Recently, some backups on our new Solaris x86 fileservers started failing with (GNU) tar reportingerrors about:

Warning: Cannot stat: Value too large for defined data type

More alarmingly, even ls on the Solaris fileserver would reportthis (as an error). Fortunately, I remembered a recent discussion on the ZFS mailing list about this, to the effect that if you are usingNFS, it turns out to be possible to create files with 'impossible'timestamps. Inspection showed that this was indeed the

I have mixed feelings about 'test driven development' (and I can'tclaim I've done much of it, especially not with rigor), but one subtleadvantage of it has come through clearly even in my limited use of it:you actually start using your code's interface before you freeze it.This is important because actually using things remains by far the bestway to refine their design in computer science.

Usually I started out with a general idea of what function calls andmethods and so

One of the nice things about researching things like the history of dump is that it teaches me things about Unix's historythat I didn't know. For example, until I decided to write up dump 'shistory, I had no idea that it had actually originated as far back asV6; for some reason I had it in my mind as a UCB invention.

(Perhaps because the idea of dump always struck me as the kind ofbaroque thing that UCB would come up with, instead of

This is one of those things that I shouldn't have to write butapparently I do: anything that is called 'email marketing' is prettymuch always spam, and everyone involved in it either knows this or isactively hiding their head in the sand. Theoretical good intentions inthis do not matter, because there are simply too many pressures pushingthe other way. There are too many reasons for salespeople to lie aboutwhether their leads have consented to email, too many reasons for themarketing department to be optimistic

Although this is rather behind the times, I don't think I've seen thepractical consequences of the Debian OpenSSL vulnerability written downclearly and in one place. So here is my list, concentrating on SSH andSSL certificates:

• SSH host keys and personal SSH keys generated on a vulnerablesystem are entirely compromised.
• OpenSSL generated SSL certificates are compromised. This especiallyincludes signed certificates used on public websites ; if this applies to you, get ready to explorethe marvelous world of certificate compromises .
• any SSH DSA key

From its founding in the the 1980s through the early 1990s, Sun was apowerhouse that delivered both a stream of technical innovations andan evolving range of machines, from small workstations through largeservers, that were excellent values. While never quite as sexy as SGI(even if they sometimes tried hard), Sun's workstations were somethingthat you could dream of having on your desk even if you weren't aHollywood SFX worker, a CAD/CAM operator, or

One of the things that Sun is notable for is for basically being thelast general computer vendor standing with a non-x86 architecture.Without getting into the debate about the SPARC architecture's long andsomewhat questionable history, I think that Sun now really needs to beprepared to give up on SPARC.

First, let's admit something. In general, SPARC is on its last legs, asit has already lost out on performance and general desirability. Prettymuch the only market that purchases ordinary SPARC

Here is something that is intuitively clear to me but I am finding hardto explain coherently:

In order to really push an issue, to really get people to care aboutit, you need to have a major advantage to offer in it.

Here is an example of what I mean:

Imagine that you want to improve boot times, and in fact you seefast boot times as both important for usability and a competitiveadvantage. However, most people don't care about boot times right now,or really notice

Let me say it up front: managing a firewall of any decent complexityis hard. Sooner or later you start losing track of rules and what'sactually going on, writing half-redundant rules, and so on; inshort, your firewall ruleset descends into sysadmin superstition .I've recently realized that part of why this happens is that there arethree views of your firewall's behavior that you need, and you can't getall of them just from reading your firewall rules; at most