Anyone need a Z10 EC?

[astouffer]

Just noticed this on eBay earlier http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Z10-EC-Enterprise-Class-NEW-system-Think-Pad-server-rack-processor-network/112502681842?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649

A million dollar mainframe new in the box! At minimum you'll need to supply 9.5KW or worst case 27KW

[Shiunbird]

RAID levels 1+0 XD

I'd love to play with such machine some day before I die... I spent far more time than reasonable fooling around with Hercules once upon a time.
The day I own a majority share of any power company I'm getting one.

[ClassicHasClass]

I asked my wife and she said no.

Oh well, she did say yes to the Talos II.

[Shiunbird]

I asked my wife and she said no.

The argument:
With a proper heat pump, you won't ever need winter heating again, or a water boiler.
(I have no idea if that's ever needed where you are)

[astouffer]

RAID levels 1+0 XD

I'd love to play with such machine some day before I die... I spent far more time than reasonable fooling around with Hercules once upon a time.
The day I own a majority share of any power company I'm getting one.

The previous line (Z890) isn't that all that bad power wise. The serious drawback is only being able to boot from FICON drives unless you get a SCSI feature code from IBM. Supposedly that feature comes with the Z10.

It sounds like you're pretty familiar with Z/OS. Have you watched any of the security talks on YouTube? Very eye opening.

[Shiunbird]

It sounds like you're pretty familiar with Z/OS. Have you watched any of the security talks on YouTube? Very eye opening.

I'm not that familiar... there's only so much you can do on the emulator.
I haven't watched the talks. Is there anything specific you would recommend?

But there's this:
https://mainframesproject.tumblr.com
When I first found this blog (or some other related blog), most of them didn't even have SSL enabled.

Edit: adding an example screenshot.

[astouffer]

It sounds like you're pretty familiar with Z/OS. Have you watched any of the security talks on YouTube? Very eye opening.

I'm not that familiar... there's only so much you can do on the emulator.
I haven't watched the talks. Is there anything specific you would recommend?

But there's this:
https://mainframesproject.tumblr.com
When I first found this blog (or some other related blog), most of them didn't even have SSL enabled.

tumblr_o9dlyonuc21tipxnjo1_1280.png

Edit: adding an example screenshot.

That site was mentioned in this talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjtyifWTqmc

[Shiunbird]

Wow, that was fascinating.
Mainframes are incredible. I love the hardware-redundancy of everything, and how they are build to last and to just work. But boy, IBM can shoot itself on the foot at times. Security through obscurity can backfire badly.

[ibmfiles]

Wow, that was fascinating.
Mainframes are incredible. I love the hardware-redundancy of everything, and how they are build to last and to just work. But boy, IBM can shoot itself on the foot at times. Security through obscurity can backfire badly.

IBM shoots themselves in the foot, daily. And it irritates me because they're the only ones who've released hardware that fills certain gaps which *no other* OEMs have, and design principles no other OEMs will ever implement. Although I must say, my X1 Carbon 4th gen is quite nice; the only reason why it has so much control in the UEFI is because of the IBM fragments and the fact Lenovo themselves want to be able to mute Intel ME per the Chinese government--at least I can only assume.

That video brings up an interesting point with CVE-2012-5951 regarding the Rexx vulnerability. Does that mean OS/2 Warp | ArcaOS | eComstation are affected? Or does this only affect Rexx running on Unix as per /user/lpp/netview/vXrX/bin/cnmenunix. I don't know enough to say whether or not setuid of 0 exists on OS/2 and z/OS or just z/OS.

[Shiunbird]

IBM shoots themselves in the foot, daily.

Sad and true. So much potential to waste...

Although I must say, my X1 Carbon 4th gen is quite nice; the only reason why it has so much control in the UEFI is because of the IBM fragments and the fact Lenovo themselves want to be able to mute Intel ME per the Chinese government--at least I can only assume.

The functionality is indeed great. But, oh, I have two xSeries x220 with dual Pentium IIIs back in my home country, and the amount of functionality in the setup menu is incredible. Really granular, with a helpful built-in help system, great stuff.

That video brings up an interesting point with CVE-2012-5951 regarding the Rexx vulnerability. Does that mean OS/2 Warp | ArcaOS | eComstation are affected? Or does this only affect Rexx running on Unix as per /user/lpp/netview/vXrX/bin/cnmenunix. I don't know enough to say whether or not setuid of 0 exists on OS/2 and z/OS or just z/OS.

I haven't launched anything in OS/2 in ages, and I don't think this setuid 0 concept exists there. It's just a totally different OS...
But if you need to know I can fire up my OS/2 machine, try, and let you know.

[heavyfuel]

Just noticed this on eBay earlier http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Z10-EC-Enterprise-Class-NEW-system-Think-Pad-server-rack-processor-network/112502681842?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649

A million dollar mainframe new in the box! At minimum you'll need to supply 9.5KW or worst case 27KW

Only ~400 USD? What is this? Or is there a threshold price of some sort?

I've seen older zSeries mainframes on ebay before, and they were a few thousand dollars...


Are there any extra costs if you buy one, such as software licenses? Is it possible to actually use one without paying yearly $$$ ? These should run Linux but does it require any auxiliary software?


One day when I have a house with big garage...

[praetor242]

Mainframes pop up online every-so-often and they are super cheap. They are basically glorified pieces of art work without software licenses, since EVERYTHING in them has to be licensed to be used, and that costs an absorbent amount of money. Like the AS/400, they are basically useless without the licenses

[astouffer]

OS/400 or iSeries or whatever they call it now needs a license key or it times out after 70 days. I'm not sure about z/OS expiring. But depending on the hardware you'll need license keys to even boot. At least someone was nice enough to make a torrent of V5R2 recently.