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User-Mode Linux Merged Into 2.5 Kernel
An anonymous reader writes "With little fanfare, User Mode-Linux (UML) has been merged into Linus' BitKeeper tree. The merge followed a patch by UML author Jeff Dike, resynching UML with the 2.5.34 development kernel.
From the UML homepage, User-Mode Linux provides you with a virtual machine that offers 'a safe, secure way of running Linux versions and Linux processes. Run buggy software, experiment with new Linux kernels or distributions, and poke around in the internals of Linux, all without risking your main Linux setup.'" There's more UML resources available at the community site.
I'd imagine there are alot of "weekend warriors" who would dabble more, and possibly contribute, but hold back not wanting to screw up their system.
Maybe linux development will speed up a bit.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I have a RedHat box that's colocated that I wanted to move over to Debian - so I installed UML and loaded Debian onto one partition, got everything set up correctly and told LILO to boot off the new slice. After a few minutes of praying Debian came up running all the correct services.
Thanks to the UML team!
User-Mode Linux provides you with a virtual machine that offers 'a safe, secure way of running Linux versions and Linux processes. Run buggy software, experiment with new Linux kernels or distributions, and poke around in the internals of Linux, all without risking your main Linux setup.'
Finally, something that will get Linux accepted as a viable desktop operating system for all levels of users!
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
Well it does say "run buggy software" :)
$
Loading Linux.......
COOL!!
now Newbies can practice installing new kernals with out destroying there machines!!!!
True capitalism = lots of similar companies = jobs for everyone who wants one.
a sandbox for those buggy flash plugins and suspect realvideo players.
I guess I only dreamed about using it.
Soon gonna taste like the real thing?
Linux: the new generation!
I imagine there are honeypot applications for something like this. You could make a cracker totally believe they had broken in when in reality they are just in a UML.
For the ultra paranoid you could also make a backup copy of your whole UML partition and only run services in that, periodically restoring it from backup, and copying in the new data that is stored on the real OS. If you got broken into, it wouldn't really matter.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
any person who likes to poke around with linux knows how eternally annyoing it is to crash your main box. For this reason, i had set up a 486 for "poking". We all know how much we love to poke around on THE WORLDS SLOWEST MACHINE!!!!
UML is something that i haden't heard about, prolly because i havent kept up, but this sounds freaking awesome!
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
The merge followed a patch by UML author Jeff Dike
Shit, so Linux really is for lesbians?
Is your browser retarded?
Any word on how UML compares to the FreeBSD emulation of Linux? I've heard claims that FreeBSD can run Linux binaries faster than Linux, so it would be interesting for a one-on-one comparison of User-Mode Linux and FreeBSD Linux emulation.
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
If you type "take red pill", does it exit back into the actual hosting Linux?
UML - I'm afraid Booch et. al. may have a problem with someone else coopting that acronym. Not that I think it's right, but I can see some confusion resulting....
What about RICO? will he be best man?
so sorry. you no count so good. try harder.
Linux now has the Unified Modeling Language build into the kernel? Sweet.
Sorry to bust your bubble, but UML is a Software Engineering term. Just like when people talk to me about their ps2, I'm thinking of their PS/2 mouse.
Every time I've seen UML mentioned, it's in refrence to kernel programing/X programing/programing in general/software testing/etc. I understand how it would be incredibly usefull in this circumstances. But my question to you guys is this: how would it benifit Joe User to have this installed if he just surfs the web, does e-mail, plays games, GIMPs, etc? Other than just another layer of crash protection, what good is this to the masses?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
If we could get some of the stuff NSA has been working on merged in we could really make 2.5 lookin sharp.
The DCLUG had a great speaker from NAI labs give a talk on their contributions to SELINUX. Mandatory Access Controls looked like something GNU/Linux could really use.
One day.
Well, yes it is, but if you want to take advantage of the security, and debug processes in depth, then you might have some problems.
Many of you will probably remember the Reverse Challenge. One evening I downloaded the malicious binary, and decided that UML would be ideal to try running it in a tightly controlled enironment - using fenris to trace its execution and learn more about it.
Unfortunately, fenris doesn't work under UML (neither does strace if I remember correctly).
Shame. It's a lot cheaper than VMWare!
So, cool to see it gets the official seal of approval.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
So hot right now. Linux.
I know that FreeBSD's jail allows for some level of virtualization. My question is, how technically does this differ from the jail mechanism or does it?
As a side note this sounds like a really cool idea, especially if you could virtualize multiple instances.
-Peter
. Penguins Surely Ca
It's the kind of innovation that makes linux growth. If one day we want to be the #1 OS we need to have something others don't; it's the kind of thing we need ... Good job guys
A Beowu*smack* ow.
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
Can't we at least cite those sites whose word-for-word text is reused by /. for announcement here??
Linux: UML Merged Into 2.5
Comparing UML to FreeBSD's API redirector (usually misnamed "Linux emulation") is like comparing Windows running in VMware to WINE. VMWare runs the true full blown MS-Windows while WINE redirects the calls to approbate native calls/code. Likewise, UML runs the true full blown Linux kernel while FreeBSD just redirects the calls to native calls/code.
UML adds more layers before a system call makes it to the hardware than simple API redirection. For example, for a program running in UML to read from the CD-ROM, the real kernel only provides access to the block device and the UML kernel translates the block device/ISO9660 accordingly for the file access calls. In UML, reading of the structures as following ISO9660 is done is *user space*. FreeBSD's API redirector breaks the block device structures from ISO9660 to approbate formats for file system calls all in the FreeBSD kernel. FreeBSD's Linux "emulator" does not achieve the same redefination of what occures in user space as opposed to kernel space at all. If FreeBSD can't run Linux binaries faster than UML then something is very wrong. However, it would be interesting to see if FreeBSD's API redirector could run UML and see if UML runs faster on top of FreeBSD or on top of Linux.
I'll be considering switching to 2.5.xx, because I'll be able to test it with UML before I put it to real use.
The use of TLA's (Three Letter Acronyms) has become so rampant that it is hard to find things which aren't referred to by their TLA. In many cases, the same TLA has more than one meaning, so the users of the acronym are able to keep the context straight. In this case, where the software sector has a standard definition of UML, reusing the acronyn will only spread confusion
If I were to create a software application called Great New Utility and referred to it as GNU, people would rightly be upset at me for trying to usurp an already common use of an acronym. In this case, I would probably be violating a trademark. The acronym of UML is already trademarked by Object Management Group, and has a common and well known usage.
"Microsoft has made computing accessible to a population who would otherwise not be able to use computers" - B. Kernigha
Somehow, this seems similar to what the Hurd is supposed to do. Someone wiser want to clear this up?
I imagine there are honeypot applications for something like this. You could make a cracker totally believe they had broken in when in reality they are just in a UML.
:) and give them unrestricted network access, you might be able to efficiently spy on what they're doing, maybe, but they've *still* taken over your network connection. They can now use it for a DDoS zombie, an IP bounce, or maybe just put some of their own filez on that wu-ftpd server you set up to get knocked over...
Except for the 0.02% of people out there, and maybe 98% of businesses, that have anything on their computers that's more useful than the computer itself, I don't know why this would make a good honeypot. The cracker won't just think he's broken in... he will have really broken in.
Not so much a honey-pot as a pot-o-honey...
The UML website mentions applications as a sandbox, which makes sense, but if you're going to run vulnerable apps to lure hackers (i refuse to mistake hackers and crackers
My $0.02
"User-Mode Linux provides you with a virtual machine that offers 'a safe, secure way of running Linux versions and Linux processes. Run buggy software, experiment with new Linux kernels or distributions, and poke around in the internals of Linux, all without risking your main Linux setup."
Man! That's just some cool shit!
Could this be used ala the NT hardware abstraction layer? Specifically, could this be used to keep nasty drivers from hosing your system? I know that typically a bad module is likely just going to not load, spitting out unresolve symbols, causing no real harm, but there may be cases where third party drivers may properly load, but end up causing nasty problems.
...and IN SOVIET RUSSIA, beowulf clusters imagine 1, 2, 3 profit!!!! jokes made out of YOU!!!
It's official. The Linux kernel is now larget than the Microsoft Word executible.
_______
2B1ASK1
Now with User Mode Linux integrated into the cutting edge kernel -- wow! This is like having a built-in custom version of VMware just for running Linux. Awesome. Heck, it is almost like having an IBM 390 of your very own. It does what an IBM mainframe does, but on everyday hardware. Fantastic.
This story must break some kind of record for the use of the word "Linux".
Now that would be useful!
Right into dat useless kernel thing I can't seem to use from KDE. Where's da shortcut for it anyway? Why did Trolltech erase it from my desktop? Doesn't the GPL or the DMCA prevent such crimes from being commited? Or did those norwegianese change the license of that finlandese guy they talked about on my beloved MSNBC, that Pingus Tortured or somethin'?
Those not interested in User Mode Linux or other "cool stuff" are forced to run these bloated new kernels.
If someone would finish a Win32 port of UML, I could ditch VMWare.
By calling it "User-Mode GNU/Linux" you get a four-letter-acronym ("UMGL") which does not spread confusion.
It would be nice to run Linux apps and practice Linux from a Windows machine without having to have multiple boxes or swapping OS's around.
Some of us are married to Windows for career reasons, but would like to nibble on some Linux here and there.
Don't call it UML. UML is Unified Modelling Language.
There's even many trademarks refering to UML:
75824747
75824748
Unified Modelling Language is much more important that UserMode Linux and shouldn't be hassled with silly similar acronyms.
If you need to acroynmicize UserMode Linux. Call it UL or UserML or UMoL, just not UML.
It's just offensive.
One of the great things about UML - unlike a lot of other OSS projects - is that it's very well documented. Thanks to the UML diagrams on UML, there is no confusion as to what UML is or what it does.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
http://davidcoulson.net/writing/pcp/187/masterclas s-linuxexpert.pdf
Somebody has to mention the Virtual Private Servers (vservers) and security contexts (ctx) patch, which takes chroot(), and adds the good stuff from jail() and more to make completely separated contexts for process groups, without the overhead of another kernel.
I've been running Debian 2.2r7 and RedHat7.2 in parallel with Debian/Woody on the same box for months now with this patch.
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
would it work?
they would all have the same IP address, wouldn't they?
Does it run at native speed or are all x86 instructions interpreted?
Is it CPU independent? Can it run on PowerPC or the Alpha?
I read Coursey instead of Coulson.
Having ZDNET's Coursey give Linux tips makes
as much sense as having Dracula running a blood bank.
zeke
"fuck off"
you ain't got nothing better to do than bitch?
trademark?! trademark your ass for all the good you do for society.
... with one small difference, of course: WTM isn't safe. :)
It's actually a thought I had earlier today. Imagine you're a small place with a few servers (but they're rackmount with hot-swap drives). All of a sudden, the motherboard on one bites the dust. No worries, slap the drives in another server, and...well, some creative planning would be required to get the working server hosting the stuff on the dead server. UML would certainly make this process much easier and doubtless quicker. You'd have two servers running a bit slower, but that sure beats one server not running at all.
CAUTION: Product may be hot after heating
To keep those little brilliant (bastard) children from wrecking your shiny new Linux lab.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
So now, the little upstart "toy" operating system fully supports POSIX, full VM capabilities, and happily runs with some serious equipment and yet it also runs smoothly on
small, dedicated devices.
With each day that goes by, it seems that the folks in Redmond have a deeper hole to dig their way out of...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
why dont open source people just name everything
'a' then they will have a wonderful inside joke
Now we need somebody porting UML to run under Windows, pehaps using cygwin. Then we could have easy "try-linux.exe" for windows users.. :)
This is an absolutely amazing thing. I'll be downloading the latest kernel tonight. I've been wanting to try out UML and now I can do so alot easier.
There have been alot of comments about UML and the other meanings of the TLA. Well, we're going to run out eventually, what then? Its all in context.
Also, other comments mention this will bring in new kernel developers. Well, thats right because I'll be working on some ideas very soon!
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
There are several products that require a custom kernel, and this could certainly benefit all of them.
The one I'm thinking of right now is Win4lin, the cheapest, fastest Windows VM for Linux right now; it needs a kernel with its own patches, and they distribute patches for Debian, Slackware, Mandrake, and Vanilla kernels. My distro (Gentoo) makes a kernel which is known for its speed, but which I'm not using right now because of this (I can't even patch the Vanilla kernel to that level because it the Win4lin patch conflicts with Gentoo's patches).
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
The news here is that it is merged into 2.5
UML is not new, though this will certainly make things better.
Just think of the neat firewalling you can do.
Run your DNS servers inside a UML session, with traffic to them filtered by firewalling on the host... even if someone breaches BIND, they are stuck in a machine, can't go anywhere, because all traffic to that machine is filtered.
Virtual linux machines for each service that is not performance critical.
Actually, when I hear PS/2, I still think of those angular beasts IBM made awhile back. Remember MCA? No? Consider yourself lucky.
Anyway, it was those machines that introduced the PS/2 mouse and PS/2 keyboard connectors we all know and love/loathe today.
Hey! Now that we have UML we can bring all that MS goodness over, like VB, ASP, C#, etc and not have to worry about security holes.
UML can emulate an SMP machine. It could be used for benchmarking multi-threaded code and teaching SMP programming without having to fork out big $$$ for SMP machines.
Consider a firewall where the only IP layer things that are seen are actually coming from instances of UML.
The host kernel is just running bridging (and filtering, of course) , and doens't even have an IP of it's own.
So your NAT device is actually a UML instance.
So hey manage to get root on it.. even so, the traffic to it is filtered at a layer they cannot even see. They just can't get there from, well, there.
Probably even more important. XFS has finally been integrated into Linus' BK tree as well.
XFS Changset
... and is available here. I have no idea about how far along they are.
Installed the Bubblemon yet?
If FreeBSD can't run Linux binaries faster than UML then something is very wrong. However, it would be interesting to see if FreeBSD's API redirector could run UML and see if UML runs faster on top of FreeBSD or on top of Linux.
RUNNING A DREAMCAST EMULATOR THAT RUNS LINUX AND RUNNING A GBA EMULATOR INSIDE OF THAT!!!!
I've been fooling with UML as a potential container for grid computing applications..
Think about it - they get full ring3 native assembler optimization for the computation (none of this Java/emulation stuff) and only encounter a minor penalty when they need to talk to the net or a "disk" - virtual or no. And, with iptables on the real kernel one can set up arbitrary network access rules for the UML world. And since the disks are just files or real disks, you have near-perfect control there too. The only thing I can think of not working is device driver modules like NVdriver... but that shouldn't be a terribly big drawback.
Sorry if that's incoherent, it's 4:00 here and I'm really really tired.
--Knots;
Anarchy$ dd if=/dev/random of=~/.signature bs=120 count=1
So, If I run a Linux kernel, and UML on top of that, and use _only_ the UML "user user space", has Linux finally become a microkernel?
As interesting as your comments are, I believe you have misinterpreted the point.
FreeBSD can run linux binaries (by redirecting system calls) using the freeBSD kernel faster than linux itself can when running natively (no UML involved). Well at least that's what I pick up from the freeBSD page on the subject. So its like saying, my windows application runs better under wine than it does under windows, if you want to put it that way (although the anology doesnt hold for certain aspects).
cool - if I had UML running, I could test this new kernel with UML ...
.sig
Too sad, as I need a running server, I cannot test a development kernel. As I don't (can't) follow the 2.5-development: Any guesses on when a 2.6.0 will see the light? 2003 or 2005?
--
still in search for a cool
settings. Just yesterday I was tweaking my memory settings on a K7M mobo and now I get a black screen. No boot, beep, or blinking lights! DAMN!
The only reset on the mobo is to erase the pw.
Really makes me appreciate this.
> LUK = Linux User Kernel? (pronounced Luck!)
How about "Luke"?
Use the Luke Force!
UML didn't take 18 years to complete.
This will be great for kernel development because know I can test my kernel patches. Expect a new -shawn12 kernel patch soon =). On a side note, now that XFS is going (?) into the 2.5 kernel, I will continue to work on the 2.4 patches until 2.6 comes out. As always, you can find my patches at: http://xfs.sh0n.net/2.4 ShawnX
Everyone wants a Tux in their life.
LOL!
You must have mistaken "Linux" for "Windows"
Why don't you just go run your "interesting" OS instead of posting in a Linux thread?
Now NOBODY will know what the fuck you are talking about. Congrats!
LINE runs a single linux executable under Windows while UML runs an entire Linux kernel.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
I've read the web site, but I still don't really understand what UML is. How is it different from something like VMWare?
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
See:
umlwin32.sourceforge.net
0x2b or not 0x2b, the answer is -1
If I'm using my system and I have a KVM with say four machines and my wife is working in the next room on a network of four machines on a KVM, could she start up sessions on my machines remotely without a keyboard connected to one of my machines? Or is that a case where she would just create a remote X session by logging in through the ethernet? It would be cool if she could have a complete virtual machine running on one of my machines so that she could wipe out and I could keep going about my business.
Also, if we ignore that question, how about the details of switching between sessions? I mean you've got the desktop hotkeys in KDE for your virtual desktops. Would you have more keys for switching between virtual machines? I read somwhere that you could leave a few of those F keys open by keeping less than twelve desktops and use the extra F keys to jump between X sessions, but I've never had it actually work.
Why?
He obviously has it: Linux Envy.
Whoo-hoo!
Last post.
Goatse.