Free computer systems software for linux

Ibis is an open source Java grid software project of the Computer Systems group, which is part of the Computer Science department of the Faculty of Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Using Ibis, software can be developed which runs reliably and efficiently on a grid. Programs can, through Ibis, make use of high speed networking hardware while still remaining portable.
Ibis project is possible to write Ibis programs using multiple programming models, including standard Java RMI, models which support group communication, a divide-and-conquer model, and message passing.
Ibis is designed as a multi layer system. See the picture of the Ibis design below. On top of the system are the applications. These applications can use any of the programming models present in Ibis.
Available models include standard Java RMI, a divide and conqueror model called Satin, and GMI, a version of RMI enhanced with group communication. The next layer is the Ibis Portability Layer, or IPL.
The IPL acts as a common interface for the different programming models to the bottom implementation layer. Multiple implementations are available.
Some using 100% Java code to ensure portability, and some taking advantage of local high speed networks such as Myrinet using native code.
Enhancements:
- This release adds MPJ/Ibis, a pure Java implementation of the MPJ programming interface that has been defined by the Java Grande forum to provide MPI-like message passing for Java applications.
- Shared objects for Satin were added.
- This is a replacement (and major improvement) of the TupleSpace.
- The TupleSpace is still there, but it is deprecated and will probably not be there anymore in the next Ibis release.
- The connection setup code was improved and rewritten.
- Various scalability issues were fixed, mostly in the nameserver.
- Ibis now scales up to at least a thousand nodes.

GGAP project is a GTK+ frontend for GAP computer algebra system.
Main features:
- GAP-friendly text editor.
- GAP-friendly terminal emulator.
- Shared package which enables creating gui in GAP, somewhat similar to XGAP.

libselinux is part of the NSAs security-enhanced Linux package.
As part of its Information Assurance mission, the National Security Agency has long been involved with the computer security research community in investigating a wide range of computer security topics including operating system security.
Recognizing the critical role of operating system security mechanisms in supporting security at higher levels, researchers from NSAs Information Assurance Research Group have been investigating an architecture that can provide the necessary security functionality in a manner that can meet the security needs of a wide range of computing environments.
End systems must be able to enforce the separation of information based on confidentiality and integrity requirements to provide system security.
Operating system security mechanisms are the foundation for ensuring such separation. Unfortunately, existing mainstream operating systems lack the critical security feature required for enforcing separation: mandatory access control. As a consequence, application security mechanisms are vulnerable to tampering and bypass, and malicious or flawed applications can easily cause failures in system security.
The results of several previous research projects in this area have been incorporated in a security-enhanced Linux system. This version of Linux has a strong, flexible mandatory access control architecture incorporated into the major subsystems of the kernel. The system provides a mechanism to enforce the separation of information based on confidentiality and integrity requirements. This allows threats of tampering and bypassing of application security mechanisms to be addressed and enables the confinement of damage that can be caused by malicious or flawed applications.
Linux was chosen as the platform for this work because its growing success and open development environment provided an opportunity to demonstrate that this functionality can be successful in a mainstream operating system and, at the same time, contribute to the security of a widely used system. Additionally, the integration of these security research results into Linux may encourage additional operating system security research that may lead to additional improvement in system security.
This work is not intended as a complete security solution for Linux. Security-enhanced Linux is not an attempt to correct any flaws that may currently exist in Linux. Instead, it is simply an example of how mandatory access controls that can confine the actions of any process, including a superuser process, can be added into Linux. The focus of this work has not been on system assurance or other security features such as security auditing, although these elements are also important for a secure system.
The security mechanisms implemented in the system provide flexible support for a wide range of security policies. They make it possible to configure the system to meet a wide range of security requirements. The release includes a general-purpose security policy configuration designed to meet a number of security objectives as an example of how this may be done. The flexibility of the system allows the policy to be modified and extended to customize the security policy as required for any given installation.
There is still much work needed to develop a complete security solution. Nonetheless, we feel we have presented a good starting point to bring valuable security features to Linux. We are looking forward to building upon this work with the Linux community.
Security-enhanced Linux is being released under the same terms and conditions as the original sources. The release includes documentation and source code for both the system and some system utilities that were modified to make use of the new features. Participation with comments, constructive criticism, and/or improvements is welcome.
Enhancements:
- Merged fix for avc.h #includes from Eamon Walsh.