section
of his résumé was dedicated to the open
source projects he had engaged in. To our
surprise, he was the maintainer for one of
the specific drivers we were looking for. For
those who are not aware of what a “maintainer” is in the open source world, it’s the
person who oversees that particular project.
This experience solidified his qualifications for the job. We knew that by having
his code scrutinized by other open source
developers and accepted, he had the necessary skill set we were looking for. As a
result, he is presently a member of that
company’s engineering team.
Another area for hiring managers to look
for on a candidate’s résumé is participation
in a Linux User Group or LUG. LUGs are
usually named for a city or region. There are
user groups for other IT disciplines, but it
seems that LUGs offer and provide quite a
bit of experience to potential candidates.
LUGs provide great support and resources
for problems or questions with Linux/open
source technologies. The questions on LUG
mailing lists range from the simple to the
extremely complicated involving multiple emails and opinions. You can see if a candidate is very active and if he or she is answering all types of support questions. This is
another way a community resource can be
used to judge a candidate’s experience level.
The benefit a corporation may gain
from hiring someone who is heavily
www.LinuxWorld.com
involved with his or her local LUG can be
expressed through the following example. A
manufacturer in the midwest was looking
for a Linux system administrator to take
care of its growing network. As a result of
its search, the company decided to hire an
individual who happened to be the president of his local LUG. With this great support network at his fingertips, he was able
to solve some pressing issues with the organization’s network through the support of
his fellow open source comrades.
Essentially, this company gained more
than it could ever have imagined. Not only
did they hire a very competent system
administrator, but also one with a support
network that could not be matched. The
end result is a company that is experiencing
an unprecedented decrease in downtime.
Open source projects and LUGs are two
Linux community entities that give you, the
hiring manager, additional tools for evaluating a candidate’s skills. While a candidate
who has not been involved in either open
source projects or a LUG may still be qualified, these types of experiences can make
for a more rounded candidate with better
access to solutions for your firm.
Next
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COMPLETE CONFERENCE
AND EXPO COVERAGE
Conclusion
The world of open source has changed the
landscape of recruiting technology professionals. The ability of individuals to engage in
open source projects, or the realization of the
benefits gained by being a member of a local
LUG, are key items that cannot be overlooked
by corporations when reviewing applicants’
backgrounds. Companies are always looking
for ways to determine the competence of new
employees, whether through skills tests or
obtaining a sample of code they have written.
Rest assured, there is not a tougher test that
can be administered to an individual than the
process of becoming an accepted member of
the open source developer community. This
will go a long way in determining the caliber
of the person you are looking to hire.
LU
EXC
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AUG. 4-7 • SAN FRANCISCO, CA
STRATEGY...
The Linux Desktop: The Second Wave of Linux
______________
DR. MIGRATION COLUMN...
Linux Alternatives to the Windows Server
______________
LINUX BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY...
SMB Delightful Deliveries Makes the Move to Linux
______________
FEATURE...
Linux Adoption in the Health Care Industry
______________
VENTURE CAPITAL...
Disclaimer
There are plenty of qualified individuals
who don’t engage in open source projects
and/or are not members of their local LUG.
The purpose of this column is to identify
additional resources that are available to
corporations based upon the open source
development model.
The Economics of Linux: New Opportunities
______________
INTERVIEWS...
Kevin Bedell talks with Dave Dargo,
vice president of Oracle’s Linux Program Offices
and
Stormy Peters, open source program manager
of HP’s Linux & Open Source Lab
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
17
The World’s Leading i-Technology Publisher
Why
Migrate
COVER STORY
Migrate
Linux?
to
A comprehensive
solution for enterprise IT
PREMIER 2003
18
www.LinuxWorld.com
COVER STORY
BY
..
G A E L
D U VA L
The world offers a number of computer operating systems; in fact, they’ve never
been so abundant. Big names like Apple’s Mac OS and Microsoft’s Windows have been
dominant for a long time, but there is an important emerging operating system
called Linux. After the initial hype of 3–4 years ago, Linux is spreading like wildfire
across the globe, silently yet successfully.
ne of the most important
aspects of Linux is the
huge community of
developers working on it.
This incredible development force is made possible by the concept of open source, or free
software, which allows thousands of highly
skilled developers throughout the world to
create and build software quickly and efficiently.
As a result, Linux has quickly become
one of the most promising operating systems available. Not only has Linux proven its
superiority in the server field as a robust and
efficient system, it has also greatly matured
as a full-featured desktop alternative. So why
are more and more users – individuals and
corporations – using these strange free software products instead of traditional equivalents from the proprietary world?
First of all, Linux is valued as a high-performance operating system due to its modular nature – entire portions of the operating system can be easily added or removed
to greatly affect performance. Additionally,
Linux now supports most PC hardware
devices, including even the “latest and
greatest” products. Linux’s extensive range
of features has increased dramatically over
the past few years. Linux is certainly not a
computer hobbyist’s plaything anymore; it’s
becoming more and more difficult to find
areas that it cannot handle. Finally, the
commercial offerings based around Linux
have dramatically improved, including certification, training, support, and deployment of complex solutions.
Another key advantage of Linux is that it
includes only open technologies based on
public standards (when available). This
means that Linux is always a smart choice
because the included technology is very
likely to already be a standard in the IT
world – technology that is compatible and
interoperable with other operating systems.
With Linux, you will never become a prisoner of technology as often happens in the
Windows and Macintosh worlds.
For example, with Linux it’s very easy to
communicate over a network with just about
any other computer platform, with various
protocols, such as for exchanging data files.
Even in the office productivity field Linux is
rapidly gaining superiority with its
OpenOffice and KOffice office suites, which
understand a number of different office file
formats, including MS Office documents.
On the other hand, the way that Linux
and its applications are developed and produced ensures that it’s very perennial
because in the free software world, even if a
software project is abandoned by its original
authors, there is always someone, or even a
new team of developers, willing to maintain
and release new versions of the software.
Another distinctive advantage of Linux
and free software applications, maybe the
most important, is that software is designed
and created for users by users. In the traditional software industry, new features are
introduced by a software company solely
because the company thinks it will be a
good idea, perhaps as the result of a marketing survey. In the Linux world, the
approach is totally different: users request
new features and free software developers
implement them. The resulting products
and features answer real needs, which is
really the purpose of designing and building software in the first place.
In other words, in the Linux world, software makers don’t decide what the users
need. Users decide.
www.LinuxWorld.com
19
O
Not Just an Operating System
Linux is widely regarded as an operating
system – specialized software that can run
various hardware devices attached to a PC,
with an interface so the user can take
advantage of those peripherals. But with
Linux, you not only receive a basic operating system. A full Linux system is usually
offered as a “Linux distribution,” such as
Mandrake Linux, on a number of CD-ROMs
that include a wide assortment of many of
the best applications available for the operating system.
This comprehensive collection of software is selected, tested, and integrated into
the Linux distribution by Linux vendors;
the result is a fully customizable multipurpose IT system.
So what does this mean to a computer
user? Normally, after installing a traditional
operating system on a computer, you can
do...well, not much, really. You can use
some simple utilities, play a few games that
come with the system, and, on recent systems, connect to the Net and browse the
Web. But if you plan to do something really
useful for your business or for your personal needs, you’ll first have to locate and purchase all the software packages needed for
each task.
Now take a look at a modern Linux system. Not only are you provided with a comprehensive collection of Internet utilities
such as Web browsers, graphical FTP
clients, e-mail readers, chat programs, and
so on, but the system also includes just
about everything you’ll ever need for office
tasks, such as a complete office suite, calendar applications, project managers,
finance applications, and much more.
Do you need to modify and create
graphics? No problem! You’ve also got a
A B O UT
TH E
A UTH O R
Gaël Duval has been a Linux activist since
he discovered Linux in 1995. He released the
first version of Mandrake Linux in summer
1998 with the goal of making Linux easier to
use. He cofounded MandrakeSoft in late 1998
and is currently the director of communication
at MandrakeSoft, among other tasks.
[email protected]
PREMIER 2003
COVER STORY
first-class, full-featured image manipulation program plus a 3-D modeler. Need to
burn CD-Rs or DVD-Rs? Easy-to-use graphical applications for these tasks and more
are also included.
Linux also excels in the server area: all of
the most common and powerful Internet
services are yours. Run your own DNS server, file and print server, and FTP server. Not
enough? Then run your own Internet Web
server, e-mail server, a SQL database, and
so on. It’s all in there. These are not small
basic applications, but “real deal”
applications that power most Internet Web
sites and related services.
Last but not least: What is the cost of
development tools under Windows? Often
very expensive. But extremely powerful
development tools – including various programming and scripting languages, toolkits,
and integrated development environments
– are all standard in a Linux distribution.
And of course, all the related documentation is provided, often in a number of different languages.
Yes, all this and much more is included
in a $60 Linux pack. As a result, comparing
the price of Linux with Windows doesn’t
make much sense unless you consider the
price of all the extra applications that you
will need with Windows and other operating systems.
porate environment. The existing network
infrastructure benefits greatly after being
migrated to Linux. Authentication and
security services, DHCP servers, print
servers, Internet gateways – all of these can
be switched safely and easily.
Additionally, intranet and Internet
servers such as Web servers and database
servers will benefit greatly from a migration
that results in added stability, fewer bugs,
and extended uptime.
As for migrating desktops to Linux, this
is a new area that needs to be addressed
more carefully because experience in this
field has not been as extensive as in the
server area. Linux is certainly mature
enough to replace Windows efficiently and
safely on the desktop, but resistance can
arise from users who will need to learn
something slightly different from what
they’re used to. Fortunately, the jump is
much less dramatic than it was when
switching from MS-DOS to Windows, or
even from Mac OS to Windows!
In the desktop area, it’s important to
think about which applications must run
on the workstations, because it’s not yet
possible to find a Linux equivalent for
each and every Windows application.
Nevertheless, solutions do exist to resolve
these issues, including emulators for
Windows applications or using a dual-
“So is Linux good enough
to win the OS war?
Absolutely, if you
consider only its price”
Migrating to Linux:
Why and How
More and more companies are migrating parts or all of their infrastructure to
Linux. They need a system that is more efficient, more flexible, more open, more
robust, and more customizable. In these
challenging economic times, businesses
also need to reduce their total cost of ownership. Linux is certainly the best solution
for all of the reasons stated above, and
more.
At the same time, it’s important to consider what exactly can be migrated in a cor-
boot method. Emulation software can be
used to run a complete Windows system
under Linux or for running individual
Windows applications. The dual-boot
method allows users to have Linux and
Windows installed on the same machine,
but the PC must be rebooted to switch
between operating systems, which
requires added time.
Before migrating to Linux, it’s also
important to list all of your computer hardware and make sure it’s supported.
Unsupported hardware is becoming less
common under Linux, but it does still hap-
PREMIER 2003
20
pen, especially in specialized areas such as
professional sound production.
It’s often easier to migrate to Linux in
several steps. One technique is to begin
with the network infrastructure, then the
servers, and finally the desktops. In all
cases, it’s important to ensure that a good
level of knowledge is available within the
company, especially if the information system teams are deeply rooted with Microsoft
proprietary technologies. Getting in touch
with a Linux service provider for support
and assistance is also a good idea when
considering a migration.
Migrating to Linux is certainly the best
option for reducing the total cost of ownership of an information system because of
suppression of most licensing costs and
reduction of costs related to system administration – a Linux-based environment will
need few administrators compared to other
systems. It’s also the best solution for
increasing the efficiency and the stability of
the whole infrastructure.
And the Winner Is...
For years analysts have been predicting that
Linux would never gain on Windows, that
Linux would rise and fall, that Linux is just
hype. But very few of them (apart from “evangelists” in the Linux world) predicted that Linux
and open source would continue to grow, first
in the server area and now in the desktop area.
The reality is that many new companies
and individuals continue to jump onto the
Linux wagon every day. If it keeps going at
this pace, you have to wonder: Which operating system will win in the end?
Although this question may sound a bit
ridiculous, it’s interesting to think about the
“good enough software” concept. “Good
enough software” refers to a product that is
far from perfect but can do, more or less,
what it’s been designed for. With the consideration of other factors such as price,
this good enough software often gains more
success than equivalent or better software.
For instance, MS-DOS was chosen by IBM
for its PCs in the early ’80s over other alternatives not because it was the best available operating system, but because it was
the cheapest. On the other hand, in the
early ’90s the NextStep operating system
was considered to be one of the best modern operating systems available, but it died
prematurely because it was too expensive.
So is Linux good enough to win the OS
war? Absolutely, if you consider only its
price. But Linux is, without a doubt, much
better than “good enough”!
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
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Practical Methods for
Combatting Spam
Tackling the problem of overflowing inboxes
In the last year or so, unsolicited bulk e-mail, more affectionately known as
“spam,” has made headlines and angered, irritated, and frustrated millions of e-mail
users. It’s even having a significant impact on the infrastructure of the Internet; AOL
reports it blocks approximately 1 billion spam e-mails per day. Such a high volume
consumes considerable resources.
As founder and president of Roaring Penguin
Software, Inc., David Skoll applies his experience in custom software development, network
design/security, Web, e-mail, and FTP server
configuration to solving the networking, systems, and software tools challenges of enterprises. David is the developer of MIMEDefang
and creator of rp-pppoe, a PPPoE implementation for Linux that is deployed across Linux
servers and clients worldwide. Most recently, he
developed and now offers CanIt, an industryleading anti-spam solution for enterprises.
[email protected]
Outlook, Pine, or whatever program Alice
uses to create and send e-mail. Alice composes her e-mail and then clicks “Send.”
Alice’s MUA contacts her service
provider’s SMTP server. SMTP (Simple
Mail Transfer Protocol) is the agreedupon “language” for transferring
mail across the Internet. Alice’s
MUA tells the SMTP server
who is sending the e-mail
and who the recipients are
(in general, there can be
many recipients). It then
sends the message header
and bodies. Once the SMTP
server has collected the
message and agreed to
transfer it to the final destination, Alice’s MUA reports successful
transmission.
The SMTP server stores the message on
disk and attempts to send it to its final destination. If Bob is across the country and
uses a different ISP, Alice’s ISP’s server
determines which server handles mail for
Bob’s domain. It looks up this information
in the Domain Name System (DNS). DNS is
a large, decentralized database that maps
machine names (like www.roaringpen
guin.com) to IP addresses (like
216.191.236.23). DNS also tells mail servers
where to send mail for a given domain.
Alice’s ISP’s SMTP server connects to
another SMTP server and transmits the
message, much as Alice’s e-mail program
PREMIER 2003
22
his article will describe how
spammers can get away with
spamming, why spam is such a
problem, and why it’s likely to
remain a problem for quite a
while. However, it’s not all bad
news; I’ll give you concrete tips for reducing spam and lowering the cost of spam to
your organization. As an added benefit,
some of the techniques serve to increase
spammers’ costs.
T
How Internet E-Mail Works
To understand spam, we first have to
understand how e-mail flows across the
Internet. Suppose Alice wants to e-mail
Bob; Figure 1 shows how it might work.
Alice sits down at her computer and
starts her Mail User Agent (MUA). This is
simply the technical term for Evolution,
A B O UT
TH E
A UTH O R
D AV I D
F.
S KO L L
did in the first place. The server may contact the final SMTP server responsible for
Bob’s e-mail directly, or there may be a
series of servers that relay the message. The
exact path taken by the mail depends on
Bob’s ISP, and to some extent on conditions
on the Internet at the time. For example, if
Bob’s ISP’s main SMTP server has crashed,
mail may be temporarily routed to an alternate server. Alternatively, Alice’s ISP’s server
may hold on to the mail and retry transmission periodically.
Eventually, Alice’s message arrives at the
final server that holds Bob’s mail. The mail
stays there until Bob connects
to retrieve it. When Bob
clicks on “Check for New
Mail” in his MUA, the
MUA contacts Bob’s ISP’s
server and downloads
mail. Rather than using
SMTP, this final download usually uses a protocol called Post Office
Protocol 3 (POP3) or
Internet Message
Access Protocol
(IMAP). Regardless, once
the mail is safely on Bob’s computer,
it is usually deleted from the ISP’s server.
How Spammers Exploit
Internet E-Mail
When SMTP was designed some 21 years
ago, it met the design goals admirably – it
was a simple, easy-to-implement, reliable
mechanism for getting mail from Alice to
Bob. Understandably, of course, it did not
meet goals which weren’t important 21
years ago, but have become very important
today. SMTP suffers from the following
shortcomings:
• There is no mechanism for authenticating a sender. That is, anyone can fake email from Alice, and Bob will have a
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hard time telling that it isn’t actually
from Alice.
• Even if we could authenticate senders,
SMTP has certain special senderaddresses that must always be accepted
as valid, no matter what. These special
addresses are intended for error reporting, but can be exploited by spammers.
• SMTP doesn’t define a policy for relaying
mail. Until fairly recently, many SMTP
servers would happily accept e-mail from
anyone, for anyone, and relay it onward.
In the next section, you’ll see why these
so-called “open relays” are a problem.
Unfortunately, neither SMTP nor the
underlying Internet protocols were
designed with security or authentication in
mind. On the one hand, the simplicity of
the protocols leads to the rapid expansion
of the Internet and the dramatic growth of
the Web. On the other hand, it also led to
problems like spam and Internet fraud.
A Few Years Ago: Open Relays
In the past, spammers would actively
search for and exploit open relays. An open
relay is an SMTP server that will accept email from anyone and send it to anyone
else, without requiring authentication. The
reason open relays were so attractive is that
they serve as bandwidth multipliers.
If a spammer on a dial-up line wants to
send one million messages, that could take a
while if he or she has to send each message
individually. However, an open relay allows
the spammer to batch up messages – for
example, he or she can send one message
and tell the relay to send it to 100 recipients.
This reduces the spammer’s bandwidth by a
factor of 100 – an enormous savings.
The problem of open relays led to the
formation of DNS-based real-time blacklists. Just as the DNS can hold information
about host names and addresses, it is also
possible to maintain databases of known
open relays. SMTP software can consult
these databases and refuse e-mail from a
known open relay.
DNS-based blacklists are useful, but
they can also cause problems. Some blacklists are overly aggressive, blacklisting
whole swaths of the Internet because of
one badly behaved server. They also may
be slow to remove open relays once they
have been fixed. Relying on such overly
aggressive blacklists can result in legitimate
mail being lost.
On the other hand, more conservative
blacklists are reactive – they require ample
proof that a machine is an open relay
before listing it. Unfortunately, by the time
the relay makes it onto the blacklist, the
spam has already been sent and the spammer begins searching for another open
relay to victimize.
Spammers still use open relays because
they can help obscure the original source of
the e-mail. So real-time blacklists are
worthwhile, but be aware that they will not
stop all or even most of your spam, and
banning mail based on the fact that its
relay is in a blacklist will cause you to lose
valid e-mail.
Alice
B b
More Recently:
Cheap Broadband
In the last couple of years, residential
broadband has become cheap enough that
many people can afford a fast Internet connection. This means that spammers can
send directly from their cable modem or
DSL link, without requiring the bandwidth
multiplication of an open relay. For example, a spammer with a cable modem capable of transmitting 500KB/s can theoretically transmit just over a million 5KB
spams per day. Thus we see a couple of
trends: spam messages tend to be fairly
short now, because home spammers don’t
have the benefit of bandwidth multiplication. Also, we see message mutation –
spammers insert random characters into
message headers and bodies to try to fool
software that recognizes “known-spam”
messages. If you have to transmit every
message from your computer anyway, you
might as well mutate it to make widespread
detection of identical messages difficult.
Anti-Spam Tools
Anti-spam tools can be divided into the
broad categories described in this section.
Blacklists and Whitelists
These tools cover both real-time DNSbased blacklists as well as personal blacklists and whitelists maintained by server
administrators or end users. Blacklists and
whitelists have a number of problems. They
tend to be reactive, kicking in only after
spam has been delivered at least once. They
may also be overzealous, stopping legitimate e-mail. Finally, blacklisting by sender
address or domain is practically worthless,
because these can easily be faked.
Distributed ‘Bulk-Measurement’ Tools
MU
A
MU
A
MT
A
The Distributed Checksum
Clearinghouse (DCC) collects statistics
about how many copies of a particular message have been sent. Clients can query the
DCC and refuse messages that “look” bulky,
by whatever criteria the client uses. For
example, you may choose to reject a message if 350 identical copies of it have been
sighted in the wild. DCC is a very clever
idea, but it only samples a small percentage
of all Internet e-mail. It can also be fooled by
hash-busting techniques (message mutation
to fool duplicate-detection) and may yield
false positives for mailing-list traffic.
23
PREMIER 2003
SM
OP3 or IMAP
MT
A
MT
A
SM
FIGURE 1
M
ALICE EMAILS BOB
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Distributed Spam-Reporting Centers
One example is like Vipul’s Razor. Razor
allows you to report spam to a central
clearinghouse, and other Razor clients can
query the clearinghouse to see if a message
has been reported as spam. Razor uses
sophisticated techniques to try to fool
mutations and hash-busting, but again, a
determined spammer can probably work
around it, and Razor also sees only a small
percentage of all Internet e-mail traffic – as
of mid-March 2003, Razor processes
around 15 million e-mail messages per day,
which is probably much less than 1% of the
Internet’s daily e-mail volume.
The content-filtering category can be further divided into tools that come with a
built-in set of rules, and tools that “learn”
from your incoming e-mail. The hottest topic
in mail filtering recently is so-called Bayesian
filters. You train these filters by marking your
incoming mail as spam or non-spam. Using
statistical techniques, the filters eventually
come to recognize key words or phrases that
are useful for distinguishing spam from nonspam, and can automatically characterize email fairly accurately.
Content filtering has some disadvantages. Because it must analyze the mail
message, content filtering can be applied
False Positives
In an ideal world, you’d set up your mail
server with its arsenal of anti-spam tools,
and it would automatically get rid of almost
all of your spam, leaving you only with
valid messages and the occasional spam
that slips through.
Unfortunately, almost all spam-detection tools have a nasty side effect: they
occasionally misclassify valid e-mail as
spam. This kind of misclassified e-mail is
called a “false positive,” and is a showstopper for many people. Many businesses
feel they cannot afford to lose even a single
potential client or sales lead, so they do
“Spam is a problem because
of a combination of technical,
economic, and social conditions”
Sender-Verification Tools
not discard e-mail identified as spam.
Instead, they simply tag it or file it in a different folder. Unfortunately, this means
that you have to check the spam messages
every so often to extract the occasional
valid e-mail. This wastes time and defeats
the purpose of having automatic spamdetection tools.
These tools examine the content of email messages, and (with varying degrees of
sophistication) attempt to classify e-mail as
“spam” or “non-spam.” Simple-minded
content filters can often incorrectly categorize e-mail, much to the annoyance of both
senders and recipients, but better-designed
and more sophisticated filters can achieve
quite high accuracy rates.
only after the sending SMTP relay has
transmitted the message. If content filtering
is done on the mail client, then you’ve
already wasted time downloading the mail
so your filter can examine it. On the other
hand, some organizations that filter on the
server use a single set of rules for the entire
organization. This may or may not be
acceptable; what the engineering group
considers spam might not be spam to the
marketing group.
Content filtering is expensive in terms of
CPU time. And Bayesian filters can quickly
build a rather large database of word or
phrase frequencies; if you want to have
individual Bayesian filters for thousands of
end users, you could be looking at significant amounts of storage.
Content filtering can be fooled. A filter that
uses externally supplied rules needs constant
updating. While it is harder to fool Bayesian
filters, it is still possible. By carefully crafting email messages, an attacker could cause the
Bayesian database to grow significantly. Also,
Bayesian filters require a fair amount of work
from the end user to train them.
In spite of these problems, filters are
currently the most accurate way to sort
spam from non-spam, and Bayesian filters
are probably the best way to customize filtering per recipient.
PREMIER 2003
24
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These tools attempt to verify that the
sender address exists. There is no satisfactory automatic way to determine this, so
some tools send out a “challenge” to
unknown senders. If the sender does not
reply with a correct response within a certain time period, the mail is discarded.
Challenge/response tools are probably
highly effective, but they are also very
annoying for people who are trying to communicate with you. Many people will not
bother responding to a challenge to prove
their existence, especially if they just
dashed off a quick note to a sales or information address on a Web site. Also, the email traffic caused by the outgoing challenges may itself be viewed as spam if challenge/response systems become widespread.
Content Filters
Profile of the Ideal
Anti-Spam Tool
After all this discussion, we can build
the profile of the ideal anti-spam tool.
1. The tool must work with current protocols and Internet infrastructure: A true
solution to the spam problem will probably require complete reengineering of
Internet e-mail protocols; such reengineering is unlikely to happen within the
next decade, if at all. So practical antispam tools must work within today’s
SMTP environment.
2. The tool must not depend on a significant fraction of the Internet adopting it:
It’s no good to say “if only all SMTP service providers would provide strong
authentication...” because it won’t happen. Getting even a small fraction of
Internet users to agree to change something on their mail servers is nearly
impossible.
E-MAIL
lor messages to evade filters; if different
users have different filtering rules, it’s
hard to know how to construct a message
that will evade them all.
8. The tool should be efficient and not
overload the mail server.
3. The tool should run on the mail server:
Updating software on a few million mail
servers is far cheaper than distributing
software to hundreds of millions of enduser PCs. Filtering on the server also
saves download time for dial-up users.
4. The tool should be broad-spectrum and
capable of easily integrating new antispam technologies as they become available: Simply using real-time blacklists
and leaving it at that, or only doing simplistic word or phrase filtering, just won’t
cut it. Because the spam versus antispam battle is an arms race, our antispam tools must be capable of identifying and reacting quickly to new spammer tactics.
5. The tool should be flexible: This follows
from the previous point; it should be
easy to modify the tool to stop new
spammer tactics.
6. As far as possible, the tool should preserve both the sender’s and the recipient’s privacy: It should not expose the
contents of e-mail to anyone unless the
recipient explicitly consents to such
exposure.
7. The tool should be customizable on a
per-recipient basis: What’s spam to you
might be fascinating news to someone
else. Server-based filtering should not
arbitrarily decide for end users what is
spam and what isn’t; end users should be
able to select their own level of filtering,
and set their own level of tolerance for
false positives. Individual users should
decide whether or not they want to put
correspondents through the hassle of a
challenge-response system. Per-recipient
customization has the additional benefit
of making it harder for spammers to tai-
A combination of tools that comes very
close to our ideal profile is SpamAssassin
combined with MIMEDefang. Both of these
tools are freely available under open source
licenses.
SpamAssassin is a Perl-based filter that
performs hundreds of checks against email headers and bodies, and assigns a
score to each check that matches. The
scores are designed so that any mail scoring
under 5 points is probably not spam, and
anything scoring 5 or over probably is
spam. Because SpamAssassin uses sound
statistical methods to derive the scores, it is
amazingly accurate and produces very few
false positives. SpamAssassin also integrates DCC and Razor clients.
Of course, as time goes by, the
SpamAssassin rules become less effective,
because spammers change tactics.
Nevertheless, the basic SpamAssassin rules
retain their efficacy for several months,
which is enough time for the SpamAssassin
crew to identify new spam tactics and
update the rule set.
In addition, the latest release of
SpamAssassin features Bayesian filtering,
so it can learn to distinguish spam from
non-spam from your mail stream. This
extends the useful lifetime of a particular
SpamAssassin release quite a bit.
SpamAssassin can be integrated into the
mail server in several ways. Probably the
most common is to call it from “procmail” –
when the mail message is about to be delivered to your mailbox, SpamAssassin scans
it and can affect how the message is delivered.
However, a more efficient method is to
integrate SpamAssassin directly into the
MTA. The popular Sendmail MTA has a
method for hooking content filters right
into the SMTP conversation; this method is
called “Milter,” for “Mail Filter.”
MIMEDefang is a C- and Perl-based milter that integrates with Sendmail and
SpamAssassin (and a number of virus scanners). MIMEDefang uses architectural
tricks to make Perl scanning efficient –
ordinary PCs can easily handle 100,000
messages per day, and some organizations
have MIMEDefang deployments that handle almost 2 million messages per day.
Note that there are other content scanners out there, such as CRM-114, a very
sophisticated statistical classifier, and
Bogofilter, another Bayesian filter. There’s
also POPFile, a Bayesian filter designed to
pull mail off POP3 servers and classify it.
There are also other Sendmail milter
programs, many of which are listed on the
Milter Community Site. However, in this
article, I concentrate on SpamAssassin and
MIMEDefang for a few reasons:
SpamAssassin is the best-known contentscanning tool, and it also integrates many
other anti-spam tricks such as the DCC and
Razor. It’s also under active development.
And MIMEDefang is the milter I’m most
familiar with (having written it). It’s also
easy to customize the behavior of your
Sendmail server with MIMEDefang, and I
believe that rapid customization is the key
to reacting to new spammer tactics.
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25
PREMIER 2003
SpamAssassin and MIMEDefang
E-MAIL
However, all of the anti-spam ideas presented here are applicable to any mail server and any mail filtering system. Depending
on your setup, however, some of these
ideas may be more work to implement with
a non-Sendmail system than with a
Sendmail server running MIMEDefang.
Using MIMEDefang
and SpamAssassin
Once you download and install
MIMEDefang and SpamAssassin, your mail
server will automatically tag messages that
look like spam. You can configure your email client to look for these special tags and
file spam in a separate folder or even discard it entirely.
For more control, however, you can customize MIMEDefang’s filter. MIMEDefang
filter rules are written in Perl, so you need
to know a bit of Perl before you tackle filter
customization. However, this programmability yields tremendous flexibility. Here are
some things you can do very easily with
MIMEDefang; the Perl recipes are available
from the MIMEDefang mailing list archives:
• Automatically reject messages scoring
higher than a specified spam value.
• Remove large attachments and replace
them with URLs.
• Reject mail in certain character sets,
such as Korean.
• Redirect suspected spam to a spamtrap
e-mail address.
• Detect and remove viruses and Windows
executables.
• Blacklist certain domains unless the
sending relay matches the domain.
For example, it is very effective to block
mail from “hotmail.com” unless the name
of the sending relay ends in “hotmail.com”.
While this can block legitimate messages,
this rarely happens, in my experience. It
does block a lot of spam, though.
Once you become used to MIMEDefang,
you can explore tricks to combat spammer
strategies. Let’s look at a few of these tricks.
Spammers often do not wish to incur this
expense; they simply ignore the failure and
never resend the message.
Therefore, a very effective technique is
for your mail server to keep a list of “known
senders”; that is, a list of senders who have
ever attempted to send e-mail to the server.
If mail from an unknown sender arrives,
the sender is added to the list and a temporary failure notice is issued. If the sender is
legitimate, the mail will be resent (typically
after 15–30 minutes) and will be delivered
as usual. If the mail is from a spammer
using special “never-retry” software, the
mail will never be delivered.
This simple rule is very cheap, uses very
little bandwidth, and stops anywhere from
10–20% of spam with no human intervention and practically no false positives.
With a little effort, this rule can be programmed into MIMEDefang.
Check the HELO string
The rules of SMTP state that the sending
relay must identify itself upon connection
with a so-called “HELO” command. This
command is supposed to contain the full
host name of the sending relay. However,
some spamware uses the host name of the
receiving relay in the misguided belief that
this will somehow relax anti-relay or antispam rules. Since your own mail server
should never connect to itself, you can simply reject mail from any mail server claiming to be your own.
Other spamware uses an IP address in
the HELO command, often a completely
random IP address to try to confuse recipients and cause them to misdirect spam
complaints. Refusing mail from machines
that use an IP address in the HELO command is cheap and effective.
The two HELO checks, on our mail server, stop about 2.5% of all the mail we
receive.
Check for Sender/Relay Mismatches
Spammers want to send messages cheaply. The normal rules of SMTP allow for a “temporary failure.” That is, the receiving server
can tell the sending server that it is unable to
accept mail for the moment, but the sender
should retry a little later. This allows
workarounds for transient problems, such as
a full disk or a broken network connection,
that are expected to be fixed later on.
Well-behaved SMTP servers queue the
outgoing message and retry periodically.
This rule is not suitable for general-purpose use, because it could yield many false
positives. However, we have discovered that
rejecting mail from senders at “hotmail.com”,
“aol.com”, “yahoo.com”, and “ibm.com”
unless the sending relay’s name ends in the
corresponding domain stops about 5% of our
incoming mail volume. Our mail logs show
that all such stopped mail is almost certainly
spam – we see sender addresses such as
“<[email protected]>” and “<tibia32
[email protected]>”, which appear to be
randomly generated, as well as obvious spam
sources like “<[email protected]>”.
PREMIER 2003
26
Force a Retry
Use Open-Relay Blacklists
Open-relay and other spam-source
blacklists can be very effective; unfortunately, they can also yield a lot of false positives.
We recommend that before you block mail
based on results from an open-relay database, you configure MIMEDefang to tag
such mail first. After a month or so, you’ll
get a feel for how aggressive or conservative
the database is, and you can decide whether
or not to trust it to reject mail automatically.
Summary
Spam is a problem because of a combination of technical, economic, and social
conditions. Current e-mail protocols cannot enforce authentication; sending e-mail
is so cheap that even dismal response rates
make spamming profitable, and enough
people are taken in by spam fraud that it
makes the con artists keep spamming.
Unfortunately, all of those conditions
are difficult to change. An overhaul of email protocols is not likely in the short to
medium term. One of the attractions of email is the very low cost of sending e-mail;
any solution that makes it expensive to
send e-mail will also change the nature of
e-mail and make it much less attractive.
And as long as there are gullible people out
there, spammers will always have a nonzero response rate.
Given these conditions, the fight against
spam will be a long, grinding arms race. No
single tool or technique will vanquish spam;
instead, we need to use combinations of
tools and techniques to restrict the strategies available to spammers. By forcing certain behavior on spammers, we can lower
the cost of dealing with spam and improve
our spam-fighting tools’ automation.
Resources
• Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse:
www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/dcc
• Vipul’s Razor:
http://razor.sourceforge.net
• “A Plan for Spam” (Bayesian filtering):
www.paulgraham.com/spam.html
• SpamAssassin: www.spamassassin.org
• CRM-114: http://crm114.sourceforge.net
• Bogofilter: http://bogofilter.source
forge.net
• POPFile: http://popfile.sourceforge.net
• MIMEDefang: www.mimedefang.org
• Milter Community Site: www.milter.org
• CanIt: www.canit.ca
• Open-Relay Blacklists:
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/
Abuse/Spam/Blacklists
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
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DR. MIGRATION
Introduction to the
Linux Desktop
A look at Linux in the Windows-centric enterprise
This column is dedicated to helping IT managers understand and investigate
Linux as an alternative to commercial server and desktop solutions. As a Windows
refugee I’ll share my experience, providing both strategic and tactical advice on how
to take advantage of the Linux operating system. I hope this column will be a
resource for understanding the business case and technical pathways to migration.
Meet the Doctor
BY
M A R K
R.
H I N KL E
market share and coffers overflowing with
cash. Paradoxically, at no time in computing history has a community development effort or an alternative operating
system posed such a looming threat to an
industry leader as Linux now does to
Microsoft.
Linux vs Commercial
Operating Systems
Mark R. Hinkle is the vice president of
operations for NeTraverse, a Linux software
company that specializes in Windows-to-Linux
migration. He is on the Formation Board for
the Desktop Linux Consortium.
[email protected]
most organizations’ needs. In spite of this, a
responsible manager should pursue the
best value (features plus performance
divided by cost). It’s a Microsoft world, but
Linux is a popular option that offers good
value – and hopefully the competition that
will drive improvements in both operating
systems.
Despite Linux’s growing popularity,
there’s quite a gap to bridge, especially as
Microsoft enjoys a comfortable lead in
The business case for Linux involves
many factors: improving your overall TCO
(total cost of ownership), adding functionality, and improving stability, productivity,
and overall knowledge worker efficiency.
This is a tall order for an operating system
that some have described as a hacker science project. As you embark on your personal investigation you’ll probably have to
consider the following issues:
• Software licensing costs: One of the
strongest selling points associated with
Linux is the Open Source/Free Software
model. Software and operating systems
are community property that can be
downloaded for free from the Internet.
However, this is simply the tip of the
iceberg, a “free ticket” to a great show.
Once you figure the cost savings for
administration and benefits from
increased productivity, you’ll realize
this is simply a low barrier to entry and
only a fraction of the real value of
Linux.
• Reduced administration: In the typical
office, whether it’s an SMB (small-tomedium business) or an enterprise, the
cumulative costs for administrators,
help desks, and the tools needed to support these functions can become costly.
Linux can be remotely administered
with a very secure set of open source
tools, enabling administrators to fix
problems even as users continue uninterrupted in their everyday work.
PREMIER 2003
28
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’ve been a dedicated Microsoft user
since the beginning. However, the
increasing frequency of operating
system upgrades, rising minimum
hardware requirements, and the
general lack of valuable features
included in new releases prompted me to
explore alternative operating systems. For
years, I turned primarily to Microsoft for
my computing needs both in my personal
life and for the businesses I’ve been
involved with. In recent years Linux has
emerged as a viable alternative to Microsoft
for all my computing needs, be it an enterprise server or personal desktop. The Linux
alternative and the strategies for migrating
from Windows to Linux will be the subject
of this column.
As you explore Linux as an alternative to
your existing infrastructure, the reasons to
migrate to Linux should be business driven,
not ideological. Anti-Microsoft sentiment
seems to be growing, but at best it should
be only a catalyst for researching alternatives. The simple fact is that Microsoft does
offer a complete set of tools to address
I
A B O UT
TH E
A UTH O R
DR. MIGRATION
At one time the number of reasonable
objections to Linux outweighed the benefits of migration for many organizations.
That day has passed. Linux is now a realistic and responsible solution for more companies, schools, and government organizations than ever. Despite this fact there are
several popular objections to Linux on the
desktop, to which I offer short rebuttals.
These points may help reassure those of
you who are on the cusp of making a commitment, or at least beginning to research
Linux as an alternative to your current IT
solutions.
• Forking: Many IT managers fear forking
or diverging Linux development that
could result in incompatible vendorspecific versions. This is a legitimate
concern. However, major hardware vendors like HP, IBM, and Dell are working
in the open source community to drive
standards that will ensure an enterpriseclass operating system. The most
notable initiative to date is the United
Linux project (www.unitedlinux.com),
which is a collaborative effort for standardization of a Linux platform that can
be used as the base for Linux vendors to
then apply value-added services and
software. The success of this project will
help ensure that fragmentation and
divergence are avoided, and that a consistent high-quality product continues
to emerge.
• Lack of familiar applications: Windows
has enjoyed an 18-year history as a desktop operating system with over a million
applications available to the Windows
user. However, Linux development is
making exponential gains in valid productivity applications. Additionally,
there are some very good ways to
migrate your existing Windows applications to Linux while preserving your
investment. In particular Win4Lin
(www.win4lin.com), a Windows operating system integration program, allows
you to integrate existing Windows operating systems and applications into your
Linux operating system. This solution
has an 18-year history on SCO Unix and
over the past few years has been migrated to Linux. Fortune 500 companies like
Oracle, AT&T, and McDonald’s have
already adopted this technology.
• Support: Since the operating system is
developed in the general community, it’s
unclear to many where they could turn
for support. IBM, the world’s largest software services company, is fully committed to supporting Linux on the enterprise,
SMB, and community levels. However, for
the SMB the best support options are
available from the Linux distribution vendors, whose main form of revenue will be
generated by supporting the Linux operating system and applications. Red Hat
has emerged as the leader in this field,
and German software distributor SuSE is
following close behind. Additionally, a
rapidly expanding number of regional
VARs (value-added resellers) have the
ability to help businesses execute a
dependable technology plan.
• Lack of Linux expertise: Many organizations have spent so much time and
money in training their staff on
Windows or other operating systems
and applications that the learning curve
is their biggest factor for not moving.
This is probably the most legitimate of
www.LinuxWorld.com
29
• Improved stability and productivity:
Linux is truly a multiuser/multitasking
environment with good resistance to
crashes, and it allows users to resist the
need to reboot. It is not uncommon for
computer users to go weeks or months
without a reboot. Imagine how much
time you may be losing already; one
reboot a day per computer-dependent
worker adds up fast. Especially if that
reboot is accompanied by an unnecessary break (a cup of coffee and a “bull
session” while my computer is rebooting
may take several minutes). If that one
reboot costs a company five minutes per
employee per day, multiply that by the
number of employees, and losses in productivity are substantial.
• Customizability and open source: With
commercial operating systems you often
end up paying for unutilized or underutilized features. Most Windows users
today utilize only a small fraction of the
features and software made available to
them when they buy the Microsoft
Office suite and the operating system.
Implementing an open system like Linux
enables you to choose to install thousands of applications or just the applications you need, with little or no licensing
costs.
Biggest Objections to Using Linux
all objections – until they look at their
five-year planning horizon and consider
the risks of a subscription-based
Microsoft upgrade path. Retraining
costs are significant in any move from
one operating system to another, but
system upgrades every two years from
Microsoft require some training as well.
Decision makers need to carefully weigh
these costs when deciding between
moving to a new operating system or
staying with the old. With a well-defined
phase-in plan it’s possible to minimize
retraining costs over time while realizing the benefits of a Linux operating
environment.
Hopefully you now have some confidence in why you should be investigating
Linux as a desktop alternative. The next
step is to do some firsthand research and
see the operating system in action.
The Linux Desktop from
a User’s Point of View
Most people who first see the Linux
desktop are surprised by its similarity to the
environments that they are already using.
The most popular environments are the
KDE (www.kde.org) and GNOME
(www.gnome.org) desktop environments.
Despite the stigma Linux has of being a
“geek’s” operating system, there are many
community projects aimed specifically at
making the Linux operating system friendly
to the novice Linux user and those who
may be quite experienced using other operating systems, like Windows.
The desktop environments shipped with
most major Linux distributions are very
similar to those that you’re accustomed to
in Windows. Many have a button in the lefthand bottom corner were you can “start”
gaining access to applications or find control panels to adjust settings. The desktop in
most popular environments has the familiar
trash can and a file browser as on the
Windows and Mac operating systems. The
familiar network neighborhood icon is
absent by default, but there are a number of
open source projects that provide the same
functionality for Linux. Nearly all of these
crossover networking solutions are based
on the Samba project (www.samba.org),
which can communicate with Microsoft’s
file- and printer-sharing protocol, SMB
(Server Message Block).
PREMIER 2003
DR. MIGRATION
Now that you understand the similarities
between the Linux and Windows desktop
environments, let’s look at the differences.
The first is the workspace guide. This allows
you to create virtual desktops, where applications can be stuck on each desktop like
sticky notes. Rather than minimizing applications to view the desktop, users can sim-
ply stick a few applications on each desktop
and navigate their virtual workspaces via a
grid on the taskbar. However, it’s as simple
to minimize applications as in Windows.
Another useful feature is the design of the
Linux GUI (graphical user interface). It utilizes the X Windows system, which is not
necessarily tied to a physical piece of hard-
ware like the traditional PC. It’s actually a virtual display that can be displayed to a local
computer monitor or forwarded to another
screen connected via a network – perhaps
one of the most useful and underutilized features of Linux. System administrators and
help desk personnel can take over an X
Session remotely, fix problems they can
duplicate, and diagnose firsthand the problems that may exist with a system – all from
the comfort of their support desk. This is the
same precept as PC Anywhere and the popular GoToMyPC.com. Additionally, this redisplay can be securely tunneled via the SSH
protocol to avoid network snooping.
We can take this solution one step further. Because Linux is a multiuser operating
system able to serve many accounts from
one PC or server, identical or customized
desktops could be redisplayed to dumb terminals or other PCs. With a little know-how
you could eliminate PCs that require individual updates and constant hardware
upgrades. The life of the PC on the desktop
could be extended by years and upgrades
could be made in the data center rather
than at each user’s desk. At the very least it’s
an ideal solution for call centers and the
like, where terminals are shared between
users on various shifts. The idea of centralized computing is an old idea from the days
of the mainframe. It may not be the ideal
solution for everyone but it has merit for
many situations. One popular Microsoftcompatible solution provider, Citrix
(www.citrix.com), has demonstrated the
value of this model, though their core competence is reducing bandwidth and delivering Windows terminals over latent networks. Terminal services is a useful solution
for many problems; I discuss this idea in
detail in future articles.
The fact is that out-of-the-box or freshly
installed, most Linux desktop distributions
mimic the popular commercial desktop
operating systems. However, the Linux
desktop is infinitely configurable, and
polling many users on the configuration of
their desktop may result in drastically different results.
Figure 1 shows Windows 2000
Professional running Microsoft Word, Excel,
Windows Media Player, and AOL Instant
Messenger. Figure 2 shows Red Hat Linux
8.0 with the GNOME Desktop Environment
running Open Office Writer (word processor) and Open Office Math (spreadsheet),
GAIM (instant messaging client), Win4Lin
(Windows on Linux solution), and Evolution
(a Microsoft Outlook–style e-mail client).
PREMIER 2003
30
www.LinuxWorld.com
FIGURE 1
WINDOWS 2000 PROFESSIONAL DESKTOP
FIGURE 2
GNOME DESKTOP
DR. MIGRATION
Practical Solutions:
Easy Linux Test Drive
In the coming months we’ll discuss tactics for migrating to Linux from a Windows
environment. Many organizations today
already have Linux running in the back
rooms and data centers where the most
technical employees work. However, many
decision makers have never seen the operating system in action. In the interest of
improving your firsthand knowledge as well
as to give you insight into how the operating system compares to your current operating system, I would like to offer a practical tip on how to go about your investigation of Linux. Software distribution companies like Red Hat (www.redhat.com), SuSE
(www.suse.com), and Mandrake
(www.mandrakesoft.com) all offer affordable desktop solutions for less than $100
(the cost is for the installation media, documentation, and support – not software royalties). However, it will be necessary to dedicate a computer for running Linux. I would
instead suggest a less-committed solution.
As a first step I suggest a distribution
that can be run from a bootable CD and can
be running on your desktop in less than a
minute. Many free projects are available for
download. Many of these distributions are
developed to solve certain problems. The
advantage is often that the file systems are
read-only, so they can’t be altered in a hacking attempt. Practical applications for this
technology are for simple tamper-proof firewalls, unsophisticated Web servers, rescue
disks, operating systems for thin-client
computing applications, and live demos.
There are varying reasons to use an
operating system that can be run from a CD.
There are many practical uses for this type
of configuration, as I’ve mentioned, but the
reason most germane to this conversation is
that this is an easy way for users to see a
demonstration of the Linux operating system. Listed below are some other great uses
for this type of distribution:
• Rescue disk: Quite a few excellent rescue
disk solutions are freely available for
download – a functioning operating system with network access is only a reboot
away. Since file systems can be read by
the Linux operating system, files can be
edited, drivers can be downloaded, and
the knowledge base of your manufacturer can be surfed, despite the desktop
computer’s broken state.
• Product demo CD: Imagine walking into
a customer’s office, popping a CD into
his desktop computer, and demonstrat-
www.LinuxWorld.com
Figure 3 KNOPPIX operating system
ing your product on his machine. Using
a bootable CD with the appropriate software is a good way for you to make a
high-impact impression.
• Diskless workstations: One of the easiest
ways to repurpose old PCs is to create
diskless workstations. These workstations
could be early-generation Pentium class
PCs, damaged machines with software or
hard disk problems, or computers with
low customization requirements. Virtually
any PC that has a CD drive and working
processor could be put into low maintenance service by simply setting the computer to boot from a CD (a variety of
solutions exist in this space). Take a look
at workers who simply need word processing, e-mail, and Web access. Imagine
never having to fix a user-caused error
again. Updates to the system could be as
easy as changing a CD. Once again, this
may not be the solution for everyone but
it’s definitely food for thought.
Your First Linux Operating
System: KNOPPIX
For the purposes of this discussion, I recommend a distribution called KNOPPIX
(www.knopper.net/knoppix), a more full-featured bootable Linux distribution. This operating system is a good way for anyone without firsthand Linux knowledge to look at the
features available today in most desktop
Linux distributions. The best part about
KNOPPIX is that it can be downloaded via
31
Windows and burned onto a CD for use on
your existing PCs. By default the KNOPPIX
operating system will not write to your hard
drive or damage your existing operating system. However, it is possible to alter your hard
drive or to run your monitor at a resolution
outside the manufacturer’s recommendations if you pass certain commands to the
system. As always, you should read the documentation and proceed at your own risk.
How It Works
KNOPPIX is a one-CD, live file system that
can be customized as a rescue system, security scanner, or platform for presentations
and demos, or as a full-featured portable
production platform with tools like KOffice
and StarOffice. The underlying GNU/Linux
base system is modified to boot non-interactively into a working X Window and KDE
configuration, with all auto-detectable
devices configured, ready to start applications. Because of the on-the-fly compression
of KNOPPIX the whole file system can contain up to 2GB of software on the typical CD.
Best of all, KNOPPIX can be used without
altering your existing desktop computer.
What Applications Are
Included with KNOPPIX?
What’s truly amazing is the sheer number
of applications available from this one CD –
over 900 installed packages in all. This col—continued on page 67
PREMIER 2003
INDUSTRY OPINION
Striking the Balance
Free software projects have to find a reasonable
balance between business interests and other interests
There is a potential conflict of interest between business and society, and that conflict can arise in free software. It’s up to all of us to choose how to resolve that conflict.
Ian Lance Taylor discovered free software and
the GNU C compiler in 1990 and has never
looked back. He has contributed to dozens of
free software packages, wrote the GNU/Taylor
UUCP software package, and was a coauthor of
the book GNU Autoconf, Automake and Libtool.
[email protected]
whole. Successful free software development
efforts generally require central maintenance
– one person or a small group of people who
weave the various contributions together
while maintaining the overall harmony. It’s
neither anarchy nor dictatorship.
The interests of society are best served
when the central maintainers are free to
choose the changes they prefer. When the
maintainers make good choices, the project
succeeds. If the maintainers make bad
choices, that project will fail, or else different maintainers will pick up the
sources and start making their own
choices, an occurrence known as a
fork.
Businesses, of course, are
interested in profit. When the
maintainers of a free software
project work for a company
with a direct business interest in the project, their decisions about the project are
no longer entirely free;
they are constrained
by the needs of the
business.
The potential problem is not really that
business interests will cause bad choices to
be made. After all, it’s probably not good for
the business if the free software project fails
or is forked by somebody else. The potential problem is that business interests will
cause certain good choices to not be made,
either because they are against the interests
of business or simply because the maintainers don’t have time to focus on particular issues.
This issue is not purely theoretical. In
fact, in my years in the free software community, I’ve seen it frequently. Rather than
speculate about other people’s motivations,
I'll give an example from my personal experience. For a few years I was the GNU binutils maintainer and also an employee of
PREMIER 2003
32
edical researchers agree
that the best way to see
whether drugs are really
effective is large-scale
double-blind testing,
which is expensive. Most
such drug testing these days is paid for by
drug companies. Naturally, they tend to test
their new, expensive, patented drugs. There
are relatively few tests run on old, cheap drugs
with expired patents or no patents, even when
those drugs might have interesting new uses
that could help lots of people.
It’s pretty obvious that there is a potential conflict of interest between drug manufacturers and public health. It’s less obvious
how to resolve it. The present resolution is
not quite putting the fox in charge of the
hen-house – but it’s pretty close.
Why am I writing this in a magazine
about Linux? To remind you that there is a
potential conflict of interest between business and society, and to talk about how that
conflict can arise in free software.
Free software is important to society
because it gives us all a computer environment that we are free to use and to change.
When that environment becomes steadily
more powerful and easier to use, as has
happened and continues to happen with
Linux, then we all benefit. However, those
improvements don’t happen by themselves;
they happen because people work on them.
Free software at its best is a collaborative
effort in which many developers work together in different ways to produce a harmonious
M
A B O UT
TH E
A UTH O R
BY
I A N
L A N C E
TAYL O R
Cygnus Solutions (which was later purchased by Red Hat). During that time I
often had to choose to implement features
useful only for specific Cygnus customers
rather than features useful for a broad
range of people. For example, to this day
the GNU binutils include a program which
can convert an ELF object file into a
NetWare Loadable Module. That program is
rarely used even on the Intel x86 platform,
but in fact several man-months of time
were put into supporting other processors –
work which I doubt anybody has ever used,
as it was intended to support the Processor
Independent NetWare project which was, in
the end, canceled. That time could surely have been better spent, and in fact
the nlmconv program continues to
have a minor cost as the current binutils maintainers have to make sure
that it continues to compile, and
will eventually have to decide to
get rid of it.
On the other hand, I don’t want
to minimize the benefits of having
businesses pay the maintainers
of free software projects. Most
obviously, it gives those maintainers more time and more resources
to work on the project.
But we as a society shouldn’t let these
benefits blind us to the potential conflicts.
As with most things, we have to weigh the
benefits and the costs.
In fact, I think that as a society we’re
doing fairly well right now with free software. I think that most free software projects
have found a reasonable balance between
business interests and other interests. But as
free software becomes steadily more popular, business interests become steadily more
entangled with the free software world.
I don’t want the free software world to
wind up like the drug industry. I hope you
agree with me and see that although it hasn’t
happened yet, it still could. Fortunately, as
with all things in the free software world,
we’re all free to choose what will happen.
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
www.LinuxWorld.com
PRODUCT REVIEW
NetOp Remote
Control for Linux
Instant access to Linux
machines around the globe
R E V I E W E D
Have you ever needed to get to a Linux desktop on your network, whether to pro-
BY
TO M
M O NTG O M E RY
Product Snapshot
vide desktop support or install an application that required a GUI interface to install?
Target Audience
With NetOp Remote Control for Linux, you don’t have to drive across town to do it.
Tom Montgomery is a 15-year veteran of the
IT industry. He spent 7 years with CSAA (AAA
Northern California), where he learned much
of the skills he possesses today including an
in-depth knowledge of IBM mainframe networking, OS2, Novell, Windows, and network
infrastructures. In 2000, Tom left CSAA to test
the IT contractor market, which is when he
founded Remote Visions, Inc. Since June
of 2002, Tom has been dedicated to the
software side of his business.
[email protected]
usually as a Web server, fileserver, or mail
server, and we’re seeing more and more
on the desktop. NetOp lets us get to those
Linux machines just as quickly and easily
as we can get to one of the Windows
machines.
Here’ s how NetOp works – our support staff has a NetOp Guest on their
computer, and they can connect to a Host
running on a client’s machine, giving
them full control of the keyboard, video,
and mouse no matter where the client is
located. NetOp has had a Guest program
for Linux out for a year or two, but there
was no way to get control of a remote
Linux desktop. With the introduction of
the NetOp Host for Linux, it doesn’t matter whether the end user is on a Windows
machine, a Linux machine, or even a
Solaris machine (yes, NetOp has a Host
for Sun SPARC boxes as well!), we can still
support them. A typical use is the occasion where Telnet or SSH won’t work
because a GUI interface is needed to
install or use a certain application, such
as Oracle or WebSphere.
Other helpful features are the chat and
file transfer features. Chat lets us have an
instant message–type chat between our
support staff and any machine with a
NetOp Host on it. The file transfer lets us
easily drag and drop files from Windows
to Linux and Linux to Windows. NetOp
also includes a handy Phonebook tab to
PREMIER 2003
34
etOp Remote Control is a
remote desktop application geared toward enterprise-level technical support. Since the early ’90s
NetOp has been known for
its speed, stability, and high level of security. We have used NetOp for Windows for
years to support our customers, providing
real-time technical support across the
Internet (and modems when the network
is the problem).
NetOp has cut down travel time and
has reduced incident response time from
hours or days to mere minutes. It also lets
us support many more clients than we
could otherwise, since we aren’t running
all over the place. One of our biggest challenges is that we keep finding Linux
servers here, there, and all over the place –
N
A B O UT
TH E
R E V I E W E R
Network administrators
Level
All Linux users
Pros
• Immediate, direct desktop connectivity
• No need for separate products or interfaces to support Windows and Linux
• Faster than VNC
• No other products do the same
• Free tech support for the life of the
product
Cons
• Not free (but pays for itself very quickly)
• Not as fast as Windows Remote Control
Platforms
Linux, Sun Solaris, Windows, OS2, DOS,
and handhelds
Pricing
Available in combined Guest/Host packages or as stand-alone modules. Guest/Host
packages start at $179. Flexible licensing is
available “Per User” or “Per PC.” NetOp products, along with no-charge, toll-free support,
are available in North America from the
CrossTec Corporation or authorized resellers.
For a free fully functional evaluation copy
visit www.NetOpUSA.com
call 800 675-0729
or e-mail [email protected]
www.LinuxWorld.com
PRODUCT REVIEW
help us connect to PCs without having to
remember their settings. With the NetOp
Guest, we simply set up a phonebook
entry for machines we regularly control –
one double-click, and we’re connected
and remote controlling the machine. It’s
that fast and easy!
The NetOp Host for Linux isn’t as fast
as the NetOp Host on a Windows platform due to bitmapping instead of the
GDI hooking that Windows uses, but it is
much faster and less resource intensive
than VNC. Also, unlike VNC, NetOp lets
you connect to the desktop session that
is running and does not start a new X
Window session, basically enabling you
to see what the user sees. Typically, when
you connect via an X Window, whatever
you’re doing is dependent on your X
Session – meaning if you disconnect, the
process you are running stops. Again,
with NetOp Host for Linux you’re connected to the actual desktop, so if you
disconnect, the actual process continues
to run. This can be particularly helpful if
the Guest PC is in a nonsecured area and
you need to start a database process that
might take several hours. I used to work
at a bank where some procedures had to
run overnight and you had to worry
about whether an after-hours maintenance person might accidentally poweroff the PC. You can start it, disconnect,
and then come back to it later without
worrying what goes on with the PC in the
interim.
Officially, NetOp runs only on Red Hat
Linux, and that’s what we’ve used it on, but
it should work on just about any other flavor of Linux as well. On the support Web
site, www.netop.com/tech, there are installation instructions for SuSE Linux as well.
The installation is very simple via Red Hat
Package Manager, and there’s also a TAR
package available. CrossTec Corporation,
the North American distributor of NetOp,
provides a free full evaluation at
www.crossteccorp.com and also provides
free pre- and post-sale tech support.
Overall I’m very happy with NetOp for
Linux because it lets me reach places I
couldn’t reach before, and I’m pleased
with the performance and flexibility that it
gives me as a technical support entity.
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
www.LinuxWorld.com
FIGURE 1
REMOTE CONTROL WINDOW AND TOOLBAR
FIGURE 2
WINDOWS 2000 PROFESSIONAL CONTROLLING A RED HAT LINUX SERVER
35
PREMIER 2003
FEATURE
HyperThreading
HT performance gains make
a strong case for Linux
PREMIER 2003
36
Linux
www.LinuxWorld.com
FEATURE
BY
PA U L
B E M O W S KI
Linux currently enjoys tremendous momentum in the contest for the enterprise
data center. Several factors contribute to this momentum, including the high cost of
alternative platforms, newfound maturity and stability in the Linux OS, and undoubtedly the success of Intel’s high-end line of Xeon processors. With these processors
comes a new technology that holds great promise: Hyper-Threading.
ith the introduction
of the Xeon, Xeon DP,
and Xeon MP processors using the P4 core
architecture, Intel
has incorporated a
new feature known as Hyper-Threading or
HT. HT is Intel’s implementation of a technology known as Simultaneous MultiThreading, or SMT, that allows a single
physical processor to execute multiple
threads concurrently. This new feature has
great potential in the heavily threaded
back-end systems that Linux is targeting in
the enterprise data center.
W
Understanding Hyper-Threading
In an SMT system, a single physical
processor duplicates some of the on-chip
architectural state, allowing the processor core
to make greater use of available resources. The
second architectural state holds another
thread context, allowing the processor to
more completely use its resources when an
active thread encounters some type of latency.
For example, when a processor encounters a cache miss, there is a slice of time
that is normally wasted while the processor
makes a long-latency read from main
memory. In this brief slice of time, the vast
majority of the processor’s resources sit
idle, while the processor reports itself as
busy to the operating system. In an SMT
system, the processor will use an on-board
thread scheduler to immediately execute
the second on-chip thread context’s
instructions, making use of otherwise wasted cycles.
Figure 1 illustrates the basic architecture
of an SMT processor. Most of the processor’s resources, such as the cache and the
www.LinuxWorld.com
Physical Processor
Physical Processor
Architectural
State
Architectural State
Architectural
State
Logical
Processor
Cache
Cache
Processing Resources
Processing Resources
Non SMT Processor
SMT Processor
FIGURE 1
BASIC ARCHITECTURE
computational units, are shared between
the two on-chip thread contexts.
SMT does incur some overhead. When
two threads contend for the same processor resources, it is the responsibility of the
on-chip thread scheduler to interleave the
two active threads. For this reason, in certain situations a non-HT processor will outperform an HT processor. The net effect
however is an overall improvement in performance for multi-threaded applications
running on HT-enabled systems.
HT-Enabled Systems
From a hardware perspective, three subsystems must work together to enable HT:
the processor, the chipset, and the BIOS.
Processor
Currently, all members of Intel’s Xeon
processor family support HT. Xeon here is
not to be confused with PIII Xeon. When
Intel converted the Xeon’s architecture to the
P4 core, it dropped the Pentium designation,
calling the new processors simply Xeon.
Xeons currently come in three flavors:
Xeon, Xeon DP, and Xeon MP. All recent versions of these processors will support HT.
Some older Xeon and Xeon DP processors,
37
commonly characterized by a smaller 256
Kb L2 cache, do not support HT. If you are
purchasing a used Xeon system or used
Xeon processors, be sure to confirm that
they support HT.
In early 2003, Intel released the 3.06GHz
P4 on 0.13 micron technology. This new P4
supports HT, and signals the introduction
of HT to desktop systems. Look for Intel to
continue to support HT on all of its subsequent P4 releases.
Chipset/BIOS
HT requires chipset and BIOS support.
Most of Intel’s newer chipsets are supporting
HT. The following link presents a table of
Intel’s current server/workstation chipset
offerings. The last row in the table indicates
whether the chipset supports HT technology.
http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/line
card/svr_wkstn.htm
The Basic Input/Output System, or BIOS,
allows a user to set parameters affecting system hardware, before the system boots to an
operating system. As such, the BIOS is generally tightly coupled to the chipset on which it
is installed. In a BIOS that supports HT, the
user will have an option to enable/disable
HT support on the processor/chipset. With
HT enabled on the system, the BIOS presents
each physical processor to the operating system as a pair of logical processors. From that
point, it is the responsibility of the operating
system to make intelligent use of the additional hardware resources.
Linux Support for
Hyper-Threading
Given a processor/chipset/BIOS combination that supports HT, the operating system also needs to support the feature. SMT
introduces many nuances that affect thread
scheduler performance. The first Linux kerA B O UT
TH E
A UTH O R
Paul Bemowski is an independent consultant,
focusing on Java and Linux solutions to
enterprise computing problems.
[email protected]
PREMIER 2003
FEATURE
nel with explicit support for HT was 2.4.18.
Since then the 2.5.x kernel’s thread scheduler has incorporated numerous enhancements that will further increase performance on HT-enabled systems.
Next, we’ll look at HT support in the 2.4
and 2.5(2.6) series kernels.
Hyper-Threading in the 2.4.18+
Linux Kernel
The current stable Linux kernel branch
is 2.4.x, initially released in January 2001.
The 2.4 kernel has since undergone extensive patching, initially for critical bug fixes,
later for feature enhancements and support
for new hardware.
Because the BIOS will present even a
single HT-enabled processor to the OS as
two logical processors, all HT configurations should use SMP (Symmetric MultiProcessing) kernels. Pre-2.4.18 SMP kernels
may recognize two processors in an HT
configuration; however, the scheduler is
completely unaware of the logical/physical
processor differentiation. The 2.4.18 patch
release added some features to the stock
scheduler to make it behave better with HT
hardware. A 2.4.18+ kernel is strongly recommended for HT configurations.
FIGURE 2
TOP RUNNING ON A DELL SYSTEM WITH TWO PHYSICAL PROCESSORS, HT ENABLED
Once you have successfully booted the
HT configuration, run top. If HT is properly
configured, you should see twice as many
CPU states as you have physical processors
(two virtual CPUs per physical CPU).
Figure 2 is an example of top running on
a Red Hat 7.3 system (2.4.18) with two
physical Xeons and HT fully enabled. Note
the CPU states 0–4, indicating the four logical processors.
2.5.x Thread Scheduler Improvements
It would be wise to add this as a different
boot configuration so that you can boot
HT or non-HT. (To create an explicitly nonHT configuration, add the ‘noht’ boot flag.)
3. Finally, reboot the system. Before it
restarts, enter the BIOS setup program.
Under the processor options you will be
able to enable or disable HT. Enable HT,
and boot to the 2.4.18 or later SMP kernel with the additional parameters.
As is standard in Linux kernel versioning, the 2.5.x versions of the kernel are the
development branch that will become the
2.6.x stable releases. The 2.5.x kernel added
a number of features to its thread scheduler
that should extend the performance
improvements of HT even further.
A scheduler patch in 2.5.32 introduced the
concept of a shared runqueue. The shared
runqueue allows two (logical) CPUs, which
share resources like cache, to have a scheduler parallel known as a shared runqueue.
The shared runqueue may have many applications, but the initial implementation was
created specifically with HT in mind. This
new concept optimizes the kernel thread
scheduler for HT in the following ways:
• HT-aware passive load balancing: This
feature addresses the physical CPU
imbalance problem – one physical CPU
may be running two active threads,
while a second physical CPU sits idle.
Passive load balancing will attempt to
schedule new active threads on an idle
physical processor.
• HT-aware active load balancing: Active
load balancing also addresses the physical CPU imbalance problem, this time
for currently active threads. If three
threads are running on three logical
CPUs, and one thread goes idle freeing a
physical processor, the scheduler will
migrate an active thread from the physical processor running two threads to a
physical processor running none.
• Thread affinity: Thread affinity is important in SMP as well as SMT systems.
Processors use cache memory to hold
data and instructions that the processor
is using at the moment. By attempting to
keep threads scheduled on the same
processor, the efficiency of the cache is
greatly increased. Moving a thread
PREMIER 2003
38
www.LinuxWorld.com
Enabling Hyper-Threading in a 2.4 system
Given an HT-enabled hardware configuration, use the following steps to enable HT
in a 2.4 kernel:
1. First, confirm that your kernel is version
2.4.18 or later, with SMP support. There
are many ways to do this, the easiest is to
execute the “uname –a” command in a
shell. For Red Hat users, Red Hat 7.3 was
the first distribution release to support HT,
incorporating a 2.4.18 kernel. If you are
using another distribution, check the kernel version before attempting to use HT.
2. Next, modify your bootloader (grub or
lilo), adding the following parameter to
any other boot parameters currently
necessary for your system:
acpismp=force
Hyper-Threading on 2.4.18+
Thread Scheduler
Performance testing multithreaded
benchmarks under the 2.4 kernel series still
shows some wide scatter in the data. This is
because the scheduler still cannot make
intelligent choices regarding logical/physical processors in many situations. Under
some conditions, 2.4 will still schedule two
active threads on the same physical CPU,
causing performance degradation. This
condition is often random, causing data
points from multithreaded benchmarks to
vary considerably. “Full” HT scheduler support was not incorporated into the kernel
until 2.5.32.
Hyper-Threading in the 2.5.x
Linux Kernel
FEATURE
between physical processors requires
the processor to repopulate its cache
from main memory, causing performance degradation.
In an SMT system, because the logical
processors share cache, the thread scheduler need only attempt to keep threads
attached to a physical processor. The
scheduler is free to move threads between
adjacent logical processors with no performance degradation due to a stale cache.
• HT-aware task pickup: This will allow
the scheduler to pick up tasks on a perphysical CPU basis, rather than per-logical CPU basis. Task pickup is related to
thread affinity above.
• HT-aware wakeup: This allows threads
that were woken up on active logical
processors with an idle sibling to be
woken up on the sibling processor. (As
you might imagine, sibling processors
are adjacent logical processors.)
These features work together in the 2.5.32+
kernel to make more efficient use of the new
hardware features of HT systems. In addition,
the kernel performs in a more consistent
manner by continually making optimal use of
the processors. The 2.4.18 kernel still performs
better as a whole on an HT system, however, it
does so in a less predictable manner.
Performance Gains Using
Hyper-Threading
cpuinfo on an HT system
The /proc/cpuinfo file recognizes four logical processors with HT enabled on a dual physical
processor system. Also note the “ht” flag, indicating a Hyper-Threading processor.
processor:
2
processor:
0
vendor_id:
GenuineIntel
vendor_id:
GenuineIntel
cpu family: 15
cpu family: 15
model:
2
model:
2
model name: Intel(R) XEON(TM) CPU 2.20GHz
model name: Intel(R) XEON(TM) CPU 2.20GHz
stepping:
4
stepping:
4
cpu MHz :
2193.407
cpu MHz:
2193.407
cache size : 512 KB
cache size:
512 KB
fdiv_bug :
no
fdiv_bug:
no
hlt_bug :
no
hlt_bug:
no
f00f_bug :
no
f00f_bug:
no
coma_bug : no
coma_bug:
no
fpu :
yes
fpu :
yes
fpu_exception: yes
fpu_exception: yes
cpuid level : 2
cpuid level: 2
wp :
yes
wp:
yes
flags :
fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce
flags:
fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae
cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov
mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca
pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx
cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi
fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm
mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm
bogomips : 4377.80
bogomips:
4377.80
processor : 3
processor:
1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
vendor_id:
GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
cpu family: 15
model :
2
model:
2
model name : Intel(R) XEON(TM) CPU 2.20GHz
model name: Intel(R) XEON(TM) CPU 2.20GHz
stepping :
4
stepping:
4
cpu MHz :
2193.407
cpu MHz:
2193.407
cache size : 512 KB
cache size:
512 KB
fdiv_bug :
no
fdiv_bug:
no
hlt_bug :
no
hlt_bug:
no
f00f_bug :
no
f00f_bug:
no
coma_bug : no
coma_bug:
no
fpu :
yes
fpu:
yes
fpu_exception: yes
fpu_exception: yes
cpuid level : 2
cpuid level: 2
wp :
yes
wp:
yes
flags :
fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce
flags:
fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae
cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov
mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca
pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx
cmov pat pse36 clflush dts
fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm
acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm
bogomips : 4377.80
bogomips:
4377.80
OK, you’ve built a Xeon-based HT system. What kind of performance improvement can be expected? Which applications
will benefit from HT, and which will suffer?
Needless to say, HT is targeted at heavily
threaded applications. Single-threaded, compute-intensive applications will see minimal
performance enhancements. It should be
noted, however, that nearly all modern desktop and server systems make extensive use of
threads. Server applications generally process
socket IO on a thread-per-socket basis.
Desktop applications under X Windows will
often be processing socket or disk IO, X calls,
and the application code in parallel.
To date, performance benchmarks for HT
systems have focused on server-side systems.
This should not be surprising; Intel only
recently released HT on a desktop-focused
processor (the recent P4). A Web search will
quickly find many papers from the past year
detailing performance of HT systems.
A recent IBM white paper by Duc
Vianney ran several benchmarks both with
and without HT enabled on 2.4 and 2.5 kernels. Vianney’s work showed a slight per-
formance degradation of single-threaded
processes with HT enabled, but performance improvement for the 2.4.19 kernel was
approximately 30%. With the enhanced
scheduler in the 2.5.32 kernel, the same
benchmarks showed a 51% improvement.
Data from an upcoming Java Developer’s
Journal article exploring heavily threaded
Java applications on HT systems indicated
typical performance gains of 10–15%, with
some tests indicating gains of up to 75%
running Java 1.4 on a 2.4.18 HT system.
www.LinuxWorld.com
39
Summary
SMT is here to stay. As processors
become more sophisticated, the raw speed
of the processor will become even less of a
factor in overall system performance due to
added features like HT. Some have speculated that SMT and related technologies
will spell the end of the megahertz wars.
As with any new hardware technology,
software is catching up. Subsequent Linux
— continued on page 42
PREMIER 2003
Enterprise
SERVER CONSOLIDATION
Management
Linux
Server
for
A holistic approach
to migration
PREMIER 2003
Consolidation
40
www.LinuxWorld.com
SERVER CONSOLIDATION
BY
J A H ’J U A N
R O G E R S
Many businesses are exploiting the cost-effectiveness, stability, and scalability of
running applications on Linux, today’s fastest-growing operating system. However,
managing multiple distributed applications can be costly and difficult.
he performance and costeffectiveness of server consolidation are driving IT personnel to consolidate their databases, Web application servers,
and mission-critical applications to the Linux platform. Businesses
need reliable hardware and software to
ensure the availability and performance of
their applications.
Successful implementation of Linux
applications in server consolidation efforts
requires a partner that takes a holistic lifecycle perspective on migrating to Linux and
manages Linux applications within a heterogeneous enterprise environment.
Linux server consolidation impacts
three distinct areas:
• Server consolidation planning: IT personnel must be able to extract and evaluate the performance, throughput, and
responsiveness of existing workloads to
accurately determine which hardware
configuration requirements will be
needed on Linux.
• Coordination of application software
deployment: Long before applications
are deployed on Linux, installation of
software can be a major issue.
Businesses must be able to plan seamless software installations, upgrades, and
maintenance over hundreds or even
thousands of Linux servers.
• Service management: Once applications
are ported to Linux, IT personnel must
be able to measure and assure ongoing
return on investment and end-to-end
response times.
T
business cycle, analyze the current service
levels, and determine the appropriate
workloads to migrate and consolidate. Of
key importance are the performance and
capacity issues that result after migration.
Under- or overconfiguring the target platform can have equally undesirable results.
Overconfiguring results in overspending on
unnecessary hardware, while under-configuring causes systems performance issues
impacting availability and service delivery.
Not only is it critical to understand which
hardware configuration is necessary on the
Linux target, it is equally critical to ensure
that the consolidated environment can continue to meet business needs to avoid recurrence of misprovisioning. Some of the critical factors to ensure the success of Linux
server consolidation plans are listed here:
• Complete understanding of the resource
requirements of application workloads
considered for migration and consolidation (candidate workloads)
• Complete understanding of the business
cycle impact on underlying candidate
workload resource utilization
• Ability to evaluate multiple alternatives
to lower IT costs per transaction with
associated impact (positive or negative)
on service levels
• Assurance that ongoing performance of
migrated and consolidated workloads
will continue to meet service levels
• Visibility for all stakeholders who need
to see the performance of their workloads throughout the server consolidation process and ongoing thereafter
these personnel have the ability to closely
forecast the future in terms of the responsiveness and throughput of business applications. It’s not enough to simply trend
underlying resource utilization because
response time and throughput do not bear a
direct relationship to underlying resource
usage (such as CPU utilization). In fact, use
of such trending typically leads to significant undersizing with concomitant negative
impact on business availability post-consolidation and migration. A typical response to
the inaccuracies of trending usually leads to
significant hardware resource overprovisioning, thereby lowering the ROI of any
migration and/or consolidation effort.
In many cases, the existing IT environment may have sufficient underlying
resource capacity, but be inefficiently used
or suffer from response time and throughput bottlenecks. Modeling capabilities are
critical in these environments, offering
rapid identification of transaction responsiveness and throughput bottlenecks in
CPU, I/O, network, and cross-system interdependencies. These modeling capabilities
can further build on existing analysis and
reporting components to provide information and rapid insight into all the critical
planning and analysis activities listed here:
• Eliminating overspending on unnecessary hardware resources
• Allowing deferral of hardware resource
purchase by accurately projecting when
upgrades are required in terms of impact
on responsiveness and throughput
• Allowing easy, quick evaluation of lower
cost alternatives (hardware, load balancing, tuning, etc.)
• Justifying and scheduling system upgrades
A B O UT
TH E
A UTH O R
Moving non-Linux applications to Linux
is not as simple as moving databases and
applications. To ensure success, customers
must understand the underlying resource
requirements of workloads on their existing
platforms, determine the effects of the
Determining if, when, and what additional resources are needed to assure ongoing responsiveness and throughput is paramount. Applications and hardware that
scale inadequately will affect business availability. IT personnel must always be aware
of the hardware resources and applications
in use on their systems. It’s imperative that
Jah’Juan Rogers, Sr. is product marketing
manager, Linux for BMC Software, Inc. In this
role, Jah’Juan is responsible for product strategy
and marketing of the BMC Software Linux
product line. He is a frequent tradeshow
speaker and has presented at BEA eWorld and
the CMG Performance Management Show. He
also has been published in The Red Hat
Journal and Dell’s Power Solutions Magazine.
[email protected]
www.LinuxWorld.com
41
PREMIER 2003
Server Consolidation Planning
SERVER CONSOLIDATION
by creating actual versus planned graphs
and reports demonstrating need
• Ensuring ongoing cost-effective delivery
of the right level of service to users and
customers – with visible proof
• Providing “what if?” scenarios to better
determine how workloads and systems
will perform under various resource,
tuning, and optimization scenarios
• Ensuring adequate capacity and required
levels of service on an ongoing basis
Businesses are not only consolidating from
variations of Unix, they are also consolidating
Windows environments and migrating to
Linux. These businesses require the same
types of performance viewing, management,
analysis, and planning solutions to help facilitate the ongoing performance optimization
and consolidation and/or migration activities.
Coordination of Application
Server Deployment
Many businesses are exploiting the costeffectiveness, stability, and scalability of running applications on Linux. While offering
obvious technical and economic benefits,
deploying applications to Linux also introduces some unique deployment, system
management, security, and reliability challenges. The logistical challenge associated
with installing, upgrading, and managing an
environment with hundreds (or even thousands) of Linux systems running diverse
applications must be addressed efficiently
and effectively. Make sure that your solution
addresses the following business needs:
• Installation and software deployment to
Linux
Hyper-Threading Linux
• Deployment of heterogeneous applications
over hundreds or thousands of Linux nodes
• Reduction of scheduled maintenance
downtime
• Reduction of operational costs of a
decentralized Linux environment
• Controlled interoperability and application software prerequisites when software is upgraded
• Improved productivity of the IT staff that
is responsible for application installations and upgrades
Open Configurations
Disparate combinations of the Linux operating system and applications running on
Intel or zSeries will cause application implementation issues. Different deployment configurations and permissible methods can provide a flexible and customized environment,
but they also make a single, straightforward,
standardized, general procedure impractical.
The concept behind flexibility is customization – making the system behave the way you
want it to, not the way the engineers imagined
you’d want it. You need to turn this flexibility
into controlled power, not chaos. You need a
way to perform specific and simultaneous
installations and maintenance tasks on multiple machines, each configured in a way that
best fits your business needs.
Security
Once you have solved the issues of variety, flexibility, and power, the issue of security remains, and if this issue is compromised, the rest of the solution is worthless.
Security for the components within the
Linux operating system is dependent upon
Service Management
Service management is the last, but by
no means least important, area of Linux
server consolidation. Customers must be
able to manage their Linux, Unix, and
Windows environments from a service-level
perspective. If you are consolidating your
servers to Intel or zSeries hardware, you
need the tools to manage the process from
an application perspective. You need to
know how your applications are performing
from an end-to-end perspective. In other
words, you need the answers to the following questions:
• How did my application perform before
I moved to this hardware?
• Is it performing better?
• What is my end-to end response time?
Overall Enterprise
Management for Linux
Enterprise Management for Linux (EML)
ensures the business availability of Intel and
zSeries servers and their applications by solving day-to-day performance problems, tracking long-term performance, and providing an
evaluation of existing workloads to assist in
server consolidation. EML provides application deployment, end-to-end monitoring, and
management for application infrastructure
and tools to help measure service levels.
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
formance by a conservative 25% in heavily threaded server applications, there’s an even stronger case for Linux servers over major Unix
platforms for data center use on a cost/performance basis.
Hyper-Threading technology promises to make the Intel/Linux
combination even more attractive to IT managers and systems architects looking to upgrade their enterprise software platforms.
— continued from page 39
kernel releases will make more sophisticated use of the available
hardware features. Over time, Linux support for HT will mature,
resulting in further performance gains.
The Linux community is waiting with bated breath for Linus
and crew to tackle the final bugs in 2.5.x, and release the 2.6 Linux
kernel. After a stabilization period (which could be significant),
major distributions will migrate to the 2.6 kernel. All the while, HTenabled hardware will be finding its way into enterprise server
racks. When the 2.6-enabled distributions hit this hardware, serverside performance will measurably increase, with no hardware
investment whatsoever.
Hyper-Threading technology specifically targets performance
gains on heavily threaded applications. These applications are most
commonly found in enterprise server platforms – application servers,
Web servers, Web services platforms, and Java-based systems. Dell,
HP (Compaq), and IBM are all putting forth powerful Xeon-based
systems with 2–16 processors running Linux. If HT can improve per-
PREMIER 2003
the expertise of the personnel or the abilities of the management tool you use. An
effective tool should find components that
are security hazards and not only warn you
of them, but provide an option to automatically replace them with secure components.
References
• Red Hat kernel version mapping: www.unixgods.org/~tilo/redhat_versions.html
• 2.5 kernel: www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rusty/
Hyperthread_Scheduler_Modifications.html
• HT-aware scheduler support: http://lwn.net/Articles/8553
• “The Future of the Linux Kernel”: www.linux-mag.com/200301/kernal_01.html
• IBM whitepaper on HT performance in 2.4 and 2.5 kernels:
www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-htl
• Dell HT paper: http://ftp.us.dell.com/app/3q02-Mor.pdf
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
42
www.LinuxWorld.com
www.linuxworldexpo.com
Big Gains in
Small Business
Linux provides a comprehensive solution
for a growing manufacturing company
Today Linux is not just about cost savings reported by enterprises, not just about
BY
M A R KU S
KL A U S E R
Markus Klauser heads a consulting and systems
integration company near Philadelphia. He has
been a consultant and integrator specializing
in Unix/Linux systems for more than 15 years.
[email protected]
Currently, Troemner has a homogenized
server environment, running exclusively on
Red Hat Linux and supporting 110 PC clients.
OSAS has evolved along with Troemner,
with 17 core and vertical applications available with both graphical and character
interfaces. This dual interface capability is
unique to OSAS. It offers veteran users at
Troemner rapid data entry and information
retrieval via the character option. It also
provides less-frequent users with the intuitive interface so valued in a GUI environment. Troemner is also utilizing HylaFAX, an
open source fax server that provides OSAS
Purchase Order faxing as well as MS
Windows document faxing. OSAS is written
in Visual PRO/5, a language developed and
marketed by BASIS International, Ltd.
Today, the “open” principle is extended
through ODBC access to the OSAS database.
As the need has arisen, Linux servers
implemented at Troemner have demonstrated the ability to provide a solution in
any area. For example, when a leading
Troemner customer introduced EDI
requirements, Linux proved its ability as a
communications-friendly operating system, running automated scripts on a daily
basis to perform EDI data exchange with
the VAN. Integrated into daily workflow,
these scripts provide logging and
archiving, e-mail status, and
order entry/billing functions.
With the more recent
prevalence of spam and email–borne viruses, Troemner
draws on SpamAssassin and
MIMEDefang from among the
open source offerings.
MIMEDefang integrates real-time
e-mail virus scanning at the gateway, using the engine provided by
Sophos. This tunable and highly reliable solution was implemented on an entrylevel Pentium machine.
Troemner has not been isolated from
rapidly expanding file storage requirements. Samba provides file and print services as well as the logon controls of a PDC.
While total data is less than 100GB, the
growing set of file types (including Word,
Excel, PowerPoint, SolidWorks, CadKey,
PREMIER 2003
44
www.LinuxWorld.com
security demanded by Web servers, and not just about government and academia:
Linux is also about Small Business USA.
here, in the roots of the U.S.
economy, Linux provides a
complete end-to-end solution. Providing the same reliability that yields record uptimes running Web servers,
Linux also offers 100% availability in its role
supporting the areas of application, database, fax, file/print, e-mail, Primary and
Backup Domain Controller, SPAM Filter,
firewall, antivirus control, intrusion detection, and disaster recovery – all critical core
services in any business environment.
T
Background
Founded in 1838 and located in
Thorofare, New Jersey, Henry Troemner,
LLC, is an ISO 9001–certified company
employing more than 150 people. The company is proud of its international reputation
for providing the highest quality calibration
and certification of mass, pipette, and temperature measurement instruments.
Troemner continues to manufacture precision weights and has added an array of laboratory apparatuses to its product line.
In 1988, Will Abele, president of
Troemner, faced the challenge of finding a
comprehensive software package that
could support his growing manufacturing
A B O UT
TH E
A UTH O R
company. His immediate concern was the
software application’s ability to handle the
financials, manufacturing control, and
company billing. He also wanted to move
the payables from a service bureau to an
in-house system.
Abele chose OPEN SYSTEMS Accounting
Software (OSAS) and installed it on an eightuser Linux system. Open Systems is an established software company founded in 1976 on
the fundamental premise of providing commercially successful accounting and business
software with source code included. Abele’s
key reason for choosing OSAS was the availability of its source code.
Little did Abele know that
the same rationale he applied
to his selection of OSAS
would be shared by the open
source community. The open
source concept has enabled
Linux to evolve into a
mature, versatile, and
reliable business operating system.
The Troemner
Environment
www.linuxworld.com
Small Business Strategy
The VAR had the opportunity to ask Troemner VP John Rowley a few questions on small
business strategy. Here’s what he had to say...
Why Linux?
• It’s a stable, open source platform that allows better scalability and flexibility than NT products.
• There are minimal to no licensing fees compared to SCO/Unix and Microsoft NT.
• Linux appeals to ownership because it is more entrepreneurial in nature than “Big Business”
networking products.
• A large network of collaborative resources (the Linux community) exists to deal with programming/implementation issues.
What IT concerns face small business today?
• We are a small business with thousands of customers. There are not many enterprise solutions for small companies with small IT budgets. Enterprise solution is defined as accounting, CRM, MRP, etc.
• Microsoft products have the tendency to lock us into other Microsoft products.
• IT costs are growing disproportionately to sales. Customer expectations are driving this
without necessarily increasing the amount they purchase.
• There’s not enough clear and objective information available in the marketplace for a small
company to make IT decisions. Most press is geared toward larger organizations.
JPG, and so on) is delivered to MS Windows
clients from Linux servers using Samba. In
addition, Samba delivers business-critical
FoxPro and MS Access databases and the
services of HylaFAX to the desktop. The
project of delivering these services, previously provided by Novell and NT servers,
was accelerated when system response was
doubled using Samba on same-generation
hardware. After the initial transition, the file
server recorded 120-day uptime and bettered both of the previous systems’ everyseven-days preventive reboots. It also eliminated the often badly timed server lockups.
When world events re-emphasized the
need for data security and disaster recovery,
Troemner initiated a project to augment
daily, and in some cases twice-daily, backups using Microlite BackupEDGE. Troemner
considered offsite backup but deemed the
cost per GB prohibitive. The company
selected Rsync. Rsync provides a highly efficient file synchronization scheme both on
local servers and across the network.
Troemner is aware of Linux’s proven ability to provide e-mail and Web services. Email services on Linux provide messaging,
calendar collaboration, meeting planning,
and contacts sharing to MS Outlook clients.
The “turn on and forget” reliability of Linux
has also been demonstrated with this solution. Since conversion to e-mail on Linux in
www.LinuxWorld.com
2000, perhaps a single reboot was mandated
to restore e-mail functioning. This performance ensures Troemner personnel’s productivity and also allows a consultant/administrator to apply resources in constructive
tasks. Most recently, Troemner’s Web site
was updated with content presented using
Apache/MySQL/PHP on Linux.
Troemner VP of Operations and IT
Manager John Rowley points to the “entrepreneurial nature” of Linux as one of its
appeals, and he quickly adds both cost benefits and flawless reliability to the list.
Rowley also appreciates the Linux community’s large network of collaborative
resources, which provides technical support alternatives – including responses
from the product’s authors. While Troemner
is nowhere near a pioneer in the adoption
of Linux, newsgroups and Web resources
provide backup and the reassurance that
they are not alone in any situation.
Resources
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
SpamAssassin: www.spamassassin.org
MIMEDefang: www.roaringpenguin.com
Sophos: www.sophos.com
Samba: www.samba.org
HylaFAX: www.hylafax.org
Microlite: www.microlite.com
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LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
45
The World’s Leading i-Technology Publisher
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Talk
A
with the
Father of
sendmail
Eric Allman
on
evolution
in the
IT universe
A B O UT
E R I C
A L L M A N
Eric Allman is Sendmail, Inc.’s chief
technology officer and cofounder. Eric
authored sendmail, the world’s first Internet
Mail program, in 1981 while at the
University of California at Berkeley.
PREMIER 2003
46
www.LinuxWorld.com
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
I NTE R V I E W
BY
A L A N
W I L L I A M S O N
LWM’s deputy editor Alan Williamson recently had the opportunity to speak with
Eric Allman about sendmail, open source, and the secret to great software.
LWM: It wouldn’t be overstating the case to
call you a living legend. How does it feel to
be the creator of one of the most used pieces
of software on the Internet?
Eric Allman: I sure don’t feel like a legend. I
have to remind myself sometimes that I
haven’t taken the typical career path – it’s
always seemed very natural to me. Mostly
I’ve worked on what seemed interesting at
the time, and that’s served me well. Of
course, luck had a lot to do with it too.
LWM: Many new technologies have
emerged, but still one of the most used
communication channels is good old trusted e-mail.What would you attribute this
success to?
Allman: E-mail fits the needs well. It has
immediacy without being demanding (the
telephone needs to be picked up right now).
There will always be a place for voice mail and
instant messaging of course, and to a certain
extent IM will replace some use of e-mail, just
as e-mail replaced some use of fax and fax
replaced some use of postal mail. But none of
those technologies went away – far from it.
E-mail is also complementary to a lot of
these other technologies, and in some cases
may even enhance them. For example, as IP
telephony emerges I expect to see at least
some revival of voice mail – but transmitted
via e-mail.
LWM: Software goes through many evolutions in its lifetime.With sendmail over 20
years old now, what are the 3 most significant stages sendmail has gone through?
Allman: The first version of sendmail was
actually called delivermail. This was preInternet and depended heavily on all the
other mail subsystems (UUCP, Berknet,
etc.) having their own queuing. The transition from there to sendmail, which included adding queuing and Internet support,
was major.
that continues to happen from version to
version. So in a lot of ways sendmail has
evolved more than made revolutionary
changes.
LWM: With the advent of MIME, you can
pretty much send anything using e-mail.
Do you think we’ll still be discussing email, as we know it now, in another 20
years?
Allman: Yes, probably. But the public might
not recognize it as such. I’m using a
PowerBook right now to type this, and it
doesn’t look much like the PDP-11 where
the first versions of sendmail were developed. But despite the addition of a graphic
...it all comes down to
“good engineering” –
anyone can do it if they
are obsessive enough
LWM: sendmail is one of those great pieces
of software that you can literally forget
about as it “just works.”What’s your secret?
Allman: Before I did sendmail, I worked on
the INGRES project at Berkeley. INGRES
was one of the first Relational Database
Management Systems (the other was
System R, which evolved into DB2). A lot of
the emphasis in DBMS is reliability, recovery, etc., which requires a certain way of
thinking about the problem. So I guess it
all comes down to “good engineering” –
anyone can do it if they are obsessive
enough.
The second big transition was between
sendmail 5 and sendmail 8, which pulled in
a lot of ideas that had been added into
other versions of sendmail. It was a conscious attempt to remerge the various code
lines and modularize a lot of the internals.
This transition also added the M4-based
configuration system that sendmail has
today.
I’m not sure there has been a third
major transition yet, but there have been
some significant jumps that occured over
time. I’m a big believer in making many
small changes instead of a few large ones
when you can. For example, the sendmail 5
to sendmail 8 transition involved a fair
amount of modularization in the code, but
display, a mouse, networking, larger disks,
lower power consumption, and lots and
lots of software, it’s still a von Neumann
stored program architecture. After all, the
holographic messages you see in futuristic
science fiction flicks are probably running
on SMTP.
www.LinuxWorld.com
47
PREMIER 2003
A B O UT
TH E
I NTE R V I E W E R
When not answering your e-mails and working
on the next issue of LWM or JDJ, Alan heads
up a small team dubbed the “Thunderbirds of
the Java industry,” providing on- and offsite
rescue for Java projects in trouble. For more
information visit www.javaSOS.com. You can
also read his blog: http://alan.blog-city.com.
[email protected]
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Allman: Definitely both. There was certainly
a cause-and-effect relationship between the
two as well. But it’s also important that, as
you noted earlier, sendmail does pretty
much “just work” – even if you may not be
wild about the configuration language (I’m
not at this point). Without that basic reliability people would have moved off it years ago.
“Frankly, five years ago I
didn’t think Linux was really
ready for prime time outside
of a deeply technical shop.
That’s changed a lot”
LWM: Do you think the SMTP protocol
should get a major overhaul to combat the
new challenges of today’s Internet, such as
spam and overly large e-mail attachments?
Allman: That sounds like a trick question. I
have to say yes, but no. I believe we need to
evolve SMTP, but I’m not wild about throwing it out and starting over. Fortunately, the
ESMTP structure permits extensions, so I
think making the changes we will need is
possible without switching to a major new
framework.
I also think an evolutionary approach is
essential to avoid having a commercial
entity try to “privatize” e-mail protocols. I
think that would lead us back to the bad
old days of a fractured network, which is
what sendmail was trying to address in the
first place.
LWM: You are involved with Sendmail, Inc.,
a commericial venture to support sendmail.What challenges are you facing in
providing support for an open source product?
Allman: Depending on how you look at it,
either a lot or not much at all. We certainly
have some instances where people prefer to
run open source rather than commercial,
and I view that as just fine, although some
of our salespeople might not always agree.
But the open source gives us market awareness and reputation that just can’t be
bought.
The biggest challenges we have right
now are the same as any company has
these days: a sluggish economy.
Fortunately, e-mail isn’t one of those trendy
things that companies can put off until
things improve. Instead, in bad times companies look hard at finding a better, cheaper way of doing things, and standardsbased mail tends to be less expensive than
proprietary systems.
LWM: It is reported that around 70% of
total e-mail transmitted comes in contact
with a sendmail gateway at some point in
its journey. A significant penentration by
anyone’s standards. Do you think this has
to do with the fact that sendmail was primarily an open source project or that it
was adopted by many of the Unix variants
as the preferred mail router? Maybe both?
LWM: sendmail has benefited from the
explosive growth in Linux over the past
decade. How has this changed what you are
doing at Sendmail, Inc.?
Allman: sendmail has always been written
to be extremely portable, so from the point
of view of the code base, not much has
changed at all. But from the commercial
point of view, it’s a major thing. Linux is a
Tier 1 platform for us, and that’s significant at a small company. Linux is a major
player in the server world, especially for
companies that are extremely cost-conscious. Linux has been a major driver in
our partnerships with HP and IBM, for
example.
LWM: What is the most common support
call you’ve seen with sendmail? What are
the top “gotchas” for most people?
Allman: The top gotchas? When they don’t
read the documentation, definitely.
Seriously, the vast majority of questions are
pretty simple ones that are answered in the
documentation, such as how you do masquerading, but that’s going to be true on
any product. But there are also a lot of
nonobvious questions that pretty much
run the gamut. People do an immense
amount of interesting things with sendmail.
LWM: Are you seeing a shift in attitude
from the Fortune 500 toward embracing
open source technologies, such as sendmail,
Apache, and Linux?
The History of sendmail
— 1979 —
— 1981 —
— 1982 —
— 1993 —
— 1998 —
— 2003 —
Eric Allman releases
delivermail
————
delivermail uses FTP
to transmit e-mail on
the ARPANET
————
delivermail ships
with BSD
Allman changes the
name to sendmail after
Bill Joy notes he doesn’t like delivermail
ARPANET moves to
TCP/IP
————
SMTP Protocol
(RFC821)
introduced for
moving mail
around
sendmail releases 8.0
with m4 configuration
Allman & Greg Olson
announce formation
of Sendmail, Inc.
sendmail installed on
approximately 80% of
all mail servers
PREMIER 2003
References
• A Brief History of Mail:
www.coruscant.demon.co.uk/mike/sendmail/history.html
• Wikipedia: www.wikipedia.org/wiki/eric_allman
• Open Source Timeline: www.linuxcertification.com/manpage/timeline.php3
48
www.LinuxWorld.com
www.linuxworld.com
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Allman: Without a doubt. Not surprisingly,
a lot of this results from vendors that
they’ve already heard of (notably IBM and
HP) throwing their weight behind open
source, but a lot has to do with cost consciousness and an increasing faith in
Linux. Frankly, five years ago I didn’t think
Linux was really ready for prime time outside of a deeply technical shop. That’s
changed a lot.
LWM: Let’s spool back some 15 years ago –
sendmail would have been roughly 5 years
old.What was your outlook for the future
back then? Did you see sendmail having a
limited shelf life?
Allman: I didn’t expect it would last this long,
although it wasn’t anything particularly to do
with sendmail per se. Not much software
lasts that long (10 years is a good life span),
and I figured it would have had a more ordi-
to speak at economics conferences, albeit
about open source in general, not sendmail
in particular. And it’s just cool to see how
they rely on this body of code I wrote. It’s
the ultimate in ego strokes when people
actually use your stuff – speaking as someone who was raised in academia where success is often claimed because a couple of
hundred people read your paper.
As for throwing up my hands in horror,
let me count the ways.... I think prudence
suggests that I shouldn’t be too explicit
about the amazingly stupid things that people try to do. Use your imagination.
LWM: People and organizations alike are
paranoid about security. Should they be?
Allman: Arguably, not paranoid enough. Or
more precisely, they care too much about
things that aren’t all that important and not
enough about the things that are important.
“It [e-mail] has immediacy without
being demanding (the telephone
needs to be picked up right now)”
nary life cycle. And honestly, if sendmail had
just sat on the shelf it would have died a long
time ago – bit rot sets in all by itself.
Look at the sorts of code that have
thrived over a long period of time, for
example Unix in all of its derivatives. There
has been a huge amount of work done on
such code. There has been a direct progression from 6th Edition UNIX (the first kernel
I hacked on) to FreeBSD, but there isn’t
much in FreeBSD that resembles that predecessor. Similarly, although I can show you
code that I wrote for delivermail that is still
in sendmail 8.12, there isn’t much of it.
LWM: When you go onsite to a see customer,
what makes you have a wry smirk? And
conversely, what makes you throw your
hands up in horror?
Allman: For the smirk, probably that only
the techies know who I am. I had one case
several years ago where a vendor rep came
in and told me all about sendmail (getting
much of it wrong) without even realizing
who I was. I enjoyed letting him chew on
his foot for a while. That has changed some
since I started Sendmail. Now I get invited
www.LinuxWorld.com
Some pet examples of mine from both
the physical and cyber worlds: firewalls are
trusted far too much, in that they are sometimes used as an excuse for having inadequate security inside the firewall. “Hard and
crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on
the inside” is the way I’ve sometimes heard
it described. On the other hand, people
sometimes worry too much about obscure
points of cryptography that aren’t going to
make much difference in the typical (nonmilitary) world. In the physical world, we
aren’t anywhere near as worried as we
should be about people stealing our mail
from the end of the front path; identity theft
is a serious and under-appreciated problem.
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LWM: To your knowledge, what is the
biggest installation you know that sendmail is currently deployed in?
Allman: I couldn’t even guess. Most of the
Fortune 500 run sendmail at least somewhere, although the largest would probably
be an ISP somewhere. But ISPs often don’t
like to talk about the details of their technologies.
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
49
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INTERVIEW
Linux Initiatives
at IBM
Nobody ever got fired for picking...Linux?
Linux is moving into businesses across a broad range of industries, and IBM is a
big supporter. In this exclusive LWM interview, Scott Handy, director of Linux
Software Solutions for IBM Corporation, shares with editor-in-chief Kevin Bedell his
thoughts on the mainstream acceptance of Linux – the past, present, and possible.
LWM: IBM seems to be getting behind
Linux in a big way.What are some of the
major initiatives right now?
Scott Handy: We have a very broad focus
on Linux for large accounts and for small
and medium-sized businesses. Within that,
we focus on particular industries – namely
retail, finance, public sector (including government), manufacturing, and telecommunications.
Linux adoption has been strong in all
industries, so there have been cross-industry initiatives as well including e-commerce, CRM, ERP, and accounting software.
Overall, we have a broad set of programs
starting with a focus on solution providers
and in particular application developers.
We have an initiative called “Speed Start
Your Linux Application” in which we provide free technical support for Linux and
IBM software on Linux to developers as
well as development tools and software,
including the DB2 database, WebSphere
Application Server, WebSphere Studio tools,
Lotus tools, and Tivoli Management
Software.
The developer pick-up from the program has been extremely strong. In the
past year we’ve had more than 6,500
applications developed using our software
on Linux – all of which use WebSphere
Studio and the rest of the IBM software
family.
We also have a direct sales force and
Business Partners that cover the customers
and customize solutions based on their
needs. I think customers vote with their
wallets when they buy solutions on Linux,
and we’ve had more than 6,300 successful
customer engagements on Linux – clearly
showing penetration beyond the Global
2000 into small and medium-sized businesses and across a broad range of industries.
Kevin Bedell is editor-in-chief of
LinuxWorld Magazine. With a degree in
engineering as well as an MBA and years of
experience as a developer, architect, team lead,
and department manager, Kevin has seen all
sides of this puzzle. He recently authored a
book on Jakarta Struts for SAMS Publishing and
is working on a book on Apache Axis for O’Reilly.
[email protected]
LWM: Why does it make business sense for
IBM to commit development resources to
projects like Linux that don’t generate
license revenue?
Handy: There’s a tremendous demand
from customers for Linux, and we’re in the
business of providing customers with the
solutions that they want. The fact that
Linux is the fastest growing server operating system in the world validates that customer demand. So we provide development
resources to accelerate Linux’s acceptance
into the enterprise by helping it mature
into a mainstream enterprise operating system.
The benefit to IBM is really the solution
stack that we put around Linux that customers do buy – which is the software,
PREMIER 2003
52
A B O UT
TH E
I NTE R V I E W E R
I NTE R V I E W E D
BY
KE V I N
B E D E L L
hardware, and services around the Linux
operating system. Most customers do actually buy the Linux operating system, by the
way, just not directly from us. We recommend that they buy the supported enterprise versions from Red Hat or one of the
UnitedLinux partners.
LWM: When IBM purchased Lotus
Development Corporation, many corporations felt that it was “safe” to adopt Lotus
Notes because IBM was behind it. Are you
seeing similar attitudes now that IBM is
behind Linux?
Handy: I think that’s a good analogy. When
we bought Lotus back in 1995, they had
about 3 million seats of Lotus Notes. By
promoting Lotus in the enterprise we’ve
been able to grow that to over 105 million
seats, so it’s certainly safe to say that’s been
a successful endeavor.
We’re now seeing a similar mainstream
acceptance of Linux. But I think IBM adds
more than just credibility. It also adds solutions around Linux. The Linux operating
system is not necessarily a solution and
what we bring to the table is our hardware,
software, and services, plus our solution
providers that deliver applications for
Linux.
LWM: What do you see as the “value proposition” of Linux for corporations?
Handy: Linux’s initial attraction was
around price/performance, reliability, and
total cost of ownership. It also proved to be
very flexible, runs on a wide variety of
hardware, and has gained broad industry
support.
More specifically, the two killer applications that drove its success on the server
were Apache for Web servers and Samba for
file and print serving. And as customers
started there, they were extremely happy
with the reliability and performance char-
www.LinuxWorld.com
INTERVIEW
acteristics. Now customers are saying they
want to expand that and get those same
reliability and total cost of ownership benefits for their business applications. That’s
what’s fueling the growth of Linux.
LWM: What concerns do managers in general have about adopting Linux? Are these
concerns valid?
Handy: Usually the first concern we hear is
about how to get mainstream support for
Linux. And usually that’s just a matter of
educating them on the wide variety of support options available. Support is available
directly from the distribution companies,
and IBM provides direct support for Linux
with the same terms and conditions,
including 24x7 support, that we provide for
IBM operating systems.
Next, I think that customers want to
adopt Linux but don’t want to reinvent their
infrastructure on top of Linux. That’s why
we’re seeing such a broad acceptance of
middleware on top of Linux, including our
DB2, WebSphere, Lotus, and Tivoli products. Sales of those products more than
doubled year over year in 2002 because
customers didn’t want to reinvent an ebusiness infrastructure on Linux. We are
able to provide that infrastructure with
software that’s been ported from Unix and
Windows and has already been battle tested in real, production customer environments.
LWM: If I were a senior technical person
who wanted to use Linux, what arguments
could I use when I approach my management?
Handy: The real Linux momentum started
at the senior technical management level. It
was a grassroots effort driven by the fact
that you could install Linux without a purchase order and without approval from
anyone. And those initial pilots and production projects were highly successful and
gave those senior technical managers
ammunition to expand.
A few years ago, we found that CEOs
weren’t aware that they had Linux installed
when in fact they did. Then, as more and
more vendors publicly announced support
for Linux, the breadth of Linux projects
installed became clear to middle management. The senior technical managers were
usually justifying Linux because it provided
Unix reliability at Intel price points.
www.LinuxWorld.com
LWM: Moving up the line, what arguments
could middle management use to sell Linux
to senior management?
Handy: Middle management based decisions on expanding Linux on the success of
the initial Linux projects they had. And in
fact, Linux was providing Unix reliability at
Intel price points. They found they could
scale Linux using clusters or server consolidation on larger servers up to and including
Linux on the mainframe.
Also, as more software became available
for Linux (such as IBM’s software portfolio,
where we now have more than 75 products
shipping on Linux) as well as software from
key application providers such as SAP, JD
Edwards, and SAS, middle management
could more easily integrate Linux into their
existing environment.
“The unique thing
about Linux is the
GPL license, which
forces all derivatives
of Linux to have their
source code published”
LWM: Is Linux on the radar at the senior or
chief executive levels yet? Should it be?
Handy: Absolutely! Almost all senior managers either have a Linux plan or are being
asked for one because it’s so well known
that Linux is being adopted by major corporations around the world – many of
which believe they’re getting a competitive advantage using Linux versus the
alternatives. It’s only natural that CIOs
have a plan for what they’re doing with
Linux.
LWM: If I were a manager interested in
Linux, where is the “low-hanging fruit”?
That is, which areas of the business should
I look to first when considering adopting
Linux?
Handy: Managers usually start with a pilot
that they move into production. Usually,
the pilot applications are for workload consolidation or deploying new applications or
workloads. For example, a customer I’m
working with now is starting with a JD
Edwards application. In our experience,
these pilot applications have all been successful. Then they expand Linux to other
areas of the business.
LWM: Which Linux distributions does IBM
support or recommend? Is IBM considering
their own distribution?
Handy: IBM recommends and supports
Red Hat and UnitedLinux, including the
distributions from UnitedLinux’s partners.
IBM has no plans for its own distribution.
LWM: What is the future of AIX?
Handy: AIX will continue to expand. In fact,
since we started our Linux initiative back in
1999, AIX market share has grown. We continue to see AIX drive further up into more
scalable servers – into 32-way configurations and beyond – as well as expanding in
the mid-range base.
Scott Handy,
director of
Linux Software
Solutions for
IBM Corporation
LWM: Do you see Linux fragmenting similarly to Unix? What forces might keep that
from happening?
Handy: No. The unique thing about Linux
is the GPL license, which forces all derivatives of Linux to have their source code
published. That’s very unlike Unix. Because
of that the industry is all sharing the same
Linux kernel and for 10 years running has
kept to a single code base.
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
53
PREMIER 2003
INTERVIEW
Making
Linux
Unbreakable,
Keeping Linux Open
Thanks to the active support
of giant companies like
Oracle, the Linux OS just goes
on getting better and better
A B O UT
W I M
C O E K A E RT S
As well as being a member of the distinguished
International Advisory Board of LinuxWorld
Magazine, Wim Coekaerts is director of Linux
Engineering, Oracle Corporation, where he
manages a team of talented Linux developers.
Wim, Oracle’s Linux liaison, was hand-picked
by Oracle chairman and CEO Larry Ellison to
lead Oracle’s Linux kernel team and is responsible for ensuring that Oracle works collaboratively with the Linux community.
PREMIER 2003
54
www.LinuxWorld.com
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEWED BY JEREMY GEELAN
What’s Oracle's strategy on Linux? LWM sought out the man hand-picked by
Oracle chairman and CEO Larry Ellison to manage a team of talented Linux developers
and serve as the company’s director of Linux Engineering: Wim Coekaerts.
im Coekaerts leads
Oracle’s Linux kernel
team and is responsible for ensuring that
Oracle works collaboratively with the
Linux community. LWM wanted to find out
in greater detail Oracle’s history, involvement, commitment, and future plans with
regard to Linux.
W
LWM: How long have you personally been
involved with Linux?
Wim Coekaerts: I’ve been using Linux since
1993, and I became seriously involved in
Linux at work when Larry Ellison asked me
to build a Linux-based network computer
in 1999, a year after Oracle became the first
vendor to release a commercial database
available for Linux. Today, my team of very
talented Linux kernel developers are
responsible for ensuring that Oracle works
collaboratively with the Linux kernel community.
LWM: What’s Oracle’s current commitment
to Linux?
Coekaerts: Oracle makes Linux
Unbreakable, collaborating with Red Hat,
UnitedLinux – which includes Conectiva
S.A., the SCO Group, SuSE Linux AG, and
Turbolinux – and others in the Linux community. Together, we support, test, tune,
and improve the Linux kernel to ensure stability, reliability, security, and manageability for all Oracle products on Linux. We
believe Linux is a great choice for enterprises and are committed to helping our customers take full advantage of Oracle software on Linux.
Coekaerts: As Oracle’s Linux liaison, it’s my
responsibility to ensure that we cooperate
symbiotically with the Linux kernel community. We embrace and support the open
Linux architecture by contributing significant open source code to the Linux community. This helps accelerate the power,
performance, ease of use, and dependability of Linux. And we provide enterpriselevel, seamless technical support for Red
Hat Advanced Server and all operating systems powered by UnitedLinux.
LWM: How does Oracle help its customers
take full advantage of Oracle software on
Linux?
Coekaerts: We’ve made numerous
announcements over the years and much
progress, underscoring our investment
and commitment to Linux. Through our
technical contributions, front-line support, initiation of security evaluations on
Linux, and strategic partnerships, Oracle
makes Linux Unbreakable so customers
can safely, securely, and reliably deploy
Linux in mission-critical enterprise environments.
LWM: What exactly does a “Linux liaison” do?
LWM: How about open systems, do they
play a role, from an Oracle standpoint?
Coekaerts: Open systems play an important
role in our strategy, and our work with Linux
is a hallmark of this strategy. Over the years,
Oracle and our customers have learned a lot
about running Oracle on Linux in the enterprise. This knowledge and the opportunity
to dramatically reduce IT infrastructure
costs are the catalysts behind our decision
to provide front-line technical support for
the Linux operating system, both Red Hat
Advanced Server and UnitedLinux, in addition to Oracle products.
www.LinuxWorld.com
55
LWM: Is there any way to actually quantify
Oracle’s commitment to Linux, for the
benefit of LWM readers?
Coekaerts: More than one million Linuxrelated downloads have already been
downloaded from our developer network,
Oracle Technology Network (OTN), and
that number continues to grow. More than
4,000 independent software vendors (ISVs)
are using Oracle products on Linux, and
550 ISVs have certified to run their applications on Oracle9i Database on Linux.
LWM: What do you think the primary
reasons are for the explosive popularity
of Linux?
Coekaerts: I think that there are many
forces behind it but, for me, three primary
reasons stand out the most.
First, the cost savings. Linux is a lessexpensive alternative to other operating
systems. Yes, this is obvious, but worth stating. Since Linux is free, the cost of implementation drops significantly. Second,
Linux runs on lower-cost, nonproprietary
hardware solutions, so you can deploy on
low-cost commodity hardware. Third, Linux
is open source, so dependence on a single
OS vendor is replaced with greater innovation, freely shared. As with any new, lowcost, nonproprietary solution, it gets
cheaper over time.
LWM: And how do these advantages
translate for Oracle customers?
Coekaerts: Our customers benefit from
running Linux in many ways. Everyone
knows Linux costs less and – thanks in part
to Oracle – it’s faster and more reliable than
A B O UT
TH E
I NTE R V I E W E R
Jeremy Geelan, editorial director of
SYS-CON Media, speaks, writes, and broadcasts
about the current state of Internet technology,
and about the strategies appropriate to
the unrelenting convergence of business,
i-technology, and the future.
[email protected]
PREMIER 2003
INTERVIEW
ever before. My team has experienced this
firsthand. We run Linux internally at Oracle,
which allows us to test and prototype our
software on Linux well in advance of new
releases, thus ensuring reliability. In addition, my team can develop innovative features for the operating system and immediately share those with the Linux kernel
community.
LWM: So in other words, you eat in your
own kitchen?
Coekaerts: That’s right. By running parts of
our own business on Linux, we make our
own infrastructure more efficient and less
expensive. There are several Linux-based
pilots and operational systems: for example, Oracle Outsourcing runs a large part of
wide; the Oracle E-Business Suite GSI on
Linux is five times cheaper and three times
faster than conventional Unix/RISC.
Looking more closely at Linux inside
Oracle worldwide, we run more than 700
mid-tier Linux servers, including most of
Oracle University, the Oracle e-mail system,
the Oracle Web site, Oracle’s ERP/CRM
application middle tiers, and the Oracle
File System. In fact, our own development
organization uses hundreds of Linux
servers, and Oracle even runs its demonstration environment – where performance
is critical – on Linux. By the end of Oracle’s
fiscal year (June 2003), we plan to have
100% of our mid-tier servers on Linux.
Finally, more than 1,000 developers at
Oracle use Linux as their development
The nice thing about Linux from Oracle’s
point of view is that we can prototype OS
feature enhancements together with Oracle
database enhancements in-house. This
allows us to quickly determine if some new
idea is feasible to implement or not, and if
so, we can create a possible reference
implementation for other vendors to pick
up, or even show other OS partners how it
will benefit them as well.
Oracle is actively supporting the Linux
open source community by contributing
source code for products such as the
Cluster File System, driving development of
the Linux kernel, and working with the
Linux community to provide higher levels
of security assurance for the operating system. We recently announced with Red Hat
“Oracle is actively supporting the Linux
open source community by contributing
source code for products such as the
Cluster File System, driving development of
the Linux kernel, and working with the
Linux community to provide higher levels of
security assurance for the operating system”
their business on Linux. And we recently
converted our application demo systems –
consisting of several hundred servers – to
Red Hat Advanced Server; these demo systems are used by our global sales organization to give demonstrations of our products
to prospects, customers, and partners.
We’ve discovered that Linux on low-cost,
commodity hardware is a proven technology for mission-critical apps such as Oracle
E-Business Suite and Oracle9i Database
with Real Application Clusters. In fact, we
run Oracle E-Business Suite on a
Linux/Intel middle tier. This Global Single
Instance (GSI) in our Austin Data Center
provides mission-critical applications to
more than 40,000 Oracle employees world-
environment. This shows our commitment
to Linux because running our own production systems on it means that we trust and
are serious about Linux.
PREMIER 2003
56
LWM: How about Oracle’s Linux Kernel
contributions?
Coekaerts: My group works very closely with
Red Hat and UnitedLinux to test and optimize
Linux. For example, we collaborated to create
a core set of enhancements in the areas of
performance, reliability, clustering, and manageability in order to enable Linux to support
our customers’ enterprise-class deployments.
We believe that our work with Red Hat and
UnitedLinux to enhance the Linux kernel will
benefit all Linux distributions.
an intent to submit Red Hat Linux
Advanced Server for a Common Criteria
(ISO 15408) evaluation at Evaluation
Assurance Level (EAL) 2. This evaluation is
expected to enable security-conscious customers in both the public and private sectors to procure an evaluated Linux operating system upon which they can run enterprise applications.
LWM: Is there much debugging and Quality
Assurance (QA) happening at Oracle?
Coekaerts: A lot. We run heavy stress testing on Linux kernels, from production kernels to the new 2.5 development tree, and
provide feedback to the community on
peformance characteristics – and of course
www.LinuxWorld.com
INTERVIEW
fix bugs where we find them. When we first
started to work with the Linux vendors to
get Linux enterprise-ready, we had a set of
features that included asynchronous IO,
big pages support, reducing lock contention in IO drivers, and so on. We helped
with the development and debugging of
these features and shared our expertise in
userland libraries or testcases (e.g., Async
IO userland library with test tools) when
available.
For fun, we even made Firewire driver
changes to allow for shared-disk devices
and fixed bugs in bus reset handling on
Firewire. This is useful to Oracle users
because it offers an easy and inexpensive
solution for creating a shared-disk setup. A
simple thing like this allows people to
install and use our database clustering
technology, Oracle9i Real Application
Clusters, in a test and demo environment.
In addition, it helps them understand the
features and power behind our database
clustering technology without having to
purchase expensive equipment first.
LWM: Does any one project come to mind
as being of special significance?
Coekaerts: The most significant project we
started last year was to build a Cluster File
System for Linux. This makes management
of a clustered database much simpler
because the file system is easier to work
with than raw disks. We’re also looking at
Infiniband implementations. And, in keeping with the open source approach, all of
this will of course be open sourced.
result, Oracle customers on Red Hat
Advanced Server or UnitedLinux get
improved response and faster resolution of
critical issues. As a single support organization, we ensure the highest level of support and availability to our joint customers.
Any customer running Oracle products
on Red Hat or UnitedLinux should turn to
us for support if they have an issue that
prevents the smooth operation of their
Oracle implementation. We’ll diagnose the
issue and work with the OS partner for
those cases where the operating system is
suspected of causing the issue. For those
issues of a mission-critical nature, Oracle
will provide a fix to the customer regardless
of the source – whether it’s an Oracle, Red
Hat, or UnitedLinux issue. And for additional support issues, Oracle will collaborate with the Linux partner so that the customer issue is resolved jointly. All this is
done seamlessly for the customer without
them having to get involved. It’s important
to note, however, that Oracle customers
looking to benefit from this front-line support must have a support agreement in
place with the Linux distribution.
LWM: How about tech support?
Coekaerts: One of the great things about
our commitment to Linux is our direct,
front-line technical support for the Linux
operating system. We offer this support for
Oracle customers running Red Hat Linux
Advanced Server and UnitedLinux, which
includes Conectiva Linux Enterprise
Edition, SCO Linux Server 4.0, SuSE Linux
Enterprise Server 8, and Turbolinux
Enterprise Server 8.
For DBAs, an elegant bug-free implementation for clusters has been a hurdle,
and that’s now been removed. Perhaps the
next-biggest hurdle until now has been
technical support. We not only certify and
support our applications on these Linux
distributions, we also support the Linux
operating system itself. This is incredibly
significant because Oracle, working closely
with Red Hat and UnitedLinux, is a single
point of contact for customer support. As a
LWM: How exactly is Oracle making Linux
“unbreakable”?
Coekaerts: For 25 years, the Oracle brand
has been synonymous with enterprise
excellence and our commitment is continuing to grow with “Unbreakable Linux,”
which offers a unique combination of innovative technologies – like a modern open
source operating system and database clustering technology that dramatically reduces
the cost of computing while achieving the
highest levels of performance, reliability,
and security. We are unique in that no other
company in the world provides all your
enterprise software and full technical support on Linux.
In fact, we also offer thousands of compatible Linux-based solutions from partners. In conjunction with Dell and HP we
deliver easy access to high-performance
servers that are ready to run Oracle9i
Database technology out-of-the-box, allowing customers to deploy high-performance,
enterprise-class solutions on the lowestcost hardware and operating system infrastructure available today.
Furthering our commitment to Linux,
Oracle recently launched the Unbreakable
Linux Partner Initiative, which gives financial, technical, and marketing incentives to
ISVs delivering applications on Oracle’s
www.LinuxWorld.com
57
Unbreakable Linux software infrastructure.
ISVs that join the initiative through the
Oracle Partner Network get technical and
support resources from my team and
Oracle’s support organization to help them
build their applications.
Only Oracle has its complete infrastructure and applications product lines available on Linux, and strategic partnerships
with Red Hat and UnitedLinux. Together,
Red Hat and UnitedLinux serve more than
95% of the Linux OS server market worldwide. Oracle customers everywhere can
now take advantage of our front-line support for the Linux operating system.
LWM: Developers, network administrators,
and database administrators all have
high hopes for Linux, which continues
to be the fastest-growing enterprise
computing environment.What do you
see as the most likely future for Linux?
Coekaerts: One of the most important
growth areas for Linux today is scalability.
In the future, Linux will scale beyond 8
CPUs and we will begin to see 16- to 30way systems with up to 64GB of RAM, not
to mention greater support for a larger
number of disks. We’ll need to prove that
Linux provides scalability beyond 8 CPUs
and runs well on large-scale NUMA systems, 16- to 32-way systems with 64GB or
more of RAM. And finally, Linux will need
to support many thousands of disks and
provide features for better network and IO
failover.
LWM: So what’s coming in the future from
Oracle?
Coekaerts: In general, clustering and cluster
management is an area where Linux still
needs improvement, and this is one area
where Oracle can contribute our expertise.
You’ll also see us concentrating on delivering
functionality that Linux still lacks (that other
OSs already have), as well as new technologies. And we will continue to work on improving the kernel functionality in an open and
collaborative development environment.
In short, stay tuned for even greater
Linux things from Oracle and from my
group! We have cutting-edge technology,
and there are many more technical
improvements that we can contribute to
the Linux OS that no one has yet solved. We
look forward to continuing our close collaboration with partners such as Red Hat
and UnitedLinux to bring these technical
improvements to the masses.
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
PREMIER 2003
SECURITY
Taking the Cost
Out of Firewalls
It pays to know your Linux
BY
With about $1,000 and knowledge of Linux and networking principles, you can
R A M
S A M U D R A L A
Ram Samudrala is a principal investigator
(assistant professor) at the University of
Washington. His work has led to several
publications in peer-reviewed journals and
freely copiable software for molecular and
systems modeling (which are being used on
high-performance Linux-based computing
clusters that he manges). He released an
album with the pseudonym Twisted Helices,
with the complete album being published
online free of any intellectual property
restrictions. He is also the author of the
Free Music Philosophy and other texts on
(and against!) intellectual property,
which have been referenced in Forbes,
HotWired, and The New York Times.
[email protected]
The operating system running on the
firewall is Linux, and we use the KRUD distribution, version 8.0. The system is
installed like any other Linux system, but
all Internet-based services are turned off.
Linux supports firewalling through its netfilter/iptables subsystem. It will basically let
you do anything a commercial firewall can
do, and then some, including the functionality of packet filtering (stateless or stateful), all
different kinds of NAT (Network Address
Translation), and packet mangling. It is
extremely powerful, but cumbersome to use.
There are packages that provide a cleaner interface to the iptables. One such pack-
age that we use is Shorewall, which lets you
manipulate the firewall rules using simple
configuration files. Our setup is such that
each of the gigabit ethernet cards is
assigned to three zones: the zone that compromises the external Internet (“net”), the
demilitarized zone (“DMZ”), and the local
network (“loc”). Using Shorewall, we can
specify how traffic is to be routed across the
different zones (see Figure 1).
Specifically, we allow all connections
from machines in the local zone to the net
zone. We allow Web and mail access to our
Web/mail server(s) located in the demilitarized zone (DMZ); for this reason, all
machines in the DMZ are completely mirrored since Web and mail servers, even the
most up-to-date versions, could have
potential security holes. Depending on
your level of paranoia, you can set up the
firewall such that you allow access to the
firewall only from a console, or from a single host in the local zone.
We allow only secure logins, using
OpenSSH, from a selected list of trusted
hosts in the net zone to a dedicated gateway machine (located in the local zone).
The secure logins have to pass a one-time
password screen based on OPIE, as well as
a permanent password screen, to be able
to log in to the gateway machine. The combination of OpenSSH and OPIE for authentication is handled using Linux-PAM.
The two-password system is to address
the issue of keyloggers who may record a
user’s permanent password (which is possible even over a secure connection). Onetime passwords get around this problem,
but they are not enough since users have
a tendency to store their list of one-time
passwords on their computers, and a
computer could be stolen/compromised.
Thus the only way to gain access to our
local network from the Internet is by knowing the list of one-time passwords, and the
PREMIER 2003
58
www.LinuxWorld.com
have a firewall that provides freedom, flexibility, and optimal security. In this article,
Ram Samudrala shares his experience in creating a cost-effective firewall.
The Motivation
or almost two years, I dealt
with a situation where I had
access to a gigabit ethernet
connection to the Internet,
but I couldn’t harness it since
I was behind a commercial
firewall that only supported 100Mbps.
Upgrading would have required thousands
of dollars, which, especially in this economy, seemed wasteful. My solution was to
create a Linux-based gigabit ethernet firewall that will do the same thing. The beauty
of this setup was not only that I could put
together the hardware for less than $1,000,
but since the software is freely copiable,
there are no restrictions on the numbers of
users and licenses.
It’s clear that gigabit ethernet over copper is going to be the next step in network-
F
A B O UT
TH E
A UTH O R
ing. Even if you don’t have a gigabit ethernet connection to the Internet, it’s not too
expensive to acquire one. It’s also clear that
one of the most logical ways to protect
yourself from unwanted attack is through
the use of a firewall. However, commercial
firewall products utilizing gigabit ethernet
are prohibitively expensive.
The Setup
Hardware Configuration
The machine I purchased for a firewall is
a nice 4U rackmount with an AMD
Palamino 1700+ CPU, a MSI KT3 Ultra2
KT333 MS-6380E motherboard, a small
hard disk, some memory, and three Intel
Pro/1000T Gigabit Server ethernet cards. All
the hardware cost less than $1,000. The
main thing to note here is that any computer with gigabit ethernet cards should do,
assuming that its components work well
with Linux (in most cases, they should).
Software Configuration
rs
velope
e
D
:
N
ATT
SECURITY
P
U
P
E
SoTthe mike
permanent password for an authorized user, and making the connection from a list of trusted hosts. The passphrase for the onetime passwords is randomly generated for each user (i.e., the users
don’t have a choice as to the passphrase), which is then used to
generate a list of one-time passwords that a user keeps. The list can
be reset at the whim of the user, with a new random passphrase
being used to create a new list. A script to do this is available at
(www.ram.org/computing/linux/firewall/otpgen.tgz).
t
and be...
om
Go t/odeveloper.sys-con.c
http:/
!
D
R
A
HE
Calling Sleek Geeks
Everywhere!
The Bottom Line
The Minuses...
The downside of such a firewall is that you do need to know your
Linux, and be extremely familiar with networking principles. Even
though the Shorewall packages simplify management, for optimal security it helps to be familiar with the netfilter subsystem. If your system
administrator is familiar with Linux, then this shouldn’t be a problem.
Make sure you have your finger on
the pulse of i-Technology...bookmark
http://developer.sys-con.com today.
i-Technology
News
i-Technology
Views
i-Technology
Th
e
(n Inte
et rn
zo et
ne
)
Comment
i-Technology
© COPYRIGHT 2003,
SYS-CON MEDIA
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(D
MZ
Lo
)
(D
MZ
ca
Debate
LWM Advertiser Index
l
)
Advertising Partner
Web Site URL
Phone #
Page #
BASIS INTERNATIONAL / OPEN SYSTEMS
WWW.BASIS.COM / WWW.OSMCORP.COM
BLACKHAT
WWW.BLACKHAT.COM
916 853 8555
65
COMDEX
WWW.COMDEX.COM
650 578 6900
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FREE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION
WWW.GNUPRESS.ORG
617 542 5942
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HP
WWW.HP.COM/LINUX
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WWW.ISAVIX.COM
866 472 8849
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866 646 4276
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HTTP://OPTERON.RACKSAVER.COM
888 942 3800
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XIMIAN
WWW.XIMIAN.COM/INFORMATION/MGMT3
C3
6
Allow secure access with both one time and permanent passwords
Allow only mail and web access
Allow only mail and DNS access
FIGURE 1
ROUTING TRAFFIC ACROSS ZONES
And the Pluses...
The amount of flexibility greatly outweighs the Shorewall learning curve, not to mention the cost of creation and maintenance.
Another singular advantage over a commercial product is that it’s
easy to upgrade the hardware and software at whim.
The bottom line is that security is best achieved by a thorough
understanding of networking principles and exploits. A Linuxbased firewall gives you the freedom, flexibility, and the opportunity to achieve security in an optimal and economical manner.
Resources
•
•
•
•
•
•
KRUD: http://tummy.com/krud
netfilter: www.netfilter.org
Shorewall: www.shorewall.net
OpenSSH: www.openssh.com
OPIE: www.inner.net/opie
Linux-PAM: www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/pam
888 303 5282
77
C2
General Conditions: The Publisher reserves the right to refuse any advertising not meeting the standards that are set to protect the high editorial quality of. All advertising is subject to approval by the Publisher. The Publisher assumes no liability for any costs or damages incurred if for any reason the Publisher fails to publish an advertisement. In no event shall the Publisher be liable for any costs or damages in excess of the cost of the advertisement as a result of a mistake in the advertisement or for
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LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
www.LinuxWorld.com
43
59
PREMIER 2003
FEATURE
Linux
Virtual
Private
Networking
Fundamentals
Choosing the right
solution for your network
PREMIER 2003
60
www.LinuxWorld.com
FEATURE
BY J.C. UTTER AND JOSH SNYDER
As virtual private networks (VPNs) become the industry standard, more options
become available. This article takes a look at what’s out there, including the pros and
cons of each solution, to help you decide what’s best for your network.
irtual private networks have
become the industry standard for secure encrypted
networking over the
Internet. Most IT departments have either deployed
VPNs, or intensified their focus on the
deployment of VPNs, as a solution to the
high cost of connecting remote and home
offices to the corporate network.
In parallel with the IT industry’s adoption of VPNs, Linux has emerged as a powerful, high-performance, low-cost network
operating system that can be used in a wide
range of applications including network
firewalls, routers, and servers. Linux is inexpensive to license, and it leverages inexpensive PC hardware. Because of its low cost
and high reliability, Linux is one of the most
popular VPN platforms for commercial VPN
products, as well as for IT departments
capable of building their own VPN solutions.
To make an educated decision about
VPN deployment, it is important to know
about the current state of Linux VPN software, and how these technologies can work
for your organization.
V
device uses protocol-based communications to establish a connection to another
PC or network device that is also connected
to the Internet. This virtual connection or
route is called a “tunnel.” All network traffic
destined for the remote computer or network device is transmitted through this
tunnel. The traffic that passes through the
tunnel is automatically encrypted by the
transmitting device, and decrypted by the
receiving device, which provides the security that makes a VPN “private” in contrast to
an unencrypted Internet connection.
Remote Access Services (RAS)
vs Network Infrastructure
If you don’t already know the answer,
the first, most obvious question is, “What is
a VPN?” A VPN is a virtual private network
that allows two or more computers or networks to communicate securely across an
unsecured network. This means you can
use a VPN to interconnect two private corporate networks securely using the
Internet. With this approach, the Internet
can be used to connect remote offices in a
way that is much less expensive than leasing private data circuits to connect the
same remote sites.
All VPNs fundamentally work in the
same way. First, a PC or similar network
device is connected to the Internet. This
VPNs are used in two major application
areas: RAS (Remote Access Services) and
network infrastructure. RAS applications
for VPNs focus on providing access to corporate networks for mobile users via the
Internet, while infrastructure VPNs focus
on creating permanent private connections
between different networks using the
Internet.
The most significant benefit of using a
VPN for RAS applications is cost savings.
Traditional RAS solutions require the installation of expensive RAS hardware, modem
banks, and phone lines inside the corporate
network. When a mobile user connects
from a new location, he or she uses the
same dial-up phone number to connect to
the corporate RAS. These dial-up RAS connections are normally made over long distance telephone lines, which gives a corporate RAS the additional incremental cost of
the associated long distance charges for
each minute of network use (see Figure 1).
The corporate RAS is a relatively expensive access solution when you consider the
VPN alternative. With a VPN access solution, you need only an Internet connection
for your mobile PC on one end, and a VPN
server or appliance that is connected to
both the Internet and the corporate net-
www.LinuxWorld.com
61
VPN Primer
work on the other end. The one-time and
recurring costs of modem banks and telephone lines that exist in the corporate RAS
world are eliminated.
In most VPN RAS solutions, the mobile
user pays for Internet services through a
national ISP that can provide local dial-up
access throughout the country. This makes
it possible to replace the variable long distance charges of the corporate RAS with the
cost of a flat-rate Internet dial-up account.
In adition, users of a VPN RAS can take
advantage of any Internet access technology, including high-speed broadband. This is
a significant benefit when compared to a
corporate RAS that’s limited to dial-up
speeds (see Figure 2).
VPNs are also commonly used in network infrastructure. In contrast with the
mobile user’s need to connect from different locations over time, a VPN implemented within the network infrastructure is a
permanent, embedded network feature.
The VPN is transparent to the end user, and
doesn’t require end-user configuration or
authentication (see Figure 3).
PPTP VPNs Using
Poptop for Linux
The most popular VPN software for RAS
applications under Linux is Poptop, which
is based on the PPTP protocol developed
primarily by Microsoft. Poptop is easy to set
up, and has very low hardware requirements when the number of users remains
small.
As an RAS solution, Poptop’s greatest
strength is the widespread availability of
the necessary client software. Microsoft has
A B O UT
TH E
A UTH O R S
J.C. Utter is a founder and the president
of ImageStream Internet Solutions. He
has been writing technical articles for
industry publications for over a decade.
[email protected]
Josh Snyder is a veteran engineer who joined
the ImageStream engineering team in 1996.
Josh currently specializes in Linux networking
applications and VPN technology.
[email protected]
PREMIER 2003
FEATURE
included a PPTP VPN client with every version of Windows since Windows 98. In general, this means that users will not need to
install additional software to access a
Poptop VPN.
On the downside, Poptop suffers from
relatively weak security, which is characteristic of all PPTP-based VPNs. Although
newer authentication methods have fixed
many of the early problems with PPTP,
most security experts agree that PPTP
should not be used to access private networks that require a high level of security.
The management of the Poptop VPN
client base can also present problems. All
passwords and user names are stored in an
unencrypted text file under Linux. If you
don’t mind editing this file directly to make
changes to user names and passwords, the
PPTP approach may offer an acceptable
solution. But Poptop’s limited security provisions would be a serious stumbling block
to any organization that requires a high
level of network security. Although many
Linux users have been using Poptop for
years, it is losing favor to newer, more
secure VPN technologies.
Corporate LAN
LAN Hub or Switch
Remote PC
Corporate RAS
Telephone Service
FIGURE 1
CORPORATE RAS
Corporate LAN
The
Internet
Internet Service
Remote PC
FIGURE 2
PREMIER 2003
Router
REMOTE ACCESS USING A VPN
Internet Service
IPsec VPNs Using FreeS/WAN
for Linux
IPsec (Internet Protocol Security) is one
of the rising stars in the world of high-security VPN protocols. IPsec is an open standard that is supported by many different
VPN vendors. IPsec is a very flexible protocol that lends itself to deployment in all
types of VPN applications, and it is equally
suited to providing the foundation for RAS
and infrastructure solutions.
FreeS/WAN is a Linux-based implementation of the IPsec protocol. FreeS/WAN is
quite flexible, and can be used to create
VPN connections with a wide range of
hardware and software including Linux
routers and servers, Cisco routers, and
Windows workstations. But this flexibility
comes with a steep learning curve.
The complex FreeS/WAN configuration
files are difficult to understand and configure. To configure FreeS/WAN properly, you
must first determine which traffic you want
to forward over the VPN. In even the simplest applications, this can require the configuration of at least four tunnels, which
contributes to system complexity.
FreeS/WAN also bypasses the normal IP
routing facilities under Linux. This makes it
impossible to use FreeS/WAN with dynamic routing protocols such as BGP or OSPF to
provide dynamic fail-over solutions.
LAN Hub or Switch
Corporate LAN B
Corporate LAN A
The
Internet
LAN Hub or Switch
LAN Hub or Switch
Router
FIGURE 3
Router
INFRASTRUCTURE VPN
If you or your staff guru can wade
through the challenge of using FreeS/WAN,
the benefits are considerable. FreeS/WAN is
compatible with most IPsec implementations, and it can provide high-speed VPN
services with modest hardware requirements. FreeS/WAN is a very secure VPN
featuring 168-bit 3DES encryption, and
many security experts view FreeS/WAN as
the most secure VPN solution available
today for Linux.
Infrastructure VPNs Using CIPE
for Linux
CIPE is a lesser-known VPN application
for Linux that strives to be an easy-to-use,
high-security VPN solution. CIPE can be
62
used to provide infrastructure VPN solutions using Linux, Windows 2000, and
Windows XP.
Under Linux, CIPE configuration is
managed using a simple text file. CIPE
works by creating a VPN device that functions like a standard device under Linux.
Because a CIPE tunnel works just like any
other standard Linux device, it is possible
to use CIPE in conjunction with dynamic
routing protocols and other routing tools.
Only one device interface is required to
create a CIPE VPN. This greatly reduces the
complexity of VPN configuration when compared to FreeS/WAN. And because CIPE is
not designed to support RAS solutions, there
is little need to make significant changes to
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FEATURE
the software configuration over time. As a
result, the relatively static configuration of
an infrastructure VPN using CIPE generally
mitigates the disadvantages of a system that
relies on simple text file configuration.
VPN Solutions Using
ImageStream Routers
If you don’t have the expertise to build
your own Linux VPN box, or if you would
prefer to deploy a fully tested, commercially
supported Linux VPN product, there are a
number of manufacturers that can supply
complete hardware and software solutions.
In this case, we will look at using routers
from ImageStream for infrastructure VPN
deployment.
ImageStream manufactures a wide
range of routers that support leased WAN
circuits from T1 through OC12, as well as
10, 100, and 1000Mb Ethernet connections.
To support VPN applications, ImageStream
routers provide fully tested versions of
FreeS/WAN and CIPE.
Infrastructure VPNs are commonly
deployed on a network router. The router is
an ideal device for the deployment of an
infrastructure VPN, because it is one of the
few network devices that performs rule-based
packet forwarding, and can make decisions
about where and how to forward packets.
In an infrastructure VPN, the
ImageStream router would be configured to
use either FreeS/WAN or CIPE, and the
router on the other end of the tunnel would
be configured similarly. When both routers
are connected to the Internet, and both are
properly configured, the devices connected
to each remote network will be able to
exchange network data as if they were all
connected to the same network. Although
the Internet is used to transfer data
between the sites, the data is encrypted to
provide a high level of security and privacy.
VPN solutions. All of Cyberguard’s dedicated
VPN appliances support user authentication
from a central site. Cyberguard’s flagship
product is capable of supporting over 2Gbps
of encrypted throughput. Dedicated VPN
products like this can be deployed at any
time, and they work seamlessly with routers
like those from ImageStream to provide network security for WAN and LAN traffic.
Choosing the right Linux VPN solution
for your network will depend on your
unique requirements. Poptop may be a
good choice for VPN RAS applications that
require readily available Windows support
with moderate security. At the same time,
Poptop is less secure than the alternatives,
and should not be used if a network break-
“No matter which Linux VPN
solution you choose, it’s good
to have different choices”
Linux VPN Conclusions
There are times when an enterpriseclass VPN application will require enough
encrypted data throughput that only a dedicated VPN appliance will do the job.
Similarly, there are times when the secure
management of dozens or hundreds of
users will require a commercial VPN solution that is designed to manage and track a
large number of authenticated users. In
these situations, a dedicated VPN solution
will provide the best results.
Cyberguard is an example of a Linux VPN
appliance manufacturer that offers high-end
There are many popular VPN software
solutions for Linux including Poptop,
FreeS/WAN, and CIPE. Each offers a different mix of security and ease-of-use, as well
as different levels of support for RAS and
infrastructure VPNs.
Poptop leverages the PPTP protocol. Its
strengths include compatibility with existing Microsoft Windows VPN client software,
and ease-of-use in RAS applications. The
main drawback of using Poptop is its moderate level of security, which by most standards would remove Poptop from serious
consideration in mission-critical networks
that require bullet-proof security.
FreeS/WAN, with its strong support for
both RAS and infrastructure VPNs, is the
most powerful and flexible VPN solution for
Linux. FreeS/WAN strengths include wide
compatibility among all IPsec compatible
VPN devices, strong security, and the highest level of flexibility available in a Linux
VPN solution. To its detriment, FreeS/WAN
bypasses the standard packet-forwarding
system under Linux, which precludes the
use of many standard Linux routing applications. In addition, FreeS/WAN is a serious
challenge to understand and configure,
which is the current price that must be paid
to deploy the most flexible and compatible
Linux VPN.
CIPE is the lesser-known VPN software
for Linux that combines ease-of-use with a
high level of security for infrastructure
applications. CIPE is not designed for
deployment in RAS applications, but it is
the easiest VPN solution available for highly
secure infrastructure VPNs.
www.LinuxWorld.com
63
Solutions Using Dedicated VPN
Appliances
Which VPN?
in would represent a significant risk to the
organizational mission.
If you are looking for a highly secure
VPN RAS solution, or if you are specifically
looking for IPsec compatibility in a VPN
RAS, FreeS/WAN is clearly the best choice.
Despite its complexity, FreeS/WAN provides the most flexible VPN solution for
Linux, with highly secure support for both
RAS and infrastructure VPNs.
For infrastructure VPNs, CIPE may be
the best choice because it is easy to configure and it provides a high level of security.
CIPE also supports standard Linux routing
applications, which can be a “make or
break” issue with some deployments.
No matter which Linux VPN solution
you choose, it’s good to have different
choices. As each VPN software package
places a different emphasis on security,
ease-of-use, flexibility, and compatibility, IT
professionals reap the benefits of being
able to choose the VPN technology most
ideally suited to the application. With
Linux, you also have the option to build
your own VPN solution, or to purchase
commercially supported products that are
guaranteed to work. In any case, your VPN
deployment will benefit from the security
and stability that Linux brings to every
application in which it’s deployed.
Resources
• Poptop: www.poptop.org
• FreeS/WAN: www.freeswan.org
• CIPE:
http://sites.inka.de/bigred/devel/cipe.html
• Cyberguard: www.cyberguard.com
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PREMIER 2003
INDUSTRY INSIGHT
You’ve Come a
Long Way, Unix
Reflections on the rich history of Unix
Sometimes the irony is so sharp you can cut deli meat with it. As we settle in for
a long hot summer and a fall of legal skirmishes between SCO and the rest of the
known Linux universe in regards to the patents and other intellectual property surrounding Unix, there’s a certain karmic reckoning to be had in the fact that the very
first application that Unix was put to was to assist the Bell Labs Patent department
in preparing patent applications.
In the dim days of 1970s, when a
Digital PDP-11 was the state of the art
in minicomputing for a mere $65,000,
Unix was just taking its first baby steps
at Bell Labs. Dennis Ritchie and Ken
Thompson couldn’t have dreamt that
this attempt to produce an interactive timesharing system would someday become the
lingua franca of server-based computing.
The early days of Unix at Bell are full of
landmark events. The development of the C
programming language. The concept and
implementation of pipes. The first file system, inodes and all. It was also at this time,
in 1976, that the University of California at
Berkeley (UCB) began to participate in Unix
development, culminating in the development of 4.2BSD. Meanwhile Bell continued
to refine Unix, eventually releasing System
6 and System 7. It was on a Tandy 6000,
running System 7 (technically Xenix), that I
first really began to play with Unix.
In the 1980s, Unix began to be a real
player in the computer industry. The 800pound gorilla was, of course, the VMS operating system running on DEC’s VAX minicomputers, but a small rebel company
called Sun Microsystems was making head-
I
James Turner, senior editor at LinuxWorld
Magazine, is president of Black Bear Software,
as well as director of software development for
Benefit Systems, Inc.
[email protected]
way selling a variant of Berkeley Unix they
called SunOS (later Solaris). Also, companies
such as HP and Apollo were offering systems
running their own varieties of Unix. And Bell
(now reconstituted as AT&T) was selling a
System 5, running on platforms like the 3B2.
But for all its promise, Unix had problems. For one thing, there was little in the
way of portability in programs. Binary compatibility was nonexistent, and even recompilation could be an adventure (anyone old
enough to remember being asked if your
machine was big-endian or little-endian?).
And Unix could be as expensive as any of
the other traditional operating systems.
Into the fray stepped Richard Stallman
and the Free Software Foundation. Eagar to
provide a not-for-profit version of the Unix
operating system, they first needed to build
the tools to build the tools, things like a C
compiler and parser generator to replace
the proprietary versions (we know these
tools today as gcc and bison/yacc, among
others). And while the FSF toiled away on
their OS, a funny thing happened. People
started noticing that the FSF versions of the
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64
A B O UT
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BY
J A M E S
TU R N E R
Unix tools were often better than the commercial versions, and free! For example,
Sun charged $10,000 for their C compiler,
but gcc worked just as well. But as years
dragged on with no OS in sight from the
FSF, the commercial implementations continued to be the only game in town outside
VMS and the upstart called Windows.
It would fall to an unassuming
Scandinavian, not the FSF, to change the
Unix world forever. No one reading this
magazine needs to hear the story of how
Linus Torvalds started working on an open
source Unix kernel as a personal project,
and ended up spawning the most widely
adopted non-Microsoft operating system in
the world. But it’s worthwhile to note what
made Linux so special. For one thing, it
could run on low-cost Intel-based PCs, the
same kind that people bought to run
Windows. That meant you didn’t need to
spend a fortune on hardware if you didn’t
want to. Also, even across different hardware platforms (say an IBM 3090 and a Dell
laptop), the source code remained compatible. And inside the same platform, even
different vendor releases like Red Hat and
SuSe could run each other’s programs.
The other breakthrough was making it open
source, which meant that the people most
motivated to fix problems and add new features
(the people encountering the bugs and needing
the features) were empowered to do so. If you
had a critical problem, you didn’t need to wait
for a vendor to decide it was important enough
to fix. You could fix it yourself.
Today, Unix (both in proprietary implementations such as Solaris and open versions
such as Linux and FreeBSD) is the 800-pound
gorilla of the server market, big enough to
make Microsoft scramble for market share in
Europe, and big enough to make companies
like SCO try to grab a piece of it. Truly, a long
way from two Bell engineers scrounging for a
computer to whip up a new operating system.
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www.LinuxWorld.com
LICENSING
Show Me
the License
BY
M I KE
O L S O N
Buying open source software at your company?
Make sure you’ve got the right license...
If the software you’re considering is an operating system, like Linux, then the
Mike Olson, one of the original authors of
Berkeley DB, is a technology industry veteran
with more than 20 years of experience in
engineering, marketing, sales, and business
management. Mike was named president and
CEO of Sleepycat in 2001 after serving as vice
president of sales and marketing. Prior to
Sleepycat, he served in technical and business
management positions at database vendors
Britton Lee, Illustra, and Informix. Mike holds
BA and MA degrees in computer science from
the University of California at Berkeley.
[email protected]
Don’t get me wrong. The GPL is a good
thing. But there are no examples of profitable GPL-only software development
companies. Profits are a company’s oxygen.
You don’t want to bet your company’s success on a vendor who follows a business model on
life support.
The exceptions are companies such as mine,
Sleepycat, that have innovated on the GPL and offer
dual-use software licenses.
MySQL and Trolltech are
two others. We’re all profitable and growing. I think
the license makes the difference.
Under a dual-use license,
software is still available to
customers with a GPL-like software license.
However, these licenses also give customers
a choice to pay for a commercial license
that is less restrictive than the GPL.
Basically, it allows customers to use open
source software in closed, proprietary products.
For example, Trolltech customer IBM
wanted to use Trolltech’s Qt libraries (a
toolkit for faster development of graphical
user interfaces). IBM engineers didn’t have
the authority to share the source code with
their customers. But Trolltech’s commercial
license gave IBM engineers the freedom to
develop and distribute applications without
opening the source code. Unlike the GPL
version of Trolltech’s product, the commercial license version didn’t require the distribution of the source code.
Sleepycat customer Cisco Systems wanted a quick way to provide name and
address lookup in its high-performance
network router products. Cisco wanted to
use Sleepycat’s Berkeley DB product, but
wanted to protect the intellectual property
of their networking products. Cisco paid a
fee to license a version of
Sleepycat’s Berkeley DB that
wasn’t restricted by the GPL.
Cox Communications, one
of the largest cable network
companies in the U.S., chose
to implement the commercial version of the MySQL
RDBMS to avoid the legal
restrictions of the GPL and to
get the support and warranty
of the commercial version.
Dual-use licenses give
customers the freedom to
choose if and how they distribute the source code. The licenses also
help to create stable software companies
with profitable business models.
Berkeley DB, MySQL, and Qt did not start
with their current dual-use licenses. The
licenses, like the software, evolved through
an analysis of both customer feedback and
company balance sheets. Though Sleepycat,
MySQL, and Trolltech arrived at roughly the
same licensing model, the companies came
at the problem from different directions.
Trolltech was an early pioneer of dualuse licenses. While their commercial license
stayed the same, their noncommercial-use
license evolved over time to meet cus-
PREMIER 2003
66
www.LinuxWorld.com
GNU Public License (GPL) is good for your business. If it’s an application or a software ingredient, then the GPL may be bad for your business.
ere’s why. While Linux
operating system vendors
such as Red Hat and SuSE
benefit from the GPL,
application vendors do not.
Red Hat will be able to provide businesses with Linux software and
support for years to come. Even if they go
out of business, there are literally thousands of developers, as well as every major
IT company in the world, ready and willing
to support your GPL software. Most GPL’ed
applications, on the other hand, have very
small developer communities outside the
companies that support them. Any organization buying application software under
the GPL risks losing vendor support if the
company fails. Be prepared and understand the risk. The business model has to
work.
H
A B O UT
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LICENSING
tomers needs. “We changed the free edition
license from binary only to QPL, and then
finally to the GPL,” said Haavard Nord, CEO
of Trolltech. “Our current dual license gives
Trolltech customers maximum flexibility
while preserving a strong and profitable
software development business model.”
Berkeley DB was originally available
from UC Berkeley under the popular open
source Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD)
license. When we decided to form a business around Berkeley DB, we looked at the
BSD license closely. The BSD license would
give our customers flexibility. It would allow
them to freely embed Berkeley DB in hardware or software products and distribute
their product without restriction. However,
the BSD license would also allow our customers or any developer to take our code
and create their own products without our
permission or payment. We would create
our own competition. We decided to begin
the business with a dual-license strategy.
MySQL started with a commercial
license. According to their CEO, Marten
Mickos, “MySQL moved to the GPL in the
summer of 2000 to help MySQL gain wide
DR. MIGRATION
adoption. At the same time, we introduced a
dual license strategy, which has been great
for business.”
Haavard, Marten, and I recognize that our
businesses need a license like the GPL. It’s
good for our businesses. Our products and
our customers benefit from this type of
license. A license like the GPL brings two
things: it helps our products gain wide adoption and it makes it easier to manage a consistent, unified code base by forcing any changes
to be open source and available to us.
MySQL has more than 4 million active
database deployments. Qt has deployments
in the tens of millions. We estimate that
Berkeley DB has over 200 million deployments. In all cases, that’s a lot of people
using our software. A wide user base means
the product is tested by more people, which
leads to stable products with good performance. A wide user base also means
lower training costs for our customers.
Their developers are familiar with our APIs
and other programming approaches.
GPL-like licenses also help to maintain
product consistency by preventing closed,
proprietary branches. We call this phenom-
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
It’s truly impressive how much you can do in this OS without
making any changes to your existing computing environment. It is
an excellent way for you to get a taste of Linux for no more investment than your time. In my tests I dropped the CD into my CD
drive and rebooted on three different x86 systems. In every test
KNOPPIX recognized the hardware on my systems and booted in
about one minute. Additionally, I was able to save and edit files on
my hard drive and in one case repair a system that no longer functioned properly.
Figure 3 shows the KNOPPIX operating system running Open
Office, Konqueror (as a Web browser), Konqueror (as a file browser), KMail (a mail client), and GAIM (Instant Messenger). The
machine used for the demo is a 425MHz AMD K6-2 processor with
64MB of RAM. Notice the hard drive icons on the desktop. These
hard drive partitions are both damaged, but KNOPPIX still booted
making it possible to retrieve critical files.
—continued from page 31
lection of applications is a good representative sample of those that
would be available to you free of charge when you start to utilize
Linux as a desktop computing system.
• Konqueror file and Web browser: This very functional browser is
as close to a Linux equivalent of Microsoft Explorer as there is; it
works as a system file browser and as a Web browser. Additionally,
its ability to anti-alias fonts makes the look as smooth and rich as
any Web browser on the market, and better than most.
• Mozilla Web browser: KNOPPIX 3.1 includes Mozilla 1.0. I selected Mozilla from the Internet Apps menu and browsed to some
sites. In contrast to Konqueror, it doesn’t have anti-aliased text.
• OpenOffice.org: The OpenOffice.org source code initially
includes the technology that Sun Microsystems has been developing for future versions of their StarOffice software, an alternative to Microsoft Office.
• K Office: An open source office suite comparable to Microsoft Office.
• X Multimedia System (xmms): A popular multimedia software
package developed for Unix operating systems running X11, it can
play back MP3, AVI, MPEGs, and many other multimedia formats.
• GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP): A fully featured graphic editor that rivals that of the Adobe family of graphical editors.
• Network connectivity tools: Internet connection software kppp (an
Internet dialer), pppoeconf (DSL), and isdn-config.
• Utilities for data recovery and system repairs: Even some for
other operating systems’ networks, and security analysis tools
for network administrators.
www.LinuxWorld.com
enon forking, and it’s always bad news for
customers because it creates many different
versions of essentially the same product.
To understand the problem this creates
for customers, let’s take a look at what happened to Unix. There are many different
versions of Unix and most are similar. Each
version of Unix has small, proprietary
enhancements that vendors added to create product differentiation. Solaris, AIX,
HP-UX, SCO, and BSD are not binary compatible and do not share a common management framework. Customers are forced
to spend money to maintain different
applications on different operating systems.
The Linux kernel is released under the
GPL and unlike the Unix kernel, there is
only one mainstream version of the Linux
kernel. There is also only one popular version of Berkeley DB and Qt.
Dual-use licenses may appear more
confusing at first. However, this new type of
licensing can bring your business more
benefits than any single license can. Before
buying your next piece of open source software, check the license.
Are You Ready to Migrate?
It’s understandable that you may not be loading Linux on every
desktop in your organization tomorrow. However, good IT managers
would be remiss in their responsibilities if they weren’t at least doing
the appropriate research into viable alternatives to their existing
infrastructure. I also agree that the jury is still out on the long-term
future of Linux; it’s much less popular than Microsoft. However, early
adopters of the technology may well find that they are regarded as
visionaries and applauded for improving their computing environments while contributing to their organizations’ bottom line.
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
67
PREMIER 2003
FIRST LOOK
Introducing the
Linux 2.6 Kernel
Technical improvements will accelerate adoption
The Linux 2.6 kernel is expected to be released this summer, bringing not only a
huge improvement in performance but also big cost savings to the many enterprises
ready to migrate from Unix.
Dave Fuller brings more than 25 years of
data center technical and marketing experience to his current position leading the technical marketing group at OSDL, where he participates in both the Linux kernel stabilization
project and the Data Center Linux working
group. Prior to OSDL, Dave led IT activities at
a start-up focused on Web commerce. At
Sequent Computer Systems, he played key
roles in technical services and oversaw technical sales support for the company’s AsiaPacific and Latin American operations.
[email protected]
A fast and deep entry into the market
would be a distinct change from what
happened with Linux
2.4, when adoption
took longer than the
industry anticipated.
This time around,
however, the development community,
including OSDL, has
tested the kernel so extensively that we believe adoption will
come much, much faster.
There are eight reasons why CIOs
will decide to upgrade to a Linux distribution based on 2.6: seven related to performance and the eighth, and critical, factor
being cost. At OSDL, we divided the key 2.6
kernel feature improvements into seven
categories: performance, scalability, availability, clustering, I/O, management, and
serviceability. We found that Linux systems
based on the 2.6 kernel will scale better on
bigger machines. This provides the opportunity to replace more proprietary Unix
servers and to consolidate workloads on
bigger Linux systems. But it’s not just the
technical features; the clincher is the cost
savings that these features will make possible for large organizations.
Businesses can save big money by
implementing the new Linux kernel on
Intel architecture–based servers. Amazon’s
move from Solaris to Linux on HP
NetServer systems helped Amazon slash its
PREMIER 2003
68
lready the subject of
intense scrutiny, this new
kernel will be the first
major revamp of the Linux
kernel in two years. We at
Open Source Development
Labs (OSDL) have worked with Linux developers and together completed more than
4,000 tests on publicly available development versions of this kernel.
In recent months, we have run the
development kernel, known as 2.5, in our
production environment with servers,
achieving more than 30 days of continuous
uptime. The 2.5 kernel will transition into
2.6, and OSDL is committed to its rapid
adoption in the market. (OSDL is a global
consortium backed by Computer
Associates, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel,
NEC, and other major vendors.)
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technology capital budget more than 25%
in the first year alone. There’s more: businesses can achieve lower training costs, and
additional savings can be found as Unix
technical staff can easily port their skills,
procedures, and even many applications to
Linux.
To borrow an insight
from Clayton
Christensen’s book,
The Innovator’s
Dilemma
(HarperBusiness,
2000), Linux is a disruptive technology. The
new kernel is going to
allow Linux to pass
Christensen’s “good enough”
test. This means that many
organizations are going to begin
moving their core data center operations over to Linux. It gets the job done for
a lot less money. As proprietary architectures yield their performance advantage to
Linux, Linux becomes “good enough” for
most workloads.
Scalability
“Does Linux scale?” is often the first
question an IT manager will ask when evaluating whether Linux can replace an enterprise Unix server. Our tests indicate that
the Linux 2.6 kernel will scale much better
than the 2.4 kernel. Most of the development of the 2.4 kernel was done on singleprocessor systems with some testing on
dual-processor and larger systems. The
larger 8- and 16-way machines are supported, but the 2.4 kernel isn’t really aimed
at those system sizes. With the 2.6 kernel,
performance is dramatically improved on
large machines.
www.LinuxWorld.com
FIRST LOOK
What Is the Kernel?
The Linux kernel is the core of a Linux system. It is only a small part of the large number of
files that are installed on a server’s hardware. Programs like Web servers, databases, application
servers, mail servers, compilers, text editors, image editors, and word processors are not part of
the Linux kernel. The kernel controls access to system resources such as
• CPU
• RAM
• Monitor, keyboard, mouse
• Disk drives, CD-ROM drives
• Tape drives, printers, and other peripherals and ports
• Network access
There are two types of Linux kernels, development and production (or stable). Development
kernels end in an odd number (e.g., 2.3 or 2.5). Production kernels end in even numbers (e.g.,
2.4 or 2.6).
This numbering scheme divides Linux users into two categories. The first category consists
of developers and testers, who use the odd-numbered kernels, which are changing and may be
unstable. The second category consists of production users, who use even-numbered kernels,
which change as little as possible.
Although there will be some settling of the fine points of kernel feature implementation and
a deferral of features that aren’t ready for production, a look at the 2.5 kernel will give a fairly
good view of what the 2.6 kernel will become.
As part of OSDL’s charter we provide
outside developers access to enterpriseclass machines. Testing on multiprocessor
machines is a vital part of the Linux development process and has resulted in an
improved scheduler, kernel native threading, and overall refinement of the locking
granularity.
We also did a lot of testing of these larger machines with databases, which are a
classic resource-intensive, business-critical workload. OSDL provided the
Database Test Suite, a fair-use implementation of Transaction Processing
Performance Council (TPC) benchmarks.
These database performance test results
comparing the Linux 2.4 kernel to the
Linux 2.5 kernel are freely available from
OSDL at www.osdl.org/projects/performance. The source code for the tests is also
available for developers.
Stability
“Is Linux stable on larger systems?” is
probably the second most frequently asked
question. OSDL put a lot of time and
resources into testing the Linux 2.5 kernel
through the Linux Stabilization Project. A
description of the tests and results is available at www.osdl.org/projects/26lnxstblztn/results. Based on these tests and our
www.LinuxWorld.com
experience with the 2.5 kernel, we expect
that the Linux 2.6 kernel will be more stable
than the Linux 2.4 kernel was when it was
released.
There is a companion project to test
scalability in a repeatable scientific environment. OSDL’s Scalable Test Platform
(STP) and Patch Lifecycle Manager (PLM)
provide the Linux development community
with an open, easy-to-use resource for testing custom kernels. STP works as the testing engine. PLM makes it easy to manage
developers’ patches against stock kernels.
With a consistent set of hardware and test
suites, developers can test new features in a
controlled environment.
Planning for the Future
Because of the improvements in scalability, stability, performance, and availability in the kernel, Linux has reached
the level where it can replace more expensive Unix servers. IT managers need to
evaluate Linux suitability for their data
centers based on the features it will have
at the time of deployment. The rapid
development of Linux adds some challenges to plans to adopt it. IT managers
need to become familiar with the
improvements to the 2.6 kernel, determine suitability for their enterprise, and
69
insist on these features when preparing
Request for Proposals (RFPs) or making a
purchase.
The Linux 2.6 kernel will support more
hardware platforms, bringing businesses
savings in reduced management costs
through a reduction in the number of operating systems under management. Instead
of a variety of Unix versions, businesses can
standardize on Linux on a range of hardware architectures. Most of Linux runs on
industry-standard Intel architecture
servers, available from almost every vendor,
including Dell, HP, IBM, and NEC. Linux
also runs on mainframes from IBM and
Fujitsu, PowerPC-based servers from IBM,
and Itanium-based servers from HP.
When IT managers plan for the future,
they should keep in mind that Linux server
use is growing and Unix server use is
shrinking. According to industry research
firm Gartner, hardware vendors shipped
over 425,000 servers with Linux last year, up
from 286,823 in 2001. During the same time
period, shipments of Unix machines fell
9%. Due to technical improvements in the
2.6 kernel, we anticipate that this trend will
accelerate. Many more companies will follow Amazon’s early lead and realize significant cost savings by migrating from Unix to
Intel architecture hardware.
With the release of the new kernel,
OSDL is refocusing much of its work on
end-user Global 2000 corporations. We’re
interested in learning more about your
plans to use Linux. What challenges
remain before you are prepared for production deployment? With classic disruptive technologies, much like the original
personal computer, we know that adoption of “good enough” technology accelerates in new and surprising ways. Tell us
what your plans are for Linux. We invite
your organization to participate with
OSDL in making Linux ready for your
enterprise.
For More Information
Learn more by visiting www.osdl.org, the
OSDL site. Here you’ll find information on
Carrier Grade Linux, Data Center Linux,
OSDL Database Test Suite, Linux
Stabilization Project, Scalability Test
Platform, Patch Lifecycle Manager, and
much more.
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
PREMIER 2003
INTERVIEW
Taking
Geek
of
Out
Linux
the
A B O UT
M I C H A E L
R O B E RT S O N
Michael L. Robertson is the founder and chief
executive officer of Lindows.com, a consumer
software company that creates choice in the
marketplace. Robertson served as chief executive officer and chairman of the board at
MP3.com (www.mp3.com) since March 1998.
As the mastermind of MP3.com, Robertson
established the largest collection
of digital music in the world, amassing more
than 1 million downloadable MP3 files.
Robertson also spearheaded change in
corporate business music services and put
the power of CD creation in the artists’
hands by offering a host of support
technologies and services.
If you’re looking for a David and Goliath story, you don’t
Lindows violates Microsoft’s trademark on the Windows name.
need to look any further than Michael Robertson, CEO of
We had a chance to talk to Michael about the future of Linux
Lindows.com. As the first major player trying to sell Linux
on the desktop, the struggle to de-geekify the operating sys-
desktop computers in a retail environment, he’s felt the full
tem, and what it’s like to go up against the largest software
wrath of Microsoft’s fury, including a lawsuit claiming that
company in the world.
PREMIER 2003
70
www.LinuxWorld.com
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEWED BY JAMES TURNER
LWM: A lot of companies seem to be hiding
the fact that they’re basing their products
on Linux – for example, set top boxes. Is this
part of your strategy?
Michael Robertson: If you look at our 4.0
version, our instant messenger is Gnome
based, and it’s Gaim. Our office suite is
StarOffice. Our browser is Mozilla. But
rather than drown the user with all these
crazy terms and names, we say “Hey, the
instant messenger is really neat because
you can connect to more than one network
at a time. Hey, the browser’s really super
because the fonts look great and you can
suppress popups.” We’re focusing on the
features, not the technical history. This is an
approach that the Linux community really
hasn’t seen yet, and we probably take a little
extra heat because of that. People think that
we’re slighting the Mozilla team or the Gaim
team because when we talk about the
instant messenger, we talk about the features, not that it’s written by the Gaim guys.
Linux to the masses, and right now it’s an elitist product because you need too much technical knowledge to get up to speed.
James Turner is president of Black Bear Software
as well as the director of software development
for Benefit Systems, Inc., and senior editor
of LWM. James has written for Wired,
Christian Science Monitor, and other
publications and is working on his third
book on open source development.
[email protected]
LWM: Do you think that Linux still has an
“only for geeks” reputation that hurts it?
Robertson: Oh sure, absolutely. Look, the features we focus on are boring and nonsexy to
the technical crowd. For example, our
research found that new users often get lost
using Linux because different programs end
up dropping them in different places when
they do open or save commands. And they
end up with files all over their hard disk that
they can no longer find, that are buried in
/usr/sbin. To technical people, that’s a silly
sort of issue to bring up, but it’s the kind of
thing we focus on a lot. The Linux community says, “Ah, that’s for babies. Just teach ’em
how to use the find command and move on.”
And we’re saying, “No, no. What we have to
do is recompile hundred of programs to normalize them so they all use /MyDocuments.”
So when someone says open, or someone
says save, it always goes to the same spot.
Those are simple things that are really discounted by the Linux community, but in our
minds they’re key to making this a mass-market movement. We’re trying to bring desktop
LWM: What has been your experience in
selling Linux to a broad retail chain?
Robertson: We’re constantly learning. For
example, in 4.0, the first time you run it a
beautiful multimedia demo comes up automatically and says “Welcome to desktop
Linux, here’s what the icons on the desktop
do, here are some basic functions,” things
like that. Because even though the changes
are relatively minor for those coming from
an XP environment or a Mac OS 10 environment, there are enough of them that users
get a little distraught when they first sit
down. So we’ve gotten smarter and smarter
about what’s needed to take it to a wider
audience.
We’ve been selling computers, both
online and through mail order. And we’ve
been using this as sort of a test bed to learn
about users – learn where they have support
issues and learn where we can do a better
job. Where we’re going this summer is into
retail, in a big way. You’re going to be able to
walk into major retailers and see computers
on the shelves with desktop Linux preinstalled. That’s really where Linux needs to go
to reach the masses. So we’ve used our
online experience and our mail-order experience; we do all our own technical support,
so when someone calls up and says “I’m
stuck, it didn’t work like I thought it would,”
we’re taking note of that. We’re getting
smarter and making a more polished product that better suits the mass market.
We really believe that our 4.0 release is
ready for the mass market. There are all
sorts of consumer-friendly changes that
aren’t technically sexy, like normalizing file
paths, embedded tutorials in Flash, instructional videos all throughout the OS. And
there are even more substantial features,
like when somebody plugs in a Flash drive
or a USB hard drive or CD-ROM, it pops up
on the desktop. That’s never happened
before in desktop Linux.
www.LinuxWorld.com
71
PREMIER 2003
A talk
with
Michael
Robertson,
CEO of
Lindows.com
A B O UT
TH E
I NTE R V I E W E R
INTERVIEW
LWM: Making it more plug-and-play?
Robertson: Absolutely. When someone
plugs in a wireless card or even a USB wireless adapter, it shows up on the desktop
ready to use, ready to configure and connect them to the network. So there are substantial features we’re bringing to the market in an effort to close the gap between
Linux and XP.
LWM: So the words “recompile the kernel”
should never enter the user’s vocabulary.
Robertson: Exactly. In fact, we don’t want
them to hear the word kernel. We want it to
be, “You click here for your browser, you
click here for your IM, and if you want
more software, click on the Click and Run
icon and go get it.”
We look at it this way. 30% of the
servers running today are Linux based.
People are choosing Linux because it’s
affordable, powerful, and stable. All those
same features are now available on the
desktop side, so you’re going to see, over
the next few years, that same 30% on the
desktop.
LWM: One of the most persistent knocks
against Linux is that the desktop applications still aren’t there.When do you think
that major players like Intuit and Adobe
will start porting to Linux?
Robertson: I don’t think you need to have
those folks to bring Linux to the masses. I
think a year ago, that was a very valid
point, that the software wasn’t there. But
that’s no longer true. Yes, there are certain
holes, but the majority of the larger holes
have been filled with very capable products. So you talk about Intuit – hey, we’d
love to have Quicken on desktop Linux. We
don’t. But we do have a product called
Money Dance, which is very capable and
does all the core functions, like online
banking. So there are products, be they
commercial or open source, that are filling
the gaps. I think that complaint was a valid
I’m confident
that desktop
Linux will have
a 30%-plus
market share
One of the features we’re unveiling with
4.0 is a one-click major version upgrade.
We’re taking users from version 3.0 to version 4.0 with one click of their mouse. This
isn’t a 3.0 to 3.1–type upgrade with a couple
of security patches; this is a full upgrade
with a new kernel, new video drivers, you
name it. New browser, new instant messenger, new e-mail client, everything. And that
happens with one click.
PREMIER 2003
Robertson: First of all, it’s important to
assess where things are today. If you have
a Microsoft product, it doesn’t mean you
get to call Microsoft. You have to pay
Microsoft if you want to call them and talk
to them. The point here is that there’s no
free support from Microsoft; in fact, if you
want to call Microsoft there’s no one to
call.
The interesting dynamic here is that if
you buy our office suite, which happens to
be StarOffice, you actually get free telephone support in 24 languages, which you
don’t get if you buy Microsoft Office. So the
ironic twist here is that the new kids on the
block, the StarOffices of the world, have
said, “We have to provide better support
than Microsoft to be able to win customers
over.” There’s an interesting flip here, that
you can get free support from a Linuxbased software developer, be it the OS or
the application, often as part of the basic
license, without having to engage in any
service contract. If you do need additional
support beyond that, of course, there are
lots of organizations that you can pay to get
that. And because a lot of the software is
open source, you’re not beholden to any
one company who can charge you whatever they want. Bottom line, there’s better
support options for desktop Linux out of
the box today.
LWM: Some recent reports have indicated
that while Linux has a lower deployment
cost than Windows, it may have higher support costs.
Robertson: That's propaganda from
Microsoft. When you commission a study,
pay them enough money and they’ll come
up with any conclusion you want. Let’s
look at the numbers. Microsoft makes 1
billion dollars of profit per month selling
two products, the OS and the office suite.
Now Microsoft can come up with all the
studies they want saying they’re cheaper
than the alternative, but it’s complete nonsense.
LWM: For a medium- to large-size company contemplating a transition to Linux, one
of their concerns is going to be,“Who is our
IT support safety net?”
LWM: For an enterprise, what would be the
advantages to moving to a desktop Linux
strategy?
Robertson: Cost. Cost is the number one
reason. You can expect to spend oneeighth of the cost of a Microsoft PC for a
similarly equipped desktop Linux PC running Lindows OS. The second advantage is
much easier maintenance and support.
And I say that because they never have to
deal with serial numbers, activation codes,
72
www.LinuxWorld.com
complaint maybe 12 or 18 months ago, but
I don’t think it’s a valid complaint anymore.
INTERVIEW
Putting Lindows to the Test
product databases; they never need to deal
with any of that because most of our products are flat-fee licenses. That’s the
accounting, logistical side of things. There’s
also the technical side of things; if you were
here, I could show you how I can set up a
new computer, click one button, and install
14 programs that we use as a standard distribution here at Lindows.com. You can’t do
that on Microsoft, right? Set up your computer, click one button, and say “OK, you’re
ready to go.” There are dramatic upfront
savings, and then on the technical front and
logistical front, additional savings and
advantages for desktop Linux.
LWM: Microsoft is allegedly engaging in a
“kill Linux at any price” strategy.
Robertson: Every major company that has
partnered with Lindows.com has received a
phone call from Microsoft, and that phone
call has tried to extort, entice, or terrorize
that person into not working with desktop
Linux, specifically with Lindows.com. I’m
glad this is finally coming to light, it’s not
just in Asia, it’s all over the world. Listen, if
you’re making a billion dollars of profit
every month, you have a lot of money to
throw around to kill any potential competitor, and that’s what they do.
One of the things that’s so incredible is
that Linux is making such strides without
having major corporate backing. And that
should send a message to everyone out there:
“Microsoft, you can fight it all you want, but
you’re trying to push back the tide.”
Lindows desktop
I
ntrigued by the claims that Lindows was
simple to install and use, we tried it ourselves. Because the 4.0 release is not yet
available, we conducted the test using version
3.0. To make things a bit tougher, the test was
conducted on a Toshiba Satellite 1805-S204.
Because notebooks are notoriously difficult to
install Linux on, we thought it would add a little challenge to the test.
To say that the install was quick and easy
was an understatement. When the install CD
was placed in the drive and the laptop booted,
the installer led us through the entire process
in less than 10 minutes. Take that, Windows
XP. When the laptop was rebooted, the system
started up with a friendly series of help screens,
eventually depositing us at the desktop with
almost everything working. Although the
installer hadn’t configured the wireless network
card in the PCMCIA slot, it was a matter of seconds to configure it using the network wizard.
For comparison, it took two days, several kernel
rebuilds, and the installation of several auxilary
packages to get it working under Red Hat 9.0.
The only thing that didn’t work out of the
box was the audio subsystem, which is evidently not supported for this laptop under Lindows
yet. It is available in Red Hat 9.0, and we’ll
have to see if the new 4.0 release of Lindows
handles it. Installing additional packages
through Lindows’ “Click and Run” system was
indeed fast and easy.
LindowsOS connecting to Microsoft
Windows machines over a network.
Sun StarOffice 6.0 can view and edit Microsoft
Excel, Word, and PowerPoint documents –
and save them in their native format.
Conclusion: Lindows does what it promises,
offers a fast and bulletproof install of Linux
with a user-friendly interface.
LWM: Where do you see Lindows.com in five
years?
Robertson: I’m confident that desktop Linux
will have a 30%-plus market share. Here’s
why: pick any industry in the world, I don’t
care, look around your office. Whether
there’s a pair of shoes in the corner or a
Pepsi on your desk, there’s always room for
a low-cost provider. That goes for any industry except for software, except for the OS.
And that’s going to change. Linux is going to
be Southwest Airlines of IT. They may not
have the majority of the business, but they
have a significant piece of the business.
Where do I hope we’ll be? I hope we’ll be the
leader in securing that 30% market share. I
think the impact of desktop Linux in five
years will not be measured just in the market share that Linux has, but in structural
cost changes that Microsoft is going to be
compelled to do to blunt the impact of
desktop Linux on their business.
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
www.LinuxWorld.com
73
PREMIER 2003
BUSINESS APPS
Ensuring Availability of
Applications on Linux
The right solution for your business
You’re taking the plunge – moving your business applications to Linux to join
BY
B O B
W I L L I A M S O N
have correctly identified your business
availability needs.
those who have already realized significant cost savings by deploying commodity
servers and an open source operating environment. You have one lingering doubt:
Will you get the same level of application availability in your new $50,000 environment that you enjoy in your existing $500,000 environment? Reasonable concern.
After all, you get what you pay for. Or do you?
n the past, the cost and complexity of
high availability (HA) solutions made
economic sense only for elite business
networks and for systems running
high-end mission-critical applications.
The building of highly available and
protected systems required purchasing specialized hardware and implementing proprietary interfaces. Those who could not
afford such a solution tolerated a certain
amount of system downtime.
I
The Cost of Downtime
Today’s businesses and customers
require HA solutions across the board, at an
affordable price. A global business needs
24-hour access to information 365 days a
year. In an Internet service model, organizations must anticipate customers arriving
at their Web site and business partners
interacting with their systems at any hour
of any day. For many businesses the words
“regular business hours” have no meaning.
The cost of downtime, whether
unplanned or scheduled, can have substantial negative revenue impact – in terms of
immediately lost business and productivity,
as well as the subsequent effect of a potential loss of customer loyalty and confidence
(see Table 1).
What does one hour of critical system
downtime cost your business? Can you
afford this loss? In today’s Web-enabled
economy, customers who can’t access a
Web site or service they desire are only a
click away from a competitor!
High Availability Clustering
as a Solution
Bob Williamson, vice president of engineering
at SteelEye Technology, has over 20 years of
experience in the design and development of
high availability solutions on Linux, Windows,
and Unix platforms. Bob is a frequent contributor to industry journals and is a regular speaker at trade shows and conferences worldwide.
[email protected]
There is a solution. By combining commodity Intel servers with Linux and HA
clustering solutions, businesses can achieve
between 99.99% and 99.999% uptime for
business-critical applications at a fraction
of the cost historically associated with proprietary RISC-based systems. Thus, you can
plan on between just 8 and 55 minutes of
downtime, for both planned and
unplanned outages, for an entire year. And
this is for everything – from your mail server to your business-critical financial management or manufacturing systems.
There are a number of HA solutions
available for Linux. Choosing one that
meets your business objectives is simple if
you know a few key points about HA and
PREMIER 2003
74
A B O UT
TH E
A UTH O R
What Level of Availability Is
Right for My Business?
To understand the HA needs of your
business, use the following questions to do
a self-assessment:
• Among my applications and services,
which can I least afford to have unavailable to users and customers?
• For each of these, what is the actual
monetary cost associated with each
hour of downtime?
• To protect against this loss, what am I
willing to spend?
• How long would it take me to get the
most critical business functions operational following a disaster hitting my
data center?
• Should I invest in an HA solution that
enables me to resume business operations in minutes rather than days following some catastrophic event?
With this data on hand, you can identify
your availability needs and make more
informed decisions regarding the investment your business requires to ensure the
uptime that your customers and business
partners demand.
Selecting the Most Appropriate
High Availability Solution
The Availability Equation, Trestore =
Tdetect + Trecover, illustrates how the total
time required to restore an application to
usability is equal to the time it takes to
detect that an application is experiencing a
problem plus the time needed to perform
some recovery action. This equation introduces the key concepts of HA clustering:
problem detection and subsequent recovery. In essence, HA solutions monitor the
health of business application components
www.LinuxWorld.com
BUSINESS APPS
and, upon detection of problems, take
actions to restore them to service.
Because the objective of deploying an
HA solution is to minimize downtime,
working to reduce detection and recovery
times is key among the tasks of the solution
that you choose to deploy. Since today’s
applications are in fact combinations of
multiple technologies, as you survey the
options available, be certain to understand
the technology used to detect and recover
from all outage types including server, storage network, application, and database.
Each has a direct impact upon service
restoration times.
Local Detection and Recovery
One technology factor that is critical to
providing the fastest possible restoration
time is the ability to perform “local detection and recovery.”
In a basic clustering solution, a number
of servers are connected together and configured such that one or more servers can
take over the operations of another in the
event of a server failure. The server nodes
in the cluster continuously send small data
packets, often called heartbeat signals, to
each other to indicate “I’m Alive.” In simple
clustered environments, when one server
stops generating heartbeats other cluster
members assume that this server is down
and begin the process of taking over
responsibility for that server’s domain of
operation. This approach is adequate for
detecting failure at a gross server level.
However, in the case of problems that do
not cause the interruption of heartbeat sig-
nals, server-level detection is not just inadequate, it can actually magnify the extent
and impact of an outage. For example, if
Apache processes hang, the server may still
send heartbeats even though the Web server subsystem has ceased to perform the
system’s primary function. Rather than
restart just the Apache subsystem on the
same or a different server, a basic serverlevel clustering solution would restart the
entire software stack of the failed server on
a back-up server, thereby causing interruption to other users of the server as well as
extending the time to recover.
Advanced clustering solutions provide a
broad range of additional mechanisms to
detect problems at a more granular level
and enable recovery actions to be tailored
to specific problems. Using local detection
and recovery, advanced clustering solutions
deploy health monitoring agents within the
individual cluster servers to monitor individual system components such as a file
system, database, user-level application, IP
address, etc. These agents use heuristics
specific to the system component being
monitored so that they can predict and
detect operational issues and then take
whatever recovery action is most appropriate. Often, the most efficient recovery
method is to stop and restart the problem
subsystem on the same server. This is
much faster and has far less impact, and it’s
therefore a less costly recovery method
than migrating all application components
to a standby server. By detecting failures at
a more granular level than simple serverlevel heartbeats, and by enabling recovery
...................................................................................................
Business .....................................................................Operation
Average Cost per
Hour of Downtime
Communications: ...............................................Converged Services
$10.0 million
Financial: ......................................................Brokerage Operations
$6.45 million
Financial: ........................................Credit Card/Sales Authorization
$2.6 million
Corporate Infrastructure:..........................................................ERP
$780,000
Media: ......................................................................Pay Per View
$150,000
Transportation: .....................................................Airline Ticketing
$89,500
Media: ...............................................................Event Ticket Sales
$69,000
TABLE 1
THE COST OF DOWNTIME
SOURCE: GARTNER, DATAQUEST, AND OTHERS
www.LinuxWorld.com
75
within the same physical server, the time
required to restore an application to user
availability is greatly reduced. Make certain
that the HA solution you deploy can support local detection and recovery.
Scalability and Flexibility
There are a number of additional criteria against which you should measure any
HA solution. The ability of the solution to
scale and flex as your business needs
change is key.
Within the world of HA clustering there
are many dimensions of scalability and
flexibility.
For example, two methods exist for making your business data available to all nodes
in an HA cluster: shared storage and data
replication. Each is appropriate for certain
environments, but how do you decide which
is right for you? As important as deciding
this is ensuring that the solution you choose
can support both shared storage and replication configurations – so that regardless of
how your business needs evolve, the most
appropriate storage configuration can
always be deployed and the option to make
any application highly available remains
always open.
All HA solutions support shared storage
configurations where the data needed by
clustered applications resides on either
directly attached SCSI or fiber-attached
storage devices. All nodes in the cluster can
access the storage device and as the cluster
software migrates applications between
servers during recovery, data paths
between servers and the storage device are
automatically reconfigured. While a shared
storage configuration may be the correct
choice for a number of deployments, there
are some considerations that will make it
less than ideal for others.
Primary among these is the expense of
purchasing, deploying, and maintaining a
shared storage configuration. With prices
ranging from several thousand to several
hundred thousand dollars, small to medium-sized businesses as well as branch and
departmental organizations may find
shared storage to be cost prohibitive.
An alternative is to make use of data
replication technology so that any data
required by the application being protected
is stored in the internal disks of all systems
within the cluster. All writes of data to the
primary disk of the system actively running
PREMIER 2003
Level of Protection
BUSINESS APPS
Two Node
Data Replication
LAN
2 to 4 Node
Failover
SCSI LAN
n Node
Failover Fiber
Channel SAN
Disaster
Recovery Cluster
Replication WAN
Breadth of Capability
FIGURE 1
One-to-Many Clustering –
Granular Flexibility
SPECTRUM OF CLUSTER CONFIGURATION
the application are replicated to the disks of
systems acting as standby nodes. This way,
if the standby node should need to take
over for the primary system, all required
data is available locally. The cost and complexity of shared storage is eliminated while
still allowing for full HA.
In addition to cost, another factor in
deciding whether to deploy a shared storage or a data replication cluster is the geographical distance between the nodes.
Both SCSI and fiber have distance limitations that for practical purposes limit the
placement of nodes within the cluster to a
LAN environment. If you’re deploying a
cluster between two locations across a
WAN to provide disaster recovery protection for one of your sites, then you will
make use of data replication to mirror
your business data between the two facilities.
So, data replication technology plays
two roles: it enables you to deploy an HA
cluster at a lower price point and it supports the building of a stretch cluster across
geographies for disaster recovery purposes.
Be certain that the HA clustering solution
you choose supports data replication clusters as well as conventional shared storage.
With both data replication and shared storage configurations available, you can
decide where among the clustering
schemas shown in Figure 1 you should
enter the HA world. By choosing a solution
that can accommodate all deployment scenarios, you ensure that as your needs
change, you can deploy the best solution
for your environment.
Another scalability factor to be considered is the number of nodes that can be
supported in a cluster. Entry-level HA solutions limit you to a single two-node cluster,
typically in active-passive mode. While this
does provide a level of increased availability
by the addition of a standby server, it can
still leave you exposed to application downtime.
PREMIER 2003
Active-active in a two-plus server HA
cluster environment thereby offers the
important advantage of not requiring an
idle, standby server for every active cluster
member. The ability to fully exploit the
resources of every server in an HA cluster
simultaneously provides greater protection
and increased return on investment in
valuable server resources.
The Value of Active-Active
Configuration
In a two-node cluster configuration, if
one server is down for any reason, then the
single remaining server becomes a single
point of failure. However, by deploying
three or more nodes clustered together, you
not only gain the ability to provide higher
levels of protection, but you can also build
configurations that are highly scalable. Two
examples of such cluster configurations are
commonly referred to as Many-to-One and
One-to-Many.
In a One-to-Many configuration, the
domain of responsibility of the failed server
is divided among a number of other servers
in the cluster. In addition to enhancing
overall availability by distributing points of
failure, this approach of splitting a primary
server’s responsibilities in combination
with active-active configuration offers significant economic benefits that further
marginalize the cost of HA.
This is because the ability to failover individual services in active-active mode to multiple servers eliminates the requirement for a
potentially large and therefore more costly
server to be provisioned purely for the purposes of providing backup in the event of failure.
Many-to-One Clustering – Increasing ROI
In a Many-to-One configuration, a single
standby server backs up a number of active
servers (see Figure 2). If any one of the
active servers should fail, the standby node
will take over its operation. However, if a
second active node should fail, that server’s
workload would then also become the
responsibility of the single backup server,
thereby requiring it to be able to work in an
active-active mode.
FIGURE 2
MANY-TO-ONE CONFIGURATION
76
Summary
Deploying business-critical applications
on Linux makes tremendous economic
sense and establishes an economic model
that supports the business case for HA
solutions across a much broader range of
business systems than could be justified for
proprietary technical environments.
This ability to reduce costs while
enabling organizations to build out their IT
infrastructures is a key factor accelerating
the adoption of Linux.
In making the decision as to which HA
clustering solution you should deploy, the
first step is to understand your business HA
needs. Once your current requirements are
determined, it is vital to understand that
these requirements will most likely change
over time. Your selection criteria therefore
will ideally incorporate the ability to evolve
and make changes without requiring technology reinvestment or incurring disruption to users and customers caused by the
need to reengineer to your environment.
Occasionally, basic solutions can suffice.
But given the reality of “you get what you
pay for” it is better still to explore the full
range of technical possibilities and make
your selection based upon meeting current
requirements while providing flexibility for
the future.
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INTERVIEW
Who
Owns
?
Unix
An
exclusive
interview
with
esr
A B O UT
E R I C
S.
R AYM O N D
Eric S. Raymond is an observer-participant
anthropologist in the Internet hacker culture.
His research has helped explain the decentralized open source model of software development that has proven so effective in the evolution of the Internet. His own software projects include one of the Internet's most widely
used e-mail transport programs.
PREMIER 2003
78
www.LinuxWorld.com
INTERVIEW
I NTE R V I E W E D
BY
KE V I N
B E D E L L
Eric Raymond has the unique ability to focus on low-level technical details while
at the same time tracking the highest-level technology trends. His book The Cathedral
This is also an attempt to send a powerful message to potential future litigants: it’s
not safe to mess with the open source community because we can bite back.
and the Bazaar is both a great history of early Linux development and a great introduction to the workings and the culture of the open source community. Eric (who is
often referred to simply as ‘esr’) has been associated with the Unix community for 20
years. He’s contributed code to different versions of Unix, spoken frequently as an
open source advocate, and has a new book coming out – The Art of Unix Programming.
Eric is president and cofounder of the Open Source Initiative (OSI).
n response to the SCO lawsuit, Eric
(with consultant Rob Landley) wrote
the “OSI Position Paper on the SCOvs.-IBM Complaint.” This position
paper addresses in detail SCO’s
claims of intellectual property ownership over Linux. The paper has been
widely read and is considered by many to
be the best analysis of the topic available.
In short, the paper addresses the question,
“Who owns Unix?”.
LWM was able to catch up with Eric on
the day of the Novell announcement that
SCO did not own the patents or copyrights
to Unix.
I
LWM: In a nutshell, what exactly is SCO
trying to do?
esr: What they were trying to do, I think,
was shake IBM down for a payoff or a buyout offer. That has blown up in their face,
especially now that Novell has made a public statement that all but accuses SCO of
lying about the disposition of the IP. But
now they have to play this losing hand out
to the end – because admitting that they
knew they didn’t have a real case to begin
with might land their management in jail
for fraud and harassment.
LWM: So tell me about the position paper
you developed.Why did you and Rob
Landley write it?
esr: I was trying to do two things really.
www.LinuxWorld.com
One, I was trying to give IBM ammunition.
Two, I knew the open source community
would have to respond to SCO’s attack
sooner or later, and that it would be better
if it was sooner – before SCO’s propaganda
(if any) had time to take hold.
But part of why I was upset didn’t have
anything to do with Linux. I’m actually an
old Unix developer – back to 1982. I wasn’t
one of the original developers of Unix
(though I’ve contributed code to Linux and
the BSD Unixes), but I know those guys and
they know me. The SCO complaint was
insulting. It was SCO claiming that they
owned all the code that we wrote – and
then using that claim to harm Linux.
LWM: What’s happening with your “No
Secrets” effort?
esr: I’m trying to prove that the proprietary
Unix vendors don’t have any trade secrets.
Right now I have enough people willing to
sign affidavits about having uncontrolled
read access to Unix source code that I can
show there’s been a pervasive failure to
enforce even the minimum level of nondisclosure required to maintain trade secrecy.
Thousands of people who have seen the
Unix source code were never under nondisclosure. This is the kind of evidence that
destroys trade-secrecy status.
If SCO continues, I’ll get enough signed
affidavits to prove that they have no trade
secrets.
79
LWM: And what is IBM’s position on all
this?
esr: You’ll have to ask IBM that. I’m their
ally in this, not their spokesperson.
LWM: For readers who may be unfamiliar
with your work in this area, can you share
some of your background with open source
and Linux?
esr: I wrote the foundational paper on open
source development, ran the meeting
where the term “open source” was invented, and have been one of the community’s
principal ambassadors to the rest of the
world for the last five years. I am the president of the Open Source Initiative, one of
the community’s two leading advocacy
organizations.
LWM: What is the position of the Open
Source Initiative on this issue?
esr: We believe SCO’s claims are utterly without merit. In much of their complaint they
seem to be, plainly and simply, lying through
their teeth. We have published a detailed
rebuttal at www.opensource.org/sco-vsibm.html. It looks even stronger than it did
in light of Novell publicly announcing that
they, not SCO, own the Unix patents.
LWM: So, who owns Unix?
esr: Legally, it’s very unclear. Novell holds
the patents. The OpenGroup owns the
trademark. The copyrights are in some
A B O UT
TH E
I NTE R V I E W E R
Kevin Bedell is editor-in-chief of LinuxWorld
Magazine. With a degree in engineering as well
as an MBA and years of experience as a
developer, architect, team lead, and department
manager, Kevin has seen all sides of this puzzle.
He recently authored a book on Jakarta Struts
for SAMS Publishing and is working on a
book on Apache Axis for O’Reilly.
[email protected]
PREMIER 2003
INTERVIEW
weird limbo – first Novell came out and
said they owned them, but SCO now claims
to own them under the terms of Caldera’s
deal with Novell and Novell is keeping
mum. The one thing we do know is that the
transfer of the copyrights (if any) was never
recorded with the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office. That has interesting legal
implications, and may be the reason SCO
hasn’t come out and made an explicit copyright-infringement claim in the lawsuit.
Ethically, OSI’s position is that Unix
belongs to the distributed development
community that wrote it. SCO’s threats broke
the tacit understanding that kept us from
asserting this for 30 years. It used to be that
we agreed not to fuss over the fact that AT&T
or Unix Systems Labs or Novell or SCO were
claiming to own the code as long as they
agreed not to fuss over the fact that every
senior Unix developer had a technically illicit
copy of the source code in his hip pocket.
(http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030528/law05
9_1.html) basically admitted they’ve got no
grounds to sue anybody but IBM.
SCO have since changed their minds,
but I think this is just bluster. Furthermore,
the various lawyers I’ve talked with agree
that it’s just bluster. When you think you
have a strong case in court, you don’t fight
it in the media. SCO would scare me worse
of they weren’t huffing and puffing.
LWM: If you were a manager in a company
considering using Linux for a first project,
would this lawsuit impact your decision to
give Linux a try?
esr: Not at all. Ignoring the occasional FUD
storm is part of the job.
LWM: In your book The Cathedral and the
Bazaar you describe the Linux development
process as being like a bazaar, where all
kinds of people with all kinds of interests
“Legally, it now appears
that Novell still owns Unix.
They have the patents,
and they’re claiming to hold
the copyrights as well”
Everybody took code from everybody.
AT&T used Berkeley and Xenix code and
got called on it during a 1993 lawsuit. Truth
is, the rights picture is so tangled that
nobody’s theory of ownership would stand
close scrutiny of the source code’s history.
The law of intellectual property doesn’t
handle this kind of situation well. The equitable thing to do would be to just give up,
throw it open, and admit it belongs to the
hackers.
LWM: What do you see as the potential
downside risk for companies using Linux?
Will SCO try to sue everybody?
esr: The risk dropped to zero last May 28 with
Novell’s announcements. SCO’s response
are developing different pieces. Is Linux
development still that way? How has it
changed?
esr: If it has changed, it has changed by
becoming more conscious and better
organized. I played a part in that by giving
people language with which to reflect on
what they’re doing.
LWM: What do you think will happen with
this suit? Any idea how long it might be before
it becomes clear what’s going to happen?
esr: They can’t win, not in front of a judge
with any brain cells operating – and the
word on His Honor Dale Kimball is that he’s
a sharp guy. Timeframe? Who knows. These
things can drag on for years.
LWM: How can the Linux community
ensure that Linux stays free of IP claims in
the future? Can there be a process instituted that ensures this doesn’t happen again?
esr: See my “No Secrets” page for an example of what network activism can do
(www.catb.org/~esr). I’ve collected nearly
100 responses, with at least 40 people willing to sign affidavits. I think we can prove
that there are no trade secrets in Linux. I
think we can use the same methods to turn
up prior art in patents cases.
LWM: Switching gears a bit, in the IBM -vSCO analysis on the OSI Web site (www.open
source.org/sco-vs-ibm.html), you referred to
a “seismic shift” occuring right now in the
software industry. Can you explain what
you meant?
esr: I already have. Readers should go to
www.opensource.org/sco-vsibm.html#seismic
for the story.
LWM: Will all applications eventually be
open sourced? Which kinds might not?
esr: I don’t think it will be all – there are
economic circumstances in which closed
source makes sense, though they’re not
common. I think “most” is a fairly safe bet,
though. I’ve discussed this at length in my
paper “The Magic Cauldron.”
LWM: What will the software industry look
like in five years?
esr: A lot like the legal profession does now,
I think. Independent software firms will be
like law firms, partnership organizations of
professionals. Other programmers will
work in-house at corporations the way that
corporate lawyers do now. Programmers in
general will be operating from a common
open source base; secrecy will be a feature
mainly of legacy software.
Regarding outsourcing and offshore
development – one thing you can’t outsource is getting inside a customer’s mind.
You can’t move face-to-face, person-toperson communications and design offshore. You can outsource cookie-cutter
code, but I predict a lot of companies are
going to discover they’re paying for large
portions of code that don’t match their
requirements.
One of the things we know is that the
most effective ways of writing software
involve a series of interactions – a succession of prototypes – using continuous feedback. You can’t do that if your customer’s in
Teaneck, New Jersey, and your developers
are in Bangalore.
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Sept. 30 10:00 a.m.
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Allan Vermeulen, CTO and vice president at Amazon.com, directly oversees
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X WINDOWS
Cross-Platform
Integration with
X Windows
Creating a transparent mixed environment for users
Change is scary. If you tell a user that you’re going to wipe his hard disk and
BY
H E R M A N
V E R K A D E
Herman Verkade is a UK-based independent
consultant who specializes in the management
of large-scale heterogeneous environments.
Over the past 22 years he has worked
mostly with financial institutions in the
UK, the U.S., and continental Europe.
[email protected]
with access to applications running on
both platforms simultaneously.
I decided to investigate whether the
same would be possible with Windows and
Linux. The goal was to leave the users’ PCs
still running Windows, but give them access
to applications running on a remote Linux
machine using X Windows. Linux GUI
applications are all based around X
Windows. When the graphical environment
starts on a Linux machine, an X server is
started, serving the keyboard, mouse, and
screen to X client applications. The clients
communicate with the server over pipes, or
a TCP/IP connection to the local host, with
a protocol called X11.
X11 is also suitable to run over a network connection to/from another host.
Client applications look at the DISPLAY
environment variable to find the X server
that they need to display to. Many programs also accept a –display commandline qualifier to redirect X11 to another X
server. X11 is a platform-independent protocol, so the X server can just as easily run
on a machine with an operating system
that is different from that on the client. I
set out to run applications on a Linux
machine with an X connection back to a
Windows PC.
The client applications are there, and
need no modification, so the quest was on
for an X server for Windows. There are a
number of commercial packages on the
market that achieve this. I looked for a port
of the open source X system (XFree86), but
found that it would only work with Cygwin,
which is a complete Unix-like environment
for Windows. That seemed somewhat complex, so I tried the commercial packages
first.
I got evaluation copies of X-SecurePro
from Lab-Tam, and Exceed from
Hummingbird. The latter is much better
known, but is also far more expensive. Both
packages provide an X server and a variety
of other Unix-like tools such as NFS, telnet,
and so on. Both also provide a GUI starter
program that will connect to a remote
machine using rsh, rexec, or telnet and execute a command to start an application
that connects back to the Windows PC for
its X server.
The X server in both products can be
run in two modes: full-screen or multiwindow. In full-screen mode, a single large
window is displayed on the Windows PC,
which is an entire desktop in which the X
client applications will create their windows. This is great to run an entire Linux
desktop under Windows, but this wasn’t
what I was looking for for my mixed environment. In multiwindow mode, each X
client application is displayed in its own
window, with a standard Windows title bar
with the normal Windows buttons on it. For
a mixed environment this is what’s
required.
For my tests, I wanted to run a standard
xterm window, the GNOME Terminal,
www.LinuxWorld.com
87
PREMIER 2003
install Linux, he is going to be scared witless. No matter how good the new operating system is, and no matter how much preparation you put into it, your user is
going to be scared of the change. So, why not first give him access to a few Linux
applications without actually installing Linux on his machine?
here are various ways to give your
user community access to Linux
applications, without wiping the
hard disks of their PCs. The most
commonly used ones are to give a
user a second PC which runs
Linux, to install a dual-boot environment
with Windows and Linux, or to install Linux
into a virtual PC environment such as
VMware. But none of these methods provide a smooth and transparent mixed environment because the user will need to
explicitly switch between the Windows and
Linux environments.
Back in the old days, I managed mixed
VMS and Unix environments. Although
these two are very different platforms, both
supported X Windows. Using the network
capabilities of X, I was always able to create
transparent mixed environments, where
users would have only one workstation, but
T
A B O UT
TH E
A UTH O R
X WINDOWS
OpenOffice.org, and Evolution. I found neither of the X packages working satisfactorily out of the box. xterm worked without
problems, as this is a very basic X11 program that does not require any unusual
fonts or extensions. The GNOME Terminal
was not so good. The terminal window was
displayed using a font that was too small,
making it very difficult to read, and the
menu items were badly rendered, making it
all very ugly (see Figure 1). OpenOffice.org
and Evolution were treated with some double-spaced font that takes up so much
space that it becomes completely unusable
(see Figure 2).
FIGURE 1
UNTIDY FONT RENDERING USING
COMMERCIAL X SERVER PACKAGES
To be fair to these products, it’s very
likely that these problems can be resolved.
X11 is a base protocol for getting requests
and responses over the network from a
client to a server and vice versa. To display
a string of text on the screen, the X client
simply requests the string to be displayed
with certain font parameters in a certain
position on the screen. The X server then
looks for an appropriate font file and ren-
ders the text for display on the screen. In
addition, many extensions have been created, mainly for graphics-intense applications, aimed at reducing the bandwidth
usage of X and offloading complex actions
from the client to the X server. But for this
all to work, there needs to be a match
between what the X client requires and
what the X server has to offer. In my case
the right fonts were not supplied with the X
server, and the applications also complained about certain extension modules
not being available in the server. If you can
find the fonts and the required extension
DLLs, then both products can probably be
made to work in the scenario described
above.
But as this was a no-budget project to
see how easy (or difficult) it was, I couldn’t
afford the time to look into these. Instead, I
decided to try the XFree86 Cygwin port.
Cygwin is a Unix-like environment for
Windows that consists of a DLL that implements most Unix system calls and maps
them to existing Windows API calls, and a
set of tools and commands ported within
this environment. With Cygwin it is possible to take Unix/Linux source code, compile it on Windows against the Cygwin DLL,
and then run it as Windows applications.
Some of the tools ported in this manner by
Cygnus are the gcc compiler and the
XFree86 system, as well as various shells
and shell commands.
All Cygwin modules are installed with a
single installer. The setup program is downloadable over the Web. When started it asks
which packages you want to download
and/or install. XFree86 is simply one of the
options available from this setup program.
It took a wee while to download the
packages, but they were untarred in no
time, and my system was ready to go. There
is no need to configure X as is required on
Linux. There is no need to select a graphics
driver and such, as XFree86 on Windows
simply works with the generic Windows
Graphics API. Therefore it uses whatever
graphics card driver is installed for
Windows itself. Older versions of
XFree86/Cygwin supported only full-screen
mode, but earlier this year an option was
added to support multiwindow mode.
The X server is started by a batch file called
startxwin.bat. As an entire Unix-like environment (based on GNU), Cygwin also provides a
bash shell and a good set of Unix commands.
The default version of startxwin.bat makes
use of this and also starts an xterm with a
bash shell running locally. If you want to run
Unix shell scripts on Windows, then Cygwin is
also useful just for that.
Next, I telneted to a Linux machine and
typed:
xterm –display eno:0 &
(‘eno’ is the name of my Windows desktop
machine). First, I got an “access denied”
message. The default security in XFree86
does not allow remote applications to display on the server. A simple
xhost +
FIGURE 2
in the locally running bash shell fixed that.
The xhost program adds entries for remote
machines to the allowed list, and the “+”
simply allows everything under the sun.
Not a good setting for a production environment, but for my testing it was sufficient.
Back to the xterm command, and now a
beautiful xterm appeared on my screen
with a bash shell under Linux. Next was the
GNOME Terminal application. No problems at all with this X server, as the correct
fonts were used, making it look exactly the
same as it does on Linux. Of course this is
not much of a surprise because the applications on the Linux machine were expect-
DOUBLE-SPACED FONTS DO NOT LEAVE A LOT OF SPACE IN EACH WINDOW
PREMIER 2003
88
www.LinuxWorld.com
X WINDOWS
FIGURE 3
A FULLY INTEGRATED WINDOWS DESKTOP, WITH FILE MANAGER, A BASH SHELL IN AN XTERM RUNNING LOCALLY,
AND A PERFECTLY DISPLAYED INSTANCE OF EVOLUTION, WHICH IS RUNNING REMOTELY ON A LINUX MACHINE
Client vs Server
Newcomers to X11 often get confused by the fact
that the concept of “client and server” appears to be the
wrong way round. In fact, it is not. Let me explain.
The concept of client-server technology is shown in
a very basic diagram (see Figure 4). The yellow box on
the left is a server process, running on one machine,
serving a resource to a number of client processes running on the computers on the right. I’ve shown three
computers running a total of four client processes, two
red ones and two blue ones.
In the case of database client-server technology, the
computer on the left is a server-class computer with
Server
Client
large amounts of disk space and probably hardware
Computer
Computers
RAID, which provides a database resource to applicaFIGURE 4 CLIENT-SERVER TECHNOLOGY
tions running on the machines on the right, which are
most often workstations or PCs. The database server on the left serves its database to the client
applications on the right. In this picture the user will usually sit at the machines on the right.
In the case of X11, the computer on the left is again running the server process, but the resources
served are a keyboard, a mouse, and one or more screens. It serves these resources to client applications
running on the computers on the right. The concept of client and server is the same, but the nature of
the resource being served now means that the user sits at the computer on the left. The X server runs on
a machine with keyboard, mouse, and screen(s), such as a workstation or PC (or even a diskless thin
client), while the X client applications run on other machines on the network, which may be other PCs,
or server-class machines without graphics capability, or even blade servers.
The designations of “client” and “server” remain the same in that client applications make use
of a shared resource provided by a server process. It is still a case of multiple clients accessing a
single server. The difference is that the user sits on the “other end” of the client-server division,
because it is the keyboard, mouse, and screen that are the served resource.
ing to run against an XFree86 server and all
the required fonts and the extension module are available in the Windows port.
I then set out to run OpenOffice.org and
Evolution. As far as graphics were concerned
both ran fine, but I found that not all windows were appearing on my Windows
machine. After a bit of investigation I figured
out that if I started Evolution from my telnet
session using the –display command-line
parameter, then some of the windows were
still appearing on the remote machine where
the program was running. Evolution starts a
number of subprocesses, and the display
parameter was not passed on to these.
However, when running Evolution from my
remote xterm window everything worked fine.
When you run xterm with the –display parameter, a bash shell is started inside it, and the DISPLAY environment variable is set to point to the
server and screen specified on the command
line. Evolution looks at this and connects to the
right server. All its subprocesses inherit the variable and now also display to the same screen.
Using XFree86/Cygwin I am able to create an environment in which I can run local
Windows applications and remote Linux
applications that all display in their own
window on the PC (see Figure 3). That part
of the transparency is achieved quite easily.
The only missing bit is a simple tool to start
a remote application, as provided by the
commercial packages. Using telnet and
xterms is not quite the mechanism I want
to give to users. I’ll need to do a bit more
searching on the Net for this, or if that fails
I’ll write one and publish it under the GPL.
Once that is achieved, I will be able to
give users access to Linux applications to
let them see for themselves how beautifully
they work. Once they are used to those, I
can start thinking about giving them the
full Linux operating system on their desktop machines. By then, they will be familiar
with the applications and the change to a
complete open source environment will be
a lot less scary.
References
• The XFree86 Project: www.xfree86.org
• Cygwin/XFree86:
http://cygwin.com/xfree
• X11: www.x.org
• Hummingbird Exceed: www.humming
bird.com
• Lab-Tam X-SecurePro: www.labtaminc.com
LINUXWORLD MAGAZINE WWW.LINUXWORLD.COM
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91
PREMIER 2003
LUGs
Linux
User
Groups
For more information go to www.linux.org/groups
United States
Big Bear City, CA
Big Bear Linux User Group
http://www.weak.org/buug
San Diego, CA
San Diego Linux Users Group
http://www.sdlug.org
Cerritos, CA
Cerritos Linux User Group
http://www.cerritoslug.org
San Diego County, CA
Linux System Administrators
http://www.LxSA.org
Chico, CA
Chico State Linux User's Group
http://cslug.ecst.csuchico.edu
San Francisco, CA
Bay Area Linux Users Group
http://www.balug.org
Mobile, AL
South Alabama Linux User Group
http://www.salug.org
Davis, CA
Linux User Group of Davis
http://www.lugod.org
Montgomery, AL
Montgomery Area Linux Users
http://www.malu.org
Eureka, CA
HUMLUG
http://humlug.org
San Francisco, CA
San Francisco PC Users Group
Linux SIG
http://www.sfpcug.org/sig/linux.html
Alaska
Fremont, CA
East Bay Linux User Group
http://www.eblug.org
Alabama
Birmingham, AL
Birmingham Area Linux Users
http://deepfog.net
Huntsville, AL
Linux Users of North Alabama
http://luna.huntsville.al.us
Alaska
Alaska Linux Users Group
http://www.aklug.org
Fairbanks, AK
University of Alaska Fairbanks Linux
User's Group
http://linux0.cs.uaf.edu
Juneau, AK
Juneau Linux Users Group
http://juneau-lug.org
Arizona
Flagstaff, AZ
Linux Users of Northern Arizona
http://luna.flagstaff.az.us
Phoenix, AZ
Phoenix Linux User Group
http://plug.phoenix.az.us
Prescott, AZ
Linux Users Group of Yavapai
http://www.lugy.net
Sierra Vista, AZ
Cochise Linux Users Group
http://www.cochiselinux.org
Fullerton, CA
Orange County Linux User Group
http://www.oclug.org
Los Angeles, CA
Linux Users Los Angeles
http://www.lula.org
Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles Linux User Groups
http://www.lalugs.org
Los Angeles, CA
University of Southern California
Linux Users Group
http://sclug.usc.edu
Mission Viejo, CA
South Orange County Linux Users
Group
http://www.soclug.org
Monterey, CA
Monterey Peninsula Linux User's
Group
http://mplug.psychogeek.net
Tucson, AZ
Tucson Free Unix Group
http://tfug.org
North Hills, CA
San Fernando Valley Linux User
Group
http://sfvlug.org
Yuma, AZ
Yuma Linux User Group
http://ylug.linuxorbit.com
Palmdale, CA
Antelope Valley Linux Users Group
http://www.avlug.org
Arkansas
Conway, AR
Central Arkansas Linux Users
Group
http://www.carlug.org
Little Rock, AR
Little Rock Linux Users Group
http://www.lrlug.org
California
Berkeley, CA
Berkeley Unix User Group
http://www.weak.org/buug
Berkeley, CA
Cal Berkeley Linux Users Group
http://www-callug.cs.berkeley.edu
Palm Springs Area, CA
Coachella Valley Linux Users
Group
http://www.cvlug.org
Boulder, CO
Boulder Linux Users Group
http://lug.boulder.co.us
Colorado Springs, CO
Pikes Peak Linux Users Group
http://pplug.org
Denver, CO
Colorado Linux Users &
Enthusiasts
http://clue.denver.co.us
Fort Collins, CO
Northern Colorado Linux Users
Group
http://www.nclug.org
San Francisco, CA
U.S.S. Augusta Ada
http://trek.starshine.org
Connecticut
San Jose, CA
San Jose State University Linux
Users Group
http://sjsulug.engr.sjsu.edu
New Haven, CT
Southern Connecticut Open
Source User Group
http://www.scosug.org
San Jose, CA
Silicon Valley Linux User Group
http://www.svlug.org
New London, CT
*
Eastern Connecticut Linux User
Group
http://www.eclug.net
San Luis Obispo, CA
Cal Poly Linux Users Group
http://www.lug.calpoly.edu
North Haven, CT
*
Southern CT Open Source User
Group
http://www.scosug.org
Santa Barbara, CA
Santa Barbara Linux User Group
http://sblug.borg-cube.com
Norwich, CT
Eastern Connecticut Linux Users
Group (ECLUG)
http://www.clintonpublic.org/eclug/i
ndex.html
Santa Clarita, CA
Santa Clarita Valley Linux User
Group
http://www.scvlug.org
Delaware
Santa Cruz, CA
Santa Cruz Linux User Group
http://linus.got.net
Dover, DE
Lower Delaware Linux Users Group
http://www2.delawaremicro.com
Santa Cruz, CA
Santa Cruz Microsoft Alternative
User Group
http://www.scruz.org
New Castle, DE
New Castle Linux Users Group
http://www.jjsheeran.com/LUG.html
Santa Monica, CA
Santa Monica Linux User Group
http://oceanpark.com/lug
Newark, DE
LUG @ The University of
Delaware
http://www.lug.udel.edu
Santa Ynez Valley, CA
Santa Ynez Linux Users Group
http://www.rentatek.com/SYLUG
District of Columbia
Manassas, VA
Linux User’s Group of Manassas
http://www.tux.org/lugman
Stockton/Modesto, CA
Central Valley Area Linux
Enthusiasts
http://www.cvale.org
Pasadena, CA
San Gabriel Valley Linux Users
Group
http://www.sgvlug.org
Sonoma County, CA
North Bay Linux Users Group
http://nblug.org
Redlands, CA
LUGIE
http://www.rdfoerster.com/LUGIE
Torrance, CA
Lilax
http://www.lilax.org
Roseville, CA
Roseville Linux Users Group
http://www.rosevillelug.org
Van Nuys, CA
The Linux Labs User Group
http://www.thelinuxlabs.org
Sacramento, CA
Sacramento Area Linux Users Group
http://wwww.saclug.org
Berkeley, CA
Berkeley Unix User Group
http://www.weak.org/buug
PREMIER 2003
Colorado
N. Potomac, MD
DCLUG--Washington DC
Metro Area Linux User
http://dclug.tux.org
Bethesda Maryland, VA
Washington DC Linux User Group
http://www.tux.org/dclug
Florida
Broward, FL
Florida Linux User Xchange
http://www.flux.org
Cape Coral, FL
Southwest Florida Linux Users Group
http://www.swfglug.org
92
Central Florida, FL
Linux Enthusiasts And
Professionals, Inc.
http://www.leap-cf.org
Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Beach Network Users
Group
http://www.dabnug.org
Florida, FL
Ardella Baptist Church, FL
Your Linux User Group (YourLUG)
http://www.yourlug.org
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Florida Linux User Xchange
http://www.flux.org
Fort Walton Beach, FL
Emerald Coast Linux Users Group
http://www.eclug.org
Gainesville, FL
Florida Linux Users - FLU
http://www.linuxusers.org
Jacksonville, FL
Jacksonville Linux Users Group
http://www.jaxlug.org
Lakeland, FL
YourLug
http://www.yourlug.org
Melbourne, FL
Melbourne Linux User Group
http://www.mlinux.org
Miami, FL
Miami Linux Users Group
http://www.mialug.org
Orlando, FL
Linux Enthusiasts and
Professionals (LEAP) of Central
Florida
http://www.leap-cf.org
Orlando, FL
University of Central Florida Linux
User Group
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~linux
Pensacola, FL
Pensacola Linux User Group
http://www.pcolalug.org
Tampa Bay, FL
Suncoast Linux Users Group
http://www.suncoastlug.org
Columbus, GA
Chattachoochee
Area Open Source
http://chaos706.org
Dublin, GA
Dublin Georgia Linux Users
Group
http://members.tripod.com/~carrere/linux
Loganville, GA
LawLUG
http://www.lawlug.com
Hawaii
Hilo, HI
Big Island Linux Users Group
http://cs.uhh.hawaii.edu/BILUG
Honolulu, HI
Linux & Unix Advocates & Users
http://luau.hi.net
Honolulu, HI
Linux Business Network Users
Group
http://linuxnetworks.org/
Honolulu, HI
Mid-Pacific Linux Users Group
http://www.mplug.org
Idaho
West Palm Beach, FL
Pensacola Linux User Group
http://www.pbclug.org
Coeur d'Alene, ID
North Idaho Linux User Group
http://www.nilug.org
Georgia
Idaho Falls, ID
Linux in Idaho Falls
http://www.linif.org
Athens, GA
University of Georgia Linux User
Group
http://www.uga.edu/~chugalug
Mountain Home AFB, ID
Mountain Home Linux User Group
http://mhlug.linuxorbit.com
Atlanta, GA
Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
http://www.ale.org
Pocatello, ID
Idaho State University Linux Users
Group
http://inconnu.isu.edu/index.shtml
Atlanta, GA
Linux Users Group at Emory
http://luge.cc.emory.edu
Rockland, ID
American Falls /Rockland Linux
User Group
http://arlug.dcdi.net
Atlanta, GA
Linux Users Group at Georgia
Tech
http://www.lugatgt.org
Twin Falls, ID
Magic Valley Linux Users Group
http://www.magiclug.org
www.LinuxWorld.com
LUGs
Kansas
Massachusetts
Manhattan, KS
K-SLUG
http://www.k-slug.org
Amherst, MA
Hampshire College LUG
http://bork.hampshire.edu/~hclug
Missouri/Kansas, KS
Kansas Unix & Linux Users
Association
http://www.kulua.org
Amherst, MA
Western Massachusetts LinuxUnix User's Group
http://www.wemalu.org
Newton, KS
Newton Linux Users Group
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconVal
ley/Code/2768
Boston, MA
Boston Linux & Unix
http://www.blu.org
Mississippi
Danvers, MA
Saint John's Prep LUG
http://www.sjp-lug.tk
Jackson, MS
Linux Users Group of Jackson
http://lugoj.org/index.php
Mansfield, MA
SE Massachusetts Linux Users
Group
http://www.semalug.org
Lafayette-Oxford-University, MS
Lafayette-Oxford-University Linux
Users Group
http://loulug.cs.olemiss.edu
Carson City, NV
Carson Douglas Linux Users
Group
http://kearneylug.org
Worcester, MA
Clark University linux users Group
http://linux.clarku.edu
Mississippi, MS
South Mississippi Linux Users
Group
http://www.smlug.org
Las Vegas, NV
Las Vegas Linux User Group
http://lvlug.org
Wichita, KS
Air Capital Linux Users Group
http://www.aclug.org
Kentucky
Bowling Green, KY
Western Kentucky University Linux
Users Group
http://linux.wku.edu
Indiana
Evansville, IN
University of Southern Indiana
LUG
http://linux.usi.edu
Fort Wayne, IN
Three Rivers Linux Group
http://members.tripod.com/fwlug/fw
lug.html
Gary to Laporte, IN
Northwest Indiana Linux User
Grou
http://www.nwilug.org
Goshen, IN
GLUG
http://www.goshenlug.org
Illinois
Chicago, IL
ChicagoLand Linux Users Group
http://clug.chicago.il.us
Indianapolis, IN
Central Indiana Linux Users Group
http://www.cinlug.org
Chicago, IL
Enterprise Computing Professionals
Association, US
http://www.encompassUS.org
Indianapolis, IN
Indianapolis Linux User
Consortium
http://www.inluc.org
Chicago, IL
Illinois Institute of Technology Linux
Users Group
http://host61.grad.iit.edu/lug
North-Central Indiana, IN
ChugaLugIN
http://www.angelfire.com/in2/chuga
lugin
Des Plaines, IL
ULTRA (at Oakton Community
College)
http://student.oakton.edu/ultra
Fairview Heights, IL
Southern Illinois Linux Users
Group
http://www.silug.org
Galesburg, IL
Linux Users' Group Galesburg
Area
http://www.lugga.org
O'Fallon, IL
Southern Illinois Linux Users
Group - Metro East
http://www.silug.org
Palatine, IL
NorthWest Chicagoland Linux User
Group (NWCLUG)
http://nwclug.harpercollege.edu/htt
pd/html/index.html
Quad Cities, IL
QCLUG
http://www.qclug.org
Rock River, IL
Rock River Linux User Group
http://linux.rockriver.net
Springfield, IL
Linux Users of Central Illinois
http://www.luci.org
New Albany, IN
Indiana University Southeast Linux
User Group
http://www.iuslug.org
South Bend, IN
Michiana Linux Users Group
http://www.mlug.org
South Bend, IN
Notre Dame Linux Users Group
http://www.ndlug.nd.edu
Terre Haute, IN
Rose-Hulman Users of Linux
http://www.rosehulman.edu/Users/groups/RHUL/H
TML/index.html
West Lafayette, IN
Purdue University Linux Users
Group
http://expert.cc.purdue.edu/~plug
Iowa
Ames, IA
Ames Area Free Unix Group on
Information Technology
http://www.aafugit.org
Cedar Falls, IA
CedarLUG
http://www.cedarlug.org
Cedar Rapids, IA
Eastern Iowa Linux User groups
http://www.crlug.org
Des Moines, IA
Central Iowa Linux Users Group
http://www.cialug.org
www.LinuxWorld.com
Lexington, KY
Lexington Professional Linux
Users Group
http://lplug.org
Worcester, MA
Worcester Linux Users Group
http://www.wlug.org
Louisville, KY
S+LUG, Louisville
http://www.maysville-linux-usersgroup.com
Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI
The Washtenaw Linux User Group
http://www.lugwash.org
Maysville, KY
Maysville Linux Users Group
http://www.slug.louisville.edu
Big Rapids, MI
Ferris State University Linux Users
Group
http://galileo.tucker-usa.com/~lug
Louisiana
Detroit, MI
Metro Detroit Linux Users Group
http://www.mdlug.org
Baton Rouge, LA
Baton Rouge Linux User Group
http://www.brlug.net
Flint, MI
Genesee County Linux Users
Group
http://www.gclug.org
New Orleans, LA
New Orleans Linux User Group
http://www.nolug.org
Lake Charles, LA
Lake Charles Linux Users Group
www.lclinux.org
Grand Traverse, MI
Grand Traverse Linux Users Group
http://www.gtlug.org
Shreveport, LA
Shreveport - Bossier Linux Users
Group
http://www.sblug.org
Kalamazoo, MI
Kalamazoo Linux User Group
http://www.kalamazoolinux.org
Maine
Kentwood, MI
Grand Rapids Linux Users Group
http://grlug.org/zope/grlug
Westbrook, ME
MeLUG South
http://south.melug.org
Lansing, MI
Greater Lansing Linux Users
Group
http://www.gllug.org
Maryland
Muskegon, MI
Muskegon Area Linux Users Group
http://www.malug.org
Annapolis, MD
Annapolis LUG
http://linuxlovers.dhs.org
Traverse City, MI
Grand Traverse Linux Users Group
http://www.gtlug.org
Baltimore, MD
Baltimore Linux Users Group
http://www.BaltoLUG.org
University of Michigan, MI
UMLUG
http://www.umich.edu/~umlug
Blue Ridge, MD
Blue Ridge Area Linux Enthusiasts
http://www.brale.org
Minnesota
College Park, MD
Linux Web Linux User Group
http://www.linuxweb.org
Duluth, MN
Twin Ports Linux Users Group
http://linux.trapped-under-ice.com
Columbia, MD
Columbia Area Linux Users Group
http://www.calug.com
Mankato, MN
MSU, Mankato Linux User Group
http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~msulug
Glen Burnie, MD
Glen Burnie Linux User Group
http://gblug.linuxorbit.com
Macalester College, MN
Mac LUG
http://maclug.dhs.org
Minneapolis, MN
Twin Cities Linux Users Group
http://www.mn-linux.org
Laurel, MD
Laurel-Beltsville Linux User Group
http://laurellinux.org
Leonardtown, MD
The Penguin Club
http://free.prohosting.com/~lugsm
Moorhead, MN
Fargo Moorhead LUG
http://fmlug.org
Silver Spring
Montgomery Blair Linux Users
Group
http://mblug.mbhs.edu
Northfield, MN
Northfield Linux Users Group
http://norlug.org
93
Duluth, MN
Twin Ports Linux Users Group
http://linux.trapped-under-ice.com
Rochester, MN
K-lug
http://k-lug.org
University of Minnesota, MN
Twin Cities Linux Users Group
http://www.mn-linux.org
Nebraska
Kearney, NE
Kearney Linux User Group
http://kearneylug.org
Lincoln, NE
OLUG
http://www.olug.org
Lincoln, NE
Star City Linux User Group
http://linux.dbw.org
Omaha, NE
OLUG
http://www.olug.org
Nevada
Reno, NV
Reno Linux User Group
http://www.rlug.org
Mississippi State, MS
BullyLUG
http://www.bullylug.org
Tupelo, MS
Linux Users of North Mississippi
http://www.linuxgod.net
Missouri
Blue Springs, MO
Blue Springs Linux Users Group
http://bslug.solve.net
Columbia, MO
Mizzou Linux Users Group
http://www.mlug.missouri.edu
East-Central Missouri, MO
East-central Missouri Linux Users
Group
http://www.mo-biz.com/~linuxusr
New Hampshire
Concord, NH
CentraLUG
http://www.centralug.org
Nashua, NH
Greater New Hampshire Linux
User's Group
http://www.gnhlug.org
New Jersey
Bellmawr, NJ
South Jersey Linux Users Group
http://sjlinux.org
Branchburg, NJ
New Jersey Linux User Group
http://www.njlug.org
Hazelwood, MO
Hazelwood Linux Users Group
http://www.sluug.org/~hzlug
Cherry Hill, NJ
Cherry Hill Linux Users Group
http://www.chlug.org/home.php
Independence, MO
Independence Linux Users Group
http://www.ilug.org
Hamilton, NJ
Hamilton Linux User Group
http://www.hamlug.org
Kansas City, MO
Kansas City Linux User Group
http://www.kclug.org
Highland Park, NJ
Rutgers University Student Linux
User Group
http://ruslug.rutgers.edu
Missouri/Kansas, MO
Kansas Unix & Linux Users
Association
http://www.kulua.org
Newark, NJ
RUNLUG Rutgers University
Newark: Linux Users Group
http://penguin.rutgers.edu
Springfield, MO
Ozarks Linux Users Group
http://www.ozlug.org
New Brunswick, NJ
Rutgers University Student Linux
Users Group
http://ruslug.rutgers.edu
Springfield, MO
Southern Missouri Linux Users
Club
http://www.smluc.org
Passaic County, NJ
Passaic County Linux Users Group
http://devplug.org
St. Louis, MO
Missouri Open Source Linux Users
Group
http://www.moslug.org
St. Louis, MO
St. Louis Linux Users Group
http://www.stllinux.org
St. Charles, MO
St. Charles Linux Users Group
http://www.sluug.org/~cfit/stclug
Montana
Bozeman, MT
BozemanLUG
http://www.bozemanlug.org
Billings, MT
Yellowstone Valley Linux Users
Group
http://lug.cotcomsol.com
Princeton, NJ
Linux Users Group/In Princeton
http://lugip.princeton.edu
Princeton, NJ
LUG/IP
http://www.lugip.org
Princeton, NJ
Princeton PC Users Group
http://www.ppcug-nj.org/sigs/linux
Ridgewood/Hawthorne, NJ
New Jersey Sleepless Linux User
Group
http://www.njslug.org
Scotch Plains, NJ
LUNICS
http://www.acgnj.org
Voorhees, NJ
SLUG
http://slug.happyduck.org
—continued on next page
PREMIER 2003
LUGs
New Mexico
North Carolina
Albuquerque, NM
New Mexico Linux User Group
http://www.nmlug.org
Asheville, NC
Western North Carolina Linux
Users Group
http://www.wnclug.org
Gallup, NM
Gal-lug
http://gallug.org
Las Cruces, NM
Mesilla Valley LUG
http://www.zianet.com/mvlug
Rio Rancho, NM
DIALUG
http://www.linuxlots.com/~dialug
New York
Briarwood, NY
Briarwood Linux User Group
http://www.geocities.com/bwlug
Brooklyn, NY
New York Linux Users Group
http://www.nylug.org/home/index.shtml
Buffalo, NY
Niagara Frontier Linux Users
Group
http://www.nflug.org
Buffalo, NY
University at Buffalo Linux Users
Group
http://ublug.freehosting.net
Capital District Region of NY
CDLUG - Capital Disctrict Linux
Users Group
http://cdlug.net
Farmingdale, NY
Long Island Linux User Group
http://www.lilug.org
Johnson City, NY
Southern Tier of New York Linux
User Group
http://www.stnylug.org
Long Island, NY
Long Island Linux Users Group
http://lilug.org
Marist College, NY
Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users
Group
http://mhvlug.org
New York City, NY
Linux User Group of New York
http://www.luny.org
New York City, NY
New York Linux Scene
http://www.nylxs.com
Boone, NC
Appalachian Linux Users Group
http://lug.appstate.edu
Burlington, NC
Piedmont Linux User Group
http://www.netpath.net/linux
Charlotte, NC
CharLug
http://charlug.org
Durham, NC
Duke University Linux User Group
http://www.duke.edu/web/dulug
Greensboro, NC
LUG @ GTCC
http://home.triad.rr.com/gtcclug
Mayodan, NC
The Rockingham County Linux
Users
http://rock.lug.net
Morganton, NC
Foothills Linux Users & Enthusiasts
http://www.hci.net/~flue
New Bern, NC
New Bern Linux Users Group
http://www4.coastalnet.com/nblug
Raleigh, NC
Linux Users Group at North
Carolina State University
http://www.linux.ncsu.edu/lug
Shelby, NC
Shelby Linux Users Group
http://www.swoopee.com/lug
Wake Forest University, NC
Piedmont Linux Users Group
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~plug
North Dakota
Fargo-Moorhead, ND
Fargo-Moorhead Linux User Group
http://fmlug.org
Ohio
Plattsburgh, NY
Plattsburgh Linux Users Group
http://lug.cf-media.com
Akron, OH
Akron Linux Users Group
http://alug.adg.org
Poughkeepsie, NY
Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users
Group
http://mhvlug.org
Bowling Green, OH
Bowling Green Student Linux
Users Group
http://alug.adg.org
Rensselaer, NY
Capital District Linux Users Group
http://cdlug.net
Akron, OH
Akron Linux Users Group
http://www.bgslug.org
Salamanca, NY
LUG.SWNY.net
http://swny.net/lug
Stony Brook, NY
Linux Users Group @ Stony Brook
http://www.ic.sunysb.edu/clubs/lugsb
Syracuse, NY
Syracuse Linux Users Group
http://syrlug.org
Syracuse, NY
Syracuse University Linux User
Group
http://slugs.syr.edu
Stony Brook, NY
Linux Users' Group @ Stony Brook
http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/Clubs/lugsb
Tappan, NY
Westchester Linux Users Group
http://www.linuxpcug.org
Philadelphia, PA
Drexel University GNU/Linux Users
Group
http://www.duglug.org
Mansfield, OH
North Central Ohio LUG
http://www.ncolug.org
North Canton, OH
Canton Linux Enthusiasts
http://cantonlinux.org
Oberlin, OH
Oberlin Linux User Group
http://www.oberlin.edu/~olug
Oxford, OH
The Miami Unix Collective
http://www.muc.muohio.edu
Toledo, OH
Toledo Area Linux Users Group
http://www.talug.org
Oklahoma
Norman, OK
Norman UNIX Liberation League
http://www.ou.edu/student/null
Canton, OH
Canton Linux Enthusiasts
http://linux.ifip.net
Cincinnati, OH
Cincinnati Linux Users Group
http://www.clug.org
Cleveland , OH
Case Western Reserve University
Linux Users Group
http://cwrulug.cwru.edu
Cleveland, OH
Cleveland Linux User Group
http://cleveland.lug.net
Oklahoma City, OK
OKC PCUG Linux SIG
http://LinuxSIG.org
PREMIER 2003
Puerto Rico
Austin, TX
Austin Linux Group
http://www.austinlug.org
Puerto Rico
Linux Puerto Rico
http://www.linux-pr.com
Austin, TX
Central Texas Linux User Group
http://www.ctlug.org
Rhode Island
Beaumont, TX
SouthEast Texas Linux Users
Group
http://www.setxlug.org
Greenville, SC
Upstate Carolina Linux Users
Group
http://www.smwc.com/linux
Ashland, OR
Rogue Penguins Linux Users
Group
http://www.rplug.org
Rock Hill, SC
Winthrop University Linux Users'
Group
http://feynman.winthrop.edu/winulug
Corvallis, OR
The Mid Willamette Valley Linux
User Group
http://mwvlug.org
South Dakota
Eugene, OR
Eugene Linux Users Group
http://www.euglug.org
Black Hills, SD
Black Hills Linux User Group
http://www.geocities.com/bhlug/bhl
ughome
Eugene, OR
Open Source Users Group at the
University of Oregon
http://cs.uoregon.edu/open
Rapid City, SD
Black Hills Linux User Group
http://www.geocities.com/bhlug/bhl
ughome
Portland, OR
BizNix
http://www.biznix.org
Sioux Falls, SD
Siouxland Linux Users Group
http://www.kopland.org/forums
Portland, OR
Portland Linux User Group
http://www.pdxlinux.org
Tennessee
Tillamook, OR
Tillamook Linux User Group
http://www.geocities.com/elflakosr
Chattanooga, TN
Chugalug
http://www.chugalug.org
Clarksville, TN
Clarksville Linux Users Group
http://www.cllug.org
Pennsylvania
Altoona, PA
Altoona Linux Users Group
http://www.altoonalug.org
Knoxville, TN
Knoxville Linux Users Group
http://www.utklug.org
Bethlehem, PA
Lehigh Valley Linux Users Group
http://thelinuxlink.net/lvlinux
McMinnville, TN
McMinnville Linux and Unix Users
Group
http://www.utklug.org
Central Pennsylvania, PA
Central Pennsylvania Linux User
Group
http://www.pa.net/cplug
Memphis, TN
Group Of Linux Users in Memphis
http://www.cllug.org
Doylestown, PA
Bucks County Linux Users Group
http://www.bclug.org
Harrisburg, PA
Harrisburg Unix Users Group
http://www.huug.org
Austin, TX
ACC-LUG
http://www.geocities.com/aibanhamano/Opensource/acc.html
South Carolina
Oregon
Columbus, OH
Central Ohio Linux User Group
http://www.colug.net
Pittsburgh, PA
Western Pennsylvania Linux
Users' Group
http://www.wplug.org
Rhode Island, RI
Ocean State Linux Users
http://www.rilinux.org
Tulsa, OK
TCS Linux SIG
http://tulsa.sourceforge.net
Gettysburg, PA
GB-LUG
http://gblug.mine.nu
Amarillo, TX
Amarillo Linux Users Group
http://www.alug.org
Providence, RI
Rhode Island Linux Users Group
http://www.rilug.com
Oklahoma City, OK
Oklahoma City Forum
http://www.okcforum.org
Cleveland,, OH
North East Ohio Newbie Linux
Users Group
http://www.neonlug.org
Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia Area Linux User
Group
http://www.nothinbut.net/~plug
Providence, RI
Rhode Island Free Unix Group
http://www.rifug.org
Research Triangle Park, NC
Triangle Linux Users Group
http://www.trilug.org
New York City, NY
New York Linux Users' Group
http://www.nylug.org
Rochester, NY
Linux Users Group of Rochester
http://www.lugor.org
Lancaster, PA
Lancaster Co. Linux Users Group
http://www.lancaster-linux.org
Dayton, OH
Dayton Microcomputer Association
Linux Special User Group
http://www.dma.org/linuxsig
Nashville, TN
Nashville Linux Users Group
http://www.nlug.org
94
Brownsville, TX
Brownsville LUG
http://unix.utb.edu/~blug
Corpus Christi, TX
Corpus Christi Linux Users Group
http://www.cclug.org
Dallas, TX
North Texas Linux User Group
http://www.ntlug.org
Fort Worth, TX
Fort Worth Linux Users Groups
http://www.fwlug.org
Galveston, TX
Coastal Area of Texas Linux Users
Group
http://www.catlug.org
Hillcrest, TX
Heart of Texas Linux User Group
(HOTLUG)
http://www.hotlug.com
Killeen, TX
Killeen-Fort Hood Area LUG
http://members.aol.com/killeenlug/
index.html
Vermont
Burlington, VT
Small Linux Users Group of
Vermont
http://www.slug-vt.org
Midland, TX
Permian Basin Linux Users Group
http://www.pblug.org
Virginia
Nacogdoches/Lufkin, TX
Unix Users of Deep East Texas
http://www.uudet.org
Arlington, VA
Yorktown High School Linux Users'
Group
http://yhslug.tux.org
Texarkana, TX
Texarkana Area Linux Users Group
http://kroushl.freeshell.org/talug/ind
ex.php
Blacksburg, VA
Virginia Tech Linux Users' Group
http://www.vtluug.org
Waco, TX
Heart O' Texas Linux User Group
http://hotlug.org
Chantilly, VA
Northern Virginia Linux Users'
Group
http://novalug.tux.org
Charlottesville, VA
Charlottesville Unix Users Group
http://www.chuug.org
Utah
Green River, UT
Green River Linux Users Group
http://www.greenriverutah.com/lug.shtml
Logan, UT
The Free Software and GNU/Linux
Club
http://linux.usu.edu
Ogden, UT
Ogden Area Linux User Group
http://www.oalug.com
Provo, UT
BYU Unix Users Group
http://uug.clubs.byu.edu
Fairfax, VA
Fairfax Linux User Group
http://www.dhankhar.com/servlet/fo
rum/listforums
Falls Church, VA
Linux User's Group of Northern
Virginia
http://www.tux.org/novalug
Richmond, VA
Richmond VA Linux Users Group
http://www.rivalug.org
Salem, VA
Roanoke Valley GNU/Linux User
Group
http://www.rvglug.org
Texas
Provo, UT
Provo Linux User Group
http://www.plug.org
Staunton, VA
Shenendoah Vallery Linux Users
Group
http://www.xerosystems.com
Abilene, TX
West Texas Linux Users Group
http://www.wtlug.org
Salt Lake City, UT
Salt Lake Linux Users Group
http://www.sllug.org
Tidewater, VA
Tidewater Unix User Group
http://www.twuug.org
www.LinuxWorld.com
LUGs
Nanaimo
Nanaimo Linux Users Group
http://www.nanlug.org
Peterborough
Peterborough Linux User Group
http://www.plugintolinux.org
Nelson
Kootenay Area UNIX Group
http://kaug.netidea.com
Toronto
Toronto Linux Users Group
http://tlug.ss.org
Penticton
South Okanagan Linux Users
Group
http://www.solug.org
Wingham
Midwestern Ontario Linux Users
Group
http://www.molug.org
Prince Rupert
North Coast Linux User Group
http://www.citytel.net/~gnielsen/linu
x2.html
Quebec
Gatineau
Linux-Outaouais
http://www.linux-gatineau.org
Valley Internet Providers
South Okanagan Linux Users
Group
http://www.solug.org
Montreal
Linux-Québec
http://www.linux-quebec.org
Vancouver
Vancouver Linux Users Group
http://www.linux.bc.ca
Montreal
Montreal Linux User Group
http://www.skalir.net
Victoria
Victoria Linux Users Group
http://www.vlug.org
Montreal
Montreal Regional Linux Users
Group
http://www.mrlug.org
Manitoba
Winnipeg
Manitoba UNIX User Group
http://www.muug.mb.ca
West Virginia
Morgantown, WV
Morgantown Area Linux and Free
Software Community
http://www.morlug.org
Parkersburg, WV
Mid-Ohio Valley Linux Users
Group
http://www.movlug.com
Potomac Region, WV
PotLUG
http://www.geocities.com/potlug
Washington
Bellevue, WA
Tacoma Linux User Group
http://www.taclug.org
Bellingham, WA
Bellingham Linux Users Group
http://www.blug.org
Kingston, WA
Kitsap Penninsula Linux Users
Group
http://www.kplug.org
Olympia, WA
Olympia Linux Users Group
http://chuckwest.org/olug
Seattle, WA
Greater Seattle Linux Users
http://www.gslug.org
Seattle, WA
Linux User Group at University of
Washington
http://students.washington.edu/
linuxug
Silverdale, WA
Kitsap Penninsula Linux Users
Group
http://www.kplug.org
Spokane, WA
Spokane Linux User Group
http://www.spokanelinux.com
Tacoma, WA
Tacoma Linux User Group
http://www.taclug.org
Wisconsin
La Crosse, WI
La Crosse Linux Users Group
http://www.lclug.com
Madison, WI
Madison Linux Users Group
http://www.madisonlinux.org
Milwaukee, WI
Milwaukee Linux Users Group
http://www.mlug.net
Waukesha, WI
Waukesha-Area Linux User Group
http://www.digitalsimplicity.com/walug
Trois-Rivières
Linux Trois-Rivières
http://linuxtr.ampr.org
Winnipeg
Prairie Linux User Group
http://www.openfarm.org
Saskatchewan
Winnipeg
Winnipeg PC User Group Linux
Forum
http://www.wpcusrgrp.org/~sig/Linu
x/
New Brunswick
Moncton
Moncton Linux Users Group
http://monctonlug.sourceforge.net
Newfoundland
Corner Brook
Western Newfoundland Linux
Users Group
http://www.cornet.nf.ca/lug
Yukon Territory
Mexico City
Mexico Linux User Group
http://www.linux.org.mx
Yukon Territory
Yukon Linux Users Group
http://users.yknet.yk.ca/linux
Villahermosa
GULTab: Grupo de Usuarios Linux
de Tabasco
http://linuxtabasco.tripod.com
Mexico
Chihuahua
Nationwide
See site for more details
GLUCH
http://www.gluch.org.mx
Aguascalientes
Grupo de Usuarios de Linux en
Aguascalientes Mexico
http://www.geocities.com/gpolinagsmex
Distrito Federal
See site for more details
Grupo de Usuarios de Linux
Mexico
http://www.cofradia.org
Atizapan de Zaragoza
Grupo de Usuarios Linux ITESMCEM
http://linux.cem.itesm.mx
Ecatepec
GULFI
http://www.fib.unam.mx/gulfi
Chihuahua
Grupo Linux Chihuahua
http://www.gluch.org.mx
Ciudad Juarez
Grupo Software Libre Ciudad
Juarez
http://mx.groups.yahoo.com/group/
GSLCJ
Colima
UNICO
http://usuarios.lycos.es/linuxcolima
Mexico
See site for more details
Grupo de Usuarios Linux ITESM
CEM
http://linux.cem.itesm.mx
Nayarit
See site for more details
Grupo Nayarit de Usuarios de Linux
http://www.gnul.org
Hermosillo
Grupo de usuarios de Linux del
Pitic
http://www.gulp.org.mx
Regina
Linux Operating System Users of
Regina
http://www.losurs.org
Hermosillo, Guaymas, Obregon
ANCrae.ORG
http://www.ancrae.org
Saskatoon
Saskatoon Linux Group
http://www.slg.org
Iguala
Grupo de Usuarios de Linux del
Estado de Guerrero
http://guerrero.linux.org.mx
SIAST Wascana Campus
Linux/Open Source Users of
Regina, Sask.
http://www.losurs.org
Mexico City
GUL Grupo de Usuarios de Linux
UPIICSA
http://linux.librosyarte.com.mx
Nuevo Leon
See site for more details
Grupo de Usuarios de GNU/Linux
de Monterrey
http://www.gnulinux.org.mx
Puebla
See site for more details
Grupo de Usuarios de Linux en
Puebla
http://www.linuxpuebla.org
About LUGs
St. John's
St. John's Linux Users Group
http://www.slug.nf.net
In order for the Linux movement to continue to flourish, the
St. John's
St. John's Linux Users Group
http://www.cs.mun.ca/~slug/
proliferation and success of local LUGs is an absolute requirement.
Nova Scotia
Because of the unique status of Linux, the local LUG must provide
Canada
Halifax
Nova Scotia Linux Users Group
http://www.nslug.ns.ca
some of the same functions that a “regional office” provides for large
Alberta
Ontario
computer corporations like IBM, Microsoft, or Sun. LUGs can and must
Calgary
Calgary Linux Users Group
http://calgary.linux.ca
Gravenhurst and Sudbury
Northern Ontario Linux Users
Group
http://www.freewebs.com/nolug
train, support, and educate Linux users, coordinate Linux
Lethbridge
Lethbridge LUG
http://llug.linux.ab.ca
Wetaskiwin
The Wetaskiwin Users Group
http://www3.telus.net/WetaskiwinLUG
British Columbia
as a liaison to local media outlets like newspapers and television.
Kingston
Kingston Linux Users Group
http://www.klug.on.ca
Kitchener
KWLUG
http://www.kwlug.org
Tri-Cities, WA
Tri-Cities Linux User Group
http://www.3clug.org
Duncan
Cowichan Valley Linux Users
Group
http://www.cowlug.org
London
Western Linux User Group
http://www.westernlug.org
Vancouver, WA
VWLUG
http://www.basichelp.com/linux
Kamloops
KamLUG
http://lug.kamloops.net
Ottawa
Ottawa Canada Linux Users Group
http://www.oclug.on.ca
Whidbey Island, WA
Whidbey LUG
http://www.wlug.net
Kelowna
Kelowna Linux User Group
http://oklug.hwy97.com
Owen Sound
Bruce-Grey Linux Users Group
http://bglug.8m.com
www.LinuxWorld.com
consultants, advocate Linux as a computing solution, and even serve
Hamilton
Hamilton Linux User Group
http://hlug.mohawkc.on.ca
If your group isn’t included in our list,
please e-mail [email protected]
SOURCE HTTP://WWW.LINUX.ORG/GROUPS
95
PREMIER 2003
As Linux is moving in everywhere within enterprise computing – in embedded
solutions, on the desktop, in distributed applications, and on mainframes –
NEWS
Linus Urges Enterprise Users of
Linux: ‘Get Started Bug-Testing
on the 2.6test Beta Release’
The Linux community has begun the
race to get 2.6 ready as a production kernel, and in a meeting room below the main
floor of the Mandalay Bay Convention
Center in Las Vegas last month,
LinuxWorld Magazine was present to see
Linux history being both made and discussed.
On the podium were gathered not just
Linus Torvalds, fresh from releasing on July
13 a test release of the new 2.6 kernel –
officially called “2.6test” – but also a handful of the most influential open source collaborators in the world, such as the chairman of VA Software Larry Augustin, the
director of Linux International Jon “maddog” Hall, and the CTO of SuSE Linux AG
Juergen Geck.
The topic of the session was “The Future
Linux: 2.6 and Beyond” and Torvalds was
naturally called upon to open the discussion, which he did by giving a brief explanation of 2.6test.
“What I released on Sunday is a first
beta test,” he said. “Called 2.5 while it was a
development kernel, as it has been for the
last two years, it’s now – as everyone here
knows – called 2.6.”
“The biggest changes most people in
the enterprise will notice,” Torvalds
added, “will be the huge increases in scalability. There are great improvements too
to the desktop experience,” – which is
incidentally how Torvalds uses the kernel.
“When you have a desktop that does a
lot of things at the same time but you don’t
even notice as a user that the machine is
doing a lot of things at the same time,
that’s ideal. Maybe it slows down, but it
remains very smooth and you don’t even
notice.”
Then Torvalds made the most important
point of all, directing it at the business
community.
“I would say to people who already use
Linux, including companies: if you don’t
put this new release through its paces and
test it for bugs, the problems that you’ll see
in the release kernel will come as a nasty
surprise to you, because this is going to be
the next production kernel.
“So have your MIS people see what the
PREMIER 2003
the Linux Business Week News Desk brings you all the latest developments.
new kernel does for you under your load,”
he advised, “and if there are any issues let
us know and we’ll fix it for you.”
Asked whether the 2.6 kernel offers
expanded hardware support (e.g., for USB),
Torvalds said that all the USB development
has always been done under 2.5 (the development kernel), including support for a lot
of host controllers and support for external
devices.
“Developers are working on drivers, testing them,” he said. “We’ve even back-ported these drivers to the old stable kernels,
e.g., 2.5.”
LinuxWorld Magazine will, of course,
keep you posted on progress on the new
kernel.
Linux Competency Center Opens
Its Doors in New York City
Sybase has strengthened its ties to Linux
by opening a new “Linux Competency
Center” in New York City and announcing
that it is expanding its alliance with Red
Hat.
Sybase’s entire global Linux professional
services practice will now have this center
as its central reference point, with its NYC
location sure to fuel speculation that what
Sybase wants above all
is to snag the financial
services firms as they
migrate to Linux, which one by one – following Merrill Lynch’s lead – they seem certain to do as they seek to lower the total cost
LWM Meets Sam Greenblatt...
Computer Associates’ “Mr. Linux” –
Passionate Mixer of Oil and Water
Meeting for any length of time with the man tapped by farsighted Computer Associates CEO
Sanjay Kumar to act as the Islandia, New York-based company’s open-source pathfinder and
visionary is an experience that few people recently have been able to fully appreciate…and
even fewer to achieve.
Every hour of Greenblatt’s day and every day of his week is consumed – that is, for once,
not too extreme a word – with Linux. Because CA, uniquely in Greenblatt’s view, is that rara
avis, a commercial software business that has realized that open source innovation isn’t just an
interesting adjunct to the commercial paradigm: it is going to be the undoing of every major
player today who remains in (what he would view as) denial.
“People familiar with the dynamics of commercialized computing ask me how many developers will support such-and-such a Linux solution, and I tell them, four hundred thousand – but I
can’t put a name to a single one of them!
“For business leaders used to even a major Linux company like Red Hat, say, having just
two hundred or so developers, this leads to a certain amount of consternation,” Greenblatt
reports, with a wry smile.
This, he believes, is a good indicator of the gulf that exists between what he habitually
refers to as “the community” (Greenblatt’s shorthand for the worldwide open source community) and the mainstream business world. But it’s a bridge across which the mainstreamers are
suddenly almost falling over themselves to rush. “Linux was just ‘discovered’ this spring,”
Greenblatt says. “It’s as if we’re all suddenly rock stars,” he adds, astonishedly.
But it isn’t in reality astonishing to him. After all, Greenblatt has personally helped bring
Linux to exactly this climax. Fired by the “rush,” the sheer exhilaration and pride he felt when
he one day saw his own code, in his most active programming days, being used in a high-profile commercial context by a national retail bank chain, Sam Greenblatt vowed to do his utmost
– whenever the opportunity presented itself – to expand the overall number of talented developers who could experience such a rush. Open source innovation being unleashed in the world
of real-world business is a vision that still excites him just as much today as it did when he
accepted Sanjay Kumar’s invitation to head up, for CA, what is today formally called the Linux
Technology Group.
As CA’s senior vice president and chief architect, Greenblatt has built a tight-knit, devoted
team within CA. Such are the persuasive powers of CA’s “Mr. Linux” that, for example, at a special
96
www.LinuxWorld.com
AROUND
THE
of ownership of their information management assets.
The Linux Competency Center will
include expert technical resources and
financial services specialists. “It also houses
the capacity to test and troubleshoot
Sybase products – from database to mobile
and business intelligence applications – on
Linux,” Dr. Raj Nathan, senior vice president and general manager of the company’s
Infrastructure Platform Group, tells LWM.
Nathan explains the center is going to
be offering on-site support, and will
include a range of hardware and software
platforms from Dell, Egenera, HewlettPackard, IBM, Intel, Red Hat, and Sun. As
the first vendor to deliver an enterpriseclass RDBMS on Linux, back in 1999,
LINUXWORLD
Sybase is well placed to extend its partnership with Red Hat, too: henceforth Sybase
is to be a Red Hat Premier ISV Partner.
Sybase and Red Hat will also be working
together in the future on engineering development, training, and support, and the two
companies will exchange technology
roadmaps in order to coordinate activities.
‘Layaway Linux’ Makes Its Debut
in the Marketplace
Take IBM’s WebSphere Internet infrastructure software, stir in Linux, and add
IBM’s own advanced Power4 microprocessor – widely acknowledged to be at least a
generation ahead of competing chips – and
what you have is the single software/hardware package that Big Blue believes can
CA World session last month called “The Future
of Linux: 2.6 and Beyond,” he was able to
muster on stage not just Linus Torvalds and
Jon “maddog” Hall, president of Linux
International, but also Larry Augustin, president and CEO of VA Software, the Sunnyvale,
California-based company he founded in 1993
as a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering at
Stanford University, and also the CTO of SuSE
Linux AG, Juergen Geck. Quite a lineup.
Augustin is, like Greenblatt, a walking
testimony to the potency of collaborative
software development. He was the visionary
SAM GREENBLATT
behind SourceForge.net, the largest open
SVP AND CHIEF
source development site on the Internet. Like
ARCHITECT
Hall and Torvalds, he most likely has one or
COMPUTER ASSOCIATES
two reservations about the chalk-and-cheese,
INTERNATIONAL
oil-and-water mixture that CA’s Linux
Technology Group is championing.
Aside from this session, CA World had no fewer than 104 other sessions devoted to Linux,
from “Intelligent Consolidation: Reducing Your Total Cost of Ownership Today” to “Using IT
Resource Management Products on Linux.” All types of Linux implementation were discussed –
embedded, desktop, distributed, and mainframe.
Linux is a building to the construction of which more than 400,000 developers have brought a
stone. It is a collective endeavor that, in its next phase, is 100% certain, so far as Greenblatt and his
colleagues are concerned, to become the operating platform of first resort for business, leveraged by
Global 1000 corporations, leading ISVs, and major platform providers on a completely worldwide basis.
Linux is the product of open innovation, and it is to the successful meshing of the open-innovation model with the making of an honest profit by adding value that Greenblatt will be addressing all his considerable talents over the next 10 to 15 years – which is approximately how long it
will take, he feels, to see the demise of each and every existing software giant…with the sole
exception of forward-looking companies that, like CA, embrace the open-innovation model here
and now.
www.LinuxWorld.com
97
NEWS
and will help companies improve IT performance while simultaneously containing
costs. IBM has announced that its marketleading WebSphere Application Server will
now support IBM eServer pSeries and
iSeries machines running both Linux and
the Power4 microprocessor.
“This new packaging of a Linux-based
application server is further evidence of
how quickly the market for Linux solutions
is maturing,” says LinuxWorld Magazine
editor-in-chief Kevin Bedell. “It is similar to
Microsoft’s decision 10
years ago to bundle
Word, PowerPoint, and
Excel into an ‘Office
Suite’ – it looks like IBM is taking the logical
next step in making Linux even easier for
companies to adopt and deploy.”
IBM has also announced that the
WebSphere software will be included in a
new offering from IBM Global Financing
that will allow qualified U.S./Canadian customers to defer payments until January
2004 at no charge, or to choose special low
financing rates. “Layaway Linux” makes its
debut, in other words. The program applies
to all IBM Software products that are purchased on a one-time charge basis.
Contracts in the U.S. must be signed by
September 30, and in Canada by September
15.
“The new WebSphere software advances
IBM’s distinction as the only company that
can support customers’ use of Linux across
every major server platform,” Tom Inman,
vice president, IBM WebSphere Foundation
and Tools, tells LWM.
Whereas Microsoft Windows applications (as Inman didn’t say – but might as
well have said) can only run on Intel-based
servers. The marketplace, as it always does,
will decide.
‘Choice in Linux Distros Is
Healthy,’ Linux Experts Agree
One question on everybody’s mind
when they are thinking about Linux and
how it will fit into the enterprise mold is
whether the number of known distributions – believed to have reached approximately 130 – is helping or hurting Linux. A
handful of the Linux world’s most influential activists recently gave their viewpoints
on that issue at CA World in Las Vegas.
LinuxWorld Magazine was there.
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Juergen Geck, CTO of SuSE Linux AG,
agreed that the question of whether Linux
was likely to fragment, until there are 50 flavors of Linux like there were 20 to 30 flavors
of Unix, is a very common one. “My take on
the issue,” he said, “is that it won’t happen
though because SuSE, for example, doesn’t
own Linux, neither does Red Hat. Whereas
Solaris exists because Sun Microsystems
tries to produce a best of breed.
“SuSE doesn’t benefit from deviating
from 2.6,” he added. “And that’s true for all
the different distro vendors.”
Jon “maddog” Hall, one of the key luminaries who has helped Linux as an OS to
the considerable heights it has already
reached today, offered a slightly different
perspective by drawing attention to the
existence of LSB, the Linux Standard Base.
“With 150 different Linux distros all made
from the same kernel and the same libraries,
what’s needed is that you have to say which
ones you are going to guarantee. So the
Linux Standard Base was an attempt to create a standard for every single architecture.”
It was in 1997 that some of the member
companies in Linux International, he
explained, saw that type of a problem, the
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THE
divergence of different distros. “So LI formed
the Free Standards Group to create standards
for each architecture and help binary compatibility. It recognizes that there can be
innovation underneath a particular standard.
The Linux Standard Base has done a very
good job of specifying a standard that can
then be innovated underneath of. It continues to grow and emerge, expanding the coverage, and as time goes on I hope that hardware will eventually say, for example, ‘needs
Intel LSB compatible 2.5 or higher’ on it.”
Linus Torvalds offered a refreshingly
quirky take on the issue, maintaining the
spirit of pioneering that has of course made
Linux what it is. “I am a huge believer in the
idea that Linux competes within itself,” he
said. “That keeps everyone honest. A lot of
these 130 distros are a little oddball – some
are only used by Bob and his 5 friends. But
that’s OK because sometimes Bob did
something right and his 5 friends become
50. Then 5,000, and so on.
“Clearly 130 distros is not practical for a
middleware vendor,” Torvalds concluded,
“so in that sense what everyone does is just
to ignore most of them, and end up with just
a few things. Even with the top 2 or 3, mind
Linux – the Poster Boy of ‘Open Innovation’
In the Spring 2003 issue of the MIT Sloan Management Review, an assistant professor at Harvard
Business School in Boston, Henry W. Chesbrough, wrote an article entitled “The Era of Open
Innovation” in which he asks the sweeping question: Is innovation dead?
His answer – that, actually, innovation is alive and well – makes mention of recent advances in the
life sciences, including revolutionary breakthroughs in genomics and cloning. But he also brings open
source software into the picture, by explaining the sea of change in the way companies generate ideas
and bring them to market, which he characterizes as a shift from a model of what he calls “closed
innovation” in which enterprises generate their own ideas, then develop, manufacture, market, distribute, and service those ideas to a new model, that of “open innovation.”
As in many other industries, in the world of software development the internally oriented, centralized approach to R&D is becoming obsolete and instead useful knowledge is widely disseminated.
New ideas must therefore be used with alacrity or they will be lost. The role of R&D extends far
beyond the boundaries of the enterprise and companies must now harness outside ideas, such as
those of the open source Linux community, to advance their own businesses
while leveraging their internal ideas outside their current operations.
That fundamental change, says Chesbrough, offers novel ways to create
value – along with new opportunities to claim portions of that value.
He has written a book in an attempt to provide a fuller description of
the open innovation model, Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating
and Profiting from Technology (Harvard Business Press). We suspect at
LinuxWorld Magazine that it must be on many shelves in key technology
strategists’ offices at companies such as IBM, HP, Oracle, Computer
Associates, and the like.
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LINUXWORLD
you, folks working in the enterprise space
find it confusing to have a choice. I always
believe ultimately that we should think of it
as being like politics. Choice in operating
systems is kind of confusing. But it is better
to have choice than not to have choice.”
How Far Can Linux Go?
LWM Asks the Experts…
Linux has come far, but how much further can it go, will it go, might it go? Is there
a “glass ceiling” to its reach?
Linus Torvalds, Open Source
Development Lab Fellow: “As to whether
there’s a ‘glass ceiling’ so far as Linux is concerned, a barrier consisting
of particular applications
that companies require and
that Linux can’t supply, I
used to think there was. I
used to think that operating
systems only worked well for
technical applications. But we passed that
point so long ago with Linux that I no
longer think there’s a glass ceiling. There
may be a practical ceiling, where you have
apps with social purpose needs. The point
of OS is to have people come together.”
Sam Greenblatt, SVP and Chief Architect,
Computer Associates International: “If there
is a limit, we haven’t seen it yet. When I see
Linux running both a
PlayStation and an automobile, and on some of the
largest institutions in the
world like Shell Oil, I don’t
know where it’s going to end.
There’s no ceiling, and no
floor either. We now have Linux on cellphones as well as Linux on six of the top ten
largest supercomputers on Earth. Success
breeds success, and Linux breeds Linux.”
Michael Evans, VP Channel Sales &
Development, Red Hat: “I have a friend who
is CTO of a tech company and his job
involves talking to large
business customers on a
daily basis. Twelve months
ago he would ‘pitch’ Linux,
because that was an objective of the company. Now he
is still doing the same thing,
but the first question he is being asked now,
before he even thinks of pitching anyone, is
‘What is your Linux story? How can you
help us get to Linux faster?’”
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