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Oxide Computer: Docs

docs.oxide.computer

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Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#71

Post by ori_b »

drbawb wrote: post #38

I am super interested in learning more about the storage subsystem! I figured they'd be using ZFS, given the people involved, but it appears they've also gone ahead and built a clustered FS (crucible) on top of it? I figured something like that would be necessary to handle fault tolerance at the gimlet level. (Losing an entire shelf / drive controller, etc.) Getting ZFS to go multi-node is surely a neat trick. Second…

They're not the first company to do that. https://panzura.com/ did something similar.

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#72

Post by intelVISA »

tiffanyh wrote: post #27
dist1ll wrote: post #5

As someone who's only dealt with commodity server hardware, these specs make me salivate. And all these boot/management TUIs are just so satisfying to look at. (Sorry to be that guy, but just a friendly suggestion: high contrast dark themes are difficult to read for people with astigmatism. Especially since this is technical documentation, intended to be thoroughly read, you might want to consider a light theme toggl…

> As someone who's only dealt with commodity server hardware, these specs make me salivate Commodity servers have the same specs. Here’s a reseller of SuperMicro servers, where you can buy similar compute on the cheap. https://www.siliconmechanics.com/systems/servers/rackform

As much as I wish Oxide the best, most of us here would probably prefer our own libre, hand-crafted OS atop Coreboot.

(Or maybe I speak for myself only...)

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#73

Post by javajosh »

soneil wrote: post #49
javajosh wrote: post #19

I'm particularly impressed with their anti-tamper measures. "For each server sled, shine a light into the cubby to look for any physical tampering or damage." https://docs.oxide.computer/guides/system/rack-installation-...

That's pretty standard? Anything that's going straight into 400V (I assume) deserves a good eyeball before it's energised. I doubt their "root of trust" knows how to protect the system from a dead mouse in the bus bars.

I'm not worried about dead mice; I'm worried about tampering. I would have hoped there'd be more guidance than "just look and see if anything looks weird". A determined threat actor can easily side-step that check with, for example, careful desoldering/resoldering technique.

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#74

Post by mkeeter »

whalesalad wrote: post #70

Would be cool to play with this hypervisor on some lab hardware.

It's been done before!

See the excellent "Oxide at Home" blog post [1], and HN discussion [2]

[1] https://artemis.sh/2022/03/14/propolis-oxide-at-home-pt1.htm... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30671447

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#75

Post by jxf »

dist1ll wrote: post #5

As someone who's only dealt with commodity server hardware, these specs make me salivate. And all these boot/management TUIs are just so satisfying to look at. (Sorry to be that guy, but just a friendly suggestion: high contrast dark themes are difficult to read for people with astigmatism. Especially since this is technical documentation, intended to be thoroughly read, you might want to consider a light theme toggl…

> boot/management TUIs

Where are you seeing these in the docs? Or are those somewhere else?

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#76

Post by dang »

howinteresting wrote: post #39
helf wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a great listen. Thanks for mentioning it

[flagged]

We didn't shadowban them, we told them we were banning them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34916347, we told them why, and it wasn't the reason you've presumed.

When people presume things about moderation, they almost always get it wrong. That's a pity because all anyone has to do to get the correct answer is ask us.

If you see an account that's banned and you don't think it should be, please let us know at hn@ycombinator.com so we can take a look. We've unbanned quite a few accounts that way. In the meantime, you can vouch for their good comments (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cvouch). But please don't divert the thread with offtopic noise that is likely to be incorrect.

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#77

Post by dsies »

benrockwood wrote: post #14

It's great to see Oxide shipping. They have an incredibly talented team thats worked very hard for a long time in the best tradition of Sun Microsystems.

Not being pedactic, I swear :)

Can you elaborate on the Sun comparison? I am a huge fan of Sun and what they did for computing at large - designing hardware, creating specs, their contributions to evolving unix and so on. I'm not sure how Oxide compares. Unless you're talking about "in the spirit of Sun".

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#78

Post by usefulcat »

howinteresting wrote: post #56
usefulcat wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that one comment, probably not, but maybe for dozens of previous flagged and/or dead comments

Once you're shadowbanned your comments start off as dead by default and have to be vouched to be visible.

Ah, I wasn't aware of that--thank you for the clarification.

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#79

Post by cbarrick »

dsies wrote: post #77
benrockwood wrote: post #14

It's great to see Oxide shipping. They have an incredibly talented team thats worked very hard for a long time in the best tradition of Sun Microsystems.

Not being pedactic, I swear :) Can you elaborate on the Sun comparison? I am a huge fan of Sun and what they did for computing at large - designing hardware, creating specs, their contributions to evolving unix and so on. I'm not sure how Oxide compares. Unless you're talking about "in the spirit of Sun".

I'm not the one you replied to, so I don't know what they mean specifically about the "tradition of Sun", but

Bryan worked at Sun where he helped create DTrace.

After the Oracle acquisition, he left to join Joyent as VP of Engineering and then CTO. Steve was COO of Joyent. And I have heard similar comparisons between Joyent and Sun.

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#80

Post by throwawaylinux »

mhh__ wrote: post #37
solarkraft wrote: post #29

Finally I actually understand what they're building. Now I must ask: Why? On-prem servers aren't a new invention. The market seems pretty saturated (and shrinking). Virtualization isn't a new invention either. The market seems pretty well served, at least commercially. Can the integration of both be a convincing enough advantage? The management UI certainly looks nice; it's something I'd like to have on my KVM box at…

YOLO - sometimes it's worth paying more money for something someone has actually sat down and designed properly.

So what has been designed properly and what hasn't?
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