Strong encryption included with Solaris 10 09/07!

Yay! The day is finally here! A base version of the Solaris operating system now includes full strength crypto! The packages contained in the Encryption Kit are now included in Solaris 10 09/07 (aka Update 4) by default. This includes: SUNWcry, SUNWcryr and SUNWcryman. Now things like IPsec and OpenSSL will have access to full strength keys at installation time, and you'll no longer see weird errors coming from OpenSSL.

This was a simpler, and hackier, approach than what is being undertaken for Nevada/OpenSolaris. For Solaris 10 09/07, I "simply" got advice from legal that this is okay to include now, filed a package RTI requesting that the FCS versions of the Encryption Kit packages get included in the WOS (Wad of Stuff), and requested those packages to be freshbitted like everything else. These packages had problems with zones, and the like, that were never noticed by internal testers before - since they weren't included by default. Mary D. & Tony S. worked with the patch gatekeepers to get script patches integrated that would do the class action scripts required to fix those packaging errors.

Everything should be in tip top shape now! Enjoy!

The great outdoors!

Had a fantastic trip to Yosemite this weekend - staying in Camp Curry. What a fun place! It's still very rustic, yet it's walking distance to clean bathrooms with running water, showers, buffet, pizza shop & bar. The bartender, Ken, was very friendly as he explained that their wine list was out of date and that they no longer carried Foppiano wines, and promised to pass on my disappointment to the management. As I'm not a huge jug wine fan, we decided to have beers on tap. Not bad for the wilderness.

Deer were all over the campsite, cautious of the people, but not at all spooked. We didn't see any bears, though some of the other campers' snoring could've easily been mistaken for a bear growl ;-)

Hiked up to Nevada Falls - using the John Muir trail this time. After my last experience attempting to climb up Half Dome, I'll never go up the Mist trail again! My calves are aching horribly - guess I'm still not in climbing shape!

SUNWcry/SUNWcryr removal webrev posted!

Darren Moffat & Dina Nimeh did a lot a work several months ago to remove SUNWcry and SUNWcryr packages from existence (rolling the stronger crypto into the base operating system packages) and factoring out libsoftcrypto.  The work got put on a back burner as the ZFS crypto project started getting really hot.  I took over the gate for them & have been working on resyncing it to the latest ONNV bits, fixing build issues, and getting it ready for integration.  It's not 100% there yet (still need to get rid of merge turds, clean up multiple deltas, etc), but I've sent out the code review.  Please take a look & provide comments by 7 Sept 2007.  Thanks!

 

Rehearsing on the stage!

In a very exciting development for SDG's Beauty and the Beast cast, we had our first major rehearsal on the actual performance stage last night - and all of the rest of our rehearsals will be on the actual stage. We have now moved out of the tiny dance rehearsal room at the Historic Hoover Theater and onto our large stage.... which will be made tiny by the GIANT set pieces we'll have on there. The tech crew taped out the positions of the farm house and the F.C. (Freakin' Castle), and we discovered that where we thought we could enter, there were now walls. Most of our big dances had to be reworked last night to accommodate the odd placement of set pieces (which I'm sure will look fantastic from the audience). I hope I can remember all of the changes for our next rehearsal. At least we're doing these changes now when we still have weeks to get used to the new steps and other changes.

Our vocal director, John, is back in town and reminding us of our harmonies. We aren't too bad, but will need to refocus on some dynamics and breathing. Singing isn't all about just having the right notes.

We've had a photographer in catching shots of our rehearsals - it's pretty neat to look and see a show build up from scratch.

Next week's rehearsals should see more of the actual flow - back to what we were doing in Hoover, but now on the proper stage.

Considering how many more weeks we still have, the flow of the show is very good and we're doing well on time, too. These next few weeks will just be polishing, which is a fantastic position to be in.

Lunar eclipse

This was pretty cool - I read about on the Internet yesterday, and my husband and I set the alarm for 3:30AM this morning, threw on some sweats and went outside to just look at the red moon in the sky for about 10 minutes. The view was fantastic - I can only imagine how neat it would've been if we had a telescope or binoculars, but even with the naked eye it was an awesome sight.

Lunar eclipses aren't rare - it's just rare to get such a good and unobstructed view of a full lunar eclipse.

Unfortunately, had a hard time falling back to sleep after that (the cat expecting her breakfast didn't help), but I think it was worth being a bit tired today.

Neck deep in rehearsals!

Rehearsals for Beauty and the Beast at Saratoga Drama Group are well underway. I'm doing a ton of dancing, and while I did have all my music memorized a few weeks ago - the dancing has pushed it from my brain. We have a night off of rehearsal tonight, so I'll have to sit down with my keyboard & plunk through my harmonies. That's actually a pretty big recent accomplishment for me - I've learned to read enough music that I can actually do the "one fingered bandit" on the keyboard (or piano - I just don't own one myself!) and plunk out notes.

I can even play a few songs, but nothing complicated like what we're singing in BnB. Once rehearsals wind down, I'll have to start practicing piano again. My 6 year old nephew plays way better than me - I'm sure he always will.

I had a few recent callbacks, but haven't been cast in anything beyond Beauty & the Beast. The last show I was called back for the director said I just had too many conflicts for October, since I'm going to the Grace Hopper Women in Computing conference and taking an acting class. That's okay - a break will be good for me, and there will be other shows! Also, having a break in my acting will give me a chance to see my friends in shows!

Anyways - tickets to Beauty and the Beast are more than 75% sold out for opening night (Sept 22), so call now for tickets or visit the website. Don't forget to say you're coming to see me!

FIPS 140-2 rough draft design posted!

I've finally gotten a rough draft design for the FIPS 140-2 work I'm doing for getting the Solaris Cryptographic Framework certified. It turns out we have to do some coding work, first, before we'll even be certifiable. I've tried to capture it all in the rough design, but I am new to the FIPS 140 world, so would love feedback from more experienced folks.

Another engineer will be joining me on the enhancements soon - yay!

If you're interested, design discussion is going on on the crypto-discuss at opensolaris . org alias.