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Article #311

New secure O.S for Harris Night Hawk computers

#311
From: Gail P. Truman
Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1992 00:34
141 lines
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NEW SECURE OPERATING SYSTEM FOR HARRIS NIGHT HAWK COMPUTER

Harris Corporation's Computer Systems Division has introduced a new
version of their enhanced security operating system for Night Hawk
computer Secure applications.

The Night Hawk CX/SX secure computing environment offers B1 level or
C2 level security functionality.  The secure UNIX operating system
provides comprehensive multi-level security with less than five
percent overhead even with complete system auditing activated.
Designed to provide the flexibility and functionality of non-secure
UNIX systems, CX/SX supports multi-level secure local area networking,
multilevel secure relational data base management system,
communications, file servers, office automation and message handling.

CX/SX is an enhanced version of the CX/UX operating system that has
been developed specifically to meet the Federal Government's criteria
for multi-level secure computer systems (CSC-STD-004-85,
DoD-STD-5200.28, the "Orange Book") at the B1 level of trust.  CX/SX
is currently in evaluation with the National Computer Security Center.
Harris anticipates that CX/SX will be included on the Evaluated
Products List during the first half of calendar year 1993.  CX/SX is
fully compatible with CX/UX and offers the following additional
capabilities:

*	Improved User Identification and Authentication

*	Improved Discretionary Access Control (DAC)

*	Mandatory Access Control (MAC)

*	Security Audit Trail

*	Data Labeling

*	System Security Management Tools

The CX/SX secure operating system is the result of a joint development
project between Harris Computer System Division and the AT&T Federal
Systems Division.  It was derived from the UNIX operating system
specifically for processing secure and sensitive data.  Unlike many
other implementations of secure UNIX, CX/SX provides B1 security with
less than 5% overhead (compared to 20-40% for other secure operating
systems).

CX/SX supports multi-level, compartmentalized security, including up
to 255 security levels each configured with up to 1024 categories.
This allows each installation to be highly customized according to the
specific needs of the site.  Despite its flexibility, CX/SX is simple
and cost-effective to administer with the shell commands and menu
driven applications that are provided.

The CX/UX 6.1 release consists of a new base level of the operating
system, utilities, language processors, and documentation.  This
improvement blends AT&T's System V Release 4 UNIX features with
enhancements from Berkeley's 4.3

*	POSIX 1003.1

	CX/UX release 6.1 is compliant with the IEEE POSIX 1003.1
standard (also known as ISO/IEC 9945-1).  It is based on CX/UX 5.3
which was validated by NIST (National Institute of Standards and
Technology) in December 1991.

*	SVID 3 Conformance

	The System V Interface Definition, Issue 3, (SVID3) specifies
a SVR4 based environment that allows users to create applications
software that is independent of any particular computer hardware.  Any
application program using only components defined in SVID3 will be
source compatible with, and portable to, any computer system that
supports the interface.

*	SVR4 DDI/DKI Conformance

	The Device Driver Interface (DDI) and Driver-Kernel Interface
(DKI) attempts to standardize the interface between device drivers and
the kernel.  By regulating this driver-kernel interaction, source
compatibility (and ultimately binary compatibility) for device drivers
can be accomplished.

*	SVR4 Streams Conformance

	Release 6.1 has been enhanced to contain the AT&T SVR4 Streams
functionality.  This logic is based on the standard SVR4 source,
modified as necessary for the CX/UX multi-threaded kernel.  In
addition, extensive testing and correction has been done to correct
"holes" in earlier versions of the Streams logic.

*	SVR4 File System Organization

	Release 6.1 adopts the file system directory hierarchy used by
SVR4, which is based on three partitions, /, /usr, and /var, instead
of two.  A large number of files and directories have been renamed to
correspond to the new organization, and commands and library functions
have been modified to reference files by their new pathnames.
Backwards compatibility is provided using symbolic links for most (but
not all) pathnames that have changed.

*	Internationalization Support

	All internationalization support provided by AT&T SVR4, with
the exception of the AT&T alternate message catalog format and
commands, are available in this release.  This support is a super-set
of the requirements of X/Open Portability Guide, ANSI C, and POSIX
1003.1.

*	ANSI C

	The C compiler released with 6.1 has a run time option to
allow the compilation of ANSI C compliant programs, By default, it
will compile the previously accepted Kernighan and Ritchie compliant
programs.

Night Hawk systems offer symmetric multiprocessing with the CS/SX
Trusted Computing Base.  Depending upon model, Night Hawk systems are
expandable from one CPU to eight CPUs executing in a peer-to-peer
relationship under one scheduler and operating system.  Night Hawk
systems currently range from 20 to 800 MIP configurations and execute
a wide variety of commercially available software packages.

High-performance multiprocessing capabilities coupled with the highest
real-time response ensure that Night Hawk systems offer fast system
throughput for message handling applications and communications
networks.  CX/SX contains unique system services which allow for
tailoring the system performance to meet demanding high traffic
situations.  For example, true priority scheduling and dynamic load
balancing are just two services which are implemented to guarantee
fast response and message processing.  Even under the demands of full
B1 level security auditing, CX/SX responds in real-time and provides
the highest system throughput of systems in its class.

For more information of Harris Night Hawk computer systems, call 1 800
4 Harris Extension 4633.

email:	gailt@misg.csd.harris.com

Mail	????
	c/o Harris Computer System Division
	2101 West Cypress Creek Rd.
	Fort Lauderdale, FL  33309
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From: gailt@misg.csd.harris.com (Gail P. Truman)
Newsgroups: comp.newprod
Subject: New secure O.S for Harris Night Hawk computers
Message-ID: <1992Oct2.003456.15331@chg.mcd.mot.com>
Date: 2 Oct 92 00:34:56 GMT
Sender: usenet@chg.mcd.mot.com (Ron Heiby)
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Organization: Harris Computer Systems Division, Ft. Lauderdale FL
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