Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo: stock trading tools ?

[Mick]

On Tuesday 07 Aug 2012 19:46:24 Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 10:17 AM, James <wireless@×××××××××××.com> wrote:
> <SNIP>
>
> > Hello Mark,
> >
> > I think I'll put the R stuff as research interest on a separate
> > machine to evaluate...  I'm Looking for some guidance on this
> > (VM) subject, related to online stock trading. Should I set up a
> > machine on a hardened system? SeLinux? Other ideas like a
> > transparent bride with some specific application filtering?

I saw the 'TradeAnalytics' project website and had to lie down for a few 
minutes until I felt better!  It looks as if you need a PhD in Maths to 
understand much of it.  :-(


> Sounds like you're beyond my abilities. I use standard stable Gentoo
> myself. (I.e. - NOT ~amd64) Each Windows VM has it's own Windows
> license as well as it's own virus protection license. I run different
> trading apps in different VMs. All trading VMs are Virtualbox.
>
> In my case the compute server is a 12 core Intel machine. I dedicate
> 10 cores to the VMs (6 cores to one VM, 2 cores each to the other 2
> VMs) for 3 VMs using 10 cores. That leaves 2 cores to Gentoo to manage
> the hardware.
>
> I do similar things on an 8 core machine, etc. I always reserve 2 CPUs
> for Gentoo.
>
> NOTE: Windows and it's apps are memory hogs so you'll need a LOT more
> memory than you think to make this work well day in and day out.

+1

I have found on some basic comparisons that Windows 7 eats up something like a 
quarter more memory than Mint, or Ubuntu VMs.


> > Should I setup a specific application firewall between the VM system
> > and the outside net? A generic security (architectural) approach is of
> > keen interest to me (reading references?). Windows security for me is
> > often troublesome; so specific (private?) suggestions are also of keen
> > interest to me.
>
> Again, probably beyond my abilities to give guidance. I use standard
> Windows virus & firewall protection inside each VM and hope for the
> best figuring it's no worse than using Windows on real hardware.

Vanilla Microsoft Security Essentials and firewall seem to keep a VM pretty 
safe over here and it blocked some obscure trojans/keygens I fed it for 
testing, that other Antivirus software didn't.

As long as you're not running servers on the MSWindows box and it's 
constrained to access from your LAN, it *should* be OK.

Whether you have a dedicated VM for MSWindows or dual boot into it, you can 
use xfreerdp on your Linux with RemoteApp on Windows 7 to access a particular 
MSWindows application remotely from your Linux desktop.  I think that it needs 
Windows 7 Ultimate or one below that to work.  Tried it with Windows 7 
Professional and applications would not launch (some SSL IO error if I 
recall).


PS.  Mark, please let us know if you start providing virtual tutorials on 
installing and running these TradeAnalytics packages - I would be very 
interested to find out how to use them.  :-)
-- 
Regards,
Mick