WINE: A New Place for KLEZ to Play? 318
An anonymous submitter sends in this cautionary tale about Wine being maybe a little too good at emulating Windows. Update: 10/23 21:05 GMT by M : Better links: mirror 1, mirror 2.
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WINE: A New Place for KLEZ to Play?
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A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable. -- Thomas Jefferson
Uhhhh.... (Score:5, Insightful)
JoeLinux
Re:Uhhhh.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Uhhhh.... (Score:3, Informative)
JoeLinux
Re:Uhhhh.... (Score:2)
Re:Uhhhh.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, until you decide to turn it back on again, right? Windows machines have an "off" switch too...whether it's a matter of unloading from memory or powering down, it's no different.
You might want to rethink that statment. If you turn the power off on a Windows machine (or a Linux box for that matter), you have a paper weight until you turn it back on. On the other hand, I can completely uninstall Wine from my Linux box and still have a fully functional computer. There is a difference.
I choose to miss the point. (Score:4, Funny)
but (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Uhhhh.... (Score:5, Informative)
One mitigating factor: codeweavers do built in a protection against executable attachments in their winex product.
Figures (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Figures (Score:5, Funny)
More (Score:2, Funny)
.
First Post Or ist it ? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:First Post Or ist it ? (Score:3, Funny)
you'll easily find that plural from virus is viruses..."
I'm glad you clarified that. I was having trouble understanding what that guy said until you showed up.
Re: First Post Or ist it ? (Score:5, Funny)
> If you go to webster [webster.com] you'll easily find that plural from virus is viruses...
What does it say about the plural for "anal retentive"?
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re: First Post Or ist it ? (Score:2, Funny)
> Anuses retentive
What? Not ani retenti ???
Alright (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Alright (Score:2)
Re:Alright (Score:3, Funny)
I really think they should embrace and extend the EULA with the simple addition of a large fonted, capitalised "Just kidding!" right at the end.
SLASHDOTTED ALREADY (Score:3, Funny)
Too good at emulating? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Too good at emulating? (Score:2, Funny)
Wine is not an emulator ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wine is not an emulator ... (Score:5, Informative)
Its not all that surprising that a virus would run without problems. Many of them do exploit actual bugs in the Windows code, but most of them just make regular old crappy Win32 API calls.
Sour grapes (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wine is not an emulator ... (Score:2)
Re:Wine is not an emulator ... (Score:2)
It is more than just an implementation of the API, since it obviously emulates the registry and some file system capabilites. Granted, this may be just because this api needs it to work, but it still takes it beyond just the api.
ObDeadServerComment (Score:5, Funny)
Wine and / mounted as Z: ? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've just recently done a wineinstall to clean out my wine settings, and I don't have a Z:. Does that happen if you're running as root?
The only potential issue I can see is that your whole home directory is 'shared' between Linux and Wine by default.
Maybe I just read ~/ as /
Re:Wine and / mounted as Z: ? (Score:3, Informative)
CodeWeavers Wine and WineHQ CVS setup their initial configuration differently I think. You can alter what drives are mapped to what easily enough in the config file, or using the configuration GUI.
Re:Wine and / mounted as Z: ? (Score:2)
In other words, if I'm sitting at a prompt in the directory
Still, if you run wine as a non-root user, the windows processes shouldn't have access to anything to which your user doesn't have rights.
Old Story, Kinda (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll say this only once... (Score:4, Redundant)
If you lie down with dogs, you'll get up with fleas...
Does anyone know if Norton Anti-Virus runs under Wine?
Re:I'll say this only once... (Score:5, Interesting)
There was recently some discussion [winehq.com] on the Wine newsgroup about limiting emulated applications' access to the system. This could be handy for dealing with semi-malware or just programs that don't fully like the emulated environment (and might need to be prevented from doing too many suspicious is-it-really-Windows checks). The reply was that since a Wine emulated program is running as an ordinary executable, it could call Unix system calls anyway, so there would be little point (from a strict security point of view).
However, something like NetBSD's and OpenBSD's recently added feature to monitor system calls and define policies could potentially be very handy for running binary-only programs you don't fully trust: and of course most such programs are on the Windows platform.
Re:I'll say this only once... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'll say this only once... (Score:2)
Re:I'll say this only once... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I'll say this only once... (Score:4, Informative)
No it isn't. While a reasonably intelligent person with some experience with windows should easily be able to keep his windows box free of viruses, most users are not.
If you've ever been administering windows boxes for others, NAV corporate edition, or some other corporate antivirus software is really a life-saver.
There are no more viruses on Windows than there are on Linux. What gets media attention are the Outlook scripting worms, and the only reason Linux can't get them is because it doesn't have Outlook.
Last time I checked, there was about 3 viruses for Linux. I have heard some stories about new ones, so now there might be 10-15. The number of viruses on Windows increases with over 50 per month. As for the frequencies of those viruses: I've yet to actually discover a virus for linux (other than reading about it). On the other hand, with my windows box, I actually have to be careful.
What gets media attention are the Outlook scripting worms, and the only reason Linux can't get them is because it doesn't have Outlook. Run Outlook under wine, and you will get the same worms. It's not a fault of the OS, be it Linux+Wine or Windows, but a problem of the Outlook application.
Or outlook express, which is distributed as a part of the Windows OS. There are also problems with permissions (most linux distributions have somewhat sane permissions, most Windows installations have not (because after installing it, they are anything but sane).
And while there are few reasons to run anything as root under linux (except for the occasional sudo), the only practical way to use Windows is to be logged in with administrator rights (e.g. autocad requires this).
On the other hand, it is true that linux is susceptible to viruses just like Windows. The main thing going against that now is lack of popularity, and an educated user-base. But there are also lots of good technical reasons why it would be harder on linux. And the lack of outlook, default shares, IIS, and over-user-friendlyness certainly also help :-)
Re:I'll say this only once... (Score:2)
Uh-huh. Next you'll be telling me that it's all a conspiracy and that viruses are written by the AV vendors themselves.
There are no more viruses on Windows than there are on Linux.
I TOTALLY disagree with that statement. You can look at any virus tracking system and see that CLEARLY there are more viruses for Windows. *IF* you had said that Linux is no less suseptible to viruses than Windows, I actually might be inclined to believe you...
With one exception.
Most software in Linux was not designed to run applications automatically for the user. Windows software WAS EXPLICITLY DESIGNED to do that.
IE (and anything that uses that rendering engine, including Outlook, Outlook Express, and etc.) was designed to run VB scripts silently, without knowledge of the user, and with full access to everything the user has access to on that system.
The software on Windows was designed for ease of use above everything else. This design goal went through EVERY aspect of almost EVERY piece of windows software. From Office (macros) to Exchange (5.5 default IMS configuration was an open relay), and SQL*Server (default 'sa' account w/ no password). That's why your mother can use it. Security and easy to use are more contrary to one another than complimentary.
Since windows is designed to do everything as 'root' and also designed to do everything 'silently', it makes it a much juicier target for virus. Linux is, at a minimum, tougher to write viruses to. Most 'viruses' under Linux require that the user actively run a program.
Will Linux ever be 'immune' to viruses? Doubtful... but it at least makes it a LITTLE tougher for people to SPREAD the viruses.
Now... wanna talk about system vulnerabilites...?
Re:I'll say this only once... (Score:2)
That would be a wine-bug then. Windows (NT) file-protection should make it impossible to delete an already open file.
WINE emulation too good? (Score:4, Funny)
The new version of WINE is available! It costs a mere $450 per seat, and after an extensive rewrite of the Windows ABI emulation exports NO functionality whatsoever!
BTW for optimum emulation, we recommend running WINE at nice -20.
COMING SOON - WINE SP1.
The all-new WINE Service Pack removes the ability to run MS-DOS programs, and stops you viewing any digital broadcast medium. This is to enhance your computing experience.
Ah yes, Wine . . . (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Ah yes, Wine . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
The good comes with the bad (Score:5, Interesting)
What's the deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
i would think (Score:3, Informative)
Re:i would think (Score:2, Informative)
I use a Linux box at work and at home, and my laptop runs OS X, so I'm not saying this as a slight against the Unix variants out there.
Trust me, I would be much more upset at losing all my digital photographs or code or whatever. Losing the OS isn't really any more or less inconvenient than losing all my data. But losing all my data permanently would really be awful.
Now, I back up most everything periodically, so I figure I'm better off than, let's say, my mom, who rarely backs up anything. Or my sisters, who used to back up to floppy until I explained to them how silly that was.
Not having root just prevents certain "shady" things from happening, but in the end, you can do everything as your normal user. I can start up daemons via my normal startup scripts (some of which get called when X comes up, for example), modify binaries that are owned by my user (many applications these days under Linux and OS X), and open network connections for DDOS attacks. The only nice thing is that I think I'm unable to do things like SYN floods (I think... there are definitely limits on RAW sockets, I believe) and certain nastier attacks without root access or the proper access set up.
Sujal
Re:i would think (Score:3, Informative)
If you run everything as root, your system will probably be as vulnurable as any windows system. Not running as root does of course not prevent all attacks, but it does prevent the most nasty ones. A worm with root permissions can do nasty things to your kernel, filesystem, libraries, and standard executables. If such things happens a reinstall will be your only way back to a normal situation. If OTOH the worm only has access to a single unpreveleged user, the system integrity is unaffected. In this case root can log in and watch what is going on, and there is no way the worm could hide anything. You will be able to compare the users file against the last backup, you will be able to see exactly what files the user has created on the system, you can watch his network access. And cleaning up is easy, just kill all the users processes, delete all his files from
And now that you actually have a fine multiuser system, why not use this fact? If I want to run something I just downloaded from the net, I usually run it under a dummy user ID. And whenever I run Wine, it is done under a dummy user ID. And you can prevent the user from doing certain things on the network, it is just a matter of a few iptables rules. On my system even if I ran Klez under Wine, iptables would deny it access to SMTP.
Re:i would think (Score:2)
Excessive damage to what? The application binaries and data, which can be replaced in hours? Or your home directory full of work, some of which might never be replaced?
Re:i would think (Score:3, Informative)
So create a user named "wine" with no write access to anything you care about. Su to it and run Wine. Problem solved.
Re:i would think (Score:3, Interesting)
And WINE executed it anyway. Major blunder.
Which just sort of goes to show, Unix's executable permission bit, is really mostly just "advisory" and not really enforced by kernel. (How could it?) Filesystem permissions, feh.
Re:i would think (Score:3, Insightful)
Suppose you set up KMail to use python as a "viewer" for .py files. Would I treat python running a script that isn't chmodded +x, as a python bug? I don't think so. Hmm.
The real problem is foolish decisions about setting up external viewers. I no longer blame WINE.
Slashdot crashed my machines (Score:5, Informative)
I now have two dead machines because they linked us anyways.
-James Blackwell
Re:Slashdot crashed my machines (Score:2, Informative)
Search for "articles.linuxguru.net" on google, then have it show its cached version.
Now, there may not be legal grounds, but uh, come on guys.
Your 15 minutes (Score:2, Funny)
Just hope and pray that they don't repost the same story tomorrow. It's been happening a fair bit lately.
Re:Slashdot crashed my machines (Score:5, Informative)
Aanyway, why not do what a few other sites do... in Apache just reject anything with a referer from slashdot.org domain. redirect it to something like a tripod page that says "your link has been rejected - linked from slashdot" or something.
or heck, just drop the request. Make them mirror it.
Re:Slashdot crashed my machines (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Slashdot crashed my machines (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot crashed my machines (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot crashed my machines (Score:2)
I'd have thought a "Linux Guru" would know how to block traffic referred from Slashdot, preferably at the firewall (if you have content based filtering), or at the webserver if not. In addition, it's not that hard to throttle traffic back to a level your servers can handle. Again, something a guru should know. Aaah, yes... the penny drops. You're the same James Blackwell that's been flaming Larry McVoy on LKML. It all makes sense now...
Re:Slashdot crashed my machines (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Slashdot crashed my machines (Score:2)
Here you go: http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/misc/rewriteguid
A similar writeup about Klez and WINE (Score:5, Informative)
Ingredients... (Score:2, Funny)
WINE = good (Score:3, Funny)
Besides, I mean, just as with any other tool, you need caution. If you run wine as root with the whole tree as e: then sooner or later you're gonna regret it. The level achieved by wine emulation is amazing, so there are going to be security flaws if you don't know what you are doing, just as with any product with functionality as extensive as wine's
just goes to show.... (Score:3, Informative)
chris
It's not a Wine problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a security bug, a security hole, just like the ones in LookOut, and it ain't a Wine problem. This one belongs on bugtraq.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's not a Wine problem... (Score:5, Interesting)
- How is KMail supposed to know if it is safe to "run" the attachment?
- How is KMail supposed to know how to "run" the attachment?
It is two different questions, but the answer is the same. You give KMail a list of filetypes, and tell it what to do with them. The list could contain a flag specifying dangerous filetypes. If that feature does not exist in KMail, the filetype should be ommited from the list.To me this sounds like a bug in the configuration rather than the software. And it does sound like a configuration mistake in the default install of this distribution.
Re:It's not a Wine problem... (Score:2)
Just don't jump to that conclusion. KMail uses file MIME types that are registered in KDE - that is configurable for and by each user and any apps they may install that may run the appropriate script to either create a new type or get control of the existing one. MIME types then can be and are used by variety of apps such as Konqueror, KMail, KBear, etc. that launch external apps or plugins that are registered for a given type. You can register *.bat, *.exe, *.com, *.vbs files' MIME type and associate them with Wine. Now, if this was done as a default from that guy's distro you may have a point; but also that user may have compiled and installed his own Wine and associated the above file types on his own.
On a side note, KDE has a very nice configuration tool for file MIME types that can be accessed by right-clicking on any file.
Re:It's not a Wine problem... (Score:2)
You are using the identical defense that Microsoft used to circulate when people complained about Outlook opening all attachments. KMail (and other mailers) need to be able to distinguish between "safe" and "unsafe" attachment types.
Re:It's not a Wine problem... (Score:2)
What KMail wants to let you do is "view" a file. You view
You may, at some point, want to execute a file. You do this with exec(). You don't do this with a viewer.
If you insist on acting on files without any concern for the operation you're going to do on the file, I'd suggest using "rm", which will work on any file, regardless of type, and will cause relatively little damage in the long run.
Re:It's not a Wine problem... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's not a Wine problem... (Score:4, Interesting)
article text (Score:4, Informative)
Recently a friend of mine, proficient in Linux, and not what you would call a 'newbie' to computing, received an email from a customer. The email was vague and included an attachment. In KMail, he decided to view the attachment, thinking it was simply an image. He clicks it, nothing happens, no viewer, no error, nothing but a few seconds of milling around, and then more nothing. Then, the wine notification pops up. By this time he had realized the file was a Windows executable, and that he'd just executed it with wine because of the MIME typing capabilities of KDE, and WINE's integration with the desktop.
If he were running windows, I would've slapped him upside the head, everyone with any sense at all would've expected an odd email with an attachment to be a ready and willing virus or worm. Of course, this was no different, this attachment contained the worm known as WORM_KLEZ.H. However, because of the sense of security from worms of this nature bestowed to Linux users, by the same type of ignorance in assumption that spreads them amongst Windows users, he never expected the attachment to be a virus or worm that would infect and operate as it normally does. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened... click, boom, Klez goes nuts, etc., etc., etc.
The virus itself is simply a worm, it's what you'd call a 'dumb virus', in the sense that it isn't extremely complex, doesn't change itself around much, and basically works as fast as it can before it is easily obliterated by common virus scanning software. The basic idea is that it infects you, spreads itself by emailing from your computer to as many contacts as possible, then does its damage, if you want more detailed information, Trend Micro has plentiful information about Klez and other viruses and worms available on http://www.antivirus.com/.
Now, you may be wondering how it infected and actually 'worked', I know I certainly was. In this particular case, our cool customer known from here on out as 'John' for 'John Doe', had wine installed, and you see, the default configuration for most wine installs, shares your root linux directory as a drive visible to the applications running inside of it. If you know anything about the Klez worm, you'll remember that not only does it search for address books, etc, it will search for many other common file formats on the entire system, searching for email addresses, dropping PE_ELKERN.D, and various other silly virus/worm/intrusive type things.
So far we have the first two parts of the Klez's basic operation, infection, and email address reaping. What is next? Let's say it together kids "PROP A GA TION" yay!!! Now, this is probably one of the most important parts of a worm's life cycle. If it doesn't propagate, it isn't really a worm or a virus. It's just a pointless, irritating program.
Propagation in wine, this was the part in this particular case that I found so amusing. The computer was running a secure MTA (Mail Transport Agent) and the fake Windows registry for WINE was configured to use the localhost as the SMTP server for internet applications. Otherwise, the Klez would not have known how to send itself. It is possible, that, the Klez worm defaults to 'localhost' for the SMTP server if it cannot find one in the registry, this I don't know and it doesn't seem to be covered in Trend Micro's technical description. Anyway, because of the MTA being localhost, the worm was able to queue all of its outgoing email quite quickly. I actually had the opportunity to remotely shell in as root and view `ps aux` output, showing the various smtpd instances sending this email, while I tried to help John find the spooled emails and remove them.
Now, a few things must be noted about this particular situation. KLEZ is not a high risk worm, so by no means was this a massive problem for this person. Also, the infection did not include files that were not Windows exectuables, so the native filesystem was left unharmed. The spooled emails were taken care of and the effects overall were minimal, if not simply classified as an 'annoyance.'
The reason this is such an important subject to cover, isn't this instance of infection, but, the possible vulnerability that using WINE in such an insecure (and default) way can provide. For example, a knowledgeable virus programmer could use this situation to make multi-platform viruses, that could detect files by their 'magic file type' similar to the way the tool 'file' does, and infect them through wine. I understand, that this is highly unlikely to occur any time soon, but, I think you can probably imagine many other ways that this opens doors for virus problems to the relatively virus-clean environment of Linux.
The main points I'd like to make are: WINE is obviously mature enough to handle the more advanced code that a virus usually contains. Even if only KLEZ for now, others will in the future, be compatible. The other is: I am willing to bet that 90% of you WINE users out there, can view drive Z, or something similar and get your root file system tree, and something like drive Y provides your home directory READ-WRITE. Please, don't do this, unless it is absolutely necessary, minimize the interaction between your WINE environment, and the real linux environment, specify a directory for wine shared files and keep them separate from your linux home files, etc. This will help to minimize the post-infection damage a virus can accomplish.
Finally, the most important 'bug' most distributions have, is allowing a Windows executable to be run with wine without an obvious chance for interception, by default. Sure, it comes up with a window, telling you that wine is running, and allowing you to disable the notice, however, it does NOT warn you about the application being executed in such a way that you could stop it before it was started. Even Java does this with code that is signed for permissions; it still asks you if you are sure you want to give it permissions.
As it goes, I was unable to easily obtain any previously written information on securing WINE properly, and I am no security expert. Some basic tips would include, configuring the program, read all of the options, don't let it set itself up completely for you.If anyone has any tips they would like to share, please do.
Speaking of Wine... (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe I'm being paraniod here, but it looks like Linux Global Partners [linuxglobalpartners.com] is buying up lots of Linux technology. And given that Xandros doesn't follow the "free as in beer" model, I've got to wonder how this bodes for the future of Linux. I mean, the projects are still under GPL, but that doesn't mean it will be released for free [slashdot.org]. Clearly they are in this to turn a profit.
I guess the free ride has to end at some point.
Re:Speaking of Wine... (Score:2, Funny)
My god no! The bastards!! A profit???
SAMBA is also vunerable (Score:2, Interesting)
Klez crawls network shares. So if you saved a few bucks by setting up samba servers, you'd better be running antivirus on them.
If you've got an ftp site that Windows users are uploading files to, you'd better be running antivirus on them.
Sure, the virus won't run on Linux, but it'll still spread as soon as someone on a Windows box uses one of these files.
That is all.
Boon for antivirus industry? (Score:4, Informative)
Now, Linux users will catch and spread a long list of old Windows favorites making the demand for commercial antivirus software go up again. This John Doe caught Klez a rather non descript worm. Imaging Anna Korunikova in the inboxes of most Linux geeks.
Better see about Norton Command Line Scanner or perhaps...
rpm -e wine-*
get used to it.... (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as I hate saying this, I fear it's going to get a lot worse. As/If Linux gains popularity on all systems, including desktops, you can expect there are going to be a lot of disgruntled windows people out there who will become unemployed because they can't grow with technology. I'm expecting to see a lot of linux software start getting messed with and drastic increase of linux trojans and viruses.
don't believe me?
Look at how much software has been backdoored lately- bitchx, ssh, and sendmail. That's a BIG FUCKING DEAL. As we continue, expect the crosshairs to be levelled towards us. There's gonna be a conspiracy. I'm not making any accusations, but keep in mind that the opensource movement is putting pressure on a group of companies that aren't exactly known for their ethical behavior.
of course I know I'm probably just a paranoid nut, but hey, that's a good thing to be in our field..
Re:get used to it.... (Score:2)
Almost time to get a taste of our own medicine.
Re:get used to it.... (Score:2)
KLEZ in my Wine?! (Score:3, Funny)
Christ, this homebrew thing just isn't worth it.
Not a WINE-specific problem (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't just limited to WINE, it can hit real Linux mail programs too if anyone ever writes a Linux/ELF virus attachment. Repeat after me, kids:
Executable MIME types have no place in a mail program!
None, never, no way. Mail program doesn't matter. OS doesn't matter. No mail program should ever, under any circumstances, execute anything attached to an e-mail message, period full stop. You should only execute things from people you trust, and one attribute of e-mail is that you don't even know if the From address is the real sender so how can you trust the message?
Re:Not a WINE-specific problem (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not a WINE-specific problem (Score:2)
Because opening a .exe with WINE means running it, which means there shouldn't be an entry in KMail's MIME-handler list telling it to open .exe files with WINE.
Re:Not a WINE-specific problem (Score:2)
You limit the potential infection zone to your directories, yes. As KLEZ proved, though, even a Unix user can do a lot of damage. File ownerships don't prevent a worm from sending out infected mail, or stealing your personal documents (the most incriminating/sensitive documents on a Unix system aren't likely to be owned by root), or even acting as a zombie for a remote-control DDoS (it can't forge IP header fields or use privileged ports, but it can still generate lots of traffic). We're not as wide-open as Windows, but many of the same dangers are there if we leave the door open.
looks like... (Score:3, Funny)
WINE FAQ argument backfires (Score:2, Interesting)
Excerpt:
[snip]Code Red did what any "virus" presented with a large homogeneous population would do: it infected more than 359.000 computers in just the first day.[snip]
It is only a matter of time before a more virulent worm appears. The only way to decrease its impact is to diversify the OS population. Because it is an alternate implementation of the Win32 API and runs on top of a completely different OS, Wine does not have the same flaws and thus can provide this needed diversity.
Sorry if I'm wrong... (Score:2, Informative)
to
...
Of course it could still mess up some of your Windows-/Wine-related stuff. But I don't see how it could obtain addresses to spread itself to, unless of course you have Windows Address Book, Outlook, or something installed with Wine.
It a joke (Score:2, Insightful)
Detailed Klez Analysis (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.virusbtn.com/resources/viruses/indepth
Re:Slashdotted...sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Slashdotted...sad (Score:2)
Well that is great, lets assume your servers...being a porn site listed on your sig are set to handle this sort of thing. That is great, and I will also assume that you have a burstable t1/ds3/oc connection. Great for you. Not everyone running a sites has this set up. Some people have one server, with a t1. Which is very easy to slashdot. Not a server farm, jacked to the nines(pun intended) with a burstable ds3.
Re:Slashdotted...sad (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a lot of smart, knowledgeable people out there who don't want a $500+/month hosting or bandwidth+power bill.
Sujal
Re:Slashdotted...sad (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Slashdotted...sad (Score:5, Insightful)
I know for a fact that if my ass was getting slashdotted, I'd be setting up static webpages faster than you can say "holy fucking shit where's my bandwidth?" I personally make a static archive of all my dynamic pages automatically just in case something like that happens. The problem lies in the fact that slashdot doesn't archive sites, nor do they give any type of notice before bringing the hordes of lamers from all over the internet to that site's front door. That's a "bad" thing.
I wonder if anyone's brought a lawsuit against slashdot(or their parent company, OSDN) for effectively destroying their servers.
Re:Slashdotted...sad (Score:2, Insightful)
Someone can know what they're talking about, but still have a slow pipe. Someone can be an expert -- even at networking issues -- and find working with web servers (especially huge overkill-behemoths like Apache) to be uninteresting. Someone can have something worthwhile to say, and have no idea that they're about to be Slashdotted.
I think it's really funny that you think a "hardware guru" should know (and care) enough about web servers to take a slashdotting. You have an unusual concept of hardware.
Re:Slashdotted...sad (Score:3, Insightful)
In my case, for example, consider this: having done this for a few years now, I can set up one Linux or BSD based machine as a great web server capable of fully loading a T-1 or larger data pipe. Static pages, images, streaming software, dynamic pages, the whole nine yards. Could probably do a passable job setting up a set of machines to act as a transparent site even if it took setting up a small cluster of machines to handle the load (images on one machine, data on another, apps, etc. on the main web server, email somewhere else, etc.). I won't say that I could do it with half my brain tied behind my back, no sleep in a couple of days, one hand in a cast, or some big brag, but it's just not that difficult once you have done it a few times and hung around the security conscious folks enough to learn what it takes to secure a machine or set of machines from malicious outsiders. [Give me a couple decent developers and together we'd could make any site you wanted really scream in just a few days].
With my average or better web server setup skills, does this mean I am using my own server setup? No, and I don't plan to any time soon, because none of my skills can prevent a wonderfully configured site from getting /.'ed because the bottleneck isn't usually in the machine, but the size of the data pipe connected to it.
Consider this as well: I usually locate my sites at one of a few good web hosting companies that have good co-location points and massive datas pipe to/from their server farm(s). So the server and the data pipe can handle it, if I want. However, for most sites I set up, I don't want or need the risk of getting a surprise high dollar bandwidth bill because /. or similar is suddenly pointing at my site and hogging all of the hosting company's bandwidth? No. Do I want have or want to spend the money to set up my own data center? No.
Why not? Because IMHO one of the best things about the 'net is that it gives many people who would not otherwise be "heard" a place to give voice to whatever message they deem important. One of the worst things about the net is that some people confuse tech savvy with message, just as the previous poster did.
Do I have something worthwhile to say? Occasionally. Should you respect what I or another writer has to say, when it is worthwhile, no matter what bandwidth they have available to them? I hope so, and for myself I would rather listen to and support the person with one wise voice pushing text messages on a slow data pipe than spend my time and money on a thousand fools pushing worthless content on a fat one.
Re:another way (Score:2)