Wes,

I don't know where you heard this legend about  IOS running on some other 
OS....  It is not true.

IOS is an operating system implemented directly on a hardware 
platform.  There is no underlying operating system.  Look at your IOS 
router for a "Boot Loader"; that's a small IOS kernel (and not a third 
party OS).

PIX OS ran many, many, many years ago on top of a real time OS (Finesse) 
that was developed specifically for the hardware platform that the PIX used 
at that time.  Today, the PIX OS runs directly on hardware (when you look 
at the actual PIX source code you sometimes see references to the old real 
time OS).

You may be thinking of one of a number attempts (by third parties) to 
create a program that runs on Unix that can execute an IOS or PIX 
image.  The latest attempt at something like that was the "IOU" (IOS On 
Unix) project.  I don't know how far that ever got.

This claim that either IOS or PIX is a version of Unix or running on Unix 
is becoming a kind of annual event.  Maybe someone will claim that all 
Linux implementations actually runs on one copy of run-time Windows NT v4.0 
next?

Liberty for All,

Brian

At 08:15 AM 4/18/2002 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Message: 6
>From: "Noonan, Wesley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "'Clifford Thurber'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>         "'Mikael Olsson'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Cc: "'[EMAIL PROTECTED]'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: RE: Microsoft ISA server (Was: Re: Replacing my old PIX Classic)
>Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 09:12:38 -0500
>
>A sizable chuck of Cisco (don't know for sure on the PIX, but I know on
>their routers) runs an OS behind the scenes that is called Xenix, XNS, ZNS,
>or something along those lines (I really don't recall the actual name). IOS
>runs on top of that (is my understanding, kind of like how Banyan ran on top
>of Unix). My point was simply, if one is going to cast the "a firewall is
>only as strong as the underlying OS" stone, they need to be prepared to cast
>that stone at virtually every firewall out there. It is hardly a ISA
>specific issue (heck, FW1 runs on MS doesn't it?).
>
>Wes Noonan
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>281-208-8993

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