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OpenBSD Archive

Why OpenBSD is important to me

OpenBSD 12 Comments

OpenBSD is an operating system that prioritizes security, encryption, and free (as in free and open) software. It's built in the open - anyone can see the code and discussions around it. That's no accident - the earliest contributors recognized that transparency and public discussion are essential to effective security. If you follow the project and the email lists for any length of time, it becomes clear that the core contributors are passionate about security and quality. These are volunteers that spend their limited, precious spare time on building a great operating system that they give away for free because they want to see secure, high quality software thrive in the world. They've been doing it for 20 years.

What they've made works really well. While it's not as easy for a consumer to use as Windows or OS X, to someone more technically inclined, it's straightforward to use as a server or as a desktop for many use cases. And the big feature: it starts our very secure and if you're careful you can keep it that way as you customize it to suit your purpose.

A heartfelt case for OpenBSD.

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OpenBSD 5.9 released

OpenBSD 10 Comments

OpenBSD 5.9 has been released a few days early! As always, OpenBSD doesn't do a very good job of summarising the most important changes in this new release, but that's okay - OpenBSD isn't targeted at people like me who know very little about the BSDs. It doesn't really matter - those of you using OpenBSD were probably already aware of what was coming anyway, and if not, the release notes will still make complete sense to you.

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Microsoft Funds OpenBSD

  Submitted by matthekc OpenBSD 32 Comments
The Microsoft corporation has become OpenBSD's first "Gold Level" sponsor after a large donation. (Facebook and Google are both silver contributors). The move is likely related to Microsoft's use of OpenSSH in future versions of Powershell. Meanwhile at the FreeBSD site companies LineRate, NetApp, Google, Hudson River Trading, and Netflix dominate the top sponsors. Noticeably absent was the Apple Computer Corporation who base their OSX and IOS systems off of the free software BSD systems. More info about OpenBSD's 2015 fundraising campaign here.
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Bitrig 1.0 released

OpenBSD 21 Comments

Bitrig 1.0 - an OpenBSD fork - has been released. Why, exactly, did Bitrig fork OpenBSD?

OpenBSD is an amazing project and has some of the best code around but some of us are of the opinion that it could use a bit of modernization. OpenBSD is a very security conscious project and, correspondingly, has to be more conservative with features. We want to be less restrictive with the codebase when it comes to experimenting with features.

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OpenBSD gets USB 3.0 support

OpenBSD 3 Comments

The OpenBSD operating system, famous for its proactive approach to security, has gained support for USB 3.0 devices. A brief announcement was made on November 10th, letting OpenBSD users know USB 3.0 support had arrived.

The post said legacy USB 1.x devices would continue to work on USB 3.0 ports.

For those of you who'd been looking forward to using those blue USB ports of yours, now's the time to plug in as many 3.0 devices as you can find! Of course, just about the time we publish this story, USB1.x devices are now supported on a USB 3.x controller.

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“OpenBSD will shut down if we do not have the funding”

  Submitted by jz OpenBSD 58 Comments

See the email thread on the misc list for more details.

In light of shrinking funding, we do need to look for a source to cover project expenses. If need be the OpenBSD Foundation can be involved in receiving donations to cover project electrical costs.

But the fact is right now, OpenBSD will shut down if we do not have the funding to keep the lights on.

If you or a company you know are able to assist us, it would be greatly appreciated, but right now we are looking at a significant funding shortfall for the upcoming year - Meaning the project won't be able to cover 20 thousand dollars in electrical expenses before being able to use money for other things. That sort of situation is not sustainable.

The OpenBSD project is the incubator for a number of other projects including OpenSSH and OpenSMTPD. If you use these or just want the project to survive, consider making a donation.

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OpenBSD 5.0 Released

  Submitted by fran OpenBSD 31 Comments
"OpenBSD 5.0 has been published, six months after the release of version 4.9. The OpenBSD project's newest release of the free BSD based UNIX-like operating system includes a number new and updated drivers, performance improvements and new features. OpenBSD 5.0 includes the GNOME 2.32.2, KDE 3.5.10 and Xfce 4.8.0 desktop environments. It also contains a number of new and updated packages including versions 3.5.19, 3.6.18 and 5.0 of the Firefox web browser, PHP 5.2.17 and 5.3.6, LibreOffice 3.4.1, and Chromium 12. The release includes September's release of OpenSSH 5.9." GNOME 2 you say? Huh. Interesting.
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OpenBSD 4.9 Released

OpenBSD 9 Comments
OpenBSD 4.9 release is ready, now with enabled NTFS by default (read-only), SMP kernels can now boot on machines with up to 64 cores, maximum allocation size for i386 bumped to 2G, added support for AES-NI instructions found in recent Intel processors, further improvements in suspend and resume and much more.
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More Details Emerge Regarding OpenBSD FBI Backdoors

  Submitted by Oliver OpenBSD 28 Comments
Yesterday, we reported on the allegations made by Gregory Perry. He claims that 10 years ago, several developers were paid by the FBI to implement hidden backdoors into OpenBSD's IPSEC stack. This has prompted a lot of speculation about the allegations' validity, and less than 24 hours later, it has descended into one person's word against that of others. Update: Jason Wright, too, denies all the allegations. "I will state clearly that I did not add backdoors to the OpenBSD operating system or the OpenBSD crypto framework (OCF). It is a baseless accusation the reason for which I cannot understand."
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“FBI Added Secret Backdoors to OpenBSD IPSEC”

  Submitted by Oliver OpenBSD 126 Comments
Okay, this is potentially very big news that really needs all the exposure it can get. OpenBSD's Theo de Raadt has received an email in which it was revealed to him that ten years ago, the FBI paid several open source developers to implement hidden backdoors in OpenBSD's IPSEC stack. De Raadt decided to publish the email for all to see, so that the code in question can be reviewed. Insane stuff.
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“The Insecurity of OpenBSD”

  Submitted by Anonymous OpenBSD 43 Comments
"OpenBSD is widely touted as being 'secure by default', something often mentioned by OpenBSD advocates as an example of the security focused approach the OpenBSD project takes. Secure by default refers to the fact that the base system has been audited and considered to be free of vulnerabilities, and that only the minimal services are running by default. This approach has worked well; indeed, leading to 'Only two remote holes in the default install, in a heck of a long time!'. This is a common sense approach, and a secure default configuration should be expected of all operating systems upon an initial install. An argument often made by proponents of OpenBSD is the extensive code auditing performed on the base system to make sure no vulnerabilities are present. The goal is to produce quality code as most vulnerabilities are caused by errors in the source code. This a noble approach, and it has worked well for the OpenBSD project, with the base system having considerably less vulnerabilities than many other operating systems. Used as an indicator to gauge the security of OpenBSD however, it is worthless."
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