Performance
These publications represent contributions by members of the IBM Linux Technology Center to the development community in the area of performance.
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| Sep 2009 | SOA Performance on Linux (PDF, 725KB) IBM has defined five service-oriented architecture (SOA) Foundation entry points to help businesses get started with SOA. This paper examines SOA performance with Linux by focusing on performance tuning for Web services (Reuse entry point), service mediations (Connectivity entry point), and business processes (Process entry point) in the Linux environment. The paper also provides some discussion about the SOA People and Information entry points. |
| Sep 2009 | SOA Performance on Linux: Process Entry Point (PDF, 566KB) This paper examines how to tune hardware, Linux, WebSphere, and DB2 components to improve performance for hosting business processes implemented in Business Process Execution Language (BPEL). The paper also evaluates the impact of server virtualization and dynamic operations that are supported by WebSphere Virtual Enterprise on the performance of business processes in the Linux environment. |
| Jun 2009 | SOA Performance on Linux: Services and Reuse Entry Point (PDF, 997KB) This paper examines the impact of several parameters and features of the WebSphere Application Server (WAS) and Linux on the performance of Web services found in a typical SOA application, as well as how to tune WAS and Linux to improve performance for Web services hosted on x86 and POWER platforms. |
| Jun 2009 | SOA Performance on Linux: Connectivity Entry Point (PDF, 351KB) This paper examines the transformation and routing service mediations, which can be performed on service requests and responses between clients and Web servers in a typical SOA application, and how to tune WebSphere and Linux to improve performance for these service mediations. |
File Systems and Storage Publications
The publications on this page represent contributions by members of the IBM Linux Technology Center to the development community in the area of file systems and storage.
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| Mar 2006 | "A Linux Software RAID Tutorial" (PDF, 353KB) A presentation by Dustin Kirkland at LWE Boston on the usage RAID in the Linux environment. |
| Aug 2003 | "Using the Samba Test Suite" (PDF, 26.8KB) Andrew Tridgell presented this paper at the 2003 CIFS Conference. "Active Directory Domain Controller Location Service" (PDF, 134KB) Anthony Liguori presented this paper at the 2003 CIFS Conference. "Towards Full Coverage Testing" (PDF, 33.5KB) Jim Myers and Andrew Tridgell presented this paper at the 2003 CIFS Conference. "Open CIFS - Advanced Linux/Unix Network Protocol Semantics" (PDF, 266KB) Steve French presented this paper at the 2003 CIFS Conference. |
| Jan 2003 | "IBM's Journaled Filesystem" (link resides outside of ibm.com) Written by Steve Best, David Gordon, and Ibrahim Haddad. Published in the Linux Journal. Read the article. |
Kernel Publications
The publications on this page represent contributions by members of the IBM Linux Technology Center to the development community in the area of kernels.
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| Dec 2006 | "Sleepable Read-Copy Update" (PDF, 220KB) Originally published on Linux Weekly News (LWN), this article by Paul E. McKenney describes RCU and the Sleepable RCU implementation. Read the article. |
| Jul 2006 | "Charting the Performance of Linux in a Virtual World" (PDF, 108KB) An overview of virtualization in Linux and the scalability of the Xen hypervisor presented at the 2006 Ottawa Linux Symposium. Read the presentation. "Extending RCU for Realtime and Embedded Workloads" (PDF, 94.3KB) An overview and presentation for the 2006 Ottawa Linux Symposium on Linux Realtime capabilities and recent improvements. Read the presentation. "Shared Subtree Concept and Implementation and Applications in the Linux Kernel" (PDF, 2.13KB) A presentation for the 2006 Ottawa Linux Symposium (OLS) on shared subtree concept and implementation and applications in the Linux kernel. Read the presentation. "Towards a Highly Adaptable Filesystem Framework for Linux" (PDF, 126KB) Discussion and presentation for the 2006 Ottawa Linux Symposium (OLS) on the methods for improved flexibility in file system design. Read the presentation and view the slides (PDF, 113KB). |
| Feb 2006 | "Generic RDMA Enablement in Linux" (PDF, 75.4KB) A presentation by Krishna Kumar given at LWE Boston that explains what RDMA is and why it should be used. Read the presentation. |
| Apr 2006 | "Demystifying the Kernel Bootstrap Process" (PDF, 165KB) A presentation by Claudia Salzberg given at LWE Boston that highlights the multiple levels of the bootstrap process and explains the purpose of each of the levels. Read the presentation. |
| Mar 2006 (updated) | "Memory Ordering in Modern Microprocessors" (PDF, 167KB) Linux Journal paper written by Paul E. McKenney. Read the paper. |
| Feb 2006 | "Linux Realtime Response: Challenges in Making Linux Ready for Real Time Computing" (PDF, 415KB) Presented at the First Workshop on Real Time, Interactive and Digital Media Supercomputing (RIDMS-1), part of the 12th International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture by Paul E. McKenney. Read the presentation. |
| October 2005 | "Linux Realtime Response: The CONFIG_PREEMPT Patch Set" (PDF, 277KB) Seminar to the Department of Computer Science at Oregon State University by Paul E. McKenney. Read the presentation. |
| Aug 2005 | "Linux Realtime Response: Challenges in Making Linux Ready for Real Time Computing" (PDF, 415KB) Presented at the First Workshop on Real Time, Interactive and Digital Media Supercomputing (RIDMS-1), part of the 12th International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture by Paul E. McKenney. Read the presentation. |
| October 2005 | "Linux Realtime Response: The CONFIG_PREEMPT Patch Set" (PDF, 277KB) Seminar to the Department of Computer Science at Oregon State University by Paul E. McKenney. Read the presentation. |
| Aug 2005 | "Shrinking slices: Looking at real time for Linux, PowerPC, and Cell" A developerWorks interview with Paul E. McKenney, Distinguished Engineer, IBM Linux Technology Center. Read the article. |
| Jul 2005 | "Abstraction, Reality Checks, and RCU" (PDF, 541KB) RCU (Read-Copy Update) presentation given at the University of Toronto by Paul McKenney. Read the presentation. |
| Apr 2005 | "Linux Kernel Scalability: Using the Right Tool for the Job" (PDF, 1.10MB) This tutorial reviews performance trends in CPU architecture, covers various Linux kernel primitives, and outlines four likely system-architecture scenarios with varying degrees of parallelism. Presented by Paul McKenney at the 2005 linux.conf.au. Read the presentation. "Towards Hard Realtime Response from the Linux Kernel" (PDF, 169KB) This paper describes the changes required to permit realtime processes to execute normal Linux system calls without degrading the realtime response provided to other realtime processes running on the same CPU, and provides detailed realtime-response comparisons. Presented by Paul McKenney at the 2005 linux.conf.au. Read the paper and presentation (PDF, 319KB). |
| Jan 2005 | "RCU Semantics: A First Attempt" (PDF, 122KB) An RCU (read-copy update) semantics whitepaper by Paul E. McKenney, IBM, and Jonathan Walpole, Portland State University. Read the whitepaper. |
| Jul 2004 | "udev- Managing Linux Device Names In Userspace" (link resides outside of ibm.com) Presented by Greg Kroah-Hartman at the 2004 O'Reilly Open Source Convention. Read the presentation. "struct kref - reference counting made easy" (link resides outside of ibm.com) Presented by Greg Kroah-Hartman at the 2004 Ottawa Linux Symposium. Read the presentation. "Linux Kernel Patch Flow" (link resides outside of ibm.com) Presented by Greg Kroah-Hartman at the 2004 Ottawa Linux Symposium. Read the presentation. "kobjects and krefs - lockless reference counting for kernel structures" (PDF, 33KB) Presented by Greg Kroah-Hartman at the 2004 Ottawa Linux Symposium. Read the PDF. "Making RCU Safe for Deep Sub-Millisecond Response Realtime Applications" (PDF, 125KB) Written by Paul E. McKenney and Dipankar Sarma. Presented at the 2004 USENIX Tech conference. Read the white paper PDF. "Linux 2.6 performance improvement through readahead optimization" (PDF, 303KB) Presented by Ram Pai, Badari Pulavarty, and Mingming Cao at the 2004 Ottawa Linux Symposium. Read the presentation. Read the white paper. (PDF, 302KB) "Trusted Path Execution for the Linux 2.6 Kernel as a Linux Security Module" (PDF, 146KB) Presented by Niki Rahimi at the 2004 USENIX Tech confe. Read the PDF. |
| May 2004 | "Network Related Improvements in the 2.6 Linux Kernel" (PDF, 813KB) Presented by Robbie Williamson at the IBM Mulitcultural People In Technology conference. Read the presentation. |
| Feb 2004 | "HOWTO use udev to manage /dev" (PDF, 13KB) Greg Kroah-Hartman has published this HOWTO describing how to set up udev on Fedora Core 1. This may be adopted to other distributions. Read the PDF. "Kernel comparison: Improvements in kernel development from 2.4 to 2.6" Paul Larson takes a look behind the scenes at the tools, tests, and techniques -- from revision control and regression testing to bugtracking and list keeping -- that helped make 2.6 a better kernel than any that have come before it. Read the article "Kernel comparison: Web serving on 2.4 and 2.6" Written by Li Ge and published on IBM developerWorks. This article presents results from the IBM Linux Technology Center's Web serving testing efforts, comparing various aspects of the Linux 2.4 and 2.6 kernels. Highlighted here are the key enhancements in the 2.6 kernel, the test methodologies, and the results of the tests themselves. Read the article. |
| Jan 2004 | "Linux 2.6 Performance in the Corporate Data Center" (PDF, 2.91MB) Presented by Mary Edie Meredith (OSDL) and Duc Vianney (LTC) at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo 2004 in New York. Read the presentaion. "Libsysfs - a programming interface to gather device information in Linux" (PDF, 1.10MB) Written by Ananth N. Mavinakayanahalli and Daniel Stekloff. Presented at Linux.conf.au 2004. Read the presentaion. Read the PDF. (159KB) "RCU vs. Locking Performance on Different CPUs" (PDF, 669KB) Written by Paul E. McKenney and presented at the 2004 Linux.conf.au conference. Read the presentation. Read the presentation PDF (151KB). "Scaling dcache with RCU" (link resides outside of ibm.com) Written by Paul McKenney, Dipankar Sarma and Maneesh Soni for the Linux Journal. Read the article. |
| Dec 2003 | "Putting Linux reliability to the test" This article documents the test results and analysis of the Linux kernel and other core OS components, including everything from libraries and device drivers to file systems and networking, all under some fairly adverse conditions, and over lengthy durations. The IBM Linux Technology Center has just finished this comprehensive testing over a period of more than three months and shares the results of their LTP (Linux Test Project) testing. Read the article. |
| Oct 2003 | "Using RCU in the Linux 2.5 Kernel" (link resides outside of ibm.com) Written by Paul E. McKenney. Published in the Linux Journal. Read the article. |
| Jun 2003 | "Using RCU Techniques for SysV IPC in Linux 2.5" (PDF, 43KB) Written by Paul E. McKenney, Andrea Arcangeli, Mingming Cao, and Dipankar Sarma. Presented by Paul at the 2003 USENIX Tech conference. Read the presentation. Read the white paper (PDF, 98KB). "Inside the Linux kernel debugger" Hariprasad Nellitheertha discusses how to install and use the Linux kernel debugger (KDB). Read the article. |
| May 2003 | "Process Scheduling in Linux 2.5" (TAR.GZ, 562KB) Presented by Rick Lindsley at Oregon State University. This talk examined recent work in the scheduler for 2.5. It compared the 2.4 scheduler with the new O(1) scheduler and discussed both problems the new scheduler solved, and problems it introduced. Rick highlighted work underway and work to be done, including, in a very general form, some interesting results and conclusions that were only a few weeks old. Download tar.gz. |
| Apr 2003 | "The State of 2.5 Linux" (TAR.GZ, 373KB) Presented by Rick Lindsley at Pacific Northwest National Laboratories. This talk examined what has been happening in Linux 2.5 over the last year. It highlighted some of the work done in 2.5, touched on the items which were (at the time) considered must-fix by the community, and offered an opportunity to explain some new features and "gotchas" now in 2.5. Download tar.gz. |
| Jan 2003 | "Putting a filesystem into a device driver" (link resides outside of ibm.com) Presented by Greg Kroah-Hartman at Linux.conf.au 2003. Read the presentation. "Hyper-Threading speeds Linux" Written by Duc Vianney, Ph. D. for IBM developerWorks. Read the article. "Improving Linux kernel performance and scalability" Written by Sandra K. Johnson (IBM), William H. Hartner (IBM), William C. Brantley (AMD) for IBM developerWorks. Read the article. |
Linux on POWER Publications
The publications on this page represent contributions by members of the IBM Linux Technology Center to the development community in the area of Linux on POWER.
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| Apr 2006 | "Virtualizing the Linux Environment on POWER Systems" (PDF, 318KB) A presentation on the advantages of POWER virtualization given by Ron Gordon at LWE Boston. Read the presentation. "Mission Critcial Workloads" (PDF, 2.30MB) A presentation by Ron Gordon given at LWE Boston that describes the features of Linux on POWER. Read the presentation. |
Networking Publications
The publications on this page represent contributions by members of the IBM Linux Technology Center to the development community in the area of networking.
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| Aug 2004 | "Testing MSRPC" (PDF, 59KB) Presented by Andrew Tridgell at the 2004 SNIA CIFS conference. Read PDF. "Advances in the Samba Testsuite" (PDF, 59KB) Presented by Andrew Tridgell at the 2004 SNIA CIFS conference. Read PDF. "Network Security and CIFS" (PDF, 2.30MB) Presented by Steve French at the 2004 SNIA CIFS conference. Read PDF. |
| Feb 2004 | "Enabling the IBM Linux WristWatch as an Embedded Mobile Node in IPv6 Networks" (PDF, 222KB) Written by Venkata Jagana, Mandayam Raghunath, Krishna Kumar, and Elizabeth Kon. Presented at the FOSDEM 2004 conference. Read PDF. |
| Aug 2002 | "Exploring the Boundaries of the CIFS Protocol" (8.48MB) Steve French presented this paper at the 2002 CIFS Conference. Read PDF. |
| Mar 2002 | "SNIA CIFS Documentation Work Group" (PDF, 106KB) Presented by Steven French at Connectathon 2002. Read PDF. "A Next Generation CIFS Client" (466KB) Presented at Connectathon 2002 by Steven French. Read PDF. |
Quality Assurance Publications
The publications on this page represent contributions by members of the IBM Linux Technology Center to the development community in the area of quality assurance.
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| Aug 2004 | "Kernel debugging with Kprobes" Written by Prasanna S. Panchamukhi and published on IBM developerWorks. Read the article. |
RAS Publications
The publications on this page represent contributions by members of the IBM Linux® Technology Center to the development community on the topic of Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability (RAS).
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| Jul 2005 | "Locating system problems using dynamic instrumentation" (PDF, 628KB) SystemTAP is being developed to dynamically instrument the kernel and user applications. This paper and presentation provide details of the SystemTAP architecture and implementation. Presented at the 2005 Ottawa Linux Symposium, and co-authored by IBM, Red Hat, and Intel. Read the presentation. Read the paper. (PDF, 180KB) "Kdump, A Kexec-based kernel crash dumping mechanism" (PDF, 502KB) This paper and presentation discuss what kexec is and what it can do. Presented at the 2005 Ottawa Linux Symposium, and written by Vivek Goyal, IBM; Eric W. Biederman, Linux NetworkX; and Hariprasad Nellitheertha, IBM. Read the presentation PDF. Read the paper PDF. (PDF, 76KB) |
| Jan 2003 | "Dynamic Probes - Debugging by Stealth" (PDF, 253KB) Presented by Suparna Bhattacharya at Linux.Conf.Au 2003. Read the presentation. |
| Oct 2002 | "Linux on IBM zSeries and S/390: High Availability for z/VM and Linux" A Redpaper published by Erich Amrehn, Ronald Annuss, Bernhard Dierberger, Richard Plasun, and U. Sager. Read the Redpaper. |
| Sep 2002 | "Dynamic Probes and Linux Trace Toolkit" (PDF, 20KB) Paper describing how to use these two tools together. Written by Michael Grundy, Theresa Halloran, and Karin Laeben. Read the paper. |
| Jan 2002 | "Dynamic Probes for Linux" (PDF, 135KB) Discussion of the DProbes project. Presented at LinuxWorld Expo by Richard Moore. Read the presentation. "Implementing HA Servers on Linux" (PDF, 406) Presented at LinuxWorld Expo by Alan Robertson. Read the presentation. "LKCD Installation and Configuration" (PDF, 255KB) Discussion of the Linux Kernel Crash Dump project. Presented by Ross Mikosh. Read the lesson. |
Security Publications
The publications on this page represent contributions by members of the IBM Linux® Technology Center to the development community on the topic of Linux security.
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| Dec 2008 | "LTC Security Brochure" (PDF, 753KB) LTC Security Brochure Read the Brochure. |
| Nov 2008 | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 EAL4 High-Level Design Version 1.0.1 (PDF, 3MB) This document is the High Level Design (HLD) for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Server Version 5 operating system. The document summarizes the design and Target of Evaluation Security Functions of the RHEL 5 operating system. Used within the Common Criteria evaluation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux at Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 4 it describes the security functions defined in the Common Criteria Security Target document. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1 EAL4 High-Level Design Version 1.2.1 (PDF, 2.94MB) This document is the High Level Design (HLD) for the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) Version 10 Service Pack 1 operating system. The document summarizes the design and Target of Evaluation Security Functions of the SLES 10 SP1 operating system. Used within the Common Criteria evaluation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server at Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 4 it describes the security functions defined in the Common Criteria Security Target document. |
| Aug 2008 | "Enabling Business through SELinux" (PPT, 935KB) LinuxWorld 2008 presentation by Doc Shankar. Read the presentation. |
| Mar 2008 | "Choosing the Right Platform for Trusted Cross-Platform Information Sharing" (PDF, 141KB) IDC White Paper by Shawn P. McCarthy. Read the paper. |
| Nov 2007 | "The Financial Benefits of Mandatory Access Control Security" (PDF, 196KB) IBM White Paper. Read the paper. |
| Jul 2007 | "Security Target and Evaluated Configuration Guides for RHEL5 for CAPP, RBAC and LSPP Compliance" (PDF, 1.37MB) Security Target and Evaluated Configuration Guides evaluating the security characteristics of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Client operating system. Read the security target and configuration guides (PDF, 301KB). |
| Mar 2007 | "Extending Linux for Multi-Level Security" (PDF, 171KB) A paper originally presented at the SELinux Symposium that explores the evolution, rationale, and development of features to meet the Labeled Security Protection Profile (LSPP) and Role-Based Access Control Protection Profile (RBACPP) by George Wilson and Loulwa Salem from IBM LTC Security Development and Klaus Weidner, ATSEC Information Security Corporation. Read the paper. |
| Dec 2006 | "Enabling Government and Business Transformation with Mandatory Access Control Security" (DOC, 546KB) IBM White Paper. Read the paper. |
| Aug 2006 | "Linux as a Trusted Operating System: A Secure and Cost-Effective Choice for Government Systems" (PDF, 185KB) IDC White Paper by Shawn P. McCarthy. Read the paper. "IBM Linux Security Direction & Activities" (PDF, 75KB) A presentation for the San Francisco Linux World Expo on Linux Security covering new options and Tivoli Security Management solutions. Read the presentation. "Trusted Linux Overview" (PDF, 185KB) This overview of Linux Security was presented by Doc Shankar at LWE Boston 2006. Read the paper. |
| Feb 2006 | "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 1 EAL4 High Level Design, Version 2.13" (PDF, 2.45MB) This document is the High Level Design (HLD) for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server (RHEL AS) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Work Station (RHEL WS) Version 4 Update 1 operating system. This document summarizes the design and Target of Evaluation Security Functions of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system. Used within the Common Criteria evaluation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux at Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 4 it describes the security functions defined in the Common Criteria Security Target document. Read the document. |
| Feb 2006 | "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 1 EAL4 High Level Design, Version 2.13" (PDF, 2.45MB) This document is the High Level Design (HLD) for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server (RHEL AS) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Work Station (RHEL WS) Version 4 Update 1 operating system. This document summarizes the design and Target of Evaluation Security Functions of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system. Used within the Common Criteria evaluation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux at Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 4 it describes the security functions defined in the Common Criteria Security Target document. Read the document. "Red Hat Enterprise Linux Functional Specification" (PDF, 172KB) This Functional Specification for Red Hat Linux Enterprise 4 Update 1 AS and WS is a collection of tables that document the system calls, packages, programs, database files, and package documentation that pertain to the Target of Evaluation. Read the document. "CAPP EAL4 Evaluated Configuration Guide for Red Hat Enterprise Linux on IBM hardware" (PDF, 180) The CAPP EAL4 Evaluated Configuration Guide for Red Hat Enterprise Linux on IBM hardware is a security guide that explains how to set up the evaluated configuration, and provides information to administrators and ordinary users to ensure secure operation of the system. Read the document. "Red Hat Enterprise Linux Version 4 Update 1 Security Target for CAPP Compliance" (PDF, 517KB) Red Hat Enterprise Linux Version 4 Update 1 Security Target for CAPP Compliance is the security target for the CC evaluation of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS Version 4 Update 1 operating system product, and is conformant to the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation (CC) with extensions as defined in the Controlled Access Protection Profile (CAPP). Read the document. |
| Aug 2005 | "eCryptfs: An Enterprise-class Cryptographic Filesystem for Linux" (PDF, 553MB) This paper describes the eCryptfs architecture and functionality. Written by Michael Halcrow. Read the paper. "Trusted Computing and Linux" (PDF, 60KB) This paper describes Trusted Computing and the components required to make a trusted operating system. Written by Kylene Hall, Tom Lendacky, Emily Ratliff, and Kent Yoder. Read the paper. |
| Feb 2005 | "SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) V9 High Level Design 3.16" (PDF, 1.54MB) The SLES High Level Design summarizes the design and the security functions of SLES 9 as they pertain to the Common Criteria evaluation of SLES 9 at the Evaluation Assurance Level 4 (EAL4). Read the PDF. "SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) V9 Functional Spec" (PDF, 277KB) The Functional Specification is a collection of tables that document the system calls, packages, programs, database files and package documentation that pertain to the Target of Evaluation. Read the PDF. "SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) V9 Security Target for CAPP Compliance" (PDF, 605KB) The Security Target defines the scope of the Target of Evaluation and indicates what functional and assurance security is offered by the TOE. Read the PDF. "Common Criteria EAL4+ Evaluated Configuration Guide for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) on IBM Hardware" (PDF, 201KB) The Configuration Guide is a security guide that explains how to set up the evaluated configuration, and provides information to administrators and ordinary users to ensure secure operation of the system. Read the PDF. |
| Nov 2004 | "DigSig: Run-time Authentication of Binaries at Kernel Level" (link resides outside of ibm.com) Paper by A. Apvrille, D. Gordon, S. Hallyn, M. Pourzandi, and V. Roy presented at the 2004 USENIX LISA conference. Read the paper. "Certifying Open Source - The Linux Experience" (PDF, 526KB) The Common Criteria is an international standard for evaluating the security functions of IT products. The authors describe how they obtained this security certification for Linux, the first open-source product to receive such certification. Read the PDF. |
| Aug 2004 | "Using the BSD Secure Levels LSM" (link resides outside of ibm.com) Written by Michael A. Halcrow and published in Sys Admin Magazine. Read the article. "Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS Version 3 Update 2 Security Target for CAPP Compliance" (PDF, 604KB) This document is the security target for the CC evaluation of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS Version 3 Update 2 operating system product, and is conformant to the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation (CC) with extensions as defined in the Controlled Access Protection Profile (CAPP). Read the PDF. "Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS Version 3 Update 2 Security Target for CAPP Compliance" (PDF, 604KB) This document is the security target for the CC evaluation of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS Version 3 Update 2 operating system product, and is conformant to the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation (CC) with extensions as defined in the Controlled Access Protection Profile (CAPP). Read the PDF. "RHEL3 EAL3 FSP Cross Reference" (PDF, 299KB) This constitutes the Functional Specification for Red Hat Linux Enterprise 3 Update 2 AS and WS. Read the PDF. "RHEL High Level Design Version 1.3" (PDF, 3.57MB) This document is the High Level Design (HLD) for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server (RHEL AS) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Work Station (RHEL WS) Version 3 Update 2 operating system. This document summarizes the design and Target of Evaluation Security Functions of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system. Used within the Common Criteria evaluation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux at Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 3 it describes the security functions defined in the Common Criteria Security Target document. Read the PDF. "EAL3 Evaluated Configuration Guide for Red Hat Enterprise Linux" (PDF, 184KB) This document is a security guide that explains how to set up the evaluated configuration, and provides information to administrators and ordinary users to ensure secure operation of the system. Read the PDF. |
| Jul 2004 | "Achieving CAPP/EAL3+ Security Certification for Linux" (PDF, 98KB) Written by Doc Shankar (IBM), Emily Ratliff (IBM), and Olaf Kirch (SUSE). Presented at the 2004 Ottawa Linux Symposium. "Demands, Solutions, and Improvements for Linux Filesystem Security" (PDF, 570KB) Presented by Michael Halcrow at the 2004 Ottawa Linux Symposium. Read the presentation. Read the PDF. (PDF, 190KB) "Modular Construction of DTE Policies" (link resides outside of ibm.com) Written by Serge E. Hallyn (IBM) and Phil Kearns (College of William and Mary) and presented at the 2004 USENIX Tech conference. Read the paper. |
| May 2004 | "Advances in Linux Security: The Linux Security Modules Project" (PDF, 1.92MB) Presented by Emily Ratliff at the SecureWorld Expo conference in August 2003. Read the presentation. "New Advances in Spam Fighting Techniques" (PDF, 570KB) Presented by Emily Ratliff at the SecureWorld Expo conference in August 2003. Read the presentation. Read the PDF. (PDF, 1.48MB) "Best of Breed Open Source Security Tools" (PDF, 1.16MB) Presented by Emily Ratliff at the SecureWorld Expo conference in August 2003. Read the presentation. |
| Apr 2004 | "Linux security solutions for businesses on IBM eServer xSeries" (PDF, 425MB) Published May 2003. Read the white paper. "The State of Linux Security" (PDF, 271KB) Written by Doc Shankar. Presented at LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in the Fall of 2003. Updated in April 2004. "Linux on zSeries Security White Paper" (PDF, 733KB) Written by Ingolf Salm and Peter Spera. Published March 2004. Read the white paper. "Choosing Secure Platforms in the Enterprise" (PDF, 365KB) Comparing Linux and Windows security head-to-head. Written by the Robert Francis Group, Inc. "Certifying Open Source - The Linux Experience" (PDF, 526KB) Presented at a IEEE conference in 2003. "SELinux Thoughts/Direction" (PDF, 34KB) Presented by Doc Shankar and Trent Jaeger at LinuxWorld Conference and Expo 2004 New York in January 2004. "Evaluating and Certifying Open Source - The Linux Experience" (PDF, 206KB) Presented by Doc Shankar (IBM) and Helmut Kurth (atsec information security GmbH) at the ICCC 2003 conference. |
| Feb 2004 | "SuSE Linux Enterprise Server V8 EAL3 Testcase Mapping Spreadsheet" (PDF, 55KB) The testcase mapping document links the Linux security relevant syscalls and functions to the relevant testcases. It also indicates which IBM platforms the tests run on. "SLES 8 EAL3 FSP Cross Reference" (PDF, 266KB) This is the EAL3 Functional Specification for SuSE Linux Enterprise Server version 8. This document has been updated as of March 16, 2004. |
| Jan 2004 | "SLES 8 EAL3 Security Target" (PDF, 570KB) This is version 2.7 of the Security Target document for the evaluation of SuSE Linux Enterprise Server Version 8 with Service Pack 3 and the certification-sles-eal3.rpm package. "SLES EAL3 High Level Design 2.25" (PDF, 3.82MB) This document summarizes the design and Target of Evaluation Security Functions of the SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) Operating System version 8 with Service Pack 3. This document is used within the Common Criteria evaluation of SLES at Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 3 and describes the security functions defined in the Common Criteria Security Target document. "SLES EAL3 Security Guide" (PDF, 203KB) This document is a security guide that explains how to set up the evaluated configuration, and provides information to administrators and ordinary users to ensure secure operation of the system. It was written by Klaus Weidner of atsec. |
| Aug 2003 | "SLES 8 EAL2 FSP Cross Reference" (PDF, 176KB) This is the EAL2 Functional Specification for SuSE Linux Enterprise Server version 8. "SLES EAL2 High Level Design 1.10" (PDF, 2.05MB) This document summarizes the design and Target of Evaluation Security Functions of the SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) Operating System version 8. This document is used within the Common Criteria evaluation of SLES at Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 2 and describes the security functions defined in the Common Criteria Security Target document. "SLES 8 EAL2 Security Target" (PDF, 310KB) This security target documents the security characteristics of the SuSE Linux Enterprise Server operating system (Official name: SuSE Linux Enterprise Server Version 8) with the certification-sles-eal2.rpm package. "SLES EAL2 Security Guide" (PDF, 93KB) This document is a security guide that explains how to set up the evaluated configuration to meet Common Criteria guidelines, and provides information to administrators and ordinary users to ensure secure operation of the system. It was written by Klaus Weidner of atsec. |
| Aug 2002 | "IBM Linux Security Direction & Activities" (PDF, 24KB) Presented by Doc Shankar at LinuxWorld Expo. "Migrating Applications to OpenSSL: The Basics" (PDF, 47KB) Presented by Steven Bade at LinuxWorld Expo. |
| Jul 2002 | "IBM Linux Security Direction & Activities" (ZIP, 30.5KB) Presented by Doc Shankar at the Fall Linux World Conference and Expo 2002. Download zip. |
| Jan 2002 | "IBM LTC Security" (PDF, 324KB) Discussion of what IBM is doing to improve Linux security. Presented at LinuxWorld Expo by Emily Ratliff. "Security Requirements for the Deployment of the Linux Kernel in Enterprise Systems" (PDF, 225KB) Written by Trent Jaeger, David Safford, and Hubertus Franke of the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. "Linux Security for the Enterprise: Executive Summary" (PDF, 16KB) Written by Trent Jaeger, David Safford, and Hubertus Franke of the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. |
Software Development Publications
The publications on this page represent contributions by members of the IBM Linux Technology Center to the development community in the area of software development.
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| Aug 2006 | "Recent Developments in GCC" (PDF, 324KB) A presentation for the San Francisco Linux World Expo on the GCC project covering basic compiler concepts, recent developments and future directions. Read the presentation. |
| Jul 2006 | "Collaborative Memory Management in Hosted Linux Environments" (PDF, 232KB) Discussion and presentation for the 2006 Ottawa Linux Symposium (OLS) on collaborative memory management to reduce memory resize requests and amount of paging I/O activity. Read the presentation. "The What, the Why and the Where To of Anti-Fragmentation" (PDF, 570KB) A paper and presentation for the 2006 Ottawa Linux Symposium (OLS) on Linux fragmentation and anti-fragmentation strategies. Read the presentation. "I/O Workload Fingerprinting in the Genetic-Library" (PDF, 77KB) A paper describing how to create an I/O workload fingerprint to optimize workload performance in a rapidly changing environment. Read the presentation. "Probing the Guts of Kprobes" (PDF, 430KB) Overview of Kernel probes (kprobes) for Linux debugging, tracing and performance evaluation. The paper examines kprobes enhancements since its first implementation. Read the presentation. "Making Applications Mobile Under Linux" (PDF, 203KB) Discussion and presentation for the 2006 Ottawa Linux Symposium (OLS) on a Linux application mobility prototype with minimal runtime overhead. Read the presentation and View the slideshow (PDF, 54KB). "Catalyzing Linux Open Source Device Driver Development" (PDF, 133KB) A paper presented at the 2006 Ottawa Linux Symposium on developing Linux drivers to support hardware. Read the presentation. |
| Apr 2006 | "Recent Developments in GCC" (PDF, 285KB) A presentation by Janis Johnson at LWE Boston on the GCC project and the GNU Compiler concepts. Read the presentation. |
| Apr 2004 | "EmPOWERing the Linux developer" Recognized as a high-performance, reliable, and serviceable enterprise platform, the 64-bit POWER architecture offers new choices to UNIX and Linux application developers. Anyone with a background in either AIX or Linux on other platforms can benefit from the strength of the open source community combined with the POWER of world-class IBM hardware. Published on IBM developerWorks. Written by Matt Davis, Linux on Power Technical Consultant, IBM. Read the article. |
| Jul 2003 | "Analyzing Code Coverage with gcov" (link resides outside of ibm.com) Written by Steve Fox for Linux Magazine. Read the article |
| Apr 2003 | "Debugging Memory Problems" (link resides outside of ibm.com) Steve Best demonstrates how to debug memory problems using Valgrind. Published in the May 2003 Linux Magazine. Read the article. "Debugging In Linux" (TAR.GZ, 460KB) Presented by Rick Lindsley. This talk introduced some debugging techniques available in Linux for beginning code writers. While this touched on gdb, it was not a tutorial for any one debugger. Rather, it covered both how to write code to make it easy to debug, and once debugging was needed, how to approach it in a way to make it most productive in the least amount of time. Download tar.gz. |
Standards Publications
The publications on this page represent contributions by members of the IBM Linux Technology Center to the development community in the area of standards.
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| Apr 2006 | "Certifying Linux on all IBM Platforms: Achievements, Roadmap, and Experience" (PDF, 94KB) Presented by Doc Shankar at LWE Boston 2006. Read the presentation. |
| Jan 2004 | "Building LSB Compliant Applications" (PDF, 246KB) Presented by Chris Yeoh at Linux.Conf.au 2004. Read the presentation. |
| Sep 2003 | "Linux Standard Base" (PDF, 88KB) Presented at the Australian Unix Users Group Annual Conference 2003. Read the white paper. |
| Oct 2002 | "Developing applications for the Linux Standard Base" In five straightforward steps, George Kraft, chairman of the Linux Standard Base, shows you how to build an LSB-certified application. Read the article. |
| Aug 2002 | "Taking an Application Through the LSB Certification Process" (PDF, 54KB) Presented by Marvin Hefler at LinuxWorld Expo. Read the presentation. |
| Jan 2002 | "Demonstration of Building an LSB Compliant Application" (PDF, 15KB) Presented by Marvin Heffler at LinuxWorld Expo. Read the presentation. |
Systems Management Publications
The publications on this page represent contributions by members of the IBM Linux Technology Center to the development community in the area of systems management.
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| Apr 2006 | "A Look at Linux Audit" (PDF, 298KB) A presentation by Timothy R. Chavez given at LWE Boston on the usage of Linux Audit. Read the presentation. |
| Jan 2004 | "Common Information Model (CIM) for Systems Management" (TAR.GZ, 1.37MB) Presented by R. Sharada and Rajarshi Das at the Software Design and Architecture (SoDA) workshop held at Bangalore, India. Download tar.gz. |
| Dec 2003 | "Halt! Who Goes There?" (link resides outside of ibm.com) Steve Best discusses how access control lists are far more flexible than Linux permissions. This article was published in the September 2003 edition of Linux Magazine. Read the article |
| Jul 2003 | "OpenPegasus - Troubleshooting Pegasus (Developer viewpoint)" (PDF, 1.47MB) Presented by Konrad Rzeszutek at the 2003 OpenPegasus Developer's Conference. Read the presentation. "OpenPegasus - Discovery of CIMOM - using SLP" (PDF, 634KB) Presented by Konrad Rzeszutek at the 2003 OpenPegasus Developer's Conference. Read the presentation. "OpenPegasus - The Common Manageability Programming Interface" (PDF, 750KB) Presented by Konrad Rzeszutek and Viktor Mihajlovski at the 2003 OpenPegasus Developer's Conference. Read the presentation. |
| May 2003 | "Pegasus v2.3 Globalization" (PDF, 60KB) Presentated at the Pegasus Technical Workshop on April 30, 2003. Read the presentation. "Pegasus - Testing" (PDF, 214KB) Presentated at the Pegasus Technical Workshop on April 30, 2003. Read the presentation. |
| Apr 2003 | "Pegasus - Writing Providers" (PDF, 95KB) Presentated at the Pegasus Technical Workshop on April 30, 2003. Read the presentation. "Pegasus - Configuration, Installation, etc." (PDF, 80KB) Presentated at the Pegasus Technical Workshop on April 30, 2003. Read the presentation. |
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