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Solaris in SPARC is the only production UNIX with hardware memory tagging. Something that some security conscious folks care about.

by pjmlp 8mo ago

mghackerlady 8mo ago
Does OpenBSD not do that? That feels like something OpenBSD could do, given their near paranoid level of exploit reduction and theos hardon for SPARC
- pjmlp 8mo ago
  Maybe, why use it on Oracle's hardware? By the way Linux does it, but then again Oracle has its own distro.
  - mghackerlady 8mo ago
    So wait, sparc solaris is the only production unix with hardware memory tagging but also linux has it? Are we talking strict SUS compliant systems (current or former because for some reason solaris is no longer listed as such despite ostensibly still being compliant unless the SRUs have seriously FUBARed some things) or unices in general? because I'd argue anyone running SUS compliant systems out of anything other than their choice happening to be compliant is arguably even more niche than running AIX or Solaris for anything else
    - pjmlp 8mo ago
      We are talking about SPARC ADI, still sold by Oracle and Fujistsu. https://www.oracle.com/servers/sparc https://www.oracle.com/servers/sparc Linux while not being UNIX, does support it as Oracle upstreamed SPARC ADI support during the brief time they had Oracle Linux support for SPARC. https://docs.kernel.org/arch/sparc/adi.html https://docs.kernel.org/arch/sparc/adi.html Now why someone would use unsupported OpenBSD on SPARC for the kinds of clients that pay for this stuff, beats me. Assuming it does even support SPARC ADI.
      - mghackerlady 8mo ago
        Ohh ok I see. Why would someone use unsupported OpenBSD on SPARC for the clients that pay for it? Probably the same reason so many servers run on Rocky or Alma instead of RHEL, money. Perhaps they bought the hardware without the support contract for Solaris, or they don't want to keep paying for it
hollerith 8mo ago
Apple's latest CPUs, the M5 and the A19, have memory tagging. Probably impractical for most server workloads (so not an alternative to Solaris on SPARC) but worth mentioning.

Solaris in SPARC is the only production UNIX with hardware memory tagging. Something that some security conscious folks care about.

by pjmlp 8mo ago

Solaris in SPARC is the only production UNIX with hardware memory tagging. Something that some security conscious folks care about.

mghackerlady 8mo ago

Does OpenBSD not do that? That feels like something OpenBSD could do, given their near paranoid level of exploit reduction and theos hardon for SPARC

pjmlp 8mo ago
Maybe, why use it on Oracle's hardware? By the way Linux does it, but then again Oracle has its own distro.
- mghackerlady 8mo ago
  So wait, sparc solaris is the only production unix with hardware memory tagging but also linux has it? Are we talking strict SUS compliant systems (current or former because for some reason solaris is no longer listed as such despite ostensibly still being compliant unless the SRUs have seriously FUBARed some things) or unices in general? because I'd argue anyone running SUS compliant systems out of anything other than their choice happening to be compliant is arguably even more niche than running AIX or Solaris for anything else
  - pjmlp 8mo ago
    We are talking about SPARC ADI, still sold by Oracle and Fujistsu. https://www.oracle.com/servers/sparc https://www.oracle.com/servers/sparc Linux while not being UNIX, does support it as Oracle upstreamed SPARC ADI support during the brief time they had Oracle Linux support for SPARC. https://docs.kernel.org/arch/sparc/adi.html https://docs.kernel.org/arch/sparc/adi.html Now why someone would use unsupported OpenBSD on SPARC for the kinds of clients that pay for this stuff, beats me. Assuming it does even support SPARC ADI.
    - mghackerlady 8mo ago
      Ohh ok I see. Why would someone use unsupported OpenBSD on SPARC for the clients that pay for it? Probably the same reason so many servers run on Rocky or Alma instead of RHEL, money. Perhaps they bought the hardware without the support contract for Solaris, or they don't want to keep paying for it

hollerith 8mo ago

Apple's latest CPUs, the M5 and the A19, have memory tagging. Probably impractical for most server workloads (so not an alternative to Solaris on SPARC) but worth mentioning.