OpenBSD Archive

Already well-regarded as a security-focused network OS, OpenBSD stands to further upgrade its reputation with ver. 3.6, which combines enhanced services with wider hardware support. OpenBSD 3.6, which was released last month, will be a good fit for companies that wish to put services at the network edge, such as firewalls & VPNs, with more flexibility than appliance-based options could provide.

The OpenBSD team earlier this month released version 3.6 of the free operating system, with support for more hardware, updated application software, and bug fixes included. This time around OpenBSD has added support for multi-CPU systems, a number of drivers for new peripheral hardware, and about 200 more apps to the Ports tree. NewsForge took the new version for a spin, and liked what they found.

In order to better understand why OpenBSD has decided this is important, KernelTrap approached Theo de Raadt with a few questions. In reply he fully explains the issue, talking about how successful this form of activism has been for OpenBSD in the past, and offering specifics on exactly what they are trying to accomplish. He summarizes, "the open source community has support for all the ethernet chipsets, all the scsi chipsets, all the raid chipsets, so why should we not have support for all the wireless chipsets?"

OpenBSD project leader Theo de Raadt today announced the official release of OpenBSD 3.6 for fourteen architectures. This regular release includes new support for the luna88k platform as well as a long list of enhancements such as SMP support for x86 and AMD64. NewsForge has details and a list of mirrors. There is also an interview with openbsd developers on new technologies in 3.6.

Winter has ended in Melbourne but I'm not the sort to venture out without at least a sweater. However, the cold doesn't seem to bother Theo de Raadt as Sam Varghese sit in the lobby of the city's Duxton Hotel, a day after the end of the annual summit of the Australian Unix and Open Source User Group.

OpenBSD will perform best for low-traffic Web sites requiring strong protection. The key theme here is small and secure — therein lies the strength of OpenBSD, says ServerWatch.

With security the focus of this year’s Australian Unix Users Group (AUUG) conference, OpenBSD founder and project lead Theo de Raadt was invited to speak on exploit mitigation techniques. In an exclusive interview with Computerworld's Rodney Gedda, the man behind an operating system that lays claim to only one remote exploit in the default install in seven years, reveals where we are headed – and how far we have to go – in the search for more secure software

The OpenBSD 3.6 announcement is available here. It will be released on November, you get an early look of what's new.

OpenBSD creator Theo de Raadt recently announced that support for the SGI O2 architecture was soon going to be imported, primarily in an effort to hunt down and fix bugs in the OpenBSD codebase.

The OpenBSD Project released OpenBSD 3.5 exactly on schedule on May 1, adding support for new functions and devices in the kernel and updating the base system. While it may not be the most versatile operating system in the world, OpenBSD shines when it comes to security, providing a default installation that doesn't have to be locked down and partially disabled before using it. Here's also another article on how to setup OpenBSD.

OpenBSD now has SMP support for amd64. Learn more about it here.

According to this SMP support is now in OpenBSD-current.

A recent thread on the OpenBSD project's misc@ mailing list discussed why OpenBSD has chosen to stick to a purely monolithic kernel, instead of trying to optimize performance by using kernel modules. As described in the OpenBSD FAQ, the OpenBSD team only supports the GENERIC kernel that is provided with the distribution. Numerous reasons were provided, including security, the ability to fully test, and simplicity.

Alexander Yurchenko recently added device hotplug support to the tree and will be enabled by default in GENERIC once testing is complete for all architectures which can support it.