CygWin Security & Performance Issues

CygWin Security & Performance Issues

[David Law]

  Hello List,

about 18 months ago we recommended cygwin as a unix-like
environment for a Windows 2003 Server to our Admin.

This was turned down on the grounds that it did not satisfy
the security requirements of our organisation. (unfortunately
I don't know the details as I wasn't involved in the process)

Instead, the "Subsystem for Unix-based Applications" was chosen.

I am now trying to port a fairly simple shell script to SUA
and find massive performance problems: under cygwin the script
runs for about 20 minutes on my notebook, but under SUA it takes
about 2 days on our Zillion-core 2003 Server!!

Firstly, I was wondering if SUA maybe has a reputation for
bad performance, or could it maybe be the architecture of
desktop contra server pc's?
Would you expect better performance from cygwin?

Secondly, how do you see cygwin's compliance with a Windows
Server security infrastructure?  Is a user limited to just
the same as under windows or can they somehow access other
users data they otherwise couldn't?  I noticed in cygwin 1.7
there is something called LSA Authentication. Does this address
these issues?

Thanks in advance,
DaveLaw


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Re: CygWin Security & Performance Issues

[Csaba Raduly]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 1:36 AM, David Law wrote:
(snip)
>
> Firstly, I was wondering if SUA maybe has a reputation for
> bad performance, or could it maybe be the architecture of
> desktop contra server pc's?
> Would you expect better performance from cygwin?
>

I was involved in porting a project with a Unix background (Solaris,
then Cygwin and Linux, and even FreeBSD) to SUA. I was expecting SUA
to be slightly faster than Cygwin since it has its own subsystem
rather than being implemented on top of Win32. However compilation
times (for a bit over 200k lines of C++) were almost identical.
Unfortunately, our project uses poll(), which on SUA does not work
(except for /proc).

Note that SUA has a rather BSD-ish flavor (for instance, bash is not
even present in the default install); whereas Cygwin is very much like
the GNU system.

-- 
Life is complex, with real and imaginary parts.
"Ok, it boots. Which means it must be bug-free and perfect. " -- Linus Torvalds
"People disagree with me. I just ignore them." -- Linus Torvalds

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Re: CygWin Security & Performance Issues

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Aug 12 11:24, Csaba Raduly wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 1:36 AM, David Law wrote:
> (snip)
> >
> > Firstly, I was wondering if SUA maybe has a reputation for
> > bad performance, or could it maybe be the architecture of
> > desktop contra server pc's?
> > Would you expect better performance from cygwin?
> >
> 
> I was involved in porting a project with a Unix background (Solaris,
> then Cygwin and Linux, and even FreeBSD) to SUA. I was expecting SUA
> to be slightly faster than Cygwin since it has its own subsystem
> rather than being implemented on top of Win32. However compilation
> times (for a bit over 200k lines of C++) were almost identical.
> Unfortunately, our project uses poll(), which on SUA does not work
> (except for /proc).

Huh, I would never have expected that, especially given the fact
that Cygwin has to go to great lengths on fork(), while SUA has
a "native" fork implementation.

> Note that SUA has a rather BSD-ish flavor (for instance, bash is not
> even present in the default install); whereas Cygwin is very much like
> the GNU system.

Really?  As far as I understood from the docs, SUA is rather styled
after SVR4.


Corinna

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Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Project Co-Leader          cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat

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Re: CygWin Security & Performance Issues

[Csaba Raduly]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 11:55 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> Really?  As far as I understood from the docs, SUA is rather styled
> after SVR4.

Looks like I got it into my head that if a Unix isn't GNU, it must be
BSD. Obviously, I was wrong *


* "Wrong," said Renner.
  "The tactful way," Rod said quietly, "the polite way to disagree
with the Senator would be to say, `That turns out not to be the
case.'"
-- Niven and Pournelle, The Mote In God's Eye


-- 
Life is complex, with real and imaginary parts.
"Ok, it boots. Which means it must be bug-free and perfect. " -- Linus Torvalds
"People disagree with me. I just ignore them." -- Linus Torvalds

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Re: CygWin Security & Performance Issues

[Gary]

Christopher Faylor wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 10:17:44PM +0200, DaveLaw wrote:
>>Maybe the co-leader of the project should channel her efforts into just
>>that, rather than getting peoples backs up with unnecessary nitpicking
>>about how she thinks they should structure their emails.
>
> Welcome to the cygwin mailing list deny list.
>
> Any other takers?

"Takers" as in "take him out the back and shoot him"? I'd say that's a
*bit* mean, even for you...

-- 
Gary
Non-kook (allegedly)


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Re: CygWin Security & Performance Issues

[Christopher Faylor]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 10:17:44PM +0200, DaveLaw wrote:
>Maybe the co-leader of the project should channel her efforts into just
>that, rather than getting peoples backs up with unnecessary nitpicking
>about how she thinks they should structure their emails.

Welcome to the cygwin mailing list deny list.

Any other takers?

cgf

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Re: CygWin Security & Performance Issues

[DaveLaw]

  Maybe the co-leader of the project should channel her efforts into 
just that,
rather than getting peoples backs up with unnecessary nitpicking about
how she thinks they should structure their emails.

Best Regards,
DaveLaw

On 12.08.2010 21:15, Spiro Trikaliotis wrote:
> * On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 02:29:27PM -0400 Robert Jacobson wrote:
>> On 8/12/2010 10:02 AM, Corinna Vinschen  wrote:
>>
>>> Ok, I'll not waste my time and reply to you another time.  That makes
>>> both of us happy.
>> Is this what passes for professional behavior at Red Hat?
> You mean, the co-leader of the project should let herself be insulted
> from a person who got his answers, but did not even give a thank you?
> Note also that this is the "open" Cygwin list. That is, this is not a
> paid support channel. I would consider it more like some people give
> advice for free, and not necessarily with the hat of Red Hat.
>
> I'll go back in lurk mode again...
>
> Regards,
> Spiro.
>

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Re: CygWin Security ; Performance Issues

[Christopher Faylor]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 02:29:27PM -0400, Robert Jacobson wrote:
>On 8/12/2010 10:02 AM, Corinna Vinschen  wrote:
>>Ok, I'll not waste my time and reply to you another time.  That makes
>>both of us happy.
>
>Is this what passes for professional behavior at Red Hat?

This is off-topic.

If you want to pursue the issue of "professional behavior" further then
please use the cygwin-talk mailing list.  That's what it is for.  I'll
be posting my reply there.

Please do not reply further in this vein in the cygwin list.

cgf

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Re: CygWin Security & Performance Issues

[Christopher Faylor]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 10:00:02AM -0500, Jeremy Bopp wrote:
>On 8/12/2010 9:48 AM, David Law wrote:
>> Yes, go & waste someone elses time instead.
>> 
>> I got exactly the information I needed for my meeting tomorrow.
>
>Is it too much to hope that what you got is, "Don't use Cygwin.  They
>had the nerve to *ask* me to conform to their list posting rules, and
>that hurt my feelings and made me irrationally angry?"

And remember "You won't like us when you're angry."

cgf

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Re: CygWin Security & Performance Issues

[Andrew Schulman]

> Yes, go & waste someone elses time instead.

So your time was wasted, and yet ...

> I got exactly the information I needed for my meeting tomorrow.

... with never a word of thanks, only insults.


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Re: CygWin Security & Performance Issues

[Jeremy Bopp]

On 8/12/2010 9:48 AM, David Law wrote:
> Yes, go & waste someone elses time instead.
> 
> I got exactly the information I needed for my meeting tomorrow.

Is it too much to hope that what you got is, "Don't use Cygwin.  They
had the nerve to *ask* me to conform to their list posting rules, and
that hurt my feelings and made me irrationally angry?"

-Jeremy

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Re: CygWin Security & Performance Issues

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Aug 12 16:47, David Law wrote:
> (Oh, by the way, for those of you who don't speak German,
> "Text Oben, Fullquote Unten" is just as meaningless)

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOFU
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOFU


Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Project Co-Leader          cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat

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Re: CygWin Security & Performance Issues

[David Law]

Yes, go & waste someone elses time instead.

I got exactly the information I needed for my meeting tomorrow.

Goodbye,
DaveLaw

----- original message --------

Subject: Re: Re: CygWin Security & Performance Issues
Sent: Thu, 12 Aug 2010
From: Corinna Vinschen<corinna-cygwin@cygwin.com>

> On Aug 12 15:51, David Law wrote:
> > 
> > Please don't...
> > ... waste peoples time with meaningless acronyms.
> > 
> > Best regards,
> > DaveLaw
> > 
> > ----- original message --------
> > 
> > Subject: Re: CygWin Security & Performance Issues
> > Sent: Thu, 12 Aug 2010
> > From: Corinna Vinschen<...>
> 
> Ok, I'll not waste my time and reply to you another time.  That makes
> both of us happy.
> 
> 
> Corinna
> 
> -- 
> Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
> Cygwin Project Co-Leader          cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
> Red Hat
> 
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> 
> 

--- original message end ----


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Re: CygWin Security & Performance Issues

[David Law]

Here is the so-called "definition" of TOFU:

"Text Over, Full-quote Under (or, in the original German, "Text Oben, Fullquote Unten").
A combination of top posting and full quoting, which makes the messages hard to read (accoring to RFC 1855).
Often combined with raw e-mail addresses in quoted messages (see PCYMTNQREAIYR).
Added after repeated requests from Corinna Vinschen"

Ah, now everything is clear:  "Added after REPEATED REQUESTS from Corinna Vinschen"
Who apparently asked over & over & over again until they finally capitulated.

Well, whatever that jibberish was supposed to mean,
it would seem someone has a bee in her bonnet about it!!

(Oh, by the way, for those of you who don't speak German,
"Text Oben, Fullquote Unten" is just as meaningless)

Schoene Gruesse aus dem Odenwald,
DaveLaw

----- original message --------

Subject: Re: CygWin Security & Performance Issues
Sent: Thu, 12 Aug 2010
From: Andrew Schulman<schulman.andrew@epamail.epa.gov>

> > Please don't...
> > ... waste peoples time with meaningless acronyms.
> 
> The meaning is perfectly clear, and posted on cygwin.com. Corinna even
> kindly provided the link, to make it trivial for you to go and find out
> what it meant.
> 
> The meaning expresses one of the standard requirements of the Cygwin
> mailing lists, which list participants are expected to abide by.  A polite
> reminder is entirely appropriate. 
> 
> 
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> 
> 

--- original message end ----


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