Re: [qubes-devel] Qubes VS Nova Microhypervisor VS LynxSecure

[Ph.T]

On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 4:48 AM, Alexandre GRAIS <alexand...@gmail.com> wrote:

. I wonder if you can give some details about the differences between this OS:

- Qubes (of course my favorite!)

- Nova Microhypervisor

- LynxSecure

I don't really know if these Os can be compared but i hope you could help me!

. I'm interested in Qubes because

Invisible Things Lab has invested

a lot of research into how to

securely reuse what's

open and ready for x86 -- xen --

for a solution similar to LynxSecure 

(which is proprietary ... ).

. the Nova microhypervisor

along with the Bastei

secure operating-system layer,

are the primary technologies of

Europe's ROBIN project

(Open Robust Infrastructures)

http://robin.tudos.org/

whose purpose is

"(to establish an alternative

to proprietary US solutions

that we expect will appear soon;)

[eg, LynxSecure .]

NOVA's microhypervisor is GPL 2

(here is version 0.1):

http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/~us15/nova/nova-hypervisor-0.1.tar.bz2

NOVA compared to okL4 microvisor:

http://ertos.nicta.com.au/publications/papers/Heiser_Leslie_10.pdf

Qubes compared to okL4 microvisor:

http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/researcher-releases-qubes-hardened-os-040710

Nick P on Sun, 04/11/2010 - 11:35pm:

"(

 ... Everyone keeps doing redundant work. ...

 OKL4/seL4, Nizza & Perseus Architecture,

 and Nova microhypervisor

 [are doing the same thing as Qubes]

 The L4 ... groups have a

 well-validated microkernel,

 needed base services/drivers,

 a POSIX/Linux/other VM for legacy apps,

 and frameworks to integrate

 isolated apps with regular apps.

  Now, we need to work below [L4]

  (trusted hardware/firmware)

 and above

 (drivers/libraries/coreservices).

 We could build a trusted workstation, router, VPN, etc.

 [rather than]

 ... have (sighs) *another* OS

 acting as a hypervisor/MILS/security kernel.

) .

-- 

Americium Dream Documents
"(real opportunity starts with real documentation)

[Joanna Rutkowska]

Hi,

It's a mistake to compare Qubes to some hypervisor projects, because
Qubes is not another hypervisor. Qubes project is about creating the
whole, standalone desktop operating system. Qubes uses a type I
hypervisor for this, currently Xen, but nothing fundamentally prevents
the use of other hypervisors.

Qubes project focueses on things such as: secure GUI isolation,
driver/backend sandboxing, trusted boot, and last but not least, on
hiding all the inconveniences of the above from the user (easy
copy-and-paste between VMs, disposable VMs, protecting against human
mistakes, etc).

I'm not aware of any project that could be even compared to Qubes -- if
you know, please let me know (but please, for Christ's sake, don't refer
to blog *comments*!).

joanna.

[Ph.T]

> don't refer to blog *comments*!

. sorry about pointing us to negativity

but I didn't know eno' about the subject

to know how to abstract what was useful

about the comment:

(

. why are people asking for comparisons?

do they have the same concerns as

commenter"Nick?

. Nick seemed rather knowledgeable,

so I took seriously the concern that

Qubes was "(yet another

OS acting as a hypervisor)

when he must have known what xen

does for the project;

did he mean xen is not securable?

. is L4 to be compared to xen?

or do we not have practical access to it?

. what does okL4 verification mean to x86?

it's only verified for ARM, right?

).

thanks,

phil