Fedora 19 review

In a nod to fans of classic desktop interfaces, the new Fedora includes a MATE variant and classic mode for GNOME. Systemd now takes care of containers and assigning network names. New drivers support 3D acceleration in newer Radeon graphics cards.

Just one week later than originally planned, the Fedora Project has released the 19th version of its Linux distribution. This is the first version of Fedora to include the MATE Desktop, which is derived from GNOME 2 and is currently up to version 1.6. Fedora does not yet come standard with Cinnamon, but version 1.9.1 of the desktop can be installed from the package depot and then selected in the login manager for all variants of the distribution.

As usual, the installation DVD automatically sets up GNOME – now version 3.8 – which is also the interface used by the Desktop Edition, the distribution's primary variant. Just like the MATE variants, this is a Live Linux that can be used to both try out and install Fedora, as are the three Fedora variants that use the KDE 4.10, LXDE and Xfce 4.10 desktops.

Fedora 19
Standard desktop Classic Mode MATE spin

Fedora installations with KDE 4.10 can already use the monitor configuration program KScreen, recently updated to version 1.0. The classic mode introduced in GNOME 3.8 does not come standard with Fedora and can only be selected in the login manager after the "gnome-classic-session" package has been installed.

Fedora now includes several open source programs for 3D printing, which means it has everything needed to use 3D printers like RepRap. LibreOffice 4.1 is pre-installed as the standard office environment. Version 21 of Firefox and Thunderbird are included, with the current version 22 of both programs already available via Fedora's update system.
Init

System initialisation and some system management during operation is the responsibility of systemd 204, which now assigns predictable network names, meaning that network interfaces are given designations like "p4p1" (Ethernet) and "wlp0s26u1u1" (WLAN).

The systemd-nspawn tool belonging to systemd can now be used to start and stop containers; with just a few steps, explained on Fedora's page about the new feature, a container can be set up for running an unmodified Fedora distribution.

Systemd can also configure resource consumption for services at runtime. This feature, which is based on cgroups, could see some slight changes in future, as the systemd developers recently talked to the kernel developer responsible for cgroups and worked on some major modifications, which have already been added to the systemd development branch, but not to Fedora 19.

Fedora's systemd also includes support for the time and timer units that make cron features work, although software in Fedora that requires those cron features continues to use the cronie implementation out of the box. Saving system events in log files is still done with rsyslog rather than systemd's journal, and systemd can now link to Message Catalog entries in order to, for example, display more information on messages and error notifications.
Behind the scenes

Version 1.14.1 of X.org's X server handles the graphic interface; Wayland and Weston are included, but are not installed out of the box. The kernel is Linux 3.9, but the developers are already planning to send out an update to Linux 3.10, which was released one day before the new Fedora.

When it comes to Mesa 3D, Fedora is giving users a glimpse of the development branch. Anticipation of the next version of Mesa 3D means that Fedora includes hot-off-the-presses versions of open source 3D drivers, including the OpenGL driver radeonsi, which most distributions do not yet have. Fedora, however, can use that driver to take advantage of 3D support in Radeon's Southern Islands graphics cores, which are used in Radeon HD graphics cards 7750 to 7950 and others. Fedora also includes the userland driver for using Radeon's video accelerator UVD (Unified Video Decoder); although it does not yet work with the kernel that comes with Fedora 19, there should be no conflicts with version 3.10 of the Linux kernel.

As usual, proprietary graphics drivers are missing from the distribution. NVIDIA's can be installed from the RPM Fusion add-on repository, where packages designed for Fedora with AMD's – beta – drivers can also be found.

In a nod to fans of classic desktop interfaces, the new Fedora includes a MATE variant and classic mode for GNOME. Systemd now takes care of containers and assigning network names. New drivers support 3D acceleration in newer Radeon graphics cards.

Just one week later than originally planned, the Fedora Project has released the 19th version of its Linux distribution. This is the first version of Fedora to include the MATE Desktop, which is derived from GNOME 2 and is currently up to version 1.6. Fedora does not yet come standard with Cinnamon, but version 1.9.1 of the desktop can be installed from the package depot and then selected in the login manager for all variants of the distribution.

As usual, the installation DVD automatically sets up GNOME – now version 3.8 – which is also the interface used by the Desktop Edition, the distribution's primary variant. Just like the MATE variants, this is a Live Linux that can be used to both try out and install Fedora, as are the three Fedora variants that use the KDE 4.10, LXDE and Xfce 4.10 desktops.

Fedora 19
Standard desktop Classic Mode MATE spin

Slideshow, 14 images

Fedora installations with KDE 4.10 can already use the monitor configuration program KScreen, recently updated to version 1.0. The classic mode introduced in GNOME 3.8 does not come standard with Fedora and can only be selected in the login manager after the "gnome-classic-session" package has been installed.

Fedora now includes several open source programs for 3D printing, which means it has everything needed to use 3D printers like RepRap. LibreOffice 4.1 is pre-installed as the standard office environment. Version 21 of Firefox and Thunderbird are included, with the current version 22 of both programs already available via Fedora's update system.
Init

System initialisation and some system management during operation is the responsibility of systemd 204, which now assigns predictable network names, meaning that network interfaces are given designations like "p4p1" (Ethernet) and "wlp0s26u1u1" (WLAN).

The systemd-nspawn tool belonging to systemd can now be used to start and stop containers; with just a few steps, explained on Fedora's page about the new feature, a container can be set up for running an unmodified Fedora distribution.

Systemd can also configure resource consumption for services at runtime. This feature, which is based on cgroups, could see some slight changes in future, as the systemd developers recently talked to the kernel developer responsible for cgroups and worked on some major modifications, which have already been added to the systemd development branch, but not to Fedora 19.

Fedora's systemd also includes support for the time and timer units that make cron features work, although software in Fedora that requires those cron features continues to use the cronie implementation out of the box. Saving system events in log files is still done with rsyslog rather than systemd's journal, and systemd can now link to Message Catalog entries in order to, for example, display more information on messages and error notifications.
Behind the scenes

Version 1.14.1 of X.org's X server handles the graphic interface; Wayland and Weston are included, but are not installed out of the box. The kernel is Linux 3.9, but the developers are already planning to send out an update to Linux 3.10, which was released one day before the new Fedora.

When it comes to Mesa 3D, Fedora is giving users a glimpse of the development branch. Anticipation of the next version of Mesa 3D means that Fedora includes hot-off-the-presses versions of open source 3D drivers, including the OpenGL driver radeonsi, which most distributions do not yet have. Fedora, however, can use that driver to take advantage of 3D support in Radeon's Southern Islands graphics cores, which are used in Radeon HD graphics cards 7750 to 7950 and others. Fedora also includes the userland driver for using Radeon's video accelerator UVD (Unified Video Decoder); although it does not yet work with the kernel that comes with Fedora 19, there should be no conflicts with version 3.10 of the Linux kernel.

As usual, proprietary graphics drivers are missing from the distribution. NVIDIA's can be installed from the RPM Fusion add-on repository, where packages designed for Fedora with AMD's – beta – drivers can also be found.

Outlook

Fedora 19 is available for 32- and 64-bit x86 systems, as well as 32-bit ARM SoCs, which means that Fedora's ARM port has been released at the same time as the version for x86 CPUs for the first time ever. Fedora 19 variants for 64-bit power processors (PPC) and s390x are being worked on at the moment and should be released soon. Fedora categorises the three variants for non-x86 systems as secondary architectures so that they don't slow down work on the two x86 versions, but the distribution's ARM developers are working on achieving the same status for their port as the x86 versions. They are also preparing to bring support to the 64-bit ARM execution state AArch64, for which they hope to publish a specifically designed variant of Fedora 20.

Now that Fedora 19 is complete, work on version 20 has already started, although it does not yet have a name or an expected release date. The initial schedule currently suggests a release in mid-November, which would be roughly in keeping with the Fedora Project's typical cycle.
Conclusion

The new Fedora does not have any major changes, much less any revolutionary ones, but the small and medium-sized changes certainly add up, including better support for new Radeon graphics cores, a spate of new systemd features and the move to MariaDB. An updated and very comprehensive collection of software makes Fedora one of the most cutting-edge distributions at the moment.

Fedora 19
Standard desktop Classic Mode MATE spin

Slideshow, 14 images

Download

The Fedora Project maintains several download pages for the distribution. The main download page limits itself to the standard edition – the desktop spin for 64-bit x86 systems (x86-64/x64), which comes with the GNOME desktop and can be installed onto a CD or USB drive. The 32-bit x86 (x86/x86-32) system edition is available from a second download page, which also includes links for downloading the most popular spins, including spins with KDE, Xfce or LXDE as the default desktop.

A further download page lists DVD and USB drive images for creating installation media. These do not allow users to try them before installing, but do allow the selection of software users want to install. This installation takes longer to set up the system. Network installation requires the use of these images. The 1MB gXPE image even allows the installation environment itself to be booted from a network. Only these images allow the semi-automated installation of the distribution with Kickstart files.

Images targeted for use in the cloud are listed on the project wiki. Fedora also has further spins, featuring collections of software aimed at specific target groups, available from the spins subdomain. These include the previously standalone Sugar on a Stick (SoaS), the DVD-oriented Games spin, and the Security Lab spin, containing primarily system rescue, forensic system analysis and security auditing software. These spins allow use as a live environment, similar to the GNOME, KDE SC and Xfce variants.

Fedora's ISO files are hybrid images that can be written to USB memory sticks using the "dd" command-line tool, allowing the user to boot the distribution from the stick. Alternatively, users can transfer the ISO images to USB devices with the liveusb-creator tool, which is available for Linux and Windows. This also allows the use of free space on the device to create an overlay file that the spin mounts for persistent data storage.

The different variants of Fedora are created with packages from the distribution's repository, which is used as a central pool of installable packages for all of them. The repository for the x86-64 version includes over 35,000 binary packages that have been created from around 13,000 source packages.

By using fedup, which was introduced in Fedora 18, users can upgrade to the latest release ; an update through the installation DVD is not possible any more. Similar to the "apt-get update" command on Debian system, yum can be used to upgrade a Fedora installation on the go. However this is not officially supported and needs advanced knowledge.


Focused on open source software

With the exception of a few firmware files, Fedora only contains software available under open source licences recognised by the Fedora Project. Licences which forbid commercial use of the software or redistribution to others do not make it onto this list. The Fedora project also excludes software which uses technologies known to be patented. This approach is a conscious choice, made with the aim of creating an open source operating system which guarantees that users wanting to use or distribute it will not be subject to copyright or patent claims.

It does mean that Fedora is missing some day-to-day features important to many Linux users. These include Adobe Flash Player and proprietary AMD and NVIDIA graphics drivers. It also lacks software for playing many common audio and video formats, including support for playing MP3s, intellectual property rights relating to which have been have repeatedly asserted by the patent holders.

On a laptop or desktop, therefore, Fedora is only really ready for action once package repositories for installing much of the software excluded by the Fedora Project have been activated. The best-known and most used Fedora repositories are the "free" and "nonfree" repositories from RPM Fusion, which can be activated post-installation in just a few simple steps. If a Gstreamer-based application needs a codec not included with Fedora, PackageKit will ask you to confirm and then, if available, install it automatically from an RPM Fusion repository. A how-to explaining how to install NVIDIA's proprietary graphics drivers is also available.

RPM Fusion provides access to many popular applications and drivers ignored by Fedora, but by no means all. It does not, for example include Adobe Reader or the Adobe Flash plugin, as this is forbidden under licensing conditions for the two programs. Adobe does, however, maintain its own package repository which can be used from Fedora. Google also maintains Fedora-compatible repositories for its software.

MPEG-H is extremely glitchy

I found the openHEVC decoder in Libav application . I never heard of Libav. I also got the first x265 exe file that does not work! No front ends after 9 months of release.

So far x265 0.3 is 1/20 as fast as AVC and only barely better in quality.   x265 DOES NOT WORK!

Linux Mint 15 review

Linux Mint 14 was one of our favorite desktop distros of the last year. While there were some initial hiccups that required a 14.1 release, it was generally a much better release than the then current Ubuntu 12.10, which had been marred by the controversy over the Amazon searches in the dash. Cinnamon seemed like a much more welcome alternative when people’s privacy was at stake. Cinnamon isn’t the only option though, with MATE flanking Cinnamon as the alternate image on Mint’s download page. With both 32 and 64-bit versions as standard for each, there isn’t one overall DVD ISO with both on for you to try, however the images themselves are not much bigger than a CD, clocking in at around 900 MB. Installation is quick and painless if you want it to be, and more advanced if you have special needs for your system. On our test setups it took us only slightly more than ten minutes to go from booting into the live disc to a full installed Linux distro. First impressions of the distribution are great – the MDM Display Manager finally comes with user selection by default, rather than having to choose a GTK greeter after the fact. This default greeter is part of the new HTML 5 theming, which allows for animated themes using the web standard. There are already a few available to try out, such as a steam punky night time theme, or a futuristic space bound theme. There are more online created by users and web designers alike that can feel right at home with the familiar code.
The impressions continue well. A new digital clock resides on the desktop as one of the new desklets, similar to Android widgets. These interactive desktop spots are easily manipulated, so you can move, remove or add more easily depending on your preference. However, the selection is fairly small at the moment, with the most interesting desklet being an XKCD viewer. The default app selection is pretty good, which usually means it has Firefox, an IM client, and access to LibreOffice. It does actually come with GIMP and VLC by default, which is not all that common. Heading to the Mint Software Manager to get some more applications is always a great experience, as unlike the Software Centre in Ubuntu, you never feel like you’re being babied with recommendations or “Technical Items” turned off. The interface is straightforward, and just the right balance of information and user-friendliness. Using Mint is very much a joy, and is aided by many of the new features in Mint 15. Nemo’s overhaul has made changing your folder view on the fly very easy, allowing you to hide the sidebar at a touch of a button as well. The entire Cinnamon desktop is incredibly slick, much faster than the GNOME Shell, and a lot more customisable as well. All the customisation options for both the Cinnamon environment and the distro itself have been merged under one settings application – before the Mint Menu would have the Cinnamon Settings on it, and could get a touch confusing if you were quickly looking for the Settings application with the same icon. MATE as well has had some love, and while there isn’t a huge difference visually for day-to-day users, a lot of minor speed improvements and optimisations have been performed on it. Caja, the file manager, has had a small aesthetic update, and can now use the Connect Server option from Nautilus. There’s also new support for media keys as well, something a lot of more modern desktops have been able to use for a while now. It also seems to run with fairly low power requirements. Testing it on a laptop, we found it gave us up to 30% extra battery life than Ubuntu running Unity would doing similar tasks. Frankly, we work faster on Linux Mint as well thanks to the variety of simple keyboard shortcuts for all kinds of desktop exposing and app switching operations, as well as the fairly smart hot corner that won’t just activate if the mouse looks like it’s moving there. Once again we find ourselves adoring the package that Clement and his team have put out. We haven’t found a single problem with the distro, and the only thing we were disappointed at was the lack of desklets at the time of writing. With the new API for applets that links in to desklets, it’s just a matter of time before the community begins to release more. Until then though, we’re more than satisfied with the smooth, user-friendly experience that Linux Mint 15 and Cinnamon 1.8 provides to be our main distro for at least another six months.

Anticipated PS4 games

My anticipated PS4 titles. The best console coming out in November.

Final Fantasy XV
Lords of the Fallen
Diablo 3 - I own it for PC, and would love single player and free MMORPG play.
Drive Club 
Assassin's Creed IV

PS4 is less expensive ($400) than xbox one ($500).It's been a long time since I've cared about console gaming. Aside from a few stand out exceptions the last generation of consoles has been disappointing enough that I never actually bought any of the consoles; I was given my Wii for my birthday and my Xbox 360 was a red ringed hunk of plastic when I got it, albeit a red ringed hunk that was still under warranty. Suffice to say I wasn't impressed, and everything I've heard thus far about the "Next Generation" has me convinced that my decision to join the PC Gaming Master Race was the smartest thing I've done since deciding to forgive Blizzard for World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion. All the same though it's impossible to deny the console share of the video game market, and with Nintendo's Wii U having been released late last year the generation of the Console War has begun. Sony and Microsoft have both announced their next generation console, and with Nintendo marching to the beat of it's own drum as always Microsoft and Sony only really have each other to contend with. From initial reports though it's already shaping up to be so one-sided a fight in Sony's favor it's almost embarrassing to write this as if there will be an even fight. Still, here's the blow-by-blow based one what we know so far.

1. Technical Specifications


The biggest difference between the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One thus far is the power each system boasts. The Xbox One boasts 8GB of DDR3 RAM powered by a custom 8-core AMD CPU (Microsoft is being vague on the processor details) backed up with a 500GB hard drive. On Sony's side the Playstation 4 offers up an 8-core x86-64 AMD "Jaguar" CPU and 8GB of GDDR5 RAM and an unknown amount of hard drive space. Both pack a modest amount of RAM compared to a decent gaming PC, but it's 16 times the amount of RAM the previous generation of consoles offered. Both will also feature Blu-Ray support as well as online services and 4k support. The Playstation 4 also has Bluetooth compatibility while the Xbox One doesn't.

Overall the graphical fight between the Playstation 4 and Xbox One will remain neck and neck as it always has, though Sony's decision to use GDDR5 as opposed to the slower and more common DDR3 could prove decisive in the long run, as well as the Xbox One using 3GBs of that RAM on it's Operating System and Apps whereas the Playstation 4 will only use 1GB. Also the 500GB hard drive on the Xbox One can't be replaced and won't be user serviceable (though both consoles will feature external storage support).

2. Digital Rights Management/Used Games


This is an especially difficult paragraph to write given how even before the Xbox One was announced the rumors about the One's always online requirement and prejudice towards used games have made for some very potent gamer rage. I even wrote an article about it. All Sony has had to do is sit back and let Microsoft do all the talking and then say the exact opposite to win this category. While the Xbox One won't need to be online all the time, it will have to connect to the internet at least once in a 24-hour period (Or so conflicting Microsoft reports have said).

To throw in another dish of bad decisions, Microsoft has said that all games will be hard installed to the Xbox One's hard drive and linked to a unique Xbox Live account. This would function similar to the Steam gaming client, except that logging into your Xbox Live account on a console aside from your own won't give you access to the games linked to that account. And should you buy a pre-owned game better get your wallet ready to pay double: Microsoft plans to charge a fee equal to the game's original price for adding a used game to your account.

3. Console Goals
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This is the category where the differences between the consoles really stand out. For months since the announcement of the Playstation 4 Sony has played itself up as the Anti-Microsoft and let it be known that while it will have other features, the Playstation 4 will be mostly about gaming. This contrasts Microsoft's goals for the Xbox One, which as the name implies they want to act as an all-in-one media box. In essence, it comes off that Microsoft's goal with the Xbox One is to compete with Smart TVs and computers hooked up to TVs rather than the Playstation 4 or even the Wii U. In addition to this, Microsoft has stated that they intend to continue making games for the Xbox 360 even after the One's release, which isn't a very powerful statement of confidence in the new console.

Ever since the One's announcement Microsoft has done nothing but backpedaling and running damage control. If all else fails, the Xbox One will serve as a terrible warning to future consoles.

Red Hat White Paper

Red Hat Enterprise Linux appeals to people who prefer a cost effective, safe, and stable operating system.  The main appeal that is Linux is designed for an open source (freely available) vs. a closed source (proprietary software) operating system. However, all operating systems are in danger of being hacked. Even so, in 2004, Microsoft security flaws were at a 38% critical status while 10% of Red Hat security flaws were critical status.  

The main theme of this paper is that the Linux design ensures security better than Windows.

The benefits of Red Hat Enterprise Linux include:

·         Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides 95% to 140% advantage over Windows for performance of real-world enterprise workloads.

◦   Red Hat Enterprise Linux supports 4096 processors while Windows Server 2012 supports only 64 processors.

◦   Red Hat supports more RAM than Windows

◦   Linux can run in server farms.

·         Red Hat includes mandatory access control with SELinux and sVirt which means that it has an extra layer of security originally in UNIX .

·         Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtualization can perform as well or better than bare metal (Cloud Infrastructure firmware).

·      The Kernel Virtual Machine permits Linux to be a Type 1 bare metal hypervisor from the kernel which creates stability and security inside the virtual machine.

·         The sVirt integrates with a virtualization management abstraction layer called libvirt to deliver a MAC-like agenda for virtual machines. This architecture permits all virtualization platforms preserved by libvirt and all MAC employments maintained by sVirt to operate together.

The recommendations for Red Hat Enterprise Linux are as follows:

·         I recommend Scientific Linux which is a free Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone download that has NTFS-3g for Windows NTFS drivers and RPM Fusion. It can be used like a RHEL web server, because it is a clone after all.

·         VMware, vSphere, or KVM are recommended for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, because both are enterprise –grade virtual machines. I strongly recommend KVM virtualization, because it is much more efficient with time and allows the user to perform tasks faster rate with 4096 processors.  The time management improvement when the operating system in the VM is hacked and has SELinux and sVirt integration, you can delete the VM right away and you can use the backup copy immediately. 

 

Cyber threats

    One type of terrorism is cyber warfare attack which endangers America's financial and national security.  One example of a serious cyber threat is China or Russia hacking into our power grid and leaving a logic bomb causing a situation similar to the Northeast Blackout of 2003. The Northeast Blackout of 2003 was caused by UNIX kernel panic which caused the affected operating system to crash. A logic bomb is a malicious code that waits for a sequence of events which causes the kernel panic.  It's evident that cyber warfare is an effective power tool for any government to use against an ally or enemy that threaten communications systems and/or a deactivates national infrastructure. (Schneier , B., 2013)

Better security

     The commercial infrastructure frequently undervalues the occurrence and possibility of breaches, with numerous groups reluctant to depict the amount of the data loss. Executives are always on the lookout for breaches. Cyber attacks pose a substantial menace to cherished commercial data as well as legal and promotional problems that can touch customer assurance and maintenance. Security at all levels is compulsory, from developers reducing the possibility for danger in their submissions, to system administrators logging, monitoring access, and limiting and keeping systems current. Like Windows, Linux has security like access control lists, ciphertext, Kerberos, MD5 encryption , SHA2 hash algorithm, root password and privileged ports. Red Hat Enterprise Linux delivers satisfactory application support so that deployment security is consistent, reliable, and feasible. Today, IT establishments use a variety of approaches to secure enterprise infrastructure, such as isolating environments with deploying firewalls, virtualization, performance deep packet inspection and executing untested code called  sandboxing. (Redhat, 2013)

Privileges

      Linux security is more ideal, because users don’t have the same “root” privileges as Windows. Windows users can choose to have an administrator account, but with Linux users, only administrators can have root privileges (superuser). Most Linux users do not have access to the root account meaning that they cannot do damage to their Linux.  (Noyes, K., 2010)

Social engineering

     Social engineering, such as viruses and worms, is a method that cyber attackers use to entrap the user to do damage to their system unknowingly. The malicious code can be easily spread when users open attachments that carry worms and viruses.  Windows is more prone to social engineering than Linux, because malicious codes cannot be executed on Linux since the root account is locked out to all users, except for administrators. The advantage here is that only administrators have the root access, thus preventing damage to a Linux system.    (Noyes, K., 2010)

Monoculture effect

     Windows has a monoculture effect meaning both viruses and Windows users have the same technology.  Microsoft Windows dominates most of the email such as Outlook and Outlook Express.  Conversely, Linux has a generic diversity which minimizes effect of viruses, worms, and Trojan horses. (Noyes, K., 2010)

Audience size

     Most viruses target Windows by virtue of its large audience.  The fact that millions of people are using Windows makes it an attractive target for attacks.  (Noyes, K., 2010)

Windows in Organizations

        Windows 7, 8 and Windows Server 2012 are the chosen operating system of many organizations.  It is dangerous to have a ten year old Windows XP, because its vunerable to hacking. Even with Windows emulation with Crossover Linux (wine front-end) compatibility, organizations are reluctant to make a switch to Red Hat Enterprise Linux clones, because Linux isn't marketed to business. Security takes a back seat to application compatibility in the Cyber Cold War era. (Noyes, K., 2010)

Linus Benedict Torvalds Law

     Linus law says, “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”. (Noyes, K., 2010)  Consequently, Windows users only have a limited set of paid developers (less eyeballs) who work to find problems in code. Only after a solution is found, does it get publicized.  Linux would have countless users viewing the code at any time, making it more likely that someone would identify a flaw, and fix it immediately for everybody's usage.  (Noyes, K., 2010)
                                                          Virtual Machines

       Applying virtual machines to Linux enhances security and ensures process availability.  There are three key features of a virtual machine. First, each virtual machine is isolated from each other. If there is a kernel panic on one virtual machine, other virtual machines are not affected. Second, the hypervisor is situated in-between the server hardware and the software stack.  This means legacy applications are using the latest hardware technology even though the operating system doesn’t support the necessary drivers in the virtual machine.  (Archive.org, 2013)

Kernel Virtual Machine

       The above chart shows how Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is based off KVM.  First, KVMs were designed from some hardware assisted virtualization.  KVM was designed into an optimized hypervisor solution of baggage. The KVM in Linux can use the entire hardware vendor ecosystem.  KVM can store VM images into every storage supported by Linux such as SATA, SCSI, network attached storage and SAMBA or SAN or iSCSI.  It has a virtualization manager that has advanced capabilities for guests and hosts like high availability migration, and system scheduler. Also, there is a reporting engine that has a documented database schema and sample reports so that Red Hat Virtualization Manager can extract information.  Red Hat can prioritize high availability of critical virtual machines so that ranking can take place so mission critical applications may be a priority on remaining hardware whilst other virtual machines are reduced at the same time. Red Hat virtualization manager can track live migration for movement of running virtual machines from one host to the next host without a performance hit. Red Hat Virtualization manager has a search driven interface that can tag for searching virtual machines for host characteristics. (archive.org, 2013)

VMware

      The above charts show that VMWare vSphere can improve the deployment of infrastructures.  The  vCenter has fast provisioning by replication of virtual machines. vCenter has load-balancing,  live migration of virtual machines,  high availability for virtual machines,  and has an automated patch management for hypervisor.  The purpose of vCenter is to use a VMware vSphere farm which has more services in less physical servers. Both virtual machines play the identical set of events.  The virtual machines check each other’s heart beat and take over if VMs miss heart beats. vSphere has its individual virtual switch, because administrators tend to prefer physical networks. At a datacenter level, disputed switches span numerous vSpheres hosts and aggregate networking. The switch abstraction configuration of individual virtual switches and enables centralized administration. There is a VMware Site Recovery Manager to restart virtualized ICT infrastructure in a backup center when a main datacenter fails.  The Site Recovery Manager is rapid, reliable, affordable, and manageable. VMware is 64% of the market while Microsoft virtualization is 27% as seen in the chart below.  (archive.org, 2013)

Traditional x86 security approaches

       The hardware layer is set to different devices and computes resources.  The OS layer would need control of the hardware operation. The OS layer is responsible for prioritizing the hardware resources and sharing them among the different tasks.  The services layer would use the OS as an interface to access required hardware resources.  The hypervisor will allow underutilized servers to become utilized servers by producing independence amid hardware and software layers. The application has the ability to run in numerous dissimilar development and test systems. The protection is where the administrator has a low-cost storage area network.   Deployment is where virtualization reduces administrative effort and increases deployment speed.  (archive.org, 2013)

Six layers of VES

      There are six features that VES or server consolidation uses to host aging applications or operating systems on modern hardware, for application isolation and security.  The six layers of VES are virtual access software, virtual application environment software, virtual processing software, virtual storage software, server provisioning, and management software and security software. Virtual access software will allow applications to be accessed from almost any intelligent access point device over any network without applications ever having to be architected for supporting that device or network.  There is virtual user interface software or various types of portal software.  Second, virtual application environment software creates an application and deployment environment which would develop applications so they are more reliable and robust and unaware of the underlying hardware or operating environment.  Third, virtual processing software appears on main systems such as operating environment, single-system image clustering software making many systems appear to be a single computing resource running a single operating environment.  This would include load balance software, data and application availability software, single system image clustering, and parallel processing software.  Fourth, virtual storage software tolerates applications unaware of how and where application and data are stored including storage replication and file systems.  The software supports network attached storage and storage area networks. Fifth, the security provisioning and management software allows administrators and operators to manage, operate and load environment categories. This is an example of module of on-demand or adaptive environment methods to application deployment.  Sixth, the security software is decomposed into components, access control and identify management are much more significant.  Without strong security, black hats could destroy the distributed architecture and commander application components or resolves to an organization’s disadvantage. ( Gillen, A., 2006)

SELinux

       By leveraging the trust of minimum privilege and over the organization of a security policy on the system, SELinux stops the negotiation of a whole system due to the negotiation of a single program running which would then be raised privileges. The second benefit is that SELinux defends the privacy and truthfulness of data. By eliminating preference from users over which way data may be operated, delicate data can be limited from inadvertent, deletion, modification or sharing when security-relevant access is taking place or when procedure struggles to open a file and caught in the kernel by SELinux. (Runge, C., 2013) (redhat.com, 2013)

      With respect to the kernel, SELinux adds a security attendant comprehending the security policy. SELinux’s detached implementation mechanism receives and smears the policy decision. The enforcement mechanism and policy are autonomous; policy changes do not necessitate variations to the implementation device. SELinux modifies numerous user- space components for distinguishing and treating policy development, role changes, security contexts, and other tasks vital for performing mandatory access control on the system. SELinux has contents, object classes, labels, policy rules, interfaces, and attributes. (Runge, C., 2013) (redhat.com, 2013)

Discretionary Access Controls (DAC)

       Most Linux and UNIX-based operating systems practice an access control tool known as Discretionary Access Control (DAC). Under a DAC scheme, directories and files on the system are labeled resolving a set of permissions on behalf of which group and user the file is proper to and what that user, group, or others interact with the object, such as reading, writing, or executing. This comparatively simple yet mainly influential scheme permits multiple users and programs to harmonize on the same system, the permissions are properly set, ensures that users have control over their objects but no others. By exploiting a program, such as a daemon (Nagios Core) that scores with filled root permissions, the user can use that database as an introduction pad for his/her preferred malicious actions on the system. (Runge, C., 2013) (redhat.com, 2013)

Mandatory Access Control (MAC)

      Mandatory access control removes security decisions from of the user. While users and groups may still own files and directories on the system, permission is eventually administrated by a security policy, that labels which users and programs can contact which objects on the system. This security policy is required over all procedures and objects on the hardware. First, the trusted operating systems that delivered mandatory access control had mostly distinct offerings from their normal counterparts. The inadequate audience is consisting of intelligence and military applications; these important systems had recognized less prominence from operating system vendors and third-party vendors alike. (Runge, C., 2013) (redhat.com, 2013)

Multi-Level Security (MLS)

     Multi-level security has a specific mandatory access control model that has confidentiality.  Traditionally, a physical separation of a dedicated system would split up among Top Secret, classified, and confidential. The multi-level security is dynamically enabled to have multi-category security which has added a discretionary labeling scheme.  (Runge, C., 2013)

Svirt

       It is important to know that sVirt repeatedly manages the virtual machine process security boundary, shielding the hypervisor, host, and other virtual machines from hacking.  An example would be each virtual machine has a process; labeled by SELinux, successfully forming a security limit around every virtual machine. The sVirt extends the SELinux classification scheme to VMs; thereby, leveraging the established SELinux capabilities and as well as providing extra significant benefits for security administration. Each system resource such as counting data files, devices, and processes labeled by a type that entitles its security sVirt dynamically labels the VM procedures have policy recognized on the VM file images. As a result, the VM technique cannot contact possessions separate of the VM. These VM process labels are applied mechanically and vigorously, stopping the administrative problem of manually labeling resources and building the entire security solution to be policy-driven-based. (redhat.com, 2013)

Benefits

    Some of sVirt’s benefits are that it has proven security on virtual environment and was co-developed by the National Security Agency.  There is protection of network resources, data files, memory, and applications.  There is protection against virus attacks across virtual machines. The sVirt has integration with SELinux protects of virtual machine resources running a Linux guest.  There is a policy driven security with low administration liability.  (redhat.com, 2013)

Hypervisor security threats

      Hypervisor security threats are when a compromised application is running on a virtual machine and attacks KVM so that it may access resources.  This can include devices within the physical machine, applications, or host operating system.  This threat is a threat vector unique in virtualization and represents a risk that the fundamental real machine would be compromised when there are sole virtual application weaknesses. (redhat.com, 2013)

VM Security threats

      This is when there is a compromised application running in a VM which attacks a hypervisor to control another VM.  This is unique to virtualization and represents risk as a multitude of VMs images are compromised with viruses due to vulnerability.  (redhat.com, 2013)

Conclusion

       An age of multi-computer households permits Linux to be an enormous savings over Windows.  Linux has all the software repositories in one place so the administrator doesn’t have to search the web for programs which are missing and the repositories come without a malicious code and Windows does not.  Most drivers are a part of the Linux kernel whereas Windows supports very little hardware and requires manufacture driver downloads.  Linux is more secure than Windows, because the firewall (iptables) is apart from the Linux kernel.  Malware is not seen in Linux, because software is installed directly from the Red Hat repositories.   (Bothwick, N., 2010)

References

Bothwick, N. (2010, December 4). 20 reasons you should switch to Linux. Retrieved from Techradar website: http://www.techradar.com/us/news/software/operating-systems/20-reasons-you-should-switch-to-linux-912294

I discuss security of Linux in my white paper, and this a relevant source, because it also discusses security of Linux. The relevance of this source is it comes from United Kingdom's Linux Format magazine. A strength of this source is that the article has a list format. A weakness of this source is that there are more than twenty reasons Linux is better than Windows, but are not listed in the source. A goal would be naming some headlines from the list of this website in my white paper, because Linux Format is legitimate.

Gillen, A. (2006). Red Hat Virtualization: Meeting the challenges of optimization. Retrieved August 21, 2013, from Red Hat website: http://www.redhat.com/f/pdf/virtualization/idc_200791.pdf

This source provides a brief history of virtualization. It is relevant, because it has the virtual access software listed. The strength of this source is that it describes the six layers of VES for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. A weakness is that was published in 2006, and there is no updated revision. The source will help explain the six layers of virtual environment software in virtual access software.

Noyes, K. (2010, August 3). Why linux is more secure than windows. Retrieved from PCWorld website: http://www.pcworld.com/article/202452/why_linux_is_more_secure_than_windows.html

I discuss security of Linux in my white paper, and this a relevant resource, because it also discusses security of Linux. A strength in this resource is the author holds a Master’s Degree in Management Information Systems and writes for the Linux Foundation. The weaknesses of this resource are that I disagree with key factor #5, Linus law, as stated in the article due to freezing. I believe this article is a great summary of key factors of Linux security, and these key factors are going to be included with my white paper.

Runge, C. (n.d.). SELinux: A new approach to secure systems. Retrieved from Red Hat website: http://www.redhat.com/rhecm/rest-rhecm/jcr/repository/collaboration/jcr:system/jcr:versionStorage/bee786240a0526027965377c1ccaded2/2/jcr:frozenNode/rh:pdfFile.pdf

The source is relevant to my white paper, because it discusses SELinux. The source talks about Access Control Mechanisms, Security Enhanced Linux itself, and SELinux architecture and design. The strength of this source is that it tells you where to deploy SELinux, and discusses recent additions to SELinux capabilities. A weakness of this source is that it does not show the limitations of SELinux and Mandatory Access Control. One of the goals of my white paper is to explain Mandatory Access Control (MAC) as well as Multi-level security (MLS) in SELinux, which are also covered in this article.

Schneier, B. (2013, June 21). US Offensive Cyberwar Policy [Blog post]. Retrieved from Schneier on Security website: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/us_offensive_cy.html

This source is relevant with the cyber cold war with China, Russia, and old cold war enemies. This source discusses disrupting communications systems, and disabling national infrastructure like a power grid. The strength is it mentions the threat from China and Russia, because these countries do the most hacking. The weakness is that it doesn’t mention Red Hat Enterprise Linux. One of the goals is to focus on the cyber warfare from different countries.

Secure virtualization with sVirt. (2013). Retrieved from Red Hat website: http://www.redhat.com/rhecm/rest-rhecm/jcr/repository/collaboration/jcr:system/jcr:versionStorage/cddeee980a070d54511c17e2d78baed5/3/jcr:frozenNode/rh:pdfFile.pdf

This source is relevant, because it includes a brief history of secure virtualization with sVirt and provides industry knowledge on virtualization. A strength of the source is that it discusses powerful policy driven safety with low administration load. The weakness is that this source does not discuss the implementation of sVirt in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This source will help me discuss sVirt and how it relates to SELinux in my paper.

SELinux and mandatory access control (MAC). (2013). Retrieved from Red Hat website: https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Virtualization_Security_Guide/sect-Virtualization_Security_Guide-sVirt-MAC.html

This resource is a manual for virtualized environments found on the Red Hat website. Since this article discusses how checking is an allowed operation once standard discretionary access controls are checked, it is relevant to my white paper, because I am talking about mandatory access control. A strength is Red Hat's credibility, since Red Hat is credible their manuals should be credible. A weakness is that the manual was short and only had a dictionary description of the topic; therefore, this does not promote adequate information for the user. The manual is going to help me with proper definitions.

SELinux for Red Hat Developers. (n.d.). Retrieved 2013, from Red Hat website: http://www.redhat.com/rhecm/rest-rhecm/jcr/repository/collaboration/jcr:system/jcr:versionStorage/e906c3960a0526014bf0b4474cffa022/2/jcr:frozenNode/rh:pdfFile.pdf

The source is relevant to my white paper, because it covers the roots of SELinux such as multi-level security (MLS), discretionary access control (DAC) and mandatory access controls (MAC). Since my paper talks about these controls, this resource will be valuable. The strength of this source is that it is a white paper, so it provides me with more knowledge on how to write my final paper. One weakness of the source is that the audience is for programmers, and may not be as well understood by non-programmers. The goal of using this resource is to help discuss SELinux's MAC and DAC in my paper.

Sobell, M. G. (2012). A practical guide to Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

This source deals with virtual machines including XEN, VMware, and KVM. This is relevant, because my white paper discusses VMware and KVM. A strength that this resource has is that it is a published book, and this only legitimatizes its credibility. A weakness is that the book has a 2012 copyright, and the information can be outdated even if it is only a year old. I will use the security knowledge from this book for my white paper since I will be discussing targeted, multilevel, and strict security.

Virtualization at Fujitsu. (2013). Retrieved from Archive.org website: https://archive.org/download/WpVirtualization/wp-virtualization.pdf

This source explains what virtualization is. I discuss a lot about virtualization in my white paper; therefore, this is relevant. This paper discusses the best known technologies including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and this is a strength, because my paper is about Red Hat. The weakness is that Fuijitsu is from Japan; therefore, I cannot use some of the Fujistu-centric terminology, because it is proprietary to that company. Since one of the goals in my white paper is to discuss virtualization, this should be an informative resource.