5 ms·

Anyone here use OpenBSD in production? I've used it off-and-on it always felt prickly, even with the excellent documentation.

yellowapple 8y ago
I used it for one of our onsite DNS servers (as a VM). Seems to be working well.
- sverige 8y ago
  There's some interesting new stuff in that area on OpenBSD. https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20190128061321 https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20190128061321
  - yellowapple 8y ago
    Oooo neat. Doesn't really factor into that particular OpenBSD deployment, but if I ever go back to OpenBSD on my work laptop (which I'd like to do at some point; the previous constraint was that I needed Linux for various tools at work, but I think I can make do with a second laptop and/or using vmm to run virtualized Linux X clients), then this looks like it'd be pretty handy (especially since my work network uses a captive portal now, so I'd want something smart enough to handle that, which sounds exactly like what unwind is supposed to achieve).
snazz 8y ago
It’s the only OS on my primary laptop and desktop machine now! Everything feels well-engineered and mostly very consistent. Compared to Linux and FreeBSD, stuff like suspend/resume, brightness/volume hotkeys, etc. not only work, but work on the console and with a plain window manager (no desktop environment). The classic example is how Wi-Fi, even autojoining (as of recently), works without the mess of ifconfig+wpa_supplicant+NetworkManager. OpenBSD’s ifconfig supports all this without wrappers upon wrappers. It’s still a very niche market, though, so you have to stick to relatively well-tested technologies to avoid running into inconsistencies and issues.
- doublepg23 8y ago
  That's great, I do like using `ifconfig` for everything - it just makes more sense.
smhenderson 8y ago
I use it as my primary laptop at home. And I have a laptop at work I use to test things on it. I really like the lite-weight http server that comes with it. I've used it to complete a few internal only web sites for automating tasks around the office (importing data from other systems into our accounting system, firing off email confirmations to customers, etc.) I have had very few issues with it and when I did it was generally me assuming I knew what I was doing because of my Linux experience. Once I learned to read the manual and look for subtle differences between BSD and GNU I found I was able to pick it all up pretty quick. Their manual pages are actually one of the best perks!
protomyth 8y ago
Yeah, I pretty much use it for all our internet services, except the ones where you need a large file system or the government / vendor is dictating what I can use. It works well, is pretty easy to upgrade every six months, and patching is a whole lot easier these days. For the big file system I use FreeBSD with ZFS, and we have a VMWare server to hold all the evil I am required to keep in my server room. The fact I have some damn government vendor who hasn't validated their product on anything past Windows Server 2003 is a little annoying.
sverige 8y ago
It's been my daily driver on desktop and laptop for eight years, and I've got a couple small servers running it for about six years. It just keeps getting better and more friendly as time goes on, too.

yellowapple 8y ago

I used it for one of our onsite DNS servers (as a VM). Seems to be working well.

sverige 8y ago
There's some interesting new stuff in that area on OpenBSD. https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20190128061321 https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20190128061321
- yellowapple 8y ago
  Oooo neat. Doesn't really factor into that particular OpenBSD deployment, but if I ever go back to OpenBSD on my work laptop (which I'd like to do at some point; the previous constraint was that I needed Linux for various tools at work, but I think I can make do with a second laptop and/or using vmm to run virtualized Linux X clients), then this looks like it'd be pretty handy (especially since my work network uses a captive portal now, so I'd want something smart enough to handle that, which sounds exactly like what unwind is supposed to achieve).

snazz 8y ago

It’s the only OS on my primary laptop and desktop machine now! Everything feels well-engineered and mostly very consistent. Compared to Linux and FreeBSD, stuff like suspend/resume, brightness/volume hotkeys, etc. not only work, but work on the console and with a plain window manager (no desktop environment). The classic example is how Wi-Fi, even autojoining (as of recently), works without the mess of ifconfig+wpa_supplicant+NetworkManager. OpenBSD’s ifconfig supports all this without wrappers upon wrappers. It’s still a very niche market, though, so you have to stick to relatively well-tested technologies to avoid running into inconsistencies and issues.

doublepg23 8y ago
That's great, I do like using `ifconfig` for everything - it just makes more sense.

smhenderson 8y ago

I use it as my primary laptop at home. And I have a laptop at work I use to test things on it. I really like the lite-weight http server that comes with it. I've used it to complete a few internal only web sites for automating tasks around the office (importing data from other systems into our accounting system, firing off email confirmations to customers, etc.) I have had very few issues with it and when I did it was generally me assuming I knew what I was doing because of my Linux experience. Once I learned to read the manual and look for subtle differences between BSD and GNU I found I was able to pick it all up pretty quick. Their manual pages are actually one of the best perks!

protomyth 8y ago

Yeah, I pretty much use it for all our internet services, except the ones where you need a large file system or the government / vendor is dictating what I can use. It works well, is pretty easy to upgrade every six months, and patching is a whole lot easier these days. For the big file system I use FreeBSD with ZFS, and we have a VMWare server to hold all the evil I am required to keep in my server room. The fact I have some damn government vendor who hasn't validated their product on anything past Windows Server 2003 is a little annoying.

sverige 8y ago

It's been my daily driver on desktop and laptop for eight years, and I've got a couple small servers running it for about six years. It just keeps getting better and more friendly as time goes on, too.