Product Overview

The Master Control Program (MCP) is the operating system that operates on enterprise servers. The MCP provides a versatile environment by supporting concurrent batch and online transaction processing (OLTP). The MCP also includes the facilities to interface with industry-standard tools and applications from other operating system environments. The MCP permits the use of compiler programming languages only, and accommodates future system growth or distribution across the broadest range of 100 percent object code-compatible hardware products in the industry, without reprogramming.

The MCP functions in complete integration with hardware logic to simplify system operation and control. It provides automatic multiprogramming and multiprocessing, as well as centralized I/O control for peripheral and data communication devices. It automatically allocates system resources, including data and I/O processors, memory, and peripherals. It manages all job and task initiation and control, local and remote operator interfaces, and system security.

The MCP automatically handles all disk file management, including space allocation, file assignment, and access control. It features a form of memory management known as actual segment descriptor (ASD). ASD memory management expands the capacity, performance, and memory addressability of current enterprise servers with the potential to address up to 24 gigabytes (24 billion bytes) of memory.

The MCP Environment has many security attributes that reduce and eliminate security vulnerabilities. These features are integrated into the operating system so all applications inherit them by default.

Security

The MCP Environment provides numerous advantages over commodity operating systems. The MCP Environment has many security attributes that reduce and eliminate security vulnerabilities. These features are integrated into the operating system so all applications inherit them by default.

Application Environment

All applications in the MCP Environment space have significantly higher security than those on commodity platforms. MCP applications cannot exploit C buffer overflows for code insertion because all memory is tagged, and overflows are immediately trapped by the environment. If an application does have an error, this error aborts only the transaction of the hacker; no “shell” is exposed (that is, the attacker cannot capture root privileges and attack the system through a back door).

Run-Time Memory Access

All MCP memory is protected through tagged memory. All areas of allocated memory are surrounded by control information. This control information and executable code cannot be overwritten with program data. All indexing operations natively perform range validation so that references outside of the declared size are caught.

Only compilers can write code files—any attempt to modify local disk-resident code files results in the file being marked as a nonexecutable data file. Code files can be made compilers only by Privileged or SecAdmin users.

In addition to these attributes, the stack on the MCP Environment grows in a positive address direction. This action preempts the overflow of the stack return pointer by malicious code.

Accountability

The MCP Environment has a logging capability superior to other commodity platforms. Every event on the system is logged in the system SUMLOG for retrieval and analysis. Security events and violations are logged to the sumlog for analysis and auditing.

Authentication and Authorization Controls

These platform advantages are also paired with state-of-the-art functions in authentication and authorization controls.

Authentication

Strong password management is available on the MCP Environment, which enables password and accesscode aging, machine-generated passwords, and one-time users. Customer-specific log-in checking can also be added to the environment.

Authorization Controls

The MCP Environment supports groups to control user access. Password-protected accesscodes are also available to further control access. Remote users can be restricted or aliased to local usercodes to minimize visibility.

MCP guard files can also be used to specifically restrict access to files and databases. When you use guard files with databases, access to parts of the database, as well as records, structures, and individual fields, can be restricted. Sensitive files can be scrubbed from the disk when they are deleted.

General Features

The MCP offers significant ease of operation by providing dynamic resource allocation that includes memory, peripheral devices, and processor logic to maintain maximum throughput. A simplified user interface is offered through Menu-Assisted Resource Control (MARC) and Work Flow Language (WFL), which enables you to direct system operations quickly and easily with as much or as little help as necessary. Menus and prompt forms with extensive online documentation can guide an individual through any operation. The same look and feel exists throughout the system software.

Automatic multiprogramming is key to the operating system environment being able to concurrently run segments of multiple, independent jobs. The system can schedule jobs for processing and select them in any sequence by observing user-assigned priorities.

You can add additional resources such as memory, peripheral devices, data communications, and terminal systems without program redesign. Upgrades to larger enterprise servers provide a greater growth path of compatibility with no reprogramming.

Ordering Information

The MCP is included as part of the operating environment for ClearPath servers. Source code is available for the MCP. It is included as part of the operating environment source products, which you can license separately.

Product Information

Refer to the following documents for more information: