[HN Gopher] OpenBSD 7.2
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       OpenBSD 7.2
        
       Author : ptidhomme
       Score  : 303 points
       Date   : 2022-10-20 13:51 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.openbsd.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.openbsd.org)
        
       | xcdzvyn wrote:
       | I wish there was more interest in getting acceptable WiFi and
       | Bluetooth performance from any BSD. Even FreeBSD lacks anything
       | but a half-baked 802.11n implementation :/
       | 
       | I truly adore BSD; using Linux is a chore comparatively. But I
       | don't really have a choice.
        
         | raegis wrote:
         | You can use both, to an extent. My most recent example: The
         | documentation for GNU troff (groff) in Debian is incomplete--
         | the man page for eqn(1) includes the GNU extensions mostly, but
         | not the basics. So I downloaded the OpenBSD manpages which
         | includes complete documentation for eqn(7).
         | 
         | https://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/amd64/man72.tg...
         | 
         | Good documentation is a killer feature, in my opinion. It's
         | nice they provide it all in one tar ball.
        
           | somat wrote:
           | I too keep making the mistake of using the openbsd man pages
           | for linux projects. Then am confused when things don't work
           | as they should.
           | 
           | You would think I would learn better after a few cycles of
           | this, but nope, I am rather stupid that way... or perhaps the
           | openbsd documentation is just that much better.
        
         | ori_b wrote:
         | > Even FreeBSD lacks anything but a half-baked 802.11n
         | implementation :/
         | 
         | OpenBSD does better here. AC is supported on Intel cards.
        
         | busterarm wrote:
         | You need support from the chip manufacturers to get that done.
         | 
         | Intel and Broadcomm hand you a binary firmware blob and tell
         | you to go screw yourself for the most part.
         | 
         | Atheros is one of the few helpful ones. The wifi support that
         | we have now is the result of painstaking hard work.
         | 
         | And to be honest, I use the wifi on OpenBSD fine without
         | 802.11ac support
        
           | loeg wrote:
           | It's partly the driver, partly the stack, at least on
           | FreeBSD. My understanding is the newer high-speed wifi modes
           | use multiple channels or pairs of channels or something like
           | that, and the 80211 stack in FreeBSD was just not built with
           | that in mind. So retrofitting it is some work. I think there
           | are other things like that missing still, in addition to
           | driver support.
        
           | brynet wrote:
           | > I use the wifi on OpenBSD fine without 802.11ac support
           | 
           | But OpenBSD does have 802.11ac support*, since 7.1. :-)
           | 
           | * _On iwm(4) /iwx(4) only for now._
           | 
           | https://www.openbsd.org/71.html
        
             | busterarm wrote:
             | I'm still on 6.something sorry but that is my hardware. I
             | should update. :-)
        
               | snvzz wrote:
               | Being one release behind is fine (and supported). 6.x is
               | not...
        
               | busterarm wrote:
               | I've been moving around a lot for two years and talking
               | about unpowered hardware.
        
               | brynet wrote:
               | Yes you should, buster.
        
           | ksec wrote:
           | >You need support from the chip manufacturers to get that
           | done.
           | 
           | Not speaking as an Open Source everything advocate. But I
           | wonder how much would it cost to develop a fully open WiFi 7
           | and Bluetooth 5.3 Chip.
        
         | somat wrote:
         | My understanding[1] is that openbsd has better 802.11 drivers
         | than freebsd and reading the lists this is largely due to
         | absolutely herculean effort by one person.Stefan Sperling [2]
         | 
         | Dramatic bio(probably none of this is true. but this lives in
         | my head after reading the lists). Sperling never wanted to be a
         | hero, had no training or experience interfacing with those
         | piles of electronic treachery we affectionately call "wifi".
         | But he wanted a change, he wanted a difference. He stepped up
         | and wrote a patch. Now he is the sole defender between us and
         | the vile manufactures actively trying to keep us from our
         | starbucks internet connection. Not the hero we deserved, But
         | the hero we needed[3].
         | 
         | Apparently finding people willing to work in that arcane
         | shithole known as wifi drivers is hard. I looked once and it
         | scared the hell out of me. A lovecraftian mess of undocumented
         | registers and unknowable machines.                 1. I don't
         | have a laptop with FreeBSD so this is all hearsay.
         | 2. Sperling is also writing got(game of trees) a sane
         | implementation of git. http://gameoftrees.org/            3.
         | The theme song for this majestic endeavor.
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZsUAqaOiHU
         | 
         | edit: I stated that got was plumbing for git and that is not
         | true. that implies got uses git code. it does not, got uses the
         | git file format.
        
         | nix23 wrote:
         | >But I don't really have a choice.
         | 
         | Jup, wireless is one thing, i run around with a old smartphone
         | and tether over usb (on my laptop). But the other one is fan-
         | speed, i can even play AAA-Games...for a minute then my GPU
         | crashes because of overheating (on the workstation with a AMD-
         | Card). No way to adjust fan-speed from the OS is not good.
         | 
         | On both machines FreeBSD
        
         | jscipione wrote:
         | Not exactly a BSD but as of June 2022 Haiku has included
         | support for 802.11ac on Intel IAX WiFi cards using the OpenBSD
         | iwx driver.
         | 
         | https://www.haiku-os.org/blog/waddlesplash/2022-07-09_haiku_...
         | 
         | Edit: iwx not iax
        
       | zxwrt wrote:
       | When will openbsd.org get ipv6 support?
        
         | cauterize wrote:
         | It has IPv6 support
         | 
         | # uname -a OpenBSD xxx 7.1 GENERIC.MP#3 amd64
         | 
         | # ifconfig em0:
         | flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
         | lladdr x:x:x:x:x description: xxx index 2 priority 0 llprio 3
         | media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT full-duplex) status:
         | active inet x.x.x.x netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast x.x.x.x inet6
         | fe80::x:x:x%em0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2 inet6 2601:x:x:x::1
         | prefixlen 64 pltime 301996 vltime 301996
        
           | arsome wrote:
           | I think he meant the website, not the OS.
        
             | zxwrt wrote:
             | I meant the website, yeah
        
               | cauterize wrote:
               | Oops :) I was so excited for the release I forgot how to
               | read!
        
               | zxwrt wrote:
               | No worries
        
       | cauterize wrote:
       | The SMP improvements look interesting. Anyone know of performance
       | results from 7.1 to 7.2?
        
         | miller_joe wrote:
         | i am also wondering about this and happen to be in the middle
         | of testing some L2 tunneling (etherip mostly, might also test
         | vxlan or egre) with ipsec and wireguard in a set of VM's on
         | virtualbox.
         | 
         | the SMP improvements in the networking stack caught my eye and
         | i am in the process of trying to upgrade these vm's and re-test
         | (iperf3). if i find anything interesting i'll report back
        
           | UI_at_80x24 wrote:
           | Yes, I am most excited about SMP improvements with networking
           | too. I run OBSD on all my edge devices so this could make
           | life a lot cheaper.
           | 
           | I've been a huge fan since v4.7 and I'm glad to see the
           | constant improvements.
        
       | nazgulsenpai wrote:
       | > Fixed luna88k MULTIPROCESSOR kernels booting with CPU modules
       | installed in arbitrary slots.
       | 
       | An OS release capable of running on the latest hardware in 2022
       | is still making optimizations for a niche system from the late
       | 80s/early 90s. There's something very beautiful about that.
        
         | r12343a_19 wrote:
         | Yet, they dropped support for i386DX and some older (386)
         | Cyrix?
        
           | johnklos wrote:
           | The toolchains dropped support for the i80386, not the OSes
           | directly.
           | 
           | Intel, as they're known for doing, half-assed many things.
           | Even though the 32 bit mode on the i80386 wouldn't be
           | compatible with i8086 real mode and they could've made vast
           | improvements, they decided to make just a mediocre 32 bit
           | CPU, since they figured most people would just be running it
           | as a super fast i8086.
           | 
           | The m68020 in 1984, by comparison, was much more forward
           | thinking. It had atomic operations, could exist in a multi-
           | processor environment much more easily than an i80386, and it
           | can still run a modern OS (NetBSD) in 2022.
        
             | tedunangst wrote:
             | None of this actually relevant to openbsd dropping 386
             | support 15 years ago.
        
               | sidkshatriya wrote:
               | > None of this actually relevant to openbsd dropping 386
               | support 15 years ago.
               | 
               | Well, I think the argument being made (implicitly) was:
               | 
               | If Intel _had_ made a decent and capable implementation
               | of 386 with forward looking CPU instructions etc. 386
               | _could_ have been alive and kicking today in many more
               | operating systems and platforms.
        
               | tedunangst wrote:
               | It's more like the PC platform has continued to evolve in
               | many ways, and 30 year old museum pieces aren't
               | particularly interesting. Contrast with the mac68k
               | platform, which is frozen in time. You don't see anybody
               | trying to build one kernel that boots on every Mac ever
               | made because the CPU has changed several times, but it
               | wouldn't be pleasant even with continuity.
        
               | pseudostem wrote:
               | IIRC, the argument from the developers on OpenBSD misc
               | mailing lists is that developing on 30 year museum pieces
               | gives them perspective on the difference between right
               | and wrong. It exposes them to more "stuff" than if it
               | were the other way around.
        
               | tedunangst wrote:
               | A finite number of such museum pieces are necessary, and
               | a 386 from 1992 provides little insight.
        
           | tremon wrote:
           | IIRC, the 386 did not have atomic load/store operations
           | (XADD, CMPXCHG), so it's much harder to write reliable
           | semaphores/mutexes on that platform. I'm surprised OpenBSD
           | supported it for this long.
           | 
           | (edit: it seems they didn't: _OpenBSD /i386 hasn't actually
           | supported running on [386sx/386dx] for some time._ )
        
             | xxpor wrote:
             | Is there an SMP version of the 386?
             | 
             | You may need locks on a non-SMP system (since you can still
             | have concurrency), but without parallelism you don't need
             | atomics... right?
        
               | tremon wrote:
               | The 386 still has hardware and software interrupts which
               | might just happen between the load and store
               | instructions, so it's not as simple as "we don't need
               | atomics".
               | 
               | If you were writing code specifically for the 386, I
               | suppose you could implement all semaphores as critical
               | sections to guard against external interrupts; I see no
               | reason why that wouldn't work. But realistically, that
               | code would be more of a museum piece than something you'd
               | want to maintain in a 2022 operating system.
        
               | xxpor wrote:
               | Ah interrupts, of course.
               | 
               | /me goes back to his polling-only application :)
               | 
               | (we have an interrupt, but it's "the watchdog fired and
               | you're about to die anyway", so not exactly complex to
               | handle...)
        
               | my123 wrote:
               | https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20190404-00/?p
               | =10...
        
               | xxpor wrote:
               | of COURSE there's a Raymond Chen blog post about this :D
        
             | tinglymintyfrsh wrote:
             | I'm trying to remember from the last em64t/ia32e & ia32 ISA
             | toy OS I messed around with.
             | 
             | i386 ISA is the bare minimum for functioning protected mode
             | to be better than real-mode DOS. i286 protected mode is
             | absolute trash.
             | 
             | i386 is so bad at dealing with SMP primitives, it was
             | standard practice to have a non-SMP kernel. Then, you get
             | into the business of maintaining 2 kernel flavors or a
             | major kernel feature flag.
             | 
             | For those interested, there is a quirky processor mode
             | trick called "unreal mode" that allows flat addressing
             | without switching to protected mode (no protections, just
             | like real-mode DOS).
        
         | jrumbut wrote:
         | I searched for this luna88k and was taken to a Wikipedia page
         | that I read until I realized it was for a computer called LUNA
         | but it had a 68k processor.
         | 
         | The reason it came up was a tiny quote from the NetBSD
         | announcement of Luna 68k support which mentions its "rare
         | cousin" the 88k LUNA.
         | 
         | Now that's niche!
        
           | SoftTalker wrote:
           | Also a good example of what I understand the OpenBSD
           | development goals to be: developers work on the features and
           | hardware support that interest them. It isn't a popularity
           | contest; targeting the most popular platforms or growing the
           | number of users of OpenBSD is not a project goal.
           | 
           | So as long as there are developers who want to do the work to
           | support the 88k LUNA (whatever it is) then it will happen.
           | 
           | More specifically:
           | 
           | https://www.openbsd.org/goals.html
        
           | reaperducer wrote:
           | I thought I knew a lot about 68k processors, but "88k" is new
           | to me. It turns out to be the Motorola 881001, which was used
           | in Unisys servers running Unix.
           | 
           | 1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_88100
        
             | cafard wrote:
             | Data General built a machine called the Aviion with the
             | 88K.
        
             | kalleboo wrote:
             | I only know about the 88k since Apple prototyped using it
             | for their first RISC Mac back in the day before pushing for
             | the PowerPC alliance
        
               | lukeh wrote:
               | NeXT as well I believe!
        
               | jkepler wrote:
               | M'y physics prof loved his NeXT machine back in the day.
        
             | johndoe0815 wrote:
             | Motorola had a lot of VME bus boards with 88100/88110 CPUs.
             | There's still a web site dedicated to the 88k CPUs at
             | http://www.m88k.com
             | 
             | Fun fact - the 88k was designed by Mitch Alsup, who also
             | designed SPARC CPUs for Ross, x86s for AMD and others. He
             | is retired, but still active in the comp.arch Usenet
             | newsgroup.
        
         | badsectoracula wrote:
         | This is something i always felt was lost with what seems to be
         | "commercialization of free software" - software doing things
         | because it was technically possible regardless if that made
         | commercial sense. Nowadays it seems most projects have
         | commercial interests (or even if they don't they act like it)
         | and processes that come against that, often ending up
         | abandoning things because of usage metrics and agendas, as if
         | they have some board of directors to please.
        
         | amatecha wrote:
         | Yeah it's one of the many reasons I use OpenBSD - I can
         | actually use my old, perfectly-functional hardware from
         | literally decades ago and still run the latest software with
         | latest security features and frequent updates. On numerous
         | architectures, too!
        
       | BirAdam wrote:
       | The BSDs are awesome. I have been considering moving to BSD from
       | Slackware Linux on my PC at home, but haven't yet pulled the
       | trigger. Mostly, I cannot decide which to use among NetBSD,
       | OpenBSD, or NetBSD.
        
         | user3939382 wrote:
         | NetBSD is known for its package system pkgsrc and they have a
         | nifty new firewall https://man.netbsd.org/npf.7
         | 
         | It's most known for its portability and the number of
         | architectures it supports, which many interpret as a comment on
         | the quality of its underlying architecture.
         | 
         | SDF runs on it so you can play with it there.
         | 
         | OpenBSD is known for its security but I've run into too many
         | rude people in their community which has never happened to me
         | with NetBSD, maybe just a coincidence.
         | 
         | FreeBSD is known for its performance and being more up to date
         | with drivers, etc but feels more "messy" and therefore less
         | BSDish to me.
         | 
         | Take all of this with a grain of salt, just one man's take.
        
         | nequo wrote:
         | > NetBSD, OpenBSD, or NetBSD.
         | 
         | Have to go with NetBSD there. :)
         | 
         | More seriously, you could give them test rides inside QEMU
         | before you decide.
        
           | matrix12 wrote:
           | Qemu will let you see what works on the OS as far as software
           | goes. But fails to tell if your hardware is even supported.
           | They all have usb images available. Boot up, see if it finds
           | everything, combined with your Software needs. I run all
           | three so it's not always a trinary value.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | seabird wrote:
         | FreeBSD is focused on the same market Linux is. It will
         | probably give you the least trouble in terms of software and
         | hardware compatibility.
         | 
         | OpenBSD is "the way things should be" according to a certain
         | group of people. Generally feels good if you're tired of the
         | Linux Mexican design standoff, but will sometimes leave you
         | either very happy or very confused depending on whether or not
         | you're on the same page as the developers.
         | 
         | I haven't used NetBSD extensively myself, but it seems to be a
         | pretty simple system with a focus on portability.
         | 
         | None of the above matters if what you want to use doesn't work
         | on your hardware. Test each one.
        
         | nix23 wrote:
         | Try FreeBSD first, more functions more ports/pkg, i had OBSD
         | for a long time, but decided against it because of ZFS and
         | Wine-Proton....and much more, but it's really about what you
         | want and what you need.
        
           | newZWhoDis wrote:
           | Can you elaborate? As an outsider I don't know if you mean
           | FreeBSD has ZFS or OBSD
        
             | xcdzvyn wrote:
             | FreeBSD has very good ZFS support; and more software
             | support in general (as OP alluded to with Wine-Proton)
        
           | irusensei wrote:
           | Stopped using FreeBSD on my home servers (2 RockPro64s)
           | because it lacks big.Little support, which results in an OS
           | that doesn't distinct between the stronger and weaker cores.
           | Among the BSDs only NetBSD supports it but that's too far
           | from my comfort zone. Not only that but SSL and GNUTLS speeds
           | were terrible at the time since it didn't knew how to use the
           | cpu extensions (greatly impacts samba performance) I've
           | stoped using.
           | 
           | Meanwhile Linux is a breeze. Faster, more responsible pulling
           | 650MB/s on AES cryptsetup benchmark. BTRFS is actually quite
           | good and LXC replaces jails. Transfers can easily saturate my
           | gigabit connection. Don't think I'm going back so soon.
        
             | nix23 wrote:
             | Yeah sorry i don't like the idea of weaker stronger cores,
             | i think it's one of the most stupidest ideas.
        
           | UI_at_80x24 wrote:
           | It totally depends on what you want to do/how you want to use
           | your PC. For a 'general use' PC I'd suggest FreeBSD. There
           | are more ports for newer programs that will offer more
           | choices. NetBSD and OpenBSD also have their strengths, and
           | EACH ONE can be used as a daily-driver. It just depends what
           | you need/use.
           | 
           | IMHO:
           | 
           | FreeBSD = general purpose
           | 
           | (Open|Net)BSD = more specialized
        
             | nix23 wrote:
             | Well that's what i wrote no?
             | 
             | > but it's really about what you want and what you need.
        
               | UI_at_80x24 wrote:
               | Yes, I just the wrong reply link.
               | 
               | So I'm agreeing with you!
        
         | knaekhoved wrote:
         | I like to use FreeBSD for general appliances, OpenBSD for
         | security-hardened appliances.
        
           | UI_at_80x24 wrote:
           | Agreed, same.
        
       | anthk wrote:
       | GL 2.1 support for my crappy Intel iGPU thanks to Gallium,
       | instead of 1.4x. Good news. No modern gaming, but at least
       | retrogaming and games like Trigger Rally will run fast. And,
       | maybe, PSP emulation on an n270 Atom, but just as an experiment.
        
       | boundchecked wrote:
       | >Direct Rendering Manager and graphics drivers
       | 
       | >Updated drm(4) to Linux 5.15.69
       | 
       | >inteldrm(4): support for Alder Lake, Raptor Lake
       | 
       | I have fond memory of booting OpenBSD the first time last year on
       | an AMD RDNA GPU, after installation a simple "fw_update" got me a
       | hardware accelerated graphic environment going. Very impressive
       | in my book.
        
       | mustermannBB wrote:
       | I like OpenBSD, but its very limited virtualization options means
       | I cannot really use it full-time. Also the performance is not
       | that great, but something I could live with.
        
       | dfc wrote:
       | What's the story behind:                   one diff         two
       | OKs         commit         blowfish
        
         | kwooding wrote:
         | Dr Seuss:
         | 
         | One fish Two fish Red fish Blue fish.
        
         | qbrass wrote:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Fish,_Two_Fish,_Red_Fish,_...
         | 
         | plus
         | 
         | https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/lib/libc/crypt...
        
       | oktwtf wrote:
       | OpenBSD is my happy place.
       | 
       | Install the OS, grab the src, subscribe to the lists and get to
       | hacking!
       | 
       | The IRC and Matrix chats are great spots to get the low down,
       | communities are helpful and documented.
        
         | nagyf wrote:
         | How do you get into this sort of stuff? "grab the src,
         | subscribe to the lists and get to hacking!" is good but as a
         | newbie, I would definitely need more guidance :D
         | 
         | Are there any good resources?
        
           | jmclnx wrote:
           | Good ? :)
           | 
           | OpenBSD has the best docs and really all you need to get up
           | and going. Granted you may need to read some docs a few
           | times, but it is all there. I got going with OpenBSD just by
           | reading.
           | 
           | The FAQ is your friend
           | 
           | https://www.openbsd.org/faq/
        
       | jkepler wrote:
       | Does OpenBSD have any kind of cryptographically measured boot
       | like Heads (which I believe can only boot to GNU/Linux)?
        
       | jmclnx wrote:
       | upgrade time, yea!!
       | 
       | Congrads to OpenBSD on a stable OS and how they plan their
       | releases
        
       | Panino wrote:
       | Just finished upgrading. Thank you OpenBSD!
       | 
       | > Added support for Apple M2
       | 
       | > Added support for Lenovo ThinkPad x13s and other machines using
       | the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 (SC8280XP) SoC.
       | 
       | Given the current status and trajectory of ARM64 in phones and
       | tablets, in SBCs, laptops, and even some servers, coupled with
       | the deeply-held global interest in reducing energy usage, every
       | year I get more confident in the belief that AMD64 has peaked and
       | ARM64 is the upcoming top platform. I'm not sure if I'll ever buy
       | another x86 machine for myself.
        
         | pimeys wrote:
         | I was just reading the new ThinkPad Z13 with the latest Ryzen
         | is faster and gets similar battery life than the M1 or M2, so I
         | wouldn't call x86 dead yet.
         | 
         | https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Z13-laptop-rev...
         | 
         | And you do not need to switch the CPU arch.
        
           | wslh wrote:
           | Incredible, seems like AMD is having an edge over the battery
           | life wars. Is Intel having an answer for that?
        
           | HNDV wrote:
           | >with the latest Ryzen is faster and gets similar battery
           | life than the M1 or M2, so I wouldn't call x86 dead yet.
           | 
           | Mind you, even "as fast as M1" would look amazing compared to
           | Qualcomm's mediocre chips. Those who talk of ARM superiority
           | forgot that if you don't buy an Apple device, what you get is
           | mediocrity. And that's just talking of CPU performance. If
           | you need a real GPU, those qualcomm SOC drop from "bearable"
           | to "absolute garbage". While the M1 and M2 have GPUs that are
           | comparable to some of NVIDIA's mid range offerings.
           | 
           | ARM based windows PCs aren't really going to supplant x86 as
           | long as Qualcomm doesn't put a real effort.
           | 
           | Qualcomm is also one of the manufacturers that makes it
           | impossible for Android to be supported for as long as iOS.
           | Closed drivers + no will to do long term support because
           | they're happy to sell more e-waste = drivers won't work on
           | newer linux kernels and what remains is a brick.
        
         | shepherdjerred wrote:
         | I'm _so_ excited about arm64. Regardless of your opinion of
         | Apple, you have to appreciate that they 've really pushed the
         | consumer world forward with their switch to arm processors in
         | laptops.
        
         | LAC-Tech wrote:
         | TIL that there were ARM64 windows laptops.
        
           | Cyberdog wrote:
           | Microsoft sold ARM-powered versions of the Surface for a
           | while (not sure if it was ARM64 at that point) and releases a
           | version of Windows which runs on the Pi, so it's something
           | they've showed interest in for a while. I'm guessing that
           | they also see the writing on the wall in terms of ascendancy
           | of the ARM platform and want to make sure they have software
           | to sell which runs on it as it happens, but hardware vendors
           | haven't been falling over themselves to bring ARM Windows
           | devices to market just yet.
        
       | yabones wrote:
       | Really neat to see growing ARM processor support! Always
       | impressed by the quality of OpenBSD releases.
        
       | yakubin wrote:
       | Is Absolute OpenBSD (the book) still a good intro to this system?
        
         | ixtenu wrote:
         | I found it helpful. Just be aware that portions of it are
         | outdated, as summarized by this comment:
         | 
         | https://old.reddit.com/r/openbsd/comments/q8lsiq/how_relevan...
        
         | nix23 wrote:
         | Yes Absolutely ;)
        
       | ViceCitySage wrote:
       | Been very interested in OpenBSD for a while. Planning on
       | installing it onto PCEngines' APU + antenna and using it as a
       | router. Following this guide: https://openbsdrouterguide.net/ .
        
         | joshhowes wrote:
         | That page has some outdated information. There's an official
         | guide on OpenBSD's own website:
         | https://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/example1.html - No need to rely
         | on third party blogs with BSD most of the time. Official docs
         | and man pages are always better and up to date.
         | 
         | (I wish this was true for Linux too...)
        
         | UI_at_80x24 wrote:
         | I use OBSD exclusively on my gateway devices. Currently using
         | it at home on an HP730 with a quad-port GB Intel NIC. Total
         | cost ~$200 (used)
         | 
         | Keep you eyes open for sales. /r/homelabsales/ has great deals
         | on these SFF devices sometimes.
         | 
         | I've read that the PCEngines struggles to keep up with network
         | traffic in excess of 100Mb/s.
         | 
         | Although this update may have addressed that. That router guide
         | is ok. but the official pages are better.
         | https://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/example1.html
         | 
         | Hit me up directly if you have any questions.
         | o2kewl[at]gmail[dot]com
        
           | efortis wrote:
           | My apu handles 300Mb/s with a dozen firewall rules without
           | issues.
           | 
           | I haven't tested it on a 1Gb/s but @c17r said it works:
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25045963
           | 
           | I have an older alix one, and I think it worked with 100Mb/s,
           | but struggled after that.
           | 
           | Now, I bought my apu in 2016 and I don't regret it, but I'm
           | not sure I'd buy one in 2022.
        
             | UI_at_80x24 wrote:
             | Ok, my mistake.
        
           | evh wrote:
           | > I've read that the PCEngines struggles to keep up with
           | network traffic in excess of 100Mb/s.
           | 
           | For reference, quick iperf3 TCP tests on my APU2 (cpu[0123]:
           | AMD GX-412TC SOC, 998.27 MHz; em[0123] at pci[1234] dev 0
           | function 0 "Intel I211" rev 0x03):
           | 
           | LAN host <-> APU: ~410 Mbps
           | 
           | LAN host <-> APU (over WireGuard): ~140 Mbps
           | 
           | However, I've put em[123] together as a veb(4) switch
           | _without pf involvement_ and two LAN hosts will get almost
           | the full gigabit between them over that. Would need something
           | bigger if I had a faster uplink or more complex LAN
           | requirements.
        
           | ViceCitySage wrote:
           | Thanks for the heads up and resources.
        
           | JAlexoid wrote:
           | What's HP 730? Google tells me it's an ink cartridge....
        
             | UI_at_80x24 wrote:
             | Ack, sorry.
             | 
             | It's an: HP t730 Thin Client
             | 
             | From dmesg:
             | 
             | cpu0: AMD RX-427BB with AMD Radeon(tm) R7 Graphics, 2697.05
             | MHz, 15-30-01
             | 
             | 4-cores total
        
               | JAlexoid wrote:
               | It would have been something amazing, if you actually ran
               | it on that ink cartridge(there's some mcu in there, to my
               | knowledge)
        
         | hedora wrote:
         | There are specific guides for the APU2, down to lists of parts
         | to order to get openbsd running (including the serial to usb
         | dongle, for instance).
         | 
         | I set mine up years ago, so won't link to the old guide I used.
        
         | technofiend wrote:
         | Serve the home [1] regularly reviews all sorts of low end small
         | form factor hardware and aliexpress hardware. You'd probably be
         | better served (heh) by scanning their website before investing
         | in hardware. You can get an aliexpress device with much more
         | horsepower and higher speed ports. If your budget is $200 then
         | fine, but if you find out later doubling your budget gets a box
         | that sustains 1 gigabit speeds or $600 gets you a machine that
         | sustains 2.5gbe speeds and your $200 was wasted, it would be
         | great for you to discover that now.
         | 
         | [1] https://www.servethehome.com/
        
           | miller_joe wrote:
           | greetings fellow traveler. I am also a big fan of openbsd for
           | home router/firewall. Been running it since the early 2000s.
           | 
           | I've gone through a lot of hardware in that time. From an old
           | dec alpha (kernel panic'd often) to only x86 these days.
           | 
           | In recent years I've started to use these low-cost, fanless,
           | intel machines from aliexpress. They're usually pretty great.
           | Recently I upgraded (ServeTheHome's reviews were very
           | helpful!) from a box I got in 2018 from aliepxress that had
           | 6x 1gbe ports to a newer box with 2.5gbe since my fiber ISP
           | has 10gbe ports right now (and there are no cheap, fanless,
           | low-power intel boxes with 10gig nic's). Specifically a
           | Celeron N5105 (N6005 was not available earlier this year, so
           | I canceled and ordered N5105) with 4x 2.5gbe nic's, this
           | one[1] from Topton, though I believe other vendors on
           | aliexpress are all selling basically the same thing.
           | 
           | The unit works pretty well, however, I noticed with OpenBSD
           | 7.0 and 7.1 that one CPU core was constantly pegged at 100%
           | servicing interrupts. Running `top -S` showed the acpi kernel
           | thread was the culprit, and `systat` showed `acpi0` as the
           | source of interrupts. The box worked fine and could route
           | (with NAT and filtering) the full 2.5gbps internet connection
           | fine, but it would run hotter and probably use more
           | electricity than needed.
           | 
           | I enabled ACPI_DEBUG which did not make for a usable box at
           | all due to the amount of debug prints being generated but it
           | was enough to verify the interrupt spam coming from the ACPI
           | GFE _L6F handler. A google search shows this is not
           | particularly uncommon and is due to buggy motherboard
           | firmware. Both Linux and FreeBSD have a way to disable
           | interrupts on a live system. OpenBSD does not however. And
           | FWIW, I booted an opnsense live CD based on FreeBSD and this
           | interrupt storm was not happening. So I assume FreeBSD may
           | have seen this particular bug or just happens to handle it
           | already. This box should be fine with any of the FreeBSD
           | based OS's. Which is often bundled on these firewalls you buy
           | from aliexpress.
           | 
           | The usual fix for these interrupt storms from buggy BIOS's is
           | an eventual fix from the vendor. In this case though I don't
           | expect to ever seen a BIOS update for this box, and there
           | really is not a website to go download one from anyway. The
           | vendor on aliexpress assured me that if they ever release a
           | new BIOS that they would tell me. I doubt this will ever
           | happen.
           | 
           | In any case, I have "solved" the issue finally with a small
           | kernel patch I found on the excellent openbsd mailing lists.
           | The issue in that case was different, older hardware, but the
           | symptoms were the same.
           | 
           | Long story short I am posting all of this here so that if
           | someone else runs across this same issue they will be able to
           | resolve it much faster than I was.
           | 
           | Patch for OpenBSD 7.1 kernel to ignore the L6F GFE interrupt
           | storms: https://gist.github.com/joemiller/9f5698c5634d4a93d10
           | 1985dc5...
           | 
           | [1] https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803807107706.html
        
             | technofiend wrote:
             | Did that increase your overall throughput? Drag racing
             | pfsense vs OpenBSD on a xeon vmware system shows much less
             | throughput on the OpenBSD system. I'm totally willing to
             | pay the overhead for a more secure system, but I do still
             | have certain performance goals.
        
           | vladak wrote:
           | Another piece of advice I received from an OpenBSD
           | contributor is to lurk on the mailing lists and see what the
           | OpenBSD developers (esp. those that hack on networking code)
           | actually use themselves and get that if you care about
           | stability and performance.
        
             | wahern wrote:
             | > what the OpenBSD developers actually use themselves
             | 
             | That's one reason PCEngines is so popular, even though
             | PCEngines themselves seem mostly preoccupied with Linux and
             | FreeBSD.
        
         | MisterTea wrote:
         | You managed to buy an APU2 or is this existing? They are pretty
         | much uobtanium as of now.
         | 
         | I ran OpenBSD on my now deceased APU2. Never had any issues as
         | it was solid up until it died, likely from lazily leaving it in
         | a room which routinely reaches >90 F / 32 C in the summer. When
         | the stars align and they release the SFP version, I'm going to
         | grab one.
        
           | napkin wrote:
           | It exists? I got mine from Teklager, shipped internationally.
           | Unfortunately the SFP didn't work with my ISP's fibre module
           | (it would flap). I believe this is a Linux thing though.
           | Otherwise quite happy with it.
           | 
           | https://teklager.se/en/products/router-components/pc-
           | engines...
        
       | aliqot wrote:
       | Anybody running this on m1/m2 yet? Any issues?
        
         | matrix12 wrote:
         | Yeap, works great on the m1 macbook air. Everything works. The
         | only thing missing is support for /dev/csam :(
        
           | jiripospisil wrote:
           | GPU acceleration?
        
             | brynet wrote:
             | No, unaccelerated framebuffer for now. X works though.
        
           | aliqot wrote:
           | Is that the secure key enclave thing?
        
             | [deleted]
        
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