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The Navy’s newest warship is powered by Linux
- cweaver 13y agoDoes anyone know how those EMEs compare in size with existing control systems? They seem quite large for what I assume they do.
- X4 13y agoI don't know the exact measures, but does a D-Wave Quantum Computer fit into the EME? Here's a larger picture: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/LW4A1956.jpg http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/wp-content/uploads/2013... Or they needed very heavy shielding, for whatever reason? I'm curious why that is too, does someone know it?
- ChuckMcM 13y agoThis will be interesting (it takes containerized data centers to an interesting place). Given that naval engagements seem to be either 'unsophisticated Somali pirate' level or 'super sonic ship-killer cruise missile' there isn't a whole lot of middle ground in terms of reaction space. I can say this though, I'd love to see the insides of one of these ships.
- gk1 13y agoThey look just about the same as ships in the current fleet. Much of the new tech is not easily recognizable, even from the inside. For example, high-tech materials, C4I systems, etc.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoSo living in Las Vegas in the 70's there was an amazing place called 'Buck's War Surplus' that had all sorts of stuff [1] end up there, it will be interesting if the self contained data center units do. Since they are designed to take "regular" gear instead of mil spec gear they could make for a heck of a doomsday data center backup :-) [1] The top bubble dual 50 cal from a B25 Mitchell showed up once (demilitarized) and I could not convince my Dad to loan me the money to install it in my 1970 Pontiac Bonneville :-(
- undoware 13y agoGreat -- now the fragment of code I wrote for the kernel make s me potentially party to killing. The long-term ethics of producing open source are fascinating -- you know we're all pretty gross if the NRA is wrong, don't you? About X not killing people, people killing people. 'Cause we brought a whole lot of X, and gave it away, puffed with pride, to people who can name something a 'dreadnought' without it being weird.
- nickff 13y agoBy that measure, one might be complicit in a bombing strike if the aluminum cans they recycle are used to build aircraft, missiles, or other weapons (, much like your code was recycled by the navy contractors). If we live in a society where any measure of cooperation with others is subject to such a high level of scrutiny, we are all guilty of every moral indiscretion committed by anyone. Individual responsibility is almost a requirement for the complex and interdependent world in which we exist.
- JonFish85 13y agoNot to mention that if you pay taxes to a government that has a military presence anywhere you're much more directly supporting killing, if you want to look at it that way.
- robotresearcher 13y agoYou really should look at it that way. The armed forces are directly representing your democratically expressed will. We should feel responsible, because we are. If the government is not interpreting our will accurately, we need to change the representatives.
- icebraining 13y agoBut isn't it? Which of the last wars was opposed by the majority of Americans?
- milliams 13y agoThe article seems to mention that they are running LynxOS, not Linux. Can anyone clarify?
- richardwhiuk 13y agoLynxOS is Linux compatible, which I suspect is where the deviation has come from.
- disc 13y agoAs I understand it, the DAPs run LynxOS, while the TSCEI networking and processing is done in Red Hat.
- shavenwarthog2 13y agoLynxOS is hard-real-time, unlike Linux, but is Linux-compatible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LynxOS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LynxOS
- Scramblejams 13y agoThis made me wonder what the state of the art is in open source realtime operating systems these days. RTLinux is one of the options, but I've forgotten many of the rest by now. Anybody had any positive or negative experiences with any of the RT flavors?
- Shish2k 13y ago> more than 235 equipment cabinets (racks) in total I wonder what they're doing that needs that much processing power? Or is it that every part of every subsystem has a dedicated server assigned to it no matter how little power it needs, just to stop the possibility of interference?
- morrad 13y agoSeeing as this is the military, I would guess that they have triple redundant systems for some things, but that still is a decent amount of computing power there.
- X4 13y agoIs the "James Kirk" part a joke, or is that the real name of Zumwalt's Captain? Sorry, if this looks blue-eyed, I can't tell that from sarcasm.
- stcredzero 13y agoThe "Regimental Commander" of the military academy boarding school I went to was a James Kirk my freshman year. And his school rank was captain. EDIT: Actually, the Zumwalt looks promising this way. Just add two nacelles and a saucer section. EDIT: The Zumwalt bridge looks promising in another way. (Leiji Matsumoto) But instead of the 3 smaller screens, have a single 30x30 foot screen leaning forward at a 45 degree angle.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- KC8ZKF 13y agoIt's "James A. Kirk" though, not "James Theodore Kirk."
- morrad 13y agoTiberius. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_T._Kirk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_T._Kirk
- robertfw 13y agoWe'll just have to cross our fingers that they don't run into any cylons... More realistically, I wonder what the attack surface of a highly computerized, networked ship like this is? What kind of separation can you achieve between the layered networks - would there be systems that are essentially air gapped from one another?
- sigzero 13y ago"designed for stealth, survivability, and firepower" I imagine that would take a bit. I also imagine there is a LOT of redundancy.
- rtkwe 13y agoTraditionally they might have been air gapped but from the description of anyone being able to use any station that would not longer possible. They might run on isolated servers, almost definitely since the Armed forces are religious about separation of classified and non-classified systems and data. (This is one reason why sites hosting the Wikileaks and Snowden documents are banned from networks. If classified data, which the leaks still are despite being leaked, appears on an unclassified system there's hell to pay.) As for the attack surface incoming communication is encrypted a lot these days which severely limits an attackers ability to even get a hook in the system to start with. They also probably isolate the communication systems from an other systems requiring users to input any order, eg vm000123 is running on the gun controllers station relaying firing authorization and targeting which is entered into vm0002020 which manages the gun systems.
- mbreese 13y agoFrom the article, it sounded like each of the systems was running on a stripped down Linux VM, so each of the stations would be logically isolated from each other, running in the same "data center".
- kibwen 13y ago"Almost all of the ship's internal communications are based on Voice Over IP (with the exception of a few old-school, sound-powered phones for emergency use)." Interesting, I'd never heard of sound-powered phones before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound-powered_telephone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound-powered_telephone
- cobrausn 13y agoWell, that brought back some memories. Shouting into sound powered phones over the din of the engine room of a submarine is one thing, but trying to actually hear what the other person is shouting back... it must be the audio equivalent of learning to read doctor's prescriptions.
- michaelwww 13y agoWere you on a diesel boat? Because I was on a nuclear sub and it was pretty quiet and the sound powered phones worked great.
- cobrausn 13y agoNuclear, but the plant was fairly loud. That or the phone system sucked, not sure which. The effect was still the same - lots of shouting and guessing what was said. :-D
- michaelwww 13y agoI was on a boomer which mostly cruised around at 3 knots staying quietly hidden.
- gk1 13y agoI, too, had to shout into a sound-powered phone in the very center of a ship's plant. Often it was with the bridge crew. The bridge is very quiet at night, so the crew up there would almost whisper into the phone, completely oblivious to the fact that I can't hear a damn thing over the turbines.
- jstalin 13y agoI wonder what an EMP would do to it.
- disc 13y agoModern warships are designed for EMP threats. It's mentioned in MIL-STD-464.
- X4 13y agowow, I didn't know that! That's really crazy.
- stcredzero 13y agoMilitary spec processors are specially made to be "hardened" against that kind of thing. Back in the late 90's military spec Intel chips were almost one chip generation behind consumer cpus, but the packaging was considerably different. EDIT: In the competition between EMP nuclear weapons and Faraday cages, Faraday cages win. They're fundamentally cheaper tech.
- polskibus 13y agowhere's the source code though?
- claudius 13y agoYou get it when you buy one, I’d presume.
- hrjet 13y agoWhich means every tax payer should have access to it?
- teddyh 13y agoWell, submit a FOIA request for it and see what happens.
- outworlder 13y agoUnless it is GPL 3 with it's anti-tivoization clause, you get nothing. Either that, or we'd need a GPL 4 with an anti-warship clause.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> Unless it is GPL 3 with it's anti-tivoization clause, you get nothing. Warships are pretty clearly in the non-consumer market that is expressly excepted from the GPL v3 anti-tivoization clause.
- TallGuyShort 13y agoMore accurately, you get it when one is distributed to you and you request it.
- makerops 13y agoWas curious as to who the ship was named after: "As the coffin passed each SEAL, they slapped down the gold Trident each had removed from his own uniform and deeply embedded it into the wooden coffin. For nearly 30 minutes the slaps were audible from across the cemetery as nearly every SEAL on the West Coast repeated the act.[8]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Monsoor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Monsoor
- reustle 13y agoAnd here is a picture of the coffin [1] [1] http://storiesofusa.com/images/us-navy-seal-michael-monsoor-casket.jpg http://storiesofusa.com/images/us-navy-seal-michael-monsoor-...
- mrbill 13y agoAnd a video of them doing so - start at 8:45. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfK2BQCIIes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfK2BQCIIes
- auctiontheory 13y agoIt's James "A." Kirk. Boo hiss. Source: http://www.public.navy.mil/surfor/ddg1000/Pages/bio1.aspx#.UmFwfmRAT8k http://www.public.navy.mil/surfor/ddg1000/Pages/bio1.aspx#.U...
- njharman 13y agoAn improvement in OS choice over http://gcn.com/articles/1998/07/13/software-glitches-leave-navy-smart-ship-dead-in-the-water.aspx http://gcn.com/articles/1998/07/13/software-glitches-leave-n...
- backprojection 13y agoI don't know if my perspective is just so heavily biased or impractical at this point, but I'm almost embarrassed that my country's Navy would use windows for such a critical system.
- anigbrowl 13y agoI always find this phrase 'powered by...' a bit sad when used in relation to computer software. I'm pretty sure the ship is powered by a large diesel engine or a small nuclear reactor. It's managed or controlled by Linux...well, technically via Linux but that's beside the point. A trivial objection, but I don't care for my news reporting to read like a breathless press release complete with meaningless marketing-speak.
- rjohnk 13y agoI get your point, but that's just semantics. You go down on the list of definitions in Webster and you could find that "power" means exactly what the Title eludes.
- anigbrowl 13y agoI'm coming to the conclusion that when citing a dictionary or other reference work, the probability of an unforced language error in the same sentence asymptotically approaches 1.
- Zancarius 13y agoI think semantic disputes in Internet discussions are slowly starting to overtake Godwin's law in terms of likelihood.
- saraid216 13y agoBut it's not actually Linux that's managing or controlling the ship. It's Linux that's managing or controlling the software that's actually managing or controlling the ship. I mean, if we're getting into a semantic argument.
- anigbrowl 13y agoUltimately, ship is being managed/controlled by humans, for the time being. But I take your point, this is why I mentioned 'via Linux'.
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- jdubs 13y agoA few software licenses restrict the use of software in use of nuclear weapons & other WMD. I'm sure this vessel is capable of launching nuclear weapons, but it makes me wonder if the government will honor those license agreements or even if they were apart of the consideration.
- azernik 13y agoWhich licenses exactly? I've never seen such a clause, and I'm pretty sure it would be against the FSF's definition of Free Software, and definitely against the OSI's definition of Open Source.
- btown 13y agoI recall that there was a Java reference site that was highly ranked on Google that placed all of its examples under such a license.
- claudius 13y agoWhile some software has such strange licenses, most ‘free’ software is truly free and e.g. Debian even makes it a strict requirement for inclusion that there are no restrictions on how software can be used. So I’d say the question whether the USG will honour such licenses is somewhat moot, as there is plenty of software around without such restrictions.
- antsar 13y ago> The CDS workstation uses common USB interfaces for its peripheral devices (such as trackballs and specialized button panels) This could open up some interesting potential vulnerabilities, but I'm assuming/hoping that they've thought of that.
- wslh 13y agoImagine a science fiction story where someone introduces a backdoor in the Linux kernel or in some known command...
- VladRussian2 13y agofirst episode of [modern] Battlestar Galactica.
- Amadou 13y agoAnybody remember the USS Yorktown? The one that ran Windows NT 4.0 and had the apocryphal story about blue-screening and having to be towed back to shore? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_%28CG-48%29#Smart_ship_testbed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_%28CG-48%29#Smart...
- hackula1 13y agoI can see it from my window as I type this over the Charleston Harbor :)
- wnevets 13y agoFrom your link: In 3 August 1998 issue of Government Computer News, a retraction by DiGiorgio was published. He claims the reporter altered his statements, and insists that he did not claim the Yorktown was towed into Norfolk. GCN stands by its story.[7] Atlantic Fleet officials also denied the towing, reporting that Yorktown was "dead in the water" for just 2 hours and 45 minutes.[6] Captain Richard Rushton, commanding officer of Yorktown at the time of the incident, also denied that the ship had to be towed back to port, stating that the ship returned under its own power.[8] Even though the problem was caused by programming error in the Remote Data Base Manager application and not by problems with the operating system itself, criticism of operating system choice ensued. Ron Redman, deputy technical director of the Fleet Introduction Division of the Aegis Program Executive Office, said there have been numerous software failures associated with NT aboard the Yorktown.
- stcredzero 13y agoI've also read that NT 4 servers on AEGIS cruisers once had to be rebooted weekly.
- astrodust 13y agoThis was to avoid the bug in NT where the servers, if they hadn't crashed already, would crash for sure at the 49.7 day mark. This bug took down air traffic control computers: http://news.techworld.com/operating-systems/2275/microsoft-server-crash-nearly-causes-800-plane-pile-up/ http://news.techworld.com/operating-systems/2275/microsoft-s...
- lispm 13y agoWonderful, just what the US needs: more weapons.
- dhimes 13y agoThis is the year of the Linux warship.
- Nux 13y agoGuess it's not first time when Linux facilitates mass murder and misery, or of course, ahem national defense. What a shame. GPL should have a clause "do no evil".
- rosser 13y agoThe GPL will never have a "do no evil" clause. Such a thing is un-enforceable, and directly conflicts with "Freedom 0". For example, the JSON license is deemed to be non-Free by the FSF because "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil." Source: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#JSON https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#JSON
- vacri 13y agoSuch a clause is trivial to get around, and is exactly how the US argues for its massive military budget: "This is for defense, not offense. Therefore good". Who do you then appeal to in order to stop them?
- chatman 13y agoWow, what a surprise!!! Incredibly surprising, but you know what, even most mobile phones and most servers in the world are powered by Linux too!! Jokes apart, almost any organization or commercial project out there which requires a new OS to be built from scratch prefer to use the Linux kernel.
- ck2 13y agoHopefully it will reduce the cost, albeit slightly. Why exactly do we need so many warships and aircraft carriers? I mean what exactly are we doing with thirteen aircraft carriers that cost a small fortune to run?
- rayiner 13y agoBecause the ocean is big and we want to be able to dominate all the key areas of it.
- grecy 13y agoNeed to find a way to use up the excess produced in this world. You could just dig big ditches in the ground and dump lots of new goods in there, but the general public wouldn't get behind that the same way they do a war.
- mpyne 13y ago10 aircraft carriers, not 13 (though it will be 11 again in a couple years). The reason extends from matters of strategic planning though. Carriers provide "power projection" capabilities to about 90% of the populated earth. Power projection is inherently needed for the DoD planning assumptions (which are now, IIRC, to be able to fight and win 1 major conflict while responding to at least one other military contigency). The expected military requirements for those worst-case plans probably involve having at least 3-4 carriers. However, this is a worst case plan, which means those 3-4 carriers must be available, and on station (or nearby to respond), at all times. When you include the requirement to maintain/repair/overhaul the vessels, handle training periods for embarked aircrew, training and certification workup periods for the embarked ship's crew, you quickly end up multiplying the ship count you need by at least 3-4. In this case when they crunched the number I believe that they came to 9-10 to handle defense requirements. And then Congress told them to keep an 11th carrier anyways...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Scramblejams 13y ago
- mpyne 13y agoThe Navy has actually used Linux within warships for awhile now (via its defense contractors). The boat I served on a few years ago used Linux for at least two different subsystems. And before Linux they've used UNIX so it's not as if the Navy is completely new to all this.
- chris_wot 13y agoTo hell with Linux, the US Military use CORBA?
- platz 13y agoThat's the real story here. The military has control of the allowed corba implementations so they don't suffer from different runtimes, and get all the typed benefits and speed benefits.
- FrojoS 13y agoI once heard that the Navy has a electronics phobia and relies as much as possible on mechanical and physical human control because EMP (e.g. du atomic bombs) are such a big thread. Maybe this is untrue or only true for key vessels like air craft carries. Does anyone know?
- INTPenis 13y agoWell it's more likely a mix of both. That is to say, if your computer crashes you should always have a manual backup.
- mpyne 13y agoI wouldn't say a phobia, as much as an acknowledgment that historical experience has shown that electrical-type facilities are the most susceptible to damage, and that the conversion from analog electrical to digital electronic didn't always help matters. I've served on a ship where we had to keep a "fake" target entered into the fire control system at all times, since it would crash if the last target was dropped. That system was our only interface to the torpedoes, so in that scenario we'd be left in the situation of having to wait minutes for the system to reboot before we could launch weapons again. Peacetime or not, it's not a good feeling. Top all of that with the fact that we have to survive damage from accidents and casualties and not just battle damage. E.g. what happens if a fire breaks out in the port turbine generator and fries the connector wires to the solenoid for an important valve needed to control ship's list and trim? Without the possibility of manual backups we'd possibly be in for a very bad time. The Navy has a lot of experience with how the oceans and the enemy will conspire against a ship. However well you design your circuits, it's still better to have something available which always Just Works.
- tytso 13y agoThe Zumwalt is using Real-Time Java, using a JVM from IBM that has an incremental GC with real-time guarantees (unlike the real-time Java spec, which essentially works by disabling the GC for real-time threads, so their NonHeapRealTime threads were essentially an architected memory leak). IBM's Real-Time Java, with their real-time Metronome GC, is running on real-time Linux, for which I was the tech lead at the IBM Linux Technology Center. It was a fun project; since we were able to use the real-time Linux code base which Ingo Molnar and Stephen Rostedt worked on upstream, we spent most of our time stablizing the patches, and fed quite a few patches back upstream to get it into a production-ready state. Anyway, we had 50 microsecond interrupt and scheduler latency using real-time Linux, which allowed millisecond level real-time guarantees using garbage collected java threads.
- VladRussian2 13y ago>which allowed millisecond level real-time guarantees using garbage collected java threads. an anti-ship missile at 2 Mach would move 0.7m during an ms and it wouldn't be a lateral move - sounds like Java has reached the level of getting into fire control systems :)