[HN Gopher] OpenBSD 7.1
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       OpenBSD 7.1
        
       Author : ptidhomme
       Score  : 147 points
       Date   : 2022-04-21 13:23 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.openbsd.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.openbsd.org)
        
       | rawoke083600 wrote:
       | Congrats !
       | 
       | I know the answer is "just use FreeBSD", but out of interest does
       | anyone run OpenBSD with a LAMP stack in any sort of production
       | environment with a medium-level(whatever this may mean to you) of
       | traffic ?
        
         | nopcode wrote:
         | I run a few Rails apps with about 200 weekly users total all on
         | OpenBSD. I much prefer it over my Debian experience. But I have
         | to say Fly.io and Render look very good.
         | 
         | I believe that jcs runs pushover on OpenBSD.
        
         | icybox wrote:
         | The answer is actually "just use OpenBSD". I work for a local
         | ISP and reinstalled all the aging OpenSUSE boxes with OpenBSD
         | almost 5 years ago. Zero issues and peace of mind, because you
         | know your servers can take care of themselves while you're on
         | vacation. (I've started with OpenBSD around version 5.0 and
         | have witnessed a situation where linux had a bug where whole
         | world was running around with hands in the air and the same
         | issue has been either fixed or mitigated in OpenBSD years ago)
         | 
         | Core of the network is still Cisco and Nokia boxes, but all the
         | support/servery stuff runs on OpenBSD - ELK stack, nextcloud
         | servers, db servers, smokeping, nagios, syslog, tacacs, rpki
         | validators, mail relay.s - you name it.
         | 
         | Only exception is backups servers, where we use TrueNAS with
         | ZFS (FreeBSD-based).
         | 
         | I was testing 10gig SFP+ NICs (intel, broadcom) in linux,
         | freebsd and openbsd with iperf3. I was seeing line rate in
         | linux and freebsd and somewhere around 3gbps in OpenBSD. So
         | while linux and freebsd has top performance, OpenBSD's
         | performance with security mitigations enabled by default is
         | good enough(tm) in most cases.
         | 
         | YMMV
        
           | rawoke083600 wrote:
           | Interesting ! Been toying with the idea to move my
           | "medium'ish" site to an OpenBSD stack currently on Ubuntu
           | Linux 18 (can you get any more vanilla ?)
           | 
           | For no other reasons than:
           | 
           | 1) I can (i'm the boss, and only employee :/)
           | 
           | 2) OpenBSD, will always have a special place in my heart
           | going back 20 years, trying to "share" our dialup modem on my
           | 386 !
           | 
           | 3) I also like going on vacation and not worry
           | 
           | 4) That artwork :P
           | 
           | 5) Just love the pure simplicity of it, everything "fits in
           | your working mind"
           | 
           | 6) I feel the older I get, the more I move to a graybeard-
           | unix-mindset. Although I'm no way near as clever or component
           | as the 'myth'.
           | 
           | I like to think the (ok my) "ultimate final destination" is
           | me sitting on a mountain top with a netbook coding in a LISP
           | in Emacs on OpenBSB.
           | 
           | Of course I might need some eye-candy so I will allow lolcat-
           | bash-prompts for that color-req in my life. *The final zen-
           | state*
           | 
           | Now if I can only find a "DECENT" VPS host that offers _any
           | bsd default install options_ looking at you scaleway !
        
             | icybox wrote:
             | This will be _very_ opinionated, but ... when I 'm working
             | with linux, I need to google stuff around, because there
             | are no [,usable] manpages. Sure, it's easy, _everybody_
             | just loves to google their stack traces to find solutions
             | ... BSD is boring, it just work. And from my experience,
             | OpenBSD was acting like an apprentice, when I was setting
             | something up. It handed me the tools or configs at the
             | moment I needed them. Everything is there at arms reach. If
             | you know what you 're doing, the system is helping you.
             | Need config file? - there's one in /etc/examples!
             | 
             | The old saying goes like "Those who don't understand UNIX
             | are condemned to reinvent it, poorly." I don't think I need
             | to tell you, but do your testing before you switch over
             | your production. Hopping off the bandwagon has its
             | benefits, but also its costs. OTOH, (ad 2), I think you'd
             | know your way around. I've played with BSD4.3 in SIMH
             | couple weeks ago and was surprised that I can use it!
             | 
             | ad 3: I've had an argument with security guys forcing
             | minimum password length couple months ago. Somehow they
             | just couldn't understand that I don't have passwords at all
             | and use SSH keys. Also, linux doesn't have pledge and
             | unveil or chroot by default, so they just don't understand
             | the benefits ...
             | 
             | ad 5: for me, OpenBSD is the only system where I can ps
             | auxwww and know what's going on ... Not sure what's going
             | on, but the working theory is that most people just don't
             | care or understand, so this is not a value for them from
             | the start...
             | 
             | ad 6: UNIX graybeards FTW!
             | (https://archive.org/details/unix-magic-poster-gary-
             | overcare-...)
             | 
             | Most linux VPS could be taken over by writing miniroot.fs
             | to the virtual drive & rebooting the drive. Some might need
             | to emulate some cloud-init stuff ...
             | 
             | P.S. I've started with linux more than 20y ago. I was
             | blessed enough (hey! life provides only gifts ;) ) to
             | administer some Solaris 6,7,9 and 10 boxes that has shown
             | me "proper" UNIX ... since then, it's painful to experience
             | some linux stuff that has been solved already, and just
             | works(tm), but NIH ...
        
           | technofiend wrote:
           | > I was seeing line rate in linux and freebsd and somewhere
           | around 3gbps in OpenBSD.
           | 
           | This is the only reason I don't still run OpenBSD firewalls -
           | because the little appliance I use doesn't have the CPU to
           | keep a gigabit NIC saturated and I have gigabit internet. Now
           | that topton refreshed their offerings with 10th and 11th gen
           | 2.5gbe firewalls [1] I plan to try again. Having said that, I
           | tried drag racing PFsense, Fedora and OpenBSD in virtual
           | machines on a DL360 G9 under vmware and OpenBSD wasn't able
           | to keep up there either.
           | 
           | [1] https://www.servethehome.com/inexpensive-4x-2-5gbe-
           | fanless-r...
        
             | libx wrote:
        
       | snvzz wrote:
       | I keep telling myself that one of these days, they'll migrate the
       | cvs repo to git.
        
         | icybox wrote:
         | There is official read-only git mirror at
         | https://github.com/openbsd/src
         | 
         | CVS still works just fine for the devs ...
        
           | voakbasda wrote:
           | CVS might work for the existing devs, but it can be a non-
           | starter for onboarding experienced developers. Avoiding the
           | upgrade to modern VCS tooling would be a deal-breaker for me,
           | despite any other potential upsides. I view it as the tip of
           | an iceberg of outstanding technical debt.
        
             | icybox wrote:
             | I think you focus on the wrong thing. If your code is good,
             | just send git diff to the mailing list and watch it being
             | commited. Tools used is not some kind of magic pixie dust
             | ...
        
       | omnibrain wrote:
       | Nice artwork as usual, but it looks like the song is missing.
       | 
       | Sadly I can't say much about the release because I have no real
       | use case for OpenBSD.
        
       | mdb31 wrote:
       | Yup, there were some premature release announcements, but it
       | seems it's really available now. (Note that OpenBSD releases come
       | out twice a year, pretty much like clockwork, and that version
       | numbers aren't indicative of the magnitude of the underlying
       | changes: 7.0 was just the next release after 6.9).
       | 
       | Headline improvement for this version: it's fully supported on
       | Apple Silicon. Not sure there is a huge market for that, but
       | still pretty cool!
        
         | traceroute66 wrote:
         | > Yup, there were some premature release announcements, but it
         | seems it's really available now
         | 
         | Technically you it was always available, you can always follow
         | _-current_ or whatever they call it.
         | 
         | Most sensible people don't, however, because it entails going
         | back to the old-school way of keeping OpenBSD up to date, i.e.
         | you don't get to benefit from _syspatch_ , _fwupdate_ and
         | _sysupgrade_. All three utils being (relatively) recent
         | inventions that help keep your average sysadmin sane !
        
           | messe wrote:
           | Actually you get the advantages of all of those when running
           | -current if you follow it by using the binary snapshots. You
           | can follow current by upgrading to the latest snapshot via
           | 'sysupgrade -s'.
        
       | throw_1999 wrote:
       | > Implemented poll(2), select(2), ppoll(2) and pselect(2) on top
       | of kqueue. Does anyone have more information on this? OpenBSD
       | must be the only one to implement this way?
        
         | asveikau wrote:
         | I feel like this doesn't matter much from outside the kernel,
         | it's just an implementation detail.
         | 
         | The limitations of those syscalls are inherent to the interface
         | and won't be "fixed" this way.
         | 
         | So it's no doubt convenient for the OpenBSD devs to unify the
         | implementation, but this is not a user visible change or even
         | something user mode programmers should care about.
        
         | brynet wrote:
         | Apparently it was inspired by similar work done on DragonFlyBSD
         | for select(2), unfortunately I cannot find any details about
         | their implementation.
        
       | user3939382 wrote:
       | I'll use OpenBSD again if and when there's a long-term branch
       | that freezes the pf.conf syntax, let's say for 10 years.
       | 
       | Of course people are free to run their volunteer projects however
       | they like, but I'm also free to decide that I'm not going to have
       | my firewall rules randomly break if I want to keep my router
       | updated. Over the last 15 years or so I've been burned by OpenBSD
       | multiple times on this issue.
        
         | icybox wrote:
         | All the changes are mentioned in changelog and/or upgrade
         | guide. What's the story here?
        
       | brynet wrote:
       | Link to official release page: https://www.openbsd.org/71.html
       | 
       | Announcement mail: https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-
       | announce&m=165054715122282&w=2
        
       | enriquto wrote:
       | Complete upgrading instructions:                   ssh
       | myopenbsdbox   # log-in to your machine         doas sysupgrade
       | # will log you out, go drink some coffee         ssh myopenbsdbox
       | # log-in to the upgraded machine         doas sysmerge      # if
       | any, solve merge conflicts of your cfg files         doas pkg_add
       | -u    # if any, upgrade local packages         doas sysclean
       | # print obsolete files that you may want to remove
       | 
       | the last step is optional. You may pipe its output to xargs rm
       | -rf if you feel confident.
        
       | johnklos wrote:
       | It's good to see their regular update cadence bringing new code
       | to the masses without much delay, like OpenSSH 9.0, for example.
       | 
       | I think many people who run other Unix-like OSes don't always
       | realize how much of the code they use regularly comes from the
       | OpenBSD project, even if we don't often run OpenBSD directly.
       | 
       | Thanks, OpenBSD!
        
         | Gualdrapo wrote:
         | In their website they mention OpenSSH is a product of their
         | efforts:
         | 
         | > As an example of the effect OpenBSD has, the popular OpenSSH
         | software comes from OpenBSD.
         | 
         | But I think they could reformulate it to illustrate that even
         | more good stuff has been done there and it is used by many
        
           | icybox wrote:
           | Obligatory link to Peter N.M. Hansteen's presentation
           | "OpenBSD and You". On slide 6, you'll see which operating
           | systems use OpenBSD's code to its benefit.
           | 
           | https://home.nuug.no/~peter/openbsd_and_you/
           | 
           | EDIT:grammar
        
         | tharne wrote:
         | > I think many people who run other Unix-like OSes don't always
         | realize how much of the code they use regularly comes from the
         | OpenBSD project, even if we don't often run OpenBSD directly.
         | 
         | OpenBSD is a huge contributor to the Unix ecosystem. Also,
         | don't forget the top-notch documentation. Even when I'm using
         | Linux at work, I'll still often pull up the OpenBSD man pages
         | because they're so much better.
        
           | sjmulder wrote:
           | With mandoc, they've also worked hard on the HTML output. No
           | more fixed with fonts, good layout, internal and external
           | links, and compact. I wish more documentation was like this!
           | 
           | Examples:
           | 
           | http://man.openbsd.org/kqueue
           | 
           | http://man.openbsd.org/acme-client
        
       | dingleberry wrote:
       | i tried freebsd and surprised that pf is already included.
       | 
       | that and zfs (no partition, can use whole disk).
       | 
       | i'm considering using freebsd on both server and laptop from now
       | on.
       | 
       | will i miss anything?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | icybox wrote:
         | FreeBSD's PF has been forked long time ago and lives
         | independent life now. FreeBSD have implemented SMP
         | improvements, but this hasn't been taken back by OpenBSD that
         | has moved on since ... there are some incompatibilities.
         | 
         | Both OpenBSD and FreeBSD are boringtech(tm). It just work,
         | without all the drama, changing init systems and or system
         | tools every couple years. It really depends on your workload,
         | but with FreeBSD, you can run linux/windows/whatever in BHYVE
         | or virtualbox if you need something specific ...
         | 
         | I've ran FreeBSD servers with ZFS and jails (bastille) before,
         | but I usually fall back to OpenBSD (if storage <100G) or
         | SmartOS (storage >100G -> ZFS). Really depends on the workload.
         | Give it a shot or mention what you need.
        
         | upofadown wrote:
         | Last I checked it is a different version of pf than the version
         | shipped on OpenBSD.
         | 
         | I think that OpenBSD tends to be better on laptops.
        
           | icybox wrote:
           | Allegedly, OpenBSD devs run OpenBSD on their Thinkpads.
           | FreeBSD devs use MacOS on their laptop ...
        
             | nix23 wrote:
             | Don't watch to much youtube...freebsd dev's have the
             | approach: The best tool for the task, hence zfs for saving
             | data ;)
        
               | Aeronwen wrote:
               | I quit using ZFS when FreeBSD managed to somehow lose the
               | entire zpool it was installed on. That was a long time
               | ago, so I'd hope it's better now, but I've had no reason
               | or inclination to waste my time with it since.
        
               | nix23 wrote:
               | >ZFS when FreeBSD managed to somehow lose the entire
               | zpool it was installed on
               | 
               | Maybe freebsd...maybe user ;)
        
               | icybox wrote:
               | I've lost a 3T collection of HDTV movies back in the day
               | (student) because of WD green drive that decided to
               | return something else that was written to it in a USB
               | box. Took me a while to realize what's going on, but
               | seeing cksum errors when this particular drive was a
               | member of zraid1, I didn't lose any more data (blocks
               | with correct data and checksum were returned from pool)
               | and was able to replace it on my schedule and money.
               | Since then, I just don't feel like gambling on bitrot.
               | Neither on movies, nor on family photos.
        
       | protomyth wrote:
       | Anyone got any information on sysclean? It doesn't seem to be
       | installed with my 7.1 and there wasn't a manual page for it?
        
         | icybox wrote:
         | pkg_add sysclean
        
           | protomyth wrote:
           | Any idea why it is a separate package when its in the release
           | notes?
        
             | brynet wrote:
             | sysclean is not mentioned in the release notes, there is a
             | small mention in the upgrade guide which states it's a
             | package.
             | 
             | There's some ongoing discussions that imply it probably
             | shouldn't even be mentioned there.
             | 
             | https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=165056241101774&w=2
        
       | Aaronstotle wrote:
       | I need to try OpenBSD on a partition again, I kept running into
       | issues where my display would freeze after 15 minutes. I assume
       | it was because I was trying to watch videos + coupled with using
       | an Nvidia card.
       | 
       | From what I read online, OpenBSD does lack compared to FreeBSD in
       | hardware support
        
         | throwawayboise wrote:
         | Yeah OpenBSD and Nvidia are not a good combo. Even with Intel
         | or AMD, check the docs to be sure your video hardware is
         | supported.
        
       | sirmac1k wrote:
       | Does anyone know what is the current state of UTF-8 support in
       | OpenBSD?
       | 
       | Last time I tired it I had big problems with it in base install.
       | Both editors and mandoc were falling short in that regard.
        
         | icybox wrote:
         | Text console is ASCII. Xorg speaks UTF-8 fluently. Just set
         | LC_CTYPE=cs_CZ.UTF-8 in .xsession or equivalent (locale -a) and
         | you're good to go.
        
           | sirmac1k wrote:
           | Thanks. Unfortunately that's what I was afraid of. I need it
           | mostly in TTY, so still gonna wait for some improvements
           | there.
        
       | eixiepia wrote:
       | Thanks for the release!
       | 
       | Can we appreciate for a moment how OpenBSD is also free from all
       | the woke crap, that has infected the tech world in recent years.
       | No "Code of Conduct" bullshit for example.
        
       | jbirer wrote:
       | I wonder why OpenBSD does not provide a separate non-free
       | firmware included ISO mirror like Debian does.
        
         | brynet wrote:
         | OpenBSD includes firmware it can permissively redistribute, for
         | example as of 7.1, OpenBSD developers spent many months working
         | with Realtek to change the firmware license for rtwn(4),
         | urtwn(4) and rsu(4) wireless devices so that it could be
         | included in base and on the install media.
         | 
         | https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-cvs&m=163331097625151&w=2
         | 
         | For firmware that cannot be distributed on the install media,
         | it is instead packaged separately and made installable through
         | fw_update(8), if you have a working Internet connection will be
         | fetched automatically from the installer or on first boot.
         | 
         | You can also add firmware to install media yourself, if you
         | have an existing OpenBSD install:
         | 
         | https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#WifiOnly
        
         | traceroute66 wrote:
         | > I wonder why OpenBSD does not provide a separate non-free
         | firmware included ISO mirror like Debian does.
         | 
         | Unfortunately powers that be at OpenBSD are pretty hardcore
         | about "Open means open".
        
           | mnd999 wrote:
           | Ahh yes, Theo. Some of his email chains are even more
           | entertaining than the famous LKML ones.
        
           | enriquto wrote:
           | "Fortune" is subjective... I find this quite fortunate, to be
           | honest!
        
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       (page generated 2022-04-21 23:02 UTC)