Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Windows Services for UNIX (SFU) or Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA) is a software package produced by Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

which provides a Unix

Unix

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

subsystem and other parts of a full Unix environment on Windows NT

Windows NT

Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...

and some of its immediate successor operating-systems. It was an extension and replacement of the minimal Microsoft POSIX subsystem

Microsoft POSIX subsystem

Microsoft POSIX subsystem is one of 3 subsystems of several operating systems from the Windows NT family ....

from Windows NT.

SFU 1.0 and 2.0 (NT 4.0 and Windows 2000) used the MKS Toolkit

MKS Toolkit

MKS Toolkit is a software package produced and maintained by MKS Inc. that provides a Unix-like environment for scripting, connectivity and porting Unix and Linux software to both 32- and 64-bit Microsoft Windows systems. It was originally created for MS-DOS....

; starting with SFU 3.0 (Windows XP; 1999), SFU used the Interix

Interix

Interix is the name of an optional, full-featured POSIX and Unix environment subsystem for Microsoft's Windows NT-based operating systems.Interix is a component of the Services for Unix release 3.0 and 3.5...

subsystem, which was acquired by Microsoft in 1999 from US-based Softway Systems as part of an asset acquisition. These are available free from Microsoft as a download. Windows Server 2003 R2 included SFU 3.5 (on Disk 2), and renamed it to Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA). In Windows Server 2008 and high-end versions of Windows Vista

Windows Vista

Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...

(Enterprise and Ultimate), a minimal SUA is included, but most of the utilities must again be downloaded from Microsoft's web site.

Like the Microsoft POSIX subsystem

Microsoft POSIX subsystem

Microsoft POSIX subsystem is one of 3 subsystems of several operating systems from the Windows NT family ....

in Windows NT that it replaces, Interix

Interix

is not an emulation of a Unix kernel, but rather an implementation of a user-mode subsystem running directly on top of the Windows NT kernel.

Windows Services for Unix and Subsystem for Unix-based Applications provide header files and libraries that make it easier to recompile or port Unix applications for use on Windows; they do not make Unix binaries compatible with Windows binaries. It is best thought of as a distinct Unix-like

Unix-like

A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....

platform.

Components

SFU contains:

Over 350 Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

utilities such as vi
Vi
vi is a screen-oriented text editor originally created for the Unix operating system. The portable subset of the behavior of vi and programs based on it, and the ex editor language supported within these programs, is described by the Single Unix Specification and POSIX.The original code for vi...

, ksh
Korn shell
The Korn shell is a Unix shell which was developed by David Korn in the early 1980s and announced at USENIX on July 14, 1983. Other early contributors were AT&T Bell Labs developers Mike Veach, who wrote the emacs code, and Pat Sullivan, who wrote the vi code...

, csh
C shell
The C shell is a Unix shell that was created by Bill Joy while a graduate student at University of California, Berkeley in the late 1970s. It has been distributed widely, beginning with the 2BSD release of the BSD Unix system that Joy began distributing in 1978...

, ls
Ls
In computing, ls is a command to list files in Unix and Unix-like operating systems. ls is specified by POSIX and the Single UNIX Specification.- History :An ls utility appeared in the original version of AT&T UNIX...

, cat
Cat (Unix)
The cat command is a standard Unix program used to concatenate and display files. The name is from catenate, a synonym of concatenate.- Specification :...

, awk, grep
Grep
grep is a command-line text-search utility originally written for Unix. The name comes from the ed command g/re/p...

, kill
Kill (Unix)
In computing, kill is a command that is used in several popular operating systems to send signals to running processes, for example to request the termination of this process.-Unix and Unix-like:...

, etc.
GCC
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...

3.3 compiler, includes and libraries (through an MS libc)
A cc-like wrapper for Microsoft Visual Studio
Microsoft Visual Studio
Microsoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment from Microsoft. It is used to develop console and graphical user interface applications along with Windows Forms applications, web sites, web applications, and web services in both native code together with managed code for all...

command-line C/C++ compiler
GDB
GNU Debugger
The GNU Debugger, usually called just GDB and named gdb as an executable file, is the standard debugger for the GNU software system. It is a portable debugger that runs on many Unix-like systems and works for many programming languages, including Ada, C, C++, Objective-C, Free Pascal, Fortran, Java...

debugger
Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
NFS server and client
A pcnfsd daemon
X11
X Window System
The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...

tools and libraries
Tools for making NFS mount-points appear as Windows shares, and vice-versa (gateway services)
An NIS
Network Information Service
The Network Information Service, or NIS is a client–server directory service protocol for distributing system configuration data such as user and host names between computers on a computer network...

server capability linked with Active Directory (AD)
Some Windows/Unix authentication information-synchronization tools

SFU does not contain the following (but binaries are available for separate installation):

bash, OpenSSH
OpenSSH
OpenSSH is a set of computer programs providing encrypted communication sessions over a computer network using the SSH protocol...

, sudo
Sudo
sudo is a program for Unix-like computer operating systems that allows users to run programs with the security privileges of another user...

, CVS
Concurrent Versions System
The Concurrent Versions System , also known as the Concurrent Versioning System, is a client-server free software revision control system in the field of software development. Version control system software keeps track of all work and all changes in a set of files, and allows several developers ...

, ClamAV, bzip2
Bzip2
bzip2 is a free and open source implementation of the Burrows–Wheeler algorithm. It is developed and maintained by Julian Seward. Seward made the first public release of bzip2, version 0.15, in July 1996.-Compression efficiency:...

, gmake, curl
CURL
cURL is a computer software project providing a library and command-line tool for transferring data using various protocols. The cURL project produces two products, libcurl and cURL...

, emacs
Emacs
Emacs is a class of text editors, usually characterized by their extensibility. GNU Emacs has over 1,000 commands. It also allows the user to combine these commands into macros to automate work.Development began in the mid-1970s and continues actively...

, Apache
Apache HTTP Server
The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million website milestone...

, XView
XView
XView is a widget toolkit from Sun Microsystems introduced in 1988. It provides an OPEN LOOK user interface for X Window System applications, with an object-oriented application programming interface for the C programming language...

, Ruby
Ruby (programming language)
Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general-purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was first developed and designed by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto...

, Tcl
Tcl
Tcl is a scripting language created by John Ousterhout. Originally "born out of frustration", according to the author, with programmers devising their own languages intended to be embedded into applications, Tcl gained acceptance on its own...

, Python
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...

Although SFU includes X Window System

X Window System

The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...

client libraries and applications, it does not contain a native X server. Administrators may configure any of the numerous third-party Windows X servers: fully featured free options include Cygwin/X

Cygwin/X

Cygwin/X is an implementation of the X Window System that runs under Microsoft Windows. It is part of the Cygwin project, and is installed using Cygwin's standard setup system...

, Xming

Xming

Xming is an implementation of the X Window System for Microsoft Windows operating systems, including Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows 7.-Features:...

, WeirdMind and WeirdX

WeirdX

WeirdX is a Java applet that talks with X Window System server, allowing cross platform GUI session from the web browser. It is written in pure Java and licensed under GNU GPL by JCraft. It is derived from WiredX-lite, a commercial branch of the software, and provides limited support of the...

SFU 1.0

Microsoft produced at least one beta release of the initial version of SFU before its final release in February 1999. This release, in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

only, was supported on the Windows NT 4.0

Windows NT 4.0

Windows NT 4.0 is a preemptive, graphical and business-oriented operating system designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor computers. It was the next release of Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on 31 July 1996...

SP3+ for x86

X86 architecture

The term x86 refers to a family of instruction set architectures based on the Intel 8086 CPU. The 8086 was launched in 1978 as a fully 16-bit extension of Intel's 8-bit based 8080 microprocessor and also introduced segmentation to overcome the 16-bit addressing barrier of such designs...

and Alpha

DEC Alpha

Alpha, originally known as Alpha AXP, is a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation , designed to replace the 32-bit VAX complex instruction set computer ISA and its implementations. Alpha was implemented in microprocessors...

platforms. This is the only known release to support Alpha. It included a demonstration version of the MKS Toolkit

MKS Toolkit

along with the following components:

Telnet
TELNET
Telnet is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area networks to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communications facility using a virtual terminal connection...

server
Telnet client
UNIX Utilities (from MKS)
Client for NFS
Server for NFS
Server for NFS Authentication
Windows NT to UNIX password-synchronization
Help files and documentation

SFU 2.0

This second installment of SFU was released April 2000 and was also for English; however, a Japanese-language release appeared just two months later in June 2000. Both ran on Windows NT 4.0 SP4+ and Windows 2000

Windows 2000

Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...

on x86 platforms with Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer

Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...

4.01+. SFU 2.0 supported the following UNIX versions: Solaris 2.6+, HP-UX

HP-UX

HP-UX is Hewlett-Packard's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on UNIX System V and first released in 1984...

10.2+, AIX 4.2+, Tru64 UNIX

Tru64 UNIX

Tru64 UNIX is a 64-bit UNIX operating system for the Alpha instruction set architecture , currently owned by Hewlett-Packard . Previously, Tru64 UNIX was a product of Compaq, and before that, Digital Equipment Corporation , where it was known as Digital UNIX .As its original name suggests, Tru64...

5.0+, and Red Hat Linux

Red Hat Linux

Red Hat Linux, assembled by the company Red Hat, was a popular Linux based operating system until its discontinuation in 2004.Red Hat Linux 1.0 was released on November 3, 1994...

5.1+. It included the following components:

Server for NFS (NFSServer)
Client for NFS (NFSClient)
Gateway for NFS (NFSGateway)
Server for PCNFS (Pcnfsd)
User Name Mapping (Mapsvc)
Server for NFS Authentication (NFSServerAuth)
Server for NIS
Network Information Service
The Network Information Service, or NIS is a client–server directory service protocol for distributing system configuration data such as user and host names between computers on a computer network...

(NIS)
Telnet
TELNET
Telnet is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area networks to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communications facility using a virtual terminal connection...

Client (TelnetClient)
Telnet server (TelnetServer)
Password synchronization (PasswdSync)
ActiveState
ActiveState
ActiveState is a Canadian software company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. It develops, sells, and supports cross-platform development tools for dynamic languages such as Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Tcl, as well as language distributions and enterprise services...

ActivePerl (Perl)
UNIX utilities (UnixUtilities)
Cron
Cron
Cron is a time-based job scheduler in Unix-like computer operating systems. Cron enables users to schedule jobs to run periodically at certain times or dates...

service (CronSvc)
Rsh
Remote Shell
The remote shell is a command line computer program that can execute shell commands as another user, and on another computer across a computer network.The remote system to which rsh connects runs the rshd daemon...

service (RshSvc)

SFU 3.0

This version, released in May 2002, was the first release to include the Interix

Interix

subsystem. Previously Microsoft had released Interix 2.2 (actually version 2.2.5) as a separate product around the same time frame as SFU 2.0. This SFU release included Interix release 3.0 (commonly called the "version" as reported by uname -r) with an internal Microsoft version of 7.0 that relates to internal build sequences. This Interix release contained significant technical extensions from the Interix 2.2 release such as a rooted file system and setuid functionality that were entirely based on the Softway Systems' Interix

Interix

development codenamed "Firebrand". This was also released in English and followed by a later release in Japanese in October 2002, adding internationalization

Internationalization and localization

In computing, internationalization and localization are means of adapting computer software to different languages, regional differences and technical requirements of a target market...

support. Both supported Windows NT 4.0 SP6a+, Windows 2000, and Windows XP

Windows XP

Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...

Professional on x86 platforms with Internet Explorer 5.0+. The MKS Toolkit was no longer included. It included the following components:

Base Utilities for Interix (BaseUtils; including X11R5
X Window System
The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...

utilities)
UNIX Perl for Interix (UNIXPerl)
Interix SDK (InterixSDK; including headers and libraries for development and a wrapper for Visual Studio
Microsoft Visual Studio
Microsoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment from Microsoft. It is used to develop console and graphical user interface applications along with Windows Forms applications, web sites, web applications, and web services in both native code together with managed code for all...

compiler)
GNU Utilities for Interix (GNUUtils, about 9 utilities in total)
GNU SDK for Interix (GNUSDK; including gcc
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...

and g++)
NFS Client for Windows (NFSClient)
NFS Gateway for Windows (NFSGateway)
NFS Server for Windows (NFSServer)
NIS Server for Windows (NIS)
Password Synchronization (PasswdSync)
Windows Remote Shell Service (RshSvc)
Telnet Server for Windows (TelnetServer)
NFS User Name Mapping (Mapsvc)
NFS Authentication Server (NFSServerAuth)
PCNFS Server (Pcnfsd)
ActiveState Perl (Perl)

SFU 3.5

This was the final release of SFU and the only release to be distributed free of charge. It was released January 2004 and included both English and Japanese versions for Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional, and Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005...

on x86 platforms with Internet Explorer 5.0+. It included Interix subsystem release 3.5 (build version 8.0) adding internationalization support (at least for the English version which did not have such until now) and POSIX threading

POSIX Threads

POSIX Threads, usually referred to as Pthreads, is a POSIX standard for threads. The standard, POSIX.1c, Threads extensions , defines an API for creating and manipulating threads....

. This release could only be installed to an NTFS

NTFS

NTFS is the standard file system of Windows NT, including its later versions Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, and Windows 7....

file system

File system

A file system is a means to organize data expected to be retained after a program terminates by providing procedures to store, retrieve and update data, as well as manage the available space on the device which contain it. A file system organizes data in an efficient manner and is tuned to the...

(earlier versions supported FAT

File Allocation Table

File Allocation Table is a computer file system architecture now widely used on many computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras. FAT file systems are commonly found on floppy disks, flash memory cards, digital cameras, and many other portable devices because of...

; this was for improved file-security requirements in Interix 3.5). The following UNIX versions were supported for NFS components: Solaris 7 and 8, Red Hat Linux 8.0, AIX 5L 5.2, and HP-UX 11i. It included the following components:

Base Utilities for Interix (BaseUtils; including X11R6 and X11R5 utilities)
UNIX Perl for Interix (UNIXPerl)
Interix SDK (InterixSDK; including headers and libraries for development and a wrapper for Visual Studio compiler)
GNU Utilities for Interix (GNUUtils, again about 9 utilities)
GNU SDK for Interix (GNUSDK; including gcc and g++)
NFS Client for Windows (NFSClient)
NFS Gateway for Windows (NFSGateway)
NFS Server for Windows (NFSServer)
NIS Server for Windows (NIS)
Password synchronization (PasswdSync)
Windows Remote Shell Service (RshSvc)
Telnet Server for Windows (TelnetServer)
NFS User Name Mapping (Mapsvc)
NFS Authentication Server (NFSServerAuth)
PCNFS server (Pcnfsd)
ActiveState Perl (Perl)

Microsoft does not intend to produce any further standalone versions of SFU, opting instead for the integrated SUA. As of July 13, 2011 v3.5 is still downloadable. General support will continue until 2011; extended support until 2014.

Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA)

Windows Server 2003 R2

Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005...

contains most SFU components, namely Microsoft Services for Network File System (NFS), Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA, aka Interix

Interix

), and Identity Management for UNIX. The July 2007 SFU 3.5 Security Update updated posix.exe and related files to match the SUA version.http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms07-053.mspx

Unlike the SFU, the SUA version included in Windows Server 2003 R2 (and subsequent versions) has 64-bit support and allows linking of Win32 libraries to SUA applications.

Windows Vista

Windows Vista

and Windows 7 Enterprise and Ultimate Editions also contain the Services for Unix components, now called the Subsystem for UNIX-based applications (SUA), and Client for NFS v3. Users must download the utilities and SDK separately. However, the server components from the SFU product line (namely Server for NFS, User Name Mapping, Server for NIS, Password Synchronization etc.) are not included–these are included in Server editions of Windows (i.e. Windows Server 2008).

It is set to be deprecated after the release of Windows 8.

Known problems

Character translation must be used to accommodate filenames which include a colon (:) or other characters that do not comply with the naming conventions of Windows file-systems. Files with the same name but different cases are also not allowed by default, but can be enabled on installation with the side-effect of making the underlying partition's filesystem case-sensitive, even for the Win32 subsystem. SUA (and SFU) supports a maximum files size of 2GB on 32-bit Windows. On 64-bit Windows, SUA supports up 4TB files.

Network authentication for UNIX systems relies on the insecure NIS protocol (LDAP- and Kerberos-based authentication require a third-party solution). Microsoft has released several hotfix

Hotfix

A hotfix was originally the term applied to software patches that were applied to live i.e. still running systems. Similar use of the terms can be seen in hot swappable disk drives...

es for Windows Services for UNIX, and at least one Security Update (KB939778). The GNU Project

GNU Project

The GNU Project is a free software, mass collaboration project, announced on September 27, 1983, by Richard Stallman at MIT. It initiated GNU operating system development in January, 1984...

utilities are several versions older than the latest ones. A separate port of the up-to-date Debian

Debian

Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...

utilities was started in 2007, but apparently abandoned in 2009. Several of the text processing utilities in SUA (e.g. awk) are not compatible with Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

or wide character

Wide character

A wide character is a computer character datatype that generally has a size greater than the traditional 8-bit character. The increased datatype size allows for the use of larger coded character sets.-History:...

text files.

No version of Windows Services for UNIX is available for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition released on April 25, 2005 is an edition of Windows XP for x86-64 personal computers. It is designed to use the expanded 64-bit memory address space provided by the x86-64 architecture....

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Components

SFU 1.0

SFU 2.0

SFU 3.0

SFU 3.5

Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA)

Known problems

See also

External links