6 ms·

OpenBSD on Digital Ocean

105 points by jorgecastillo 11y ago

jlgaddis 11y ago
Okay, I know someone here is trying this... success or failure?
- wtn 11y ago
  I used these instructions a few weeks ago and they worked. You will need to download miniroot58.fs (not miniroot57.fs).
  - eloy 11y ago
    True indeed, the article was written a week before the release of 5.8...
    - wooger 11y ago
      Huh, 5.8 hasn't been released? What you mean is that snapshots / current are now using that version number.
- dougb 11y ago
  I got it installed, but there were problems. A lot of programs fail with SIGILL, illegal instruction. OpenSSL fails in OPENSSL_ia32_cpuid() Anybody get past this ?
  - geographomics 11y ago
    I also get coredumps from openssl, ssh-keygen, and smtpctl on the first boot. The common factor for all of these is the XGETBV instruction - unfortunately it looks like DigitalOcean's setup of KVM doesn't support it. This was just on amd64 though - installing OpenBSD for i386 seems to work okay, apart from sometimes hanging on boot (not sure why this is).
api 11y ago
This also probably works on other cloud providers if they support a virtualization layer that OpenBSD will work with. I've heard of successes here too: https://vultr.com/ https://vultr.com/ Just be sure you use miniroot58.fs -- OpenBSD 5.8 wasn't released when this was written.
- chrismsnz 11y ago
  5.8 is still currently in development/snapshot - not for amateur users. 5.7 is the latest official release. 5.8 is due on Nov 1.
  - wooger 11y ago
    Worth noting though that if you use the release, you get no updates, security or otherwise, till the next release in 6 months. And using -stable (release + patches) is a hassle of manually applying patches and re-compiling - no binary updates are available. If running snapshots is not for amateurs, neither is running stable.
    - protomyth 11y ago
      If you cannot run stable, then I'm pretty sure you should let others do your system administration for you. Stable is very easy to follow with simple instructions: http://www.openbsd.org/stable.html http://www.openbsd.org/stable.html If you need binaries there is always http://opensource.mtier.org/binpatchng.html http://opensource.mtier.org/binpatchng.html
    - pakled_engineer 11y ago
      Stable will cleanly build though, where running current snapshots you could come across something temporarily broken or have to debug a tough build if doing it from source. FWIW I just built 5.7 stable and the whole process took an hour and a half for kernel + userland + xenocara with no build issues. Often for stable security patches you just have to rebuild the kernel which is 15 mins work on my older AMD server.
    - detharonil 11y ago
walterbell 11y ago
What is the technical blocker to installing OpenBSD without a FreeBSD shim, e.g. is there incompatible code in the OpenBSD installer?
- TheDong 11y ago
  On digital ocean you get a very limited set of boot options. You can't provide them your own installer, boot image, kernel, iso, or any of that jazz. You also don't get a pre-boot console. For linux, they don't even let you provide your own kernel in userland or the like, so there's actually no way to install a BSD from a linux shim on DO. FreeBSD on DO is the only way to get an instance that is capable of booting anything non-linux, so it's necessary to start from freebsd. Edit: It looks like the kernel limitation has been lifted for some linux instances too. See: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-update-a-digitalocean-server-s-kernel https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-upda...
  - fxlv 11y ago
    If yoy want to run your own kernel you can always use kexec (not ideal, but works): https://gist.github.com/cpuguy83/6143347 https://gist.github.com/cpuguy83/6143347
    - justincormack 11y ago
      Has anyone got kexec to boot a non Linux kernel?
elchief 11y ago
Tangentially related at best...anybody here succeed doing PXE with virtualbox's tftp and openbsd? I get an unhelpful error msg.
- laumars 11y ago
  I have done a few bits with PXE booting inc OpenBSD, so I might be able to help if you can provide more detail. (I do feel your pain as PXE error messages are largely pretty vague, but not posting the error message is even less helpful).
- voltagex_ 11y ago
  VirtualBox's PXE implementation is... interesting. I know it sucks, but try using a CD image of iPXE.

105 points by jorgecastillo 11y ago

jlgaddis 11y ago

Okay, I know someone here is trying this... success or failure?

wtn 11y ago
I used these instructions a few weeks ago and they worked. You will need to download miniroot58.fs (not miniroot57.fs).
- eloy 11y ago
  True indeed, the article was written a week before the release of 5.8...
  - wooger 11y ago
    Huh, 5.8 hasn't been released? What you mean is that snapshots / current are now using that version number.
dougb 11y ago
I got it installed, but there were problems. A lot of programs fail with SIGILL, illegal instruction. OpenSSL fails in OPENSSL_ia32_cpuid() Anybody get past this ?
- geographomics 11y ago
  I also get coredumps from openssl, ssh-keygen, and smtpctl on the first boot. The common factor for all of these is the XGETBV instruction - unfortunately it looks like DigitalOcean's setup of KVM doesn't support it. This was just on amd64 though - installing OpenBSD for i386 seems to work okay, apart from sometimes hanging on boot (not sure why this is).

api 11y ago

This also probably works on other cloud providers if they support a virtualization layer that OpenBSD will work with. I've heard of successes here too: https://vultr.com/ https://vultr.com/ Just be sure you use miniroot58.fs -- OpenBSD 5.8 wasn't released when this was written.

chrismsnz 11y ago
5.8 is still currently in development/snapshot - not for amateur users. 5.7 is the latest official release. 5.8 is due on Nov 1.
- wooger 11y ago
  Worth noting though that if you use the release, you get no updates, security or otherwise, till the next release in 6 months. And using -stable (release + patches) is a hassle of manually applying patches and re-compiling - no binary updates are available. If running snapshots is not for amateurs, neither is running stable.
  - protomyth 11y ago
    If you cannot run stable, then I'm pretty sure you should let others do your system administration for you. Stable is very easy to follow with simple instructions: http://www.openbsd.org/stable.html http://www.openbsd.org/stable.html If you need binaries there is always http://opensource.mtier.org/binpatchng.html http://opensource.mtier.org/binpatchng.html
  - pakled_engineer 11y ago
    Stable will cleanly build though, where running current snapshots you could come across something temporarily broken or have to debug a tough build if doing it from source. FWIW I just built 5.7 stable and the whole process took an hour and a half for kernel + userland + xenocara with no build issues. Often for stable security patches you just have to rebuild the kernel which is 15 mins work on my older AMD server.
  - detharonil 11y ago

walterbell 11y ago

What is the technical blocker to installing OpenBSD without a FreeBSD shim, e.g. is there incompatible code in the OpenBSD installer?

TheDong 11y ago
On digital ocean you get a very limited set of boot options. You can't provide them your own installer, boot image, kernel, iso, or any of that jazz. You also don't get a pre-boot console. For linux, they don't even let you provide your own kernel in userland or the like, so there's actually no way to install a BSD from a linux shim on DO. FreeBSD on DO is the only way to get an instance that is capable of booting anything non-linux, so it's necessary to start from freebsd. Edit: It looks like the kernel limitation has been lifted for some linux instances too. See: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-update-a-digitalocean-server-s-kernel https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-upda...
- fxlv 11y ago
  If yoy want to run your own kernel you can always use kexec (not ideal, but works): https://gist.github.com/cpuguy83/6143347 https://gist.github.com/cpuguy83/6143347
  - justincormack 11y ago
    Has anyone got kexec to boot a non Linux kernel?

elchief 11y ago

Tangentially related at best...anybody here succeed doing PXE with virtualbox's tftp and openbsd? I get an unhelpful error msg.

laumars 11y ago
I have done a few bits with PXE booting inc OpenBSD, so I might be able to help if you can provide more detail. (I do feel your pain as PXE error messages are largely pretty vague, but not posting the error message is even less helpful).
voltagex_ 11y ago
VirtualBox's PXE implementation is... interesting. I know it sucks, but try using a CD image of iPXE.