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OPINION SYSTEMS WEB SYSADMIN HARDWARE COLUMNS BOOK REVIEWS Book Reviews CONFERENCES J U N E 2 0 1 0 V O L U M E 3 5 N U M B E R 3 OPINION Musings 2 Rik Farrow SyStemS MINIX 3: Status Report and Current Research 7 andRew Tanenbaum, Raja appuswa my, HeRbert bos, LoRenzo Cavall aRo, THE USENIX MAGAZINE CRisTiano Giuffrida , T o m ásˇ H R u by´ , jorriT HeRdeR, Erik van deR kouwe, and david van mooLenbRoek Web 3D Web Contenders 14 jim sanGwine SySadmin Programming with Technological Ritual and Alchemy 22 Alva L . Couch Building a Virtual DNS Appliance Using Solaris 10, BIND, and VMware 27 andRew seeLy LISA: Beginning the Journey 35 m att simmons HardWare Small Embedded Systems 38 Rudi van Drunen COlumns Practical Perl Tools: Making Stuff Up 48 david n. Bl ank-edeL m an Pete’s All Things Sun: Exadata V2 Architecture and Why It Matters 54 peTeR baeR GaLvin iVoyeur: Pockets-o-Packets, Part 1 59 dave josepHsen /dev/random: Five Common Misconceptions About information Security 63 Robert G. Ferrell book revIews Book Reviews 65 Br andon CHinG and sa m StoveR uSenix NOTES Notice of Annual Meeting 67 Results of the Election for the USENIX Board of Directors, 2010–2012 67 Writing for ;login: 68 ConferenceS FAST ’10: 8th USENIX Conference on File and Storage ­Technologies 69 First USENIX Workshop on Sustainable Information Technology (SustainIT ’10) 89 2nd USENIX Workshop on the Theory and Practice of Provenance (TaPP ’10) 96 The Advanced Computing Systems Association june10covers.indd 1 5.10.10 10:26 AM Upcoming Events 19th USENIX SEcUrIty Symposium 9th USENIX Symposium oN opErating SyStEmS (USENIX SEcUrIty ’10) desigN aNd ImplEmentatIoN (oSdI ’10) august 11–13, 2010, washington, DC, USA Sponsored by USENIX in cooperation with ACM SIGOPS http://www.usenix.org/sec10 oCtober 4–6, 2010, VanCouVer, bC, CanaDa http://www.usenix.org/osdi10 2010 ElEctronic Voting tEchNology WorkShop/ WorkShop oN trustWorthy ElEctIons (EVt/ WorkShopS co-locatEd with oSdI ’10: WOTE ’10) Sixth WorkShop oN hot topIcS in SyStEm Co-located with USENIX Security ’10 dEpendabIlIty (hotdEp ’10) august 9–10, 2010, washington, DC, USA http://www.usenix.org/evtwote10 http://www.usenix.org/hotdep10 EtWorkS yStEmS aNd ompUtatIoN 3rd WorkShop oN cybEr SEcUrIty EXpErImentatIoN N , S , c Et coN aNd test (cSEt ’10) (N E ’10) Co-located with USENIX Security ’10 Sponsored by USENIX in cooperation with ACM SIGecom august 9, 2010, washington, DC, USA http://www.usenix.org/netecon10 http://www.usenix.org/cset10 2010 WorkShop oN thE EcoNomIcS of 5th 4th USENIX WorkShop oN offensive tEchNologies INtErNatIoNal WorkShop oN SyStEmS SoftWarE (WOOT ’10) VErIfIcatIoN (SSV ’10) Co-located with USENIX Security ’10 http://www.usenix.org/ssv10 august 9, 2010, washington, DC, USA orkShop oN aNaging yStEmS via og http://www.usenix.org/woot10 W m S l aNalysis aNd machine lEarning tEchniques 2010 WorkShop oN collaborative mEthodS for (SLAML ’10) EcUrIty aNd rivacy oll Ec S p (c S ’10) http://www.usenix.org/slaml10 Co-located with USENIX Security ’10 and sponsored by USENIX and Deutsche Telekom 24th largE InstallatIoN SyStEm administratIoN august 10, 2010, washington, DC, USA coNfErencE (lISa ’10) http://www.usenix.org/collsec10 Sponsored by USENIX in cooperation with LOPSA and SNIA noVeMber 7–12, 2010, san jose, Ca, USA 1St USENIX WorkShop oN hEalth SEcUrIty aNd http://www.usenix.org/lisa10 privacy (hEalthSEc ’10) Co-located with USENIX Security ’10 9th USENIX coNfErencE oN fIlE aNd StoragE august 10, 2010, washington, DC, USA tEchNologies (FASt ’11) http://www.usenix.org/healthsec10 Sponsored by USENIX in cooperation with ACM SIGOPS February 15–18, 2011, san jose, Ca, USA 5th USENIX WorkShop oN hot topIcS in SEcUrIty http://www.usenix.org/fast11 ot Ec (h S ’10) Submissions due: September 2, 2010 Co-located with USENIX Security ’10 august 10, 2010, washington, DC, USA 8th USENIX Symposium oN NEtWorkEd SyStEmS http://www.usenix.org/hotsec10 desigN aNd ImplEmentatIoN (NSdI ’11) MarCh 30–april 1, 2011, boston, Ma, USA fIfth WorkShop oN SEcUrIty mEtrIcS http://www.usenix.org/nsdi11 (mEtrIcoN 5.0) Co-located with USENIX Security ’10 august 10, 2010, washington, DC, USA http://www.securitymetrics.org/content/wiki. jsp?page=Metricon5.0 For a complete list of all USENIX & USENIX co-sponsored events, see http://www.usenix.org/events. june10covers.indd 2 5.10.10 10:26 AM OPINION Musings 2 R RROIk FA w Sy StemS MINIX 3: Status Report and Current Research 7 A NdRew TANeNbAum , R A JA AppuswA my, HeRbeRT bOs, LOReNzO CAvALLARO, CRIsTIANO GIuFFRIdA , T O m ásˇ H R u by´ , JORRIT HeRdeR, eRIk vAN deR kOuwe, ANd dAvId vAN mOOLeNbROek Web 3D Web Contenders 14 contents J ANGIm s wINe Sy N SadmI Programming with Technological Ritual and Alchemy 22 A LvA L. COuCH Building a Virtual DNS Appliance Using Solaris 10, BIND, and VMware 27 A NdRew seeLy LISA: Beginning the Journey 35 mI AT T s mmONs Hard Ware Small Embedded Systems 38 RudvN I A dRuNeN VOL. 35, #3, June 2010 Editor ;login: is the official C SOlumN Practical Perl Tools: Making Stuff Up 48 Rik Farrow magazine of the Da vId N. bLANk-edeLm AN [email protected] USENIX Association. Pete’s All Things Sun: Exadata V2 Managing Editor ;login: (ISSN 1044-6397) is Architecture and Why It Matters 54 published bi-monthly by the Jane-Ellen Long pAeTeR b eR GALvIN [email protected] USENIX Association, 2560 Ninth Street, Suite 215, iVoyeur: Pockets-o-Packets, Part 1 59 Copy Editor Berkeley, CA 94710. Steve Gilmartin Da ve JOsepHseN [email protected] $90 of each member’s annual dues is for an annual sub- /dev/random: Five Common Misconceptions produCtion scription to ;login:. Subscrip- About information Security 63 Casey Henderson tions for nonmembers are ReT Ob R G. FeRReLL Jane-Ellen Long $125 per year. Jennifer Peterson Periodicals postage paid at t ypEsEt tEr Berkeley, CA, and additional bO O k revIeWS Book Reviews 65 Star Type offices. bRN ANdO CHING ANd sA m sTOveR [email protected] POSTMASTER: Send address usEniX assoCiation changes to ;login:, uIOSeN x N teS Notice of Annual Meeting 67 2560 Ninth Street, USENIX Association, Suite 215, Berkeley, 2560 Ninth Street, California 94710 Results of the Election for the USENIX Suite 215, Berkeley, Board of Directors, 2010–2012 67 Phone: (510) 528-8649 CA 94710. FAX: (510) 548-5738 ©2010 USENIX Association Writing for ;login: 68 http://www.usenix.org http://www.sage.org USENIX is a registered trade- CN O fereN eS mark of the USENIX Associa- FAST ’10: 8th USENIX Conference on File tion. Many of the designations and Storage Technologies 69 used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their First USENIX Workshop on Sustainable products are claimed as trade- Information Technology (SustainIT ’10) 89 marks. USENIX acknowledges 2nd USENIX Workshop on the Theory and all trademarks herein. Where those designations appear in Practice of Provenance (TaPP ’10) 96 this publication and USENIX is aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps. ; LOGIN : JuNe 2010 ARTICLe TITLe 1 articles.indd 1 5.7.10 9:45 AM In my February 2010 column [1], I took a humorous look at the future of R i k Fa R R o w computing. I let my imagination go wild, as my candidate for the future of system administration, Chuck, dealt with the vari- ous issues that arose during a workday. Of course, the picture really isn’t as rosy as I made it out to be. For example, the organic, musings in-wall system might take at least 20 years Rik is the Editor of ;login:. before it becomes practical. And if a system [email protected] with equivalent power were built using today’s technology, Chuck would have been quickly roasted—that is, if the wall itself didn’t melt down first. You have likely heard of the walls of power and memory that current system and CPU designers are facing. Clock speeds are not getting much faster, as faster clock speeds mean more power dissipated as heat. At 120 watts per centimeter squared, Chuck’s office wall would need to radiate megawatts of power if each centimeter produced the equivalent processing power found in today’s server-class CPUs. But, on a more practical level, just dealing with cooling one 120 watt chip is difficult enough without making big changes in how servers are designed. The wall of memory continues because SDRAM has not improved in performance nearly as fast as processors have. And with multicore chips, there are now many processors sharing the memory bandwidth from the same SDRAM. System design- ers can optimize potential bandwidth by hav- ing multiple memory controllers and pathways to memory, and this does help some of the time. But the problem still exists: in programs that are memory intensive and that have poor spatial local- ity, CPU cores will be stalled waiting for memory. There are actually two other walls that haven’t been mentioned but are equally important when consid- ering the future of system designs: cost and history. These walls are related, as we shall see. Multicore The current designs for overcoming the walls of memory and power require having more than a single core in each CPU. Each core can run at a lower clock rate, and this reduces the power re- quired. And by slowing down the processors, they won’t be stalled for as many cycles—but they will 2 ; LOGIN : vOL . 35, NO. 3 articles.indd 2 5.7.10 9:45 AM still have to wait for memory. Clever cache design, having multiple threads backed by their own register sets, helps to hide memory latency by keeping the cores busy, as was done by Sun in their Niagara chips [2] and Intel with HyperThreading.
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