> Is there documentation that discusses this package from the security > perspective? The benefits of having it in place are obvious. What I > require is documentation that says no one can modify the configuration > because it has not been assigned an IP address or something of that > nature.
As far as I know, no one has conducted a formal evaluation of the SSL Enabler appliance system yet, and I don't remember any explicit commentary in the IBM security reviews on SSLSERV (but my memory is not what it used to be, I'm afraid). There is commentary in the IBM TCPIP documentation (in the planning and administration guide) on SSLSERV and how it operates, and the installation README file inside the RPM describes at what point the IP stack in the Linux guest is rendered non-functional. After that point, it's pretty tough to change *anything* in that guest without access to the virtual machine console (which would be covered by your VM security package) and even then, you'd have to be comfortable with line-mode editing tools at an unusually capable level. The number of people with Unix experience on real TTYs is not growing...8-) I suspect that to get a formal security confirmation from IBM you would need to move to a SuSE or RH based SSLSERV, as that's what they've evaluated. I'd be happy to work with IBM to get that confirmation for the SSL Enabler appliance, if there's interest. I think there would be a lot of value to cooperatively developing things like this with IBM if the prohibition of IBM being a Linux distributor continues. I know I have a wish list of changes I'd make to the SSLSERV code if I could tweak that OCO module's contents. If either RH or Novell are interested in working on appliances like this with us, please contact us offline. I suspect there is a good opportunity here to gain mindshare for a distributor (with proper credit, of course). -- db
