16 ms·

OpenBSD 6.4 released

309 points by fcambus 8y ago

makz 8y ago
Impressive work what the openbsd folks do. Kudos.
brynet 8y ago
Announcement mail: https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=153987076201158 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=153987076201158 This is the 45th release of OpenBSD!
ttul 8y ago
I am so tempted to install this after a 15 year break...
- enriquto 8y ago
  You can try it right now inside virtualbox, and 20 minutes later you realize that it is has all you need. After a few days, you'll notice that you spend most of your time inside the virtual machine, and then it makes sense to turn your setting upside down and work directly on the saner system.
  - JoachimS 8y ago
    How well does the inverse works - running VMs in OpenBSD to use Windows, Linux? Is it for example possible to run Virtualbox with good performance in OpenBSD? I'm tempted at using OpenBSD as OS, but need to run things like MS Office. A VM is probably the easiest way to do that.
    - enriquto 8y ago
      > How well does the inverse works - running VMs in OpenBSD to use Windows, Linux? Is it for example possible to run Virtualbox with good performance in OpenBSD? As far as I know this is not possible. You can always do it with qemu but it wouldn't be practical. If libreoffice is not appropriate for your needs, you may try googledocs inside the browser.
      - JoachimS 8y ago
        MS Office is just one of many applications that I need to use. I use loads of EDA tools that either only exists for Windows, or Linux. I have been a user of LibreOffice since it was called StarOffice. It is dog slow, still has an ugly UI, crashes etc. But for many things it has been and is good enough. (and keeps getting better). Unfortunately, customers wants to use Word-specific files, Excel-specific files with macros and whatnot that just don't work in Libre. Google does not handle these files correctly either. It is not a fault of these alternatives, but a world where people don't realize that they are being locked in. They use the features of the tools they have to solve their problems. (I guess this became a bit off-tangent)
        enriquto 8y ago
        In your situation, then, you'll be happy by running openbsd in a virtual machine from your windows.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        JoachimS 8y ago
        MacOS actually. In which I have Windows in a VM (and a few Linux versions), which works really well. The MacOS BSD userland is something I use extensively. But when the next laptop update cycle comes I can't see myself getting a new MBP. So what I was hoping to do, and the reason for asking about the state of running VMs in OpenBSD is of course to use it as the main OS, and run the other OSes I need to use in VM. Basically as I do today. I would be close to home in terms if userland experience and gfet good (better) security. BTW: I found this presentation by Mike Larkin from March 2018 about the state of vmm: https://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2018-vmm-slides.pdf https://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2018-vmm-slides.pdf
        JoachimS 8y ago
        Apart from the fun and learning experience, I don't really see a point in running OpenBSD in a VM. In fact I have a OpenBSD 6.3 in a VM today. Playing around with pledge has been very interesting.
    - ch_123 8y ago
      There is an OpenBSD-specific hypervisor (vmm) in recent releases. I cannot comment on whether it is suitable for running VMs at this time.
      - JoachimS 8y ago
        Ok, I'll check it out. Thanks!
      - ch_123 8y ago
        * Windows VMs
      - yellowapple 8y ago
        From what I've gathered (and experienced last time I've tried it), Windows support is nonexistent right now. That might change eventually, but OpenBSD and Linux (and I think NetBSD?) are the initial targets. QEMU is available in packages/ports, though; while almost certainly slow, it's a start. VirtualBox on Linux requires a kernel module, so unless someone manages to port that to OpenBSD (which would translate to adding it to OpenBSD's kernel, which doesn't support loadable kernel modules anymore), that one probably ain't an option.
  - bauerd 8y ago
    Is there an OCI runtime for one of the BSDs available? I saw some commit messages in the containerd repository mentioning OpenBSD, but afaik running containers on BSD is still not officially supported?
  - na85 8y ago
    OpenBSD just isn't performant enough for me. I can't honestly say that it has what I need when I get multi-second system freezes when opening or closing tabs in chromium (though this was under 6.0) Battery life under OpenBSD is atrocious compared even to Linux. It's a great server OS but it's not ready for laptop daily driver use unless your laptop just sits plugged in all day.
    - tsmarsh 8y ago
      I really enjoy have openbsd on a server that I ssh into. OS X and Windows are better GUI, OpenBSD is a better place for a lot of my work... basically anything that I’d use emacs for.
    - sverige 8y ago
      I use it as a daily driver for my laptop. It's quite performant. I also boot a linux distro sometimes on that machine, and don't notice much difference in battery life between the two. They've been adding drivers like crazy for a while now, too, so there are many more hardware choices than there were a couple years ago.
      - na85 8y ago
        Well, on my x220 the difference between OpenBSD and Debian was more than an hour of battery life, to say nothing of tabbing freezes.
  - JdeBP 8y ago
    It may have all that you need, but that sweeping generalization is far from true for everyone. For example, things that I need that it does not have (last that I checked) include: filesystem-neutral nmount(), POSIX RT signals, the "new" 1990s dynamic PTY allocation system, a KDGETMODE ioctl on wscons, waitid(), fexecve(), and ACLs. And then there are the things that would make life easier to not have to bodge around: const-correct ncurses API (available in ncurses since 1997), const-correct login_cap API, const-correct sysctl(), and no multiple evaluations in EV_SET(). It would be very welcome for it to gain all of these, but until then there is no "it has all that you need" realization on the cards.
fosco 8y ago
in similar news openssh [0] released a new version recently. noticed 7.7 [1]applied to this openbsd release [0] https://www.openssh.com/txt/release-7.8 https://www.openssh.com/txt/release-7.8 [1] https://www.openbsd.org/plus64.html https://www.openbsd.org/plus64.html
- brynet 8y ago
  OpenSSH 7.9 should follow the OpenBSD release.
  - brynet 8y ago
    https://www.openssh.com/releasenotes.html#7.9 https://www.openssh.com/releasenotes.html#7.9
toyg 8y ago
Syspatch working out of the box! That’s really big news, in my book. Guess I should give OBSD another chance...
Fnoord 8y ago
Undeadly.org mentioned the following highlights: "Selected highlights include: * Support has been added for qcow2 images and external snapshots in vmm(4)/vmd(8). * "join" has been added for Wi-Fi networks. * Security enhancements include unveil(2), MAP_STACK, and RETGUARD. Meltdown/Spectre mitigations have been extended further, and SMT is disabled by default. * rad(8) has replaced rtadvd(8). * bgpd(8) has undergone numerous improvements, including the addition of support for BGP Origin Validation (RFC 6811). smtpd.conf(5) uses a new, more flexible grammar. * For the first time, there are more than 10,000 (binary) packages (for amd64 and i386)." [1] [1] https://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20181018140057 https://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=201810181400...
- Rondom 8y ago
  LWN has a good article about unveil() which also discusses the approaches taken in the Linux world. https://lwn.net/Articles/767137/ https://lwn.net/Articles/767137/
liv-io 8y ago
what a great day, thanks so much OpenBSD developers! I have to update some Ansible roles this weekend :)
atjamielittle 8y ago
Time to update your BCHS stack: https://learnbchs.org/index.html https://learnbchs.org/index.html
- bch 8y ago
  Interestingly that’s up my alley :)
- LeonM 8y ago
  That's pretty sweet! Although C is possibly the worst language to build web applications..
  - beefhash 8y ago
    I see your C and raise you a COBOL[1,2]. [1] http://www.coboloncogs.org/INDEX.HTM http://www.coboloncogs.org/INDEX.HTM [2] http://adrianzandberg.pl/cobol-on-wheelchair/ http://adrianzandberg.pl/cobol-on-wheelchair/
- b2ccb2 8y ago
  BCHS seems like the perfect fit for consumer routers/switches with low hardware and a web GUI, very interesting indeed.
deskdrawer 8y ago
My biggest turnoff with OpenBSD is the more complicated package management if you want to have new versions and security updates beyond the versions packaged with the release. As far as I know you either have to stay on the bleeding edge with -current, build packages yourself, or trust a third party (M:Tier) to build for you, who last I checked were behind on firefox builds. I'd love to someday run it on my laptop though.
- kbirkeland 8y ago
  You can patch the system and update all binaries with two commands: doas syspatch doas pkg_add -u
  - deskdrawer 8y ago
    As far as I know that will update to the latest packages built for that release, but those are not the latest versions of those packages. OpenBSD doesn't have the resources to rebuild every port as a package for -stable.
- 4ad 8y ago
  The best part of OpenBSD (to me), as opposed to say, FreeBSD is that pkg -u only brings in security fixes, instead of unrelated crap I don't want. When I want new packages, I'll upgrade the operating system. I very much appreciate the stability of packages during a release cycle.
  - deskdrawer 8y ago
    For firefox at least, I don't think security patches are backported for OpenBSD, nor are newer versions. As the browser is the main way I view remote content, not being fully patched there is important to me.
  - JdeBP 8y ago
    This is very probably because you have url: "pkg+http://pkg.freebsd.org/${ABI}/latest", in your configuration file instead of (say) url: "pkg+http://pkg.freebsd.org/${ABI}/release_3",
zdw 8y ago
> Because Simultaneous MultiThreading (SMT) uses core resources in a shared and unsafe manner, it is now disabled by default. It can be enabled with the new hw.smt sysctl(2) variable. Is this on all architetures or just Intel's Hyperthreading? I'd imagine that other CPU's with hardware threads (especially the 4 and 8 way Sparc T series) would be quite hobbled in terms of performance with this change.
- bjpbakker 8y ago
  Should be specific to Intel's Hyperthreading, according to the ml announcement [0] [0] - https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=153504937925732 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=153504937925732 (edit: words)
- mtgx 8y ago
  We only know it affects Intel's fast and loose architecture so far.
mruts 8y ago
Linux is a depressing mess after you've used OpenBSD. Such a high quality system, with stellar documentation. It's unfortunate that Linux has become so popular even though the BSD's are so much better. A bad historical accident. Damn you Linus...
- agumonkey 8y ago
  No need for harsh feelings. BSD value will have its time. Now don't read about perl vs php :p
- pulsarpietro 8y ago
  I have been a Linux user for more than a decade - recently switched to OpenBSD and I must say I agree. Linux has become a chaotic place to be, I agree.
  - oneanddone 8y ago
    Quite. Especially now with their hideous CoC. That thing is straight out of the pits of PC hell. Many people think Linus will never again assume command now that he's stepped down for his so-called infractions. Gone now is the merit-based stuff and now it's all based on PC garbage. I miss the old days of IT, especially now.
  - tinuninu 8y ago
    This means nothing to me. Can you be more specific why /Linux has become a chaotic place to be/.
    - oneanddone 8y ago
      Not OP, but I will offer my thoughts. Linux is terribly balkanized what with all the competing distros. There are no standards. This is one reason why Linux has not taken off on the desktop outside of tech circles. systemd. It violates almost every *nix tenet out there, especially "a program should do one thing well". It's has a few benefits, but the negatives outweigh these, namely more and more programs outside of the base system now require systemd. This should never be. I and millions of others agree that an init system should be able to be tweaked as text files. Not happening now. The logs are stored as binaries when they should be plain text. Debugging is more difficult. A program should do one thing well. Full stop. There is always BSD and Slackware, and I don't think Slackware will adopt systemd, as their user base doesn't want it. Slackware is the oldest currently-developed Linux distro out there and the vast majority of users want it to remain true to its roots while still advancing.
reinhardt1053 8y ago
The new unveil(2) system call is now available. Discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18194008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18194008
RandomTisk 8y ago
I run OpenBSD as my border firewall which it handles very well. One thing I wish that OpenBSD devs would change in their philosophy is the --help messages. Many commands simply offer a list of switches, as if that's somehow helpful. Sometimes you need the detail in a man page, but a lot of times you don't and it would save so much time and energy to have a succinct list in the --help message itself. # syspatch --help usage: syspatch [-c | -l | -R | -r]
- aquabeagle 8y ago
  That's a GNUism, so you won't find it in BSD tools.
  - mishac 8y ago
    It's a good GNUism though, that I also wish the BSDs supported. No-one's saying that the BSDs should start supporting GNU style --long-options or switch to info instead of man, but friendlier help messages are always a nice thing.
    - JdeBP 8y ago
      Strictly speaking, those are usage messages not help messages.
    - anthk 8y ago
      RTFM
    - justin66 8y ago
      > friendlier help messages are always a nice thing That's not the dispute. It's a question of how much you value brevity. syspatch --help usage: syspatch [-c | -l | -R | -r] looks quite friendly to me, but YMMV.
  - jsight 8y ago
    Yeah, but why not adopt it? GNU has done a lot of things right.
- 8y ago
hn17 8y ago
I used OpenBSD for some time as a platform for a hobby servers around version 4. It is very stable, has low hardware requirements for a base system (I had running WordPress on 32MB RAM and Pentium 200 MMX to my amusement), has very fast and powerfull firewall / packet filter. It is one of the most elegant operating systems I've ever used. Simple in use but has huge functionality. I second that documentation is one of the best. Must try it again maybe on desktop this time.
_zachs 8y ago
Back in college our OS course used OpenBSD and I had a great time learning kernel development. Too bad I'm heavily invested in Arch right now!
chousuke 8y ago
I run OpenBSD on my router and it's great. It was refreshing to not need Google for figuring out how to set things up, because everything is in the included manual pages, which often do a great job explaining new concepts. Want a quick intro to OSPF? man ospfd I don't think I'll run OpenBSD as a desktop OS unless performance drastically improves, but it's staying on my router for the foreseeable future.
- appleflaxen 8y ago
  can you elaborate on your performance concerns?
technofiend 8y ago
I haven't taken the time to write this up, but one of the handy things about OpenBSD is you can take a small 16GB USB stick, format it with one small FAT partition and copy the installer to that. Then you boot the installer on your Ubiquiti Edge Router and install OpenBSD to the unpartitioned space. With a little work you can have your own caching DNS server including domain blocks for tracking sites and if you want privoxy or a squid proxy. It's also easy to set up your own root CA and switch over to certificate-based authentication for wireless clients as long as the wireless base station supports radius. I haven't published a tech note on it yet because Android still complains about importing self-signed certificates even when you import the root CA.
- ynx0 8y ago
  Can you please post the link once you’ve written it? This sounds really interesting
- jlg23 8y ago
  To be fair: you can do that with probably any unixoid OS. IMHO, it is just much easier with BSDs because a) documentation of how to do it is much easier to access than on linux or the other two(TM) and b) BSDs tend to follow the KISS-principle - meaning: even with the superb documentation one can just read the posix shell scripts to save some time.
  - technofiend 8y ago
    >To be fair: you can do that with probably any unixoid OS Totally.
tyfon 8y ago
* PIE support for the m88k platform. I'm quite amazed that there exists hardware where they can test this! Maybe there are some embedded systems still using motorola chips? Anyway, OpenBSD is great. I'm running it on my router and it also powers my 96 mb ram dual pentium pro 200 mhz computer from the 90s :) That computer also has a quantum fireball 20 gb disk as it's main storage, another thing I am amazed that still runs.. Donate to this project, it deserves it!
- notaplumber 8y ago
  A dedicated developer is keeping it alive by maintaining support for the OMRON LUNA-88K & LUNA-88K2 Unix workstations from Japan. https://www.openbsd.org/luna88k.html https://www.openbsd.org/luna88k.html OpenBSD also used to run on Motorola's 88k VME boards, but the mvme88k port was discontinued after 5.5. https://www.openbsd.org/mvme88k.html https://www.openbsd.org/mvme88k.html If you have any spare parts/systems, I suspect aoyama@ would be interested in hearing from you.
h1d 8y ago
Interesting, I've been running Linux for 15 years, yet I can't understand how to upgrade from 6.3, which I just installed on a cloud server, to 6.4 by reading the official document. (Specifically the part "instruct the boot loader to boot this kernel" because it says to type in the file name during the boot process, which is not exactly easy on a remote machine.) https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade64.html https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade64.html I have a lot of respect to OpenBSD devs when people don't contribute back much even if they use OpenSSH everyday but a bit more friendliness doesn't hurt to let people try it out more.
- Mordak 8y ago
  Keep reading. The upgrade guide has two parts: the first part that assumes the common configuration (you have console access and are using the OpenBSD boot loader), and the second part[1] in the event that you do not. If you have console access and can boot from iso, you can also use the cd64.iso image to boot into the install kernel and follow the common upgrade procedure on the console. There is an in-between case where you have a console, but do not control the boot loader (so cannot boot bsd.rd) and cannot boot an iso. It sounds like maybe you are in this situation? In this case, you can still follow the upgrade directions as if you do not have a console[1]. Alternately, sometimes when I am in this situation I just download the install kernel (bsd.rd), move it where the boot loader is hard-coded to look (/bsd), and then reboot. The boot loader will boot the install kernel and you can follow the usual / common upgrade procedure on the console. There is also autoinstall[2], which can automate the upgrade procedure for you and reduces upgrades to just rebooting into bsd.rd and waiting a bit. There is a bit of effort to create the response file, etc., so this may be overkill for a single instance but is very useful for upgrading fleets of machines quickly. [1] https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade64.html#NoInstKern https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade64.html#NoInstKern [2] https://man.openbsd.org/autoinstall https://man.openbsd.org/autoinstall
- ahriman 8y ago
  Do you have console access, via VNC for example? If so, download the new bsd.rd image and place it in / Reboot, and at the boot prompt type: boot bsd.rd Then follow the prompts.

309 points by fcambus 8y ago

makz 8y ago

Impressive work what the openbsd folks do. Kudos.

Announcement mail: https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=153987076201158 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=153987076201158 This is the 45th release of OpenBSD!

ttul 8y ago

I am so tempted to install this after a 15 year break...

enriquto 8y ago
You can try it right now inside virtualbox, and 20 minutes later you realize that it is has all you need. After a few days, you'll notice that you spend most of your time inside the virtual machine, and then it makes sense to turn your setting upside down and work directly on the saner system.
- JoachimS 8y ago
  How well does the inverse works - running VMs in OpenBSD to use Windows, Linux? Is it for example possible to run Virtualbox with good performance in OpenBSD? I'm tempted at using OpenBSD as OS, but need to run things like MS Office. A VM is probably the easiest way to do that.
  - enriquto 8y ago
    > How well does the inverse works - running VMs in OpenBSD to use Windows, Linux? Is it for example possible to run Virtualbox with good performance in OpenBSD? As far as I know this is not possible. You can always do it with qemu but it wouldn't be practical. If libreoffice is not appropriate for your needs, you may try googledocs inside the browser.
    - JoachimS 8y ago
      MS Office is just one of many applications that I need to use. I use loads of EDA tools that either only exists for Windows, or Linux. I have been a user of LibreOffice since it was called StarOffice. It is dog slow, still has an ugly UI, crashes etc. But for many things it has been and is good enough. (and keeps getting better). Unfortunately, customers wants to use Word-specific files, Excel-specific files with macros and whatnot that just don't work in Libre. Google does not handle these files correctly either. It is not a fault of these alternatives, but a world where people don't realize that they are being locked in. They use the features of the tools they have to solve their problems. (I guess this became a bit off-tangent)
      - enriquto 8y ago
        In your situation, then, you'll be happy by running openbsd in a virtual machine from your windows.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        JoachimS 8y ago
        MacOS actually. In which I have Windows in a VM (and a few Linux versions), which works really well. The MacOS BSD userland is something I use extensively. But when the next laptop update cycle comes I can't see myself getting a new MBP. So what I was hoping to do, and the reason for asking about the state of running VMs in OpenBSD is of course to use it as the main OS, and run the other OSes I need to use in VM. Basically as I do today. I would be close to home in terms if userland experience and gfet good (better) security. BTW: I found this presentation by Mike Larkin from March 2018 about the state of vmm: https://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2018-vmm-slides.pdf https://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2018-vmm-slides.pdf
        JoachimS 8y ago
        Apart from the fun and learning experience, I don't really see a point in running OpenBSD in a VM. In fact I have a OpenBSD 6.3 in a VM today. Playing around with pledge has been very interesting.
  - ch_123 8y ago
    There is an OpenBSD-specific hypervisor (vmm) in recent releases. I cannot comment on whether it is suitable for running VMs at this time.
    - JoachimS 8y ago
      Ok, I'll check it out. Thanks!
    - ch_123 8y ago
      * Windows VMs
    - yellowapple 8y ago
      From what I've gathered (and experienced last time I've tried it), Windows support is nonexistent right now. That might change eventually, but OpenBSD and Linux (and I think NetBSD?) are the initial targets. QEMU is available in packages/ports, though; while almost certainly slow, it's a start. VirtualBox on Linux requires a kernel module, so unless someone manages to port that to OpenBSD (which would translate to adding it to OpenBSD's kernel, which doesn't support loadable kernel modules anymore), that one probably ain't an option.
- bauerd 8y ago
  Is there an OCI runtime for one of the BSDs available? I saw some commit messages in the containerd repository mentioning OpenBSD, but afaik running containers on BSD is still not officially supported?
- na85 8y ago
  OpenBSD just isn't performant enough for me. I can't honestly say that it has what I need when I get multi-second system freezes when opening or closing tabs in chromium (though this was under 6.0) Battery life under OpenBSD is atrocious compared even to Linux. It's a great server OS but it's not ready for laptop daily driver use unless your laptop just sits plugged in all day.
  - tsmarsh 8y ago
    I really enjoy have openbsd on a server that I ssh into. OS X and Windows are better GUI, OpenBSD is a better place for a lot of my work... basically anything that I’d use emacs for.
  - sverige 8y ago
    I use it as a daily driver for my laptop. It's quite performant. I also boot a linux distro sometimes on that machine, and don't notice much difference in battery life between the two. They've been adding drivers like crazy for a while now, too, so there are many more hardware choices than there were a couple years ago.
    - na85 8y ago
      Well, on my x220 the difference between OpenBSD and Debian was more than an hour of battery life, to say nothing of tabbing freezes.
- JdeBP 8y ago
  It may have all that you need, but that sweeping generalization is far from true for everyone. For example, things that I need that it does not have (last that I checked) include: filesystem-neutral nmount(), POSIX RT signals, the "new" 1990s dynamic PTY allocation system, a KDGETMODE ioctl on wscons, waitid(), fexecve(), and ACLs. And then there are the things that would make life easier to not have to bodge around: const-correct ncurses API (available in ncurses since 1997), const-correct login_cap API, const-correct sysctl(), and no multiple evaluations in EV_SET(). It would be very welcome for it to gain all of these, but until then there is no "it has all that you need" realization on the cards.

fosco 8y ago

in similar news openssh [0] released a new version recently. noticed 7.7 [1]applied to this openbsd release [0] https://www.openssh.com/txt/release-7.8 https://www.openssh.com/txt/release-7.8 [1] https://www.openbsd.org/plus64.html https://www.openbsd.org/plus64.html

brynet 8y ago
OpenSSH 7.9 should follow the OpenBSD release.
- brynet 8y ago
  https://www.openssh.com/releasenotes.html#7.9 https://www.openssh.com/releasenotes.html#7.9

toyg 8y ago

Syspatch working out of the box! That’s really big news, in my book. Guess I should give OBSD another chance...

Fnoord 8y ago

Undeadly.org mentioned the following highlights: "Selected highlights include: * Support has been added for qcow2 images and external snapshots in vmm(4)/vmd(8). * "join" has been added for Wi-Fi networks. * Security enhancements include unveil(2), MAP_STACK, and RETGUARD. Meltdown/Spectre mitigations have been extended further, and SMT is disabled by default. * rad(8) has replaced rtadvd(8). * bgpd(8) has undergone numerous improvements, including the addition of support for BGP Origin Validation (RFC 6811). smtpd.conf(5) uses a new, more flexible grammar. * For the first time, there are more than 10,000 (binary) packages (for amd64 and i386)." [1] [1] https://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20181018140057 https://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=201810181400...

Rondom 8y ago
LWN has a good article about unveil() which also discusses the approaches taken in the Linux world. https://lwn.net/Articles/767137/ https://lwn.net/Articles/767137/

liv-io 8y ago

what a great day, thanks so much OpenBSD developers! I have to update some Ansible roles this weekend :)

atjamielittle 8y ago

Time to update your BCHS stack: https://learnbchs.org/index.html https://learnbchs.org/index.html

bch 8y ago
Interestingly that’s up my alley :)
LeonM 8y ago
That's pretty sweet! Although C is possibly the worst language to build web applications..
- beefhash 8y ago
  I see your C and raise you a COBOL[1,2]. [1] http://www.coboloncogs.org/INDEX.HTM http://www.coboloncogs.org/INDEX.HTM [2] http://adrianzandberg.pl/cobol-on-wheelchair/ http://adrianzandberg.pl/cobol-on-wheelchair/
b2ccb2 8y ago
BCHS seems like the perfect fit for consumer routers/switches with low hardware and a web GUI, very interesting indeed.

deskdrawer 8y ago

My biggest turnoff with OpenBSD is the more complicated package management if you want to have new versions and security updates beyond the versions packaged with the release. As far as I know you either have to stay on the bleeding edge with -current, build packages yourself, or trust a third party (M:Tier) to build for you, who last I checked were behind on firefox builds. I'd love to someday run it on my laptop though.

kbirkeland 8y ago
You can patch the system and update all binaries with two commands: doas syspatch doas pkg_add -u
- deskdrawer 8y ago
  As far as I know that will update to the latest packages built for that release, but those are not the latest versions of those packages. OpenBSD doesn't have the resources to rebuild every port as a package for -stable.
4ad 8y ago
The best part of OpenBSD (to me), as opposed to say, FreeBSD is that pkg -u only brings in security fixes, instead of unrelated crap I don't want. When I want new packages, I'll upgrade the operating system. I very much appreciate the stability of packages during a release cycle.
- deskdrawer 8y ago
  For firefox at least, I don't think security patches are backported for OpenBSD, nor are newer versions. As the browser is the main way I view remote content, not being fully patched there is important to me.
- JdeBP 8y ago
  This is very probably because you have url: "pkg+http://pkg.freebsd.org/${ABI}/latest", in your configuration file instead of (say) url: "pkg+http://pkg.freebsd.org/${ABI}/release_3",

zdw 8y ago

> Because Simultaneous MultiThreading (SMT) uses core resources in a shared and unsafe manner, it is now disabled by default. It can be enabled with the new hw.smt sysctl(2) variable. Is this on all architetures or just Intel's Hyperthreading? I'd imagine that other CPU's with hardware threads (especially the 4 and 8 way Sparc T series) would be quite hobbled in terms of performance with this change.

bjpbakker 8y ago
Should be specific to Intel's Hyperthreading, according to the ml announcement [0] [0] - https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=153504937925732 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=153504937925732 (edit: words)
mtgx 8y ago
We only know it affects Intel's fast and loose architecture so far.

mruts 8y ago

Linux is a depressing mess after you've used OpenBSD. Such a high quality system, with stellar documentation. It's unfortunate that Linux has become so popular even though the BSD's are so much better. A bad historical accident. Damn you Linus...

agumonkey 8y ago
No need for harsh feelings. BSD value will have its time. Now don't read about perl vs php :p
pulsarpietro 8y ago
I have been a Linux user for more than a decade - recently switched to OpenBSD and I must say I agree. Linux has become a chaotic place to be, I agree.
- oneanddone 8y ago
  Quite. Especially now with their hideous CoC. That thing is straight out of the pits of PC hell. Many people think Linus will never again assume command now that he's stepped down for his so-called infractions. Gone now is the merit-based stuff and now it's all based on PC garbage. I miss the old days of IT, especially now.
- tinuninu 8y ago
  This means nothing to me. Can you be more specific why /Linux has become a chaotic place to be/.
  - oneanddone 8y ago
    Not OP, but I will offer my thoughts. Linux is terribly balkanized what with all the competing distros. There are no standards. This is one reason why Linux has not taken off on the desktop outside of tech circles. systemd. It violates almost every *nix tenet out there, especially "a program should do one thing well". It's has a few benefits, but the negatives outweigh these, namely more and more programs outside of the base system now require systemd. This should never be. I and millions of others agree that an init system should be able to be tweaked as text files. Not happening now. The logs are stored as binaries when they should be plain text. Debugging is more difficult. A program should do one thing well. Full stop. There is always BSD and Slackware, and I don't think Slackware will adopt systemd, as their user base doesn't want it. Slackware is the oldest currently-developed Linux distro out there and the vast majority of users want it to remain true to its roots while still advancing.

reinhardt1053 8y ago

The new unveil(2) system call is now available. Discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18194008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18194008

RandomTisk 8y ago

I run OpenBSD as my border firewall which it handles very well. One thing I wish that OpenBSD devs would change in their philosophy is the --help messages. Many commands simply offer a list of switches, as if that's somehow helpful. Sometimes you need the detail in a man page, but a lot of times you don't and it would save so much time and energy to have a succinct list in the --help message itself. # syspatch --help usage: syspatch [-c | -l | -R | -r]

aquabeagle 8y ago
That's a GNUism, so you won't find it in BSD tools.
- mishac 8y ago
  It's a good GNUism though, that I also wish the BSDs supported. No-one's saying that the BSDs should start supporting GNU style --long-options or switch to info instead of man, but friendlier help messages are always a nice thing.
  - JdeBP 8y ago
    Strictly speaking, those are usage messages not help messages.
  - anthk 8y ago
    RTFM
  - justin66 8y ago
    > friendlier help messages are always a nice thing That's not the dispute. It's a question of how much you value brevity. syspatch --help usage: syspatch [-c | -l | -R | -r] looks quite friendly to me, but YMMV.
- jsight 8y ago
  Yeah, but why not adopt it? GNU has done a lot of things right.
8y ago

hn17 8y ago

I used OpenBSD for some time as a platform for a hobby servers around version 4. It is very stable, has low hardware requirements for a base system (I had running WordPress on 32MB RAM and Pentium 200 MMX to my amusement), has very fast and powerfull firewall / packet filter. It is one of the most elegant operating systems I've ever used. Simple in use but has huge functionality. I second that documentation is one of the best. Must try it again maybe on desktop this time.

_zachs 8y ago

Back in college our OS course used OpenBSD and I had a great time learning kernel development. Too bad I'm heavily invested in Arch right now!

chousuke 8y ago

I run OpenBSD on my router and it's great. It was refreshing to not need Google for figuring out how to set things up, because everything is in the included manual pages, which often do a great job explaining new concepts. Want a quick intro to OSPF? man ospfd I don't think I'll run OpenBSD as a desktop OS unless performance drastically improves, but it's staying on my router for the foreseeable future.

appleflaxen 8y ago
can you elaborate on your performance concerns?

technofiend 8y ago

I haven't taken the time to write this up, but one of the handy things about OpenBSD is you can take a small 16GB USB stick, format it with one small FAT partition and copy the installer to that. Then you boot the installer on your Ubiquiti Edge Router and install OpenBSD to the unpartitioned space. With a little work you can have your own caching DNS server including domain blocks for tracking sites and if you want privoxy or a squid proxy. It's also easy to set up your own root CA and switch over to certificate-based authentication for wireless clients as long as the wireless base station supports radius. I haven't published a tech note on it yet because Android still complains about importing self-signed certificates even when you import the root CA.

ynx0 8y ago
Can you please post the link once you’ve written it? This sounds really interesting
jlg23 8y ago
To be fair: you can do that with probably any unixoid OS. IMHO, it is just much easier with BSDs because a) documentation of how to do it is much easier to access than on linux or the other two(TM) and b) BSDs tend to follow the KISS-principle - meaning: even with the superb documentation one can just read the posix shell scripts to save some time.
- technofiend 8y ago
  >To be fair: you can do that with probably any unixoid OS Totally.

tyfon 8y ago

* PIE support for the m88k platform. I'm quite amazed that there exists hardware where they can test this! Maybe there are some embedded systems still using motorola chips? Anyway, OpenBSD is great. I'm running it on my router and it also powers my 96 mb ram dual pentium pro 200 mhz computer from the 90s :) That computer also has a quantum fireball 20 gb disk as it's main storage, another thing I am amazed that still runs.. Donate to this project, it deserves it!

notaplumber 8y ago
A dedicated developer is keeping it alive by maintaining support for the OMRON LUNA-88K & LUNA-88K2 Unix workstations from Japan. https://www.openbsd.org/luna88k.html https://www.openbsd.org/luna88k.html OpenBSD also used to run on Motorola's 88k VME boards, but the mvme88k port was discontinued after 5.5. https://www.openbsd.org/mvme88k.html https://www.openbsd.org/mvme88k.html If you have any spare parts/systems, I suspect aoyama@ would be interested in hearing from you.

h1d 8y ago

Interesting, I've been running Linux for 15 years, yet I can't understand how to upgrade from 6.3, which I just installed on a cloud server, to 6.4 by reading the official document. (Specifically the part "instruct the boot loader to boot this kernel" because it says to type in the file name during the boot process, which is not exactly easy on a remote machine.) https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade64.html https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade64.html I have a lot of respect to OpenBSD devs when people don't contribute back much even if they use OpenSSH everyday but a bit more friendliness doesn't hurt to let people try it out more.

Mordak 8y ago
Keep reading. The upgrade guide has two parts: the first part that assumes the common configuration (you have console access and are using the OpenBSD boot loader), and the second part[1] in the event that you do not. If you have console access and can boot from iso, you can also use the cd64.iso image to boot into the install kernel and follow the common upgrade procedure on the console. There is an in-between case where you have a console, but do not control the boot loader (so cannot boot bsd.rd) and cannot boot an iso. It sounds like maybe you are in this situation? In this case, you can still follow the upgrade directions as if you do not have a console[1]. Alternately, sometimes when I am in this situation I just download the install kernel (bsd.rd), move it where the boot loader is hard-coded to look (/bsd), and then reboot. The boot loader will boot the install kernel and you can follow the usual / common upgrade procedure on the console. There is also autoinstall[2], which can automate the upgrade procedure for you and reduces upgrades to just rebooting into bsd.rd and waiting a bit. There is a bit of effort to create the response file, etc., so this may be overkill for a single instance but is very useful for upgrading fleets of machines quickly. [1] https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade64.html#NoInstKern https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade64.html#NoInstKern [2] https://man.openbsd.org/autoinstall https://man.openbsd.org/autoinstall
ahriman 8y ago
Do you have console access, via VNC for example? If so, download the new bsd.rd image and place it in / Reboot, and at the boot prompt type: boot bsd.rd Then follow the prompts.