Actually, to my knowledge, only a few US Army servers have moved. If you
have more information or statistics, I would be interested.
http://www.maccentral.com/news/0003/15.army.shtml
Granted, NT has vulnerabilities. Many of them. But I think the point is
being missed here. The new Mac OS X will have a UNIX command shell and
sendmail with it (albeit the command shell is not 'on' be default.
"The system�s kernel, which does the heavy lifting to support all those rich
applications, is based on Mach 3.0 from Carnegie-Mellon University and
FreeBSD 3.2 (derived from the University of California at Berkeley�s BSD
4.4-Lite), the most highly regarded core technologies from two of the most
widely acclaimed OS projects of the modern era. We also took the famous
Apache web server�which runs over half the websites on the Internet�and made
it friendly enough to use on your desktop for personal file sharing."
http://www.apple.com/macosx/inside.html
It is still vulnerable to stack overflows, etc. like any other UNIX system.
See:
http://www.anticode.com/
The Mac is still in very limited use as a server platform, having been years
behind NT and UNIX in getting to market. In fact, it is not even their own
technology, but existing technology repackaged as a new OS (see above).
There just have not been that many people trying to hack sites running this
server. You can, for all intents and purposes, "lock down" an NT box. As
with any complex operating system, as you add more functionality to the
systems they get increasing hard to secure. Many factors govern this, not
just the OS. It could be that the Army web master(s) were not competent in
'locking down' their server (nothing personal intended).
The Army is still reviewing their possible choices. Keep in mind the 'Army'
has many servers in many locations, so saying the "Army" is changing is very
misleading (again, unless there is a new, credible, press release out there
attesting to this).
It seems to me that many of the "Mac" people are very defensive. Maybe that
is because Apple is many years behind in their server development. I have no
bias either way, though I do understand and am more comfortable with PC's.
In fact, it is Mac's limited tool set and configurability (at least in the
past) that kept it from gaining wider acceptance. In past military, then
private and now academic environments I have had to work with and support
both PC, UNIX and Mac platforms. I have worked through many of the myths of
all of them. They all have there uses. Until there are many more sites
running the Mac OS X, I will reserve judgement as to it's invulnerability to
attack/exploit.
Working here I see many different Mac's and hear a bunch of the Mac
evangelizing. Kind of funny really. Believe me, they burp, hiccup and, well,
you know, just like other machines.
I will concede that, at present, it sounds like a really nice server.
Some questions reflecting my ignorance here.
How many actually running Mac OS X servers are out there running on the
internet open to the world (not boxes shipped/licensed)? I co-founded a
fairly large (200+ people) software company and am familiar with the "xxx
packages installed" marketing line.
What are they running in terms of having to open up the system? You can lock
down almost any server if you pull off enough services, etc. It is then a
matter of what functionality is lost.
Other thoughts?
Anyway,
Gary McNeel, Jr.
Project Manager - DAC-Net, Research & Graduate Studies
Rice University - Houston
[Lovett Hall] 713-348-6266 (Primary)
[DAC] 713-348-5184
[M] 713-962-0885
[H] 713-723-9240
"The politicians don't just want your money. They want your soul. They want
you to be worn down by taxes until you are dependent and helpless. When you
subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both."
-James Dale Davidson
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Larry C. Lyons [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2000 10:14 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Will the last person leaving Cold Fusion please turn out
> the lights?
>
>
> The Mac is dead as a server platform? While obviously not as popular as
> NT/2000, Mac servers suffer none of the gross security holes that NT/2000
> has. Remember that the US Army has decided to move towards the Mac web
> server system for those same reasons.
>
> --
> Larry C. Lyons
> EBStor.com
> 8870 Rixlew Lane, Suite 201
> Manassas, Virginia 20109-3795
> tel: (703) 393-7930 x253
> fax: (703) 393-2659
> http://www.ebstor.com
> http://www.pacel.com
> email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Chaos, panic, and disorder - my work here is done.
> --
> "Reuben King" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Abe V. S.
> >
> > If I was going to go for a non-CF solution, I'd look to Java, Perl, PHP,
> > JSP, et al.. Web Objects is dead as dead and the Mac as a server
> > platform... well, I won't go there. 99% of the rest of the IT world
> > wouldn't go there either.
> >
>
>
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