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Novell Acquires SELinux Alternative Immunix

Posted by timothy on from the lockdown dept.

G Money writes "Novell announced today that they acquired Immunix, a company the produces an alternative mandatory access control solution to SELinux using the LSM. For anyone who hasn't used both Immunix and SELinux, the difference between configuring them is like night and day. There's even a YaST module for configuration. (Disclaimer: I'm on the Defcon Immunix CTF team.)"

2 of 24 comments (clear)

  1. There are many alternatives to SELinux by jd · · Score: 4, Interesting
    And that is a Good Thing. It is also good that at least one such alternative is now getting the backing of a major vendor.


    What will likely transpire, over time, is that all of the different solutions solve a narrow set of problems very well, but other problems poorly. That is normal and nothing to be ashamed of. What will likely happen then is that ideas will be taken from all of them to form some hybrid that works well in all arenas.


    This is perfectly normal in the Unix world. System V, BSD and other Unix-like kernels have done this for decades, because it is a very efficient way to build products.


    The downside, for now, is that users may become confused by the range of options. So long as the defaults are sensible and the details as transparent as the user needs them, it shouldn't matter. That depends on how well Novell are in tune with Linux versus being different for the sake of having a conversation piece.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  2. Re:Good Thing? by T-Ranger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While SuSE was a big developer/user/promoter of KDE, Ximian was the single biggest developer/user/promoter of Gnome. Currently, it seems that Novell has decided they are both wrong, and is going with Mono. Sadly, I am only half joking.

    As for MAC, not even hearing of this thing before today, Im going to side with Novell. SELinux was developed at the NSA as a research project. While Im not saying that security is the opposite of usability, it is fair to say that a NSA research project is about as far detached from the requirements of reality as you can get. Novell, Netware, NDS, NSS, they have forgotten more about security and the real world - the real business world, then RedHat knows. Novell could taken SELinux for free, NDS-ized it, iManaged-ized it, YaST-ized it and made it distinct from any RH offering. But they went out of their way to buy a system that compeats with SELinux. Either it is significantly better today, or it will more easily be N-ized tomorrow, so it will be radically better next year.