Bugtraq mailing list archives
Re: [Fwd: NOTE: Solaris 7 gotcha for some ultras]
From: pjm () GEMINI-RESEARCH CO UK (Paul Murphy)
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 10:37:56 +0000
Got a surprise when I finally installed the non-beta version of Solaris 7 on my Ultra-2 today. It booted to 32-bit mode instead of 64-bit, claiming my hardware defaulted to 32-bit mode. The message at boot time said to see the boot(1m) man page, so I looked, and there it was at the bottom: On systems containing 200MHz or lower UltraSPARC-1 proces- sors, it is possible for a user to run a 64-bit program designed to exploit a problem that could cause a processor to stall. Since 64-bit progams cannot run on the 32-bit kernel, the 32-bit kernel is chosen as the default file on these systems.
This shouldn't come as a surprise, since Sun are talking openly about it in their Solaris 7 seminars for system administrators (which you _have_ attended, right?). The problem is restricted to older systems, and their advice was that if you were at all worried about this, you should run the 32- bit kernel for peace of mind. Later processors are unaffected. If they'd put the 64-bit kernel in by default, you'd criticise them for leaving a security hole in the system..... Paul. ------------------------------------------------------ Paul J. Murphy - Head of I.T. Gemini Research Ltd, 162 Science Park, Cambridge Phone: 01223 435305 Fax: 01223 435301
Current thread:
- Re: [Fwd: NOTE: Solaris 7 gotcha for some ultras] Paul Murphy (Nov 11)
- Re: [Fwd: NOTE: Solaris 7 gotcha for some ultras] Alan Cox (Nov 11)
- Re: [Fwd: NOTE: Solaris 7 gotcha for some ultras] Solar Designer (Nov 13)
- Re: [Fwd: NOTE: Solaris 7 gotcha for some ultras] Tabor J. Wells (Nov 13)
- Re: [Fwd: NOTE: Solaris 7 gotcha for some ultras] Casper Dik (Nov 14)
- Re: [Fwd: NOTE: Solaris 7 gotcha for some ultras] Alan Cox (Nov 11)