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Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

console.dev

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Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#11

Post by Rebelgecko »

Aeolos wrote: post #7

> "I have a early-2009 “octo” Mac Pro [...]" > > OS: macOS Does this make anyone else a bit uncomfortable? I don't think MacOS is still receiving security updates on that hardware. I'm all for using old hardware for as long as it keeps working, but I would never browse the internet with a vulnerable OS on a vulnerable processor (spectre etc...) Or am I missing something?

For many versions of MacOS you can just edit a plist file to get it to install on unsupported hardware. When I've done this there were no stability or performance issues, but YMMV depending on what OS and hardware versions you try.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#13

Post by Alupis »

lunixbochs wrote: post #9
Aeolos wrote: post #7

> "I have a early-2009 “octo” Mac Pro [...]" > > OS: macOS Does this make anyone else a bit uncomfortable? I don't think MacOS is still receiving security updates on that hardware. I'm all for using old hardware for as long as it keeps working, but I would never browse the internet with a vulnerable OS on a vulnerable processor (spectre etc...) Or am I missing something?

They're possibly something like a dosdude patcher or modified bootloader to run an OS like Catalina on it.

I have trouble understanding why people go through these hoops.

Yeah, I get it, people love their Mac's... but the company that produces them actively undermines your ability to continue using perfectly good hardware past what they feel is "profitable". This leads to huge efforts to hack/reverse the updaters, or alter newer OS versions to trick them into installing, etc.

I'd personally jump over to some system that doesn't hate it's users nearly as much. But, that's just me.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#14

Post by robotmay »

Nice article. rsync.net is one part of my personal computing setup that I never even think twice about. It's simple and it works, and that clearly applies to the infrastructure too. I use ZFS locally and it has made managing my own data strangely pleasing, and it's nice to have the same system on my off-site storage too.

On the laptop-front, I find myself drifting towards a similar setup to John. I have a hefty workstation laptop but the battery life is dire and it weighs a ton, so I pretty much just run it as a headless machine next to my server now. I'm planning on picking up a Pinebook Pro as an "outdoors" machine to just remote in. I also find myself extremely unwilling to arse about swapping multiple machines on my monitors so being able to keep my work machine separate and secure but operate it from my desktop is a nice compromise.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#16

Post by rsync »

booi wrote: post #12

A simple layer 2 network topology only works in very narrow use cases (like this one). But a "dumb switch" means you also lose a lot of observability and it's very difficult to apply consistent network acls.

Agreed - we are, in a sense, "cheating" because our product is so simple that we do have one of these "very narrow use cases".

The benefits are tremendous, however, and go beyond day to day operations. A dumb switch has no credentials to protect and there is almost zero attack surface.

Further, if our switch dies we can immediately replace it with any other dumb switch that just happens to be lying around.

If you read failure studies - like those in the excellent Charles Perrow book _Normal Accidents_[1] - you see that in many cases there is a very special component that fails and everything goes to hell when they can't find a replacement for it.

So, while I can't encourage everyone to use dumb, unmanaged switches (because not everyone can) I can encourage everyone to remove as many very special components as they can.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_Accidents

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#17

Post by gambiting »

rsync wrote: post #10
Aeolos wrote: post #7

> "I have a early-2009 “octo” Mac Pro [...]" > > OS: macOS Does this make anyone else a bit uncomfortable? I don't think MacOS is still receiving security updates on that hardware. I'm all for using old hardware for as long as it keeps working, but I would never browse the internet with a vulnerable OS on a vulnerable processor (spectre etc...) Or am I missing something?

"Or am I missing something?" Yes, one minor thing ... Although you are correct that Apple is not officially supporting the latest versions of OSX on that hardware, there is a trivially easy hack of the system that will allow you to load newer versions of OSX. So, like many of you, I am not running Catalina but I am running an updated, patched version of OSX.

I have a late 2008 MacBook Pro running Catalina that I still use daily. As far as I can tell it still receives security updates.

There's a simple patcher you can use for these old macbooks:

http://dosdude1.com/catalina/

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#18

Post by boardwaalk »

Alupis wrote: post #13
lunixbochs wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're possibly something like a dosdude patcher or modified bootloader to run an OS like Catalina on it.

I have trouble understanding why people go through these hoops. Yeah, I get it, people love their Mac's... but the company that produces them actively undermines your ability to continue using perfectly good hardware past what they feel is "profitable". This leads to huge efforts to hack/reverse the updaters, or alter newer OS versions to trick them into installing, etc. I'd personally jump over to some system that d…

Do you really need to pivot into Apple bashing on this thread? It’s not really on topic or needed.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#19

Post by duxup »

booi wrote: post #12

A simple layer 2 network topology only works in very narrow use cases (like this one). But a "dumb switch" means you also lose a lot of observability and it's very difficult to apply consistent network acls.

Yeah in a previous career I was a networking engineer. I ran into a number of folks who were pure (or largely) layer 2 only environments.

In the right situation it's doable and potentially highly desirable due to the simplicity, but requires a lot of discipline by everyone involved, and the right conditions to make it work.

It was a design I supported and thought it was a great idea for the right situation, but I also was hesitant to introduce it to anyone but the 'right customer'.... who probably already knew what they needed to know about it.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#20

Post by gambiting »

Alupis wrote: post #13
lunixbochs wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're possibly something like a dosdude patcher or modified bootloader to run an OS like Catalina on it.

I have trouble understanding why people go through these hoops. Yeah, I get it, people love their Mac's... but the company that produces them actively undermines your ability to continue using perfectly good hardware past what they feel is "profitable". This leads to huge efforts to hack/reverse the updaters, or alter newer OS versions to trick them into installing, etc. I'd personally jump over to some system that d…

It's not out of some love for Macs. I have a 2008 MacBook running Catalina and it's simply because the cost of replacing it is >0. If this works and works well(and it does) then why would I get rid of it? Just to spite apple, which doesn't care either way?

I also have a 2005 car that still runs - should I get rid of it because the company that made it stopped providing any kind of support for it long time ago? Or you know....keep using it because it works?

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