Solarsword

Solarsword

Background

SolarSword is the first OpenSolaris based security related distribution in the world. Basically, it is a liveDVD operating system with an OpenSolaris kernel used for penetrating test.

Feature

From the name “SolarSword”, you can tell it is something related to Solaris and is some kind of weapon. That’s Right. In the IT world, the network and operating system is your fort and the security test tools or hacking tools are your weapons. SolarSword is a collection of those tools. We are not telling people to use SolarSword to intrude into others’ systems. On the contrary, we wanted to establish a testing toolsuite for those Solaris system administrators, to test the vulnerability of their own system and network.

There are many OpenSolaris Based distributions in the world. SolarSword is only one of them and maybe the least powerful one. But it is the first OpenSolaris distribution in China. We are learning and trying to make it better.

One of the key features of SolarSword is that it is a liveDVD distribution without installation. Generally, system administrators use a special computer to install all the security related tools. However, downloading and installing all those tools are tedious work. Some lazy administrators may fail installing, configuring and using all of them. SolarSword provides them an easy way. Furthermore, the underlying computer specially used to perform penetrating test is subject to the risk of being compromised which will eventually lead to a false analysis of the security status of the entire system. A liveDVD distribution, SolarSword, does not have such risk.

In another sense, SolarSword is just a starting test for us to combine OpenSolaris operating system and security related applications together. We’d regard it as a beginning of a series of security related distributions using OpenSolaris technique. An OpenSolaris based HoneyPot or small firewall would be really interesting research areas. Also an OpenSolaris based LiveUSB distribution with all its enhanced security feature would grasp people’s interests. We have been wasting too much time planning. It is time to act. 

Sreenshot