Absolute OpenBSD

porkrind writes "No Starch Press has announced its latest BSD title, Absolute OpenBSD, by Michael Lucas, scheduled to be in stores in July, 2003. Lucas is known as a FreeBSD contributor and the author of Absolute BSD. You can read all about it and pre-order now direct from No Starch Press or at Amazon."

Comments

Absolut BSD?

[Bold Marauder]

The only OS which is a part of this complete martini!

Re:Absolut BSD?

[Steven Blanchley]

Someone already thought of this joke.

Re:Absolut BSD?

[Stonent1]

Someone already thought of this joke.

Shouldn't that say "Country of Canada"? :)

Re:Absolut BSD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't that say "Country of Canada"? :)

Actually it should say "University of California".

Re:Absolut BSD?

[usotsuki]

Taking a look at it, I'd say the "artist" just blitted a word off the label and replaced it with BSD. *Almost* convincing, but I would have rewritten the text on the bottle as well.

-uso.
Yeah, I got a gimp. I always amp off when I run.

Drunk?

[sporty]

Heh, the fish on the front cover looks like it had a bit of absolute itself.

Re:Drunk?

[commodoresloat]

Actually the BSD mascots are more likely to turn to ports than vodkas when they tie one on.

How does he do it all?

[baywulf]

"Lucas is known as a FreeBSD contributor and the author of Absolute BSD."

First Star Wars and now a FreeBSB contributor! I just don't know how he manages to have the time to do it all.

Re:How does he do it all?

[agshekeloh]

By writing every day, whether I want to or not. :-)

You can also get a sample chapter at the book's web site, http://www.AbsoluteOpenBSD.com, and order through me directly if you like. (The actual orders are handled by No Starch Press, but I make a tiny bit more money off of them if you order through me.)

==ml

Re:How does he do it all?

[(startx)]

ahhh, the URL is case sensitive, and REQUIRES the www! crimes against humanity in the name of OpenBSD? say it ain't so!

Absolute BSD

[scrotch]

I'm reading Absolute BSD now to get ready for my first FreeBSD install. I've mostly worked with Macs, with a couple of linux installations on servers. This book is great. It's well written, human and clear. It makes recompiling the kernel - which I've never considered touching - seem like a normal, no big deal thing that you just do sometimes. If this install goes well, this new book will help convince me to try OpenBSD for more secure installs.

Re:Absolute BSD

[teemu.s]

the install will go well - freebsds setup is pretty straight forward and kernel recompiling is a quit normal task :-) - I got much help from http://www.bsdvault.net their howtos are well written and user driven.

the cool thing about absolute bsd is, that michael wrote it as stp by step guide for setting up a server. on the other hand portions of it can (and should) be taken to drive your home workstation. it gives you the tools and the insight you need to do tasks on your own - and tells you how to behave on bsd related mailinglists (and even when you are "allowed" to post :-))

Im really looking forward on absolut openbsd, too

You sir, are obviously not a drinker

[Bold Marauder]

Except martinis are made with gin, not vodka.
Correction.

About time, I say

[irenetheno]

This is only second book in history on OpenBSD.

That doesn't mean that OpenBSD is bad or has a small group of supporters.. It's only one of the most secure ("out of the box" is one of the items of high importance to me) firewall operating systems in the world. It's completely Open Source and available for free download.

The original book on OpenBSD from the year 2000 is sorely outdated since the OpenBSD project tries to release a new version every six months. This book covered lots of security/firewalling concepts and how to implement them in OpenBSD 2.5 (as well as Linux) while we are now at OpenBSD 3.3. The above-mentioned books should be able to help fill in the background details as to the "whys" more than the "hows."
The "hows" are provided on the OpenBSD website for free:
FAQ (installation)
Packet Filter User's Guide (does most of the amazing firewalling that OpenBSD is famous for)
Manual Pages

OpenBSD is freely available for download, but if you like the project, I strongly encourage you... Buy something from them (they have a few shirts and posters): Or donate money or hardware.

Also, I wonder if this book is in any way related to the Deadly.org plea from the community for topics that an OpenBSD book should cover.

Re:About time, I say

[evilviper]

Also, I wonder if this book is in any way related to the Deadly.org plea from the community for topics that an OpenBSD book should cover.

Well, it is obvious that the author reads deadly, so, at the very least, I'm sure he read that thread himself. If he was the one that submitted the comment or not... I don't think it really matters, do you?

Re:About time, I say

[rulethirty]

Everything irenetheno has said is very useful...
Anyone attempting to learn BSD coming from a Linux environment will be very suprised and a little disoriented at first,
but with ample reading and a TON of hands on they will come to appreciate it and realize just how stable and secure it is even on the lowest level.

Re:You sir, are obviously not a drinker

[eht]

James Bond drinks vodka martini's, the food network has a show and they were talking about how the Smirnoff distillery was backing the movies so they modified to drink to add vodka to it

some random page about vodka martinis

one of the most secure

[1s44c]

...one of the most secure

AFAIK it's the most secure by a long way.
I only know two more secure OS's -

Wang XTS ( UNIX based and impossible to get hold of ).
Any OS without any input/output devices at all.

Re:one of the most secure

[aschlemm]

I've been using OpenBSD for nearly a year now after switching out a 4 year old Linux system that was still using ipchains. I subscribed to the OpenBSD "misc" list just to see how people were treated. While it's true there are some people that flame a newbie I see a number of helpful posts from people on that list even for stupid things that could have been looked up in the man pages. The OpenBSD man pages are kept reasonably up to date and are quite useful if people actually take the time to read them IMHO. I must say that some people that post for help are rather lazy and don't even bother to research anything on their own. They know what command or package they're having problems with and they seem too damn lazy to read the man page or research anything first before posting for help.

I applaud the work of Theo and others that have taken up the task of ensuring that all of the code in OpenBSD is free. Any code that has licensing issues from the original author and the auther is unwilling to change their license appears to get removed and replaced in the OpenBSD source code. I recall the author of "IPFilter" changed his license so that derivative or modified works of "IPFilter" were not allowed without the author's concent and so "IPFilter" was removed from OpenBSD and "pf" was written to replace it.

OpenSSH and "pf" are fantastic and I've never looked back after switching my firewall over to OpenBSD.

Tony

Re:one of the most secure

[anthonyrcalgary]

Multics was very secure. I'm not sure how you could possibly compare the two, since they faced completely different threats in completely different worlds.

It can't be the most secure by long way when there are other OSes that are at least comperable. Other contemporary OS's aren't all that far behind. I think use of OpenBSD is as much an indicator of commitment to security as it is tool a to aquire more security.

Most UNIXes meant for server use (ie: Solaris, AIX, Linux) can be secured to nearly the degree that OpenBSD can be, well enough that they would be statistically indistinguishable. Of course, OpenBSD takes the paranoia to a new level, and with security as the priority it's a lot easier and less error prone.

BIOS = Built In Operating System?

[HuggyPaul]

At the beginning of Chapter 6, the author refers to BIOS as the "Built In Operating System". This is the first I've heard of BIOS as defined as such; anyone else hear of this? Just curious...

Re:BIOS = Built In Operating System?

[Anonymous Coward]

neal stephenson referred to BIOS as "built in operating system" in his book "snow crash"

Re:BIOS = Built In Operating System?

[evilviper]

Ahhh, the joys of computer acronyms. Tell me againg what a "port" is... ;-)

Australians can get it here

[Zeddicus_Z]

http://www.everythinglinux.com.au/item/1886411999 Note that the book is currently on back order. Originally they only ordered three... and I have two of them :)

Re:You sir, are obviously not a drinker

[PapaZit]

Smirnoff distillery was backing the movies so they modified to drink to add vodka to it

Ah, that explains it. I wondered why the hell anyone would drink a vodka martini. Gin and vermouth go together nicely (esp. with the tiny bit of olive flavor). Vodka and vermouth just tastes like really crappy vodka (Gilby's, anyone?)

I noticed one of the recent Bond movies finally stopped pretending that they were martinis. You just see Bond drinking vodka shots. Now if only he'd drink good vodka...

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[usotsuki]

This is true; Riverside Webster's II backs me up.

-uso.

Re:BSD is living

[usotsuki]

RTFA, this is an Anti-Troll *g*

-uso.

Re:Absolute OpenBSD = Absolute Trash tsarkon repor

[Anonymous Coward]

- no smp

Not everyone needs SMP. Most people, including you, that always bitch about SMP probably don't need it in the first place. SMP brings security issues. For a project like OpenBSD, they are not going to just jump into something like this.

- no unique features

Won't even bother with this. You must have been living under a rock for a last year or two.

- idiot leader, Theo de Raadt, with a history of talking but not doing.

Complete opposite. Look on the mailing lists if you want to see people talking without action.

- idiot leader who makes fun of the people he takes money from then contacts the ACLU when the bitch slap him

Incorrect, missing details. Taken out of context.

- poor rehack of stolen FreeBSD and NetBSD ideas.

Stolen code? From a BSD licensed system? OpenBSD is probably the only OS that cares about licesensing. They audit licenses as well as code.

- only worthwhile part of project is OpenSSH

Seperate project. And a good one at that.

- barely any significant features, they "audit" code for security

Again, get out from under your rock. If only everyone audited code.

- bad drivers

Bad hardware. Upgrade those Realtek nics buddy.

- bad performance

Prove it.

- bad scheduler, no SMP, bad at handling massive amounts of interrupts generated by high load networking

You have already bitched about SMP, see first comment. OpenBSD has proven to handle some pretty decent loads. If you knew what you were talking about, you would have already seen the benchmarks floating around.

- primitive everything

Eh?

- NetBSD, what this was forked (stolen) from is superior in terms of portability and SMP support, as well as having ports that work.

Get over SMP. *YOU* DON'T NEED IT. The ports work fine.

- FreeBSD, the god of all free operating systems, is clearly superior in EVERY department. Those using OpenBSD are smelly zealots with cheesy old hardware, no life and no desire to do anything correctly.

Shame you don't have a need for UNIX. An MP3 Samba server in your parents basement doesn't count.

OpenBSD are doing things correctly. But of course like I've said twice before, you have no clue what they have done recently.

If FreeBSD was "superior in EVERY department" then there wouldn't be a need for NetBSD, OpenBSD, or even Linux. Would there? Every project is doing something a little different and that is a good thing.

You have no say.