z/VM 5.3 SSL Server using Debian GNU/Linux
I am a z/VM systems programmer by profession. My job is to install and
maintain z/VM at my installation. We currently run z/VM 5.3. One of my
tasks is to provide a TLS/SSL-secured FTP server and TELNET 3270 server for
our VM system. To do so requires first configuring an SSL server (virtual
machine SSLSERV by default). Under z/VM 5.3, this means creating a virtual
Linux server to run on the SSLSERV virtual machine. (I've heard rumors that
plans are to eliminate this requirement in a future release, but under 5.3
this is a requirement.) The problem is, IBM only supports their SSL-related
code on two specific distribution/release combinations of Linux:
Redhat Enterprise Linux AS4 U4 (kernel version 2.6.9-42.EL)
SuSE SLES 9 (kernel version 2.6.5-7.244)
And that's it. These are both commercial distributions. I wondered if I
could get it to work with Debian. Well, to make a long story short, I did.
Of course, it's unsupported by IBM. And there is no official support for
Debian in any case, except by third parties. And it's certainly not supported
by me. But it does seem to work. I have created detailed instructions for
how to set up a z/VM 5.3 SSL server using Debian. But I don't know what to
to with them. I don't have a web site of my own to post it on, and my
employer is a government agency and we don't do that sort of thing here.
Is anybody interested? Does anyone have a suggestion about where this kind
of information could or should be posted? IBM's z/VM web site is not an
option. IBM won't post anything like that without proof of authorship,
signing releases, permission from my employer, etc. (Have you ever tried
to get permission from the government to do something not covered in the
policies and procedures manual?)
A typical Linux HOWTO doesn't seem appropriate either, since it has a
limited target audience and is distribution-specific. Ideas anyone?
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