On Thursday 04 August 2005 10:56 am, Ed White wrote: > Is there any plan to use x86 cpus rings (0..3) to improve OpenBSD security?
Intel VanderPool and AMD Pacifica Virtual PC technologies will add the equivalent of ring(-1) to the x86 architecture. This new hardware capability will permit multiple (copies of) operating systems to be run simultaneously on a single cpu. The operating systems will not (at least in the case of Pacifica) need to be modified in any way to be virtualized as is currently required with Xen. Virtualization does not directly impact the security of OpenBSD, so it is probably of no interest to Openbsd developers. But it *will* make possible running a gaggle of copies of OpenBSD (eg OpenBSD 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8) simultaneously on a single computer. :-) Look for AMD chips implementing Pacifica sometime in 2006(Q1?). Dave Feustel
