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OpenBSD 3.2 Available

fredrikv writes "Right on time, the files defining OpenBSD 3.2 have moved away from "snapshots" to the 3.2 directory of the OpenBSD mirrors. It is well known as the world's most secure operating system and now sports chroot'd Apache, fewer suid binaries, cool pictures for xdm-logins, a brilliant "antispoof" packet filtering rule and as usual includes lots of small updates and fixes. The files are there. What are you waiting for?"

8 of 331 comments (clear)

  1. It's good, but not that good by ryanvm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It is well known as the world's most secure operating system

    Whoa, partner. Sure OpenBSD is designed with security in mind, and as far as the BSDs go (which are generally pretty secure in their own right), it's probably the tightest. But it's quite a leap to say that OpenBSD is the most secure operating system in the entire world.

    I don't know which OS would get that "award". But I'd have to believe that it'd be something obscure like a tiny, embedded, OS the NSA uses in their crypto equipment or some such.

    1. Re:It's good, but not that good by LordHunter317 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Bullcrap. We just had to put in a patch to cover a buffer overflow/memory leak issue in UCX For OpenVMS. We know it caused buffer overflow issues becuase we could bomb Sybase sending it large amounts of data. Now there may be no OS-level overflows, but your statment is just ludicris. Our code is one walking buffer-overflow. Kernel != System, and just because the kernel is secure doesn't mean the system is.

      Otherwise, I tend to agree, but OpenVMS is bi*ch to configure.

  2. Re:what happened? by grub · · Score: 4, Insightful


    ..when the holes in OpenSSH and -SSL were found.


    The OpenBSD folks do make OpenSSH but not OpenSSL.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  3. Re:what happened? by LordHunter317 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The OpenSSL holes have nothing to do with OpenBSD, they are built by a seperate team. 3rd party auditing of the source (which is what OpenBSD does for stuff it doesn't directly develop) won't find everything.

    The OpenSSH hole was to be expected, and was long past due. No software is perfect, this just proves it. Face the facs, it'll happening sooner or later.

    I don't see what you mean what gee-whiz hardware. Hardware support is still pretty far down on the list, and even my new system is about 80%% supported at best. Security is still the critical issues, but the development teams is humans, and humans miss things.

    Flashy features? Again the same thing. The reason I use OpenBSD is because it isn't so darn flashy. That and it just runs.

    Path to shame? I think the 3.0 series has been the best yet, and the most innovative. I think it will continue to be too.

  4. Re:what happened? by c13v3rm0nk3y · · Score: 4, Insightful
    For a while there I wasn't sure they'd ever get another release out...

    This puzzled me. I've been running an OBSD router since 2.6 (and we've been running it at work since 2.8). The releases have been coming out pretty much every 6 months, haven't they?

    I upgrade about once a year, so I often skip releases, but I think they've only missed the release dates a few times, and only by a week or so.

    Bugs will be found, which (of course) is the point of the OBSD project. I just don't see any shame in that. Lot's of organizations get compromised. The real test is how the organization reacts and recovers.

    *shrug* From my POV, the releases have been getting better and better. I can't imagine running anything else as an edge box.

    Of course, I may be wrong. Even openbsd.org runs Solaris!

    --
    -- clvrmnky
  5. Re:security by c13v3rm0nk3y · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's pretty common to run a few releases back on important and complex daemons like BIND, or Sendmail.

    There is little value in going to BIND 8 or 9 if it has not been audited by the OBSD team first. BIND 4 is well understood and the faults, warts and bugs are well-known. BIND 8 is still new enough that it is considered an unknown.

    This is one of the downsides (if you consider it a downsid) of trying to be "secure by design".

    Of course, OBSD is free, as in beer and as in speech. This means you can run a parallel box with BIND 8 or 9 (or whatever) yourelf until you deem it safe. The responsibility is now yours to maintain security on that chunk of the OS, but everything is a trade-off, especially in host security.

    BIND 8/9 will eventually make it into a future release. 99% of us do not need it, however, and so having a well-known and secure BIND 4 implementation has more value for the rest of us.

    --
    -- clvrmnky
  6. yes, we need SMP by mainmain · · Score: 5, Insightful

    BSD is great, but it's just not going to make inroads into the server market without SMP. It's fine for us amateurs with racks at home and 384k upload at best, but for business that really need to crank it up, OpenBSD falls short.

    What's great about Open over Free (and most Linux distros) is simply that one can go from zero to installed, up and running in no time flat. The need to secure the OS is minimal (though as another said, why portmap and why inetd?), which also greatly reduces time to production. And no worries about all of those "extra" packages that one doesn't want installed that get installed whether you like it or not, and then having to find a way to yank them out.

    That said, yes, I pre-ordered my CDs.

    Jud.

  7. if you have the bandwidth for isos you have it for by waspleg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1.44 floppy net-based installs, which is what i usually use and i've been using openbsd since 2.5

    just because there are no "Official" iso's does not mean that they are not available from "Unofficial" sources just look around but you really should support hte project if you can

    (the t-shirts/posters/stickers are all cool and the later can only be found w/ the official cdrom distribution)

    my personal server (which is used primarily for NAT and personal ftp) has been running OpenBSD for years and it's certainly hte most elegant and simply designed UNIX based system that I've ever used and is far more intuitive and secure than Linux (which i have also dealt with since '95 and presently have a debian desktop machine running under my desk so no flames please) by default.. anyway my $.02

    here is a link to the floppy internet based install instructions: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#Media