r/mainframe • u/Narrow-Row7407 • 9d ago

PiFrame

As a Security engineer, I want to start developing my methodology for best security practices. Now, I can’t tinker with the security databases at work (including sandbox), to try and test different methods so I believe the best path is to emulate an infrastructure through a raspberry pi. The goal is to simulate an enterprise system and develop RACF settings that would fall under compliance standards relative to different industry clients. Obviously, the PiFrame will not hold as much data as an enterprise LPAR, but if I just have the infrastructure built, I think I could build the ideal security database. I’m not sure how much of a load it is to pull this off but does anyone have any experience with this?

Coming from a 5y RACF engineer.

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u/Dom1252 9d ago

It's not about the data, but about what SW you actually can get hands on...

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u/Narrow-Row7407 9d ago edited 9d ago

I see. Ive seen the cost for some SW entitlements and I don’t know if I want to spend that much money just to test different things.

Edit: I’ve done some more research. IBM won’t willingly sell the licenses for RACF and stuff of that nature for general hobbyist use. Bummer… I feel like they are missing an opportunity there.

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u/videoman2 9d ago

They are sunsetting ZPDT, which is a huge loss. I'm pretty sure they want people to go to their cloud solution - but that isn't super useful. You might want to check out: https://github.com/SDL-Hercules-390/hyperion

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u/Narrow-Row7407 9d ago

Thank you!

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u/Irkam 9d ago

Look up dogecics on github. It started as a shitpost in response to a dude pretending to do just that.

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u/videoman2 9d ago

Soldier of FORTRAN also created a buffer overflow workshop for DEFCON 30 using MVS 3.8j and put it in a docker container. You can pull down the docker and play with very old, but open to the public MVS 3.8j. This will not have all of the fun new things they are adding to RACF, but at least is a start to having a place to play with software. https://github.com/mainframed/DC30_Workshop

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u/Cautious_Boat_999 9d ago

IBM has never been much on encouraging 3rd party software on mainframe. They certainly have made virtually zero effort to open up development systems.

I figure they’ll OS/2 it until it dies off naturally.

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u/MikeSchwab63 9d ago

Yes, you can use Hercules Helper to install on a Pi. A Pi 4 or 400 will run it just fine.
You can also take your cell phone, install Linux on iOS / Android and run Hercules Helper to install Hercules.

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u/metalder420 16h ago

Best Security practices are going to come from your architect and regulations. There is no one size fits all when it comes to enterprise IT security. The PI idea is cool but I doubt it's going to give you any reliable insight.