If anything Solaris would probably be more secure just because nobody is looking at exploiting Solaris today. You would only have to worry about very targetted attacks by at least competent enough attackers.
I dunno, Solaris has some standard components too. It seems like it includes bash, so you'd probably have the Shellshock vulnerability to worry about, at the very least.
It used to be that SSL was rare and expensive because the hardware wasn't widespread enough to handle the crypto. I have no idea if that applies to this machine though.
The only realistic answer to that would be if modern protocols and security demanded that the server had something fully-compatible with the x86-architecture TPM module.
Other than that it's a silly question (albeit a fun exercise) since in extremis the SPARC chip could run an emulator of sufficient quality to run recent x86 Linux.
@johnklos introduced me to tinc ( https://tinc-vpn.org/ ). Seems like that would also have worked with some sort of outside bastion host rather than more things going through the infinite intestines of Cloudflare.
This is a funny question because I hosted my website on a SPARCstation 1+ from a decade earlier than that Netra X1.
(I bought it from some guy who lived 3 floors up in an old building in the middle of the Red Light District in Amsterdam - it also came with a giant display which was insanely heavy to carry downstairs. No elevator just small wooden stairs. Back at home I installed NetBSD on it and it became my first real UNIX workstation. The luxury of a real UNIX box with 16MB RAM and 40MB disk ...)
Silly. Circa 1995 I had a Tatung SS20 clone with "180 Mhz" Ross mbus modules running NetBSD and either Boa or thttp (I'd have to restore from a DAT to know at this point...). A couple of years later it was a Sun SS5 with a TurboSparc 170Mhz upgrade running OpenBSD and thttp. Even got slashdotted, overwhelming my ADSL. I replaced that with a Pentium Pro desktop running OpenBSD and it hummed along for years. Yes, old kit can serve content. It bogs on SSL but it serves it.
gerikson | a month ago
Pretty sure most of the early internet ran on Sun hardware, so this rhetorical question doesn't really make sense to me.
doctor_eval | a month ago
I mean, they put the dot in dot-com.
ruptwelve | a month ago
I guess the question I posed, can I put it online in 2026! Which, yes, the answer is yes!
LeahNeukirchen | a month ago
It speaks TCP/IP, why wouldn't it?
ruptwelve | a month ago
Initially I wanted Solaris to be the OS of choice, but that felt very insecure. Hence OpenBSD enabled this to happen!
fanf | a month ago
Tribblix is an illumos distribution with SPARC builds
ruptwelve | a month ago
TIL about Tribblix! Thank you for sharing!
seszett | a month ago
If anything Solaris would probably be more secure just because nobody is looking at exploiting Solaris today. You would only have to worry about very targetted attacks by at least competent enough attackers.
sjamaan | a month ago
I dunno, Solaris has some standard components too. It seems like it includes bash, so you'd probably have the Shellshock vulnerability to worry about, at the very least.
gerikson | a month ago
Realistically, if you're publishing a static website using a well-known server like Apache or nginx, what do you have to worry about apart from DDoS?
sjamaan | a month ago
Hm, if it uses the outdated system OpenSSL, you might still be in for a world of hurt.
gerikson | a month ago
Not sure a 30 year old server has the oomph to handle SSL though... but in this case we're running OpenBSD so SSL should be fine.
nortti | a month ago
How do you mean?
gerikson | a month ago
It used to be that SSL was rare and expensive because the hardware wasn't widespread enough to handle the crypto. I have no idea if that applies to this machine though.
MarkMLl | a month ago
The only realistic answer to that would be if modern protocols and security demanded that the server had something fully-compatible with the x86-architecture TPM module.
Other than that it's a silly question (albeit a fun exercise) since in extremis the SPARC chip could run an emulator of sufficient quality to run recent x86 Linux.
classichasclass | a month ago
@johnklos introduced me to tinc ( https://tinc-vpn.org/ ). Seems like that would also have worked with some sort of outside bastion host rather than more things going through the infinite intestines of Cloudflare.
kreeft | a month ago
Shouldn't this be tagged with
vibecoding? It was a bit of a killer when it suddenly went to that.fedemp | a month ago
Half of the post is about kiro, so maybe.
st3fan | a month ago
This is a funny question because I hosted my website on a SPARCstation 1+ from a decade earlier than that Netra X1.
(I bought it from some guy who lived 3 floors up in an old building in the middle of the Red Light District in Amsterdam - it also came with a giant display which was insanely heavy to carry downstairs. No elevator just small wooden stairs. Back at home I installed NetBSD on it and it became my first real UNIX workstation. The luxury of a real UNIX box with 16MB RAM and 40MB disk ...)
kitkat | a month ago
The old purple Sun pizza boxes are so pretty, I'd love to set one up like this!
ruptwelve | a month ago
They are one of the prettiest systems. There are other tower style Netras I am yet to get!
ThatsInteresting | a month ago
Silly. Circa 1995 I had a Tatung SS20 clone with "180 Mhz" Ross mbus modules running NetBSD and either Boa or thttp (I'd have to restore from a DAT to know at this point...). A couple of years later it was a Sun SS5 with a TurboSparc 170Mhz upgrade running OpenBSD and thttp. Even got slashdotted, overwhelming my ADSL. I replaced that with a Pentium Pro desktop running OpenBSD and it hummed along for years. Yes, old kit can serve content. It bogs on SSL but it serves it.