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Metawire.org Admin On OpenBSD Hosting
hext0r writes "Open Hosting provider metawire.org administrator Daniel Selans recently wrote an informative article for the OpenBSD Journal about the difficulties and successes in running a free hosting provider using OpenBSD. It's an informative read for anyone considering starting any type of hosting company using free technologies."
As one of the two co-owners of Metawire I must agree. Overall, the OpenBSD situation for us has been extremely positive. The difficulties that we had that were not mentioned in the article were mostly the cause of inproper configuration allowing local users (we are a shell provider) accessing services that we didn't expect, causing situations we couldn't avoid in time.
All in all though, it has been extremely smoothe and the users all seem to be appreciative.
One of the biggest challenges for us was getting a good userbase. We found that the majority of our users were from countries like Romania and Poland who just wanted a shell account to run a BNC and then never log in again. This went against everything we created Metawire FOR, which was to create a community of like-minded computer enthusiasts.
There have been some problems, but OpenBSD has helped to aleviate the majority of them.
hrrm.
Because of the way ports and packages are designed this complation issue of yours does not happen.
You do not need to configure anything to compile a port, you need to run "make install" after enabling root permissions or getting sudo setup.
Packages are not the norm by any stretch of the imagination for anyone I know that uses a BSD. Installing a pkg works fine as long as you also have the dependancies it will just install the same as if you made from a port and I have never found a port in the 3.3 release that installs broken not bad for the 193 I use for my desktop.
The only messed up compile I've ever seen is xmame+xmess, which my machine could not handle cause it doesn't have enough resources to compile it.
OpenBSD is equally able to use the ports and pkgs in it's system because the system was designed for Open.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
It's a proxy. Allows users to just leech bandwidth. A lot of the foreigners are using it on our system to get onto IRC networks that their ISP's get banned from for warez abuse and things of that nature.
hrrm.
If you are willing to donate money, OpenBSD donations is the place to go.
Of course, buying CDs, t-shirts or posters also helps the project. Look at the catalog here.
If you want cutting edge software then OpenBSD may not be for you, because it stresses stability over recency. It's so conservative in this regard it makes Debian-stable seem daring.
Even as a big Debian fan, I still have to admit OpenBSD has newer software than Debian Woody.
OpenBSD ain't bad, it comes out every 6 months and is usually fairly up to date.
Dam are you trolls dense.
1) No you cannot play a ton of commercial games, however you can play UT, Half-Life and so forth.
2)Grandma better learn a little about unix.
3)Lacks gui? Gnome 2.6 is there KDE 3.2.x is there, so is Windowmaker, Xfce. Check out the ports collection at www.freebsd.org/ports and well will see what exists.
4) Support? There a few commercial support sites for FreeBSD, I wont list any because this isnt a commercial. You have tons of mailing lists and boards were you can post your question.
5)Assortment of fragmented OS'. Please provide examples. Otherwise share what your smoking with the class.
6) Can be run on X86. Aaaahh, it was developed on the X86 and that is a Tier I plaform as well as the Sparc and so forth.
7) You have to know as much about C to compile apps on Linux? "make install clean". Where is the programming?
8) You apparently dont know what your talking about with respect to hardware. Check out the HCL lists on the websites.
9)Incompatiable with GNU/Linux, perhaps you unfamiliar with Linux Binary Compatability mode as well as a host of other binary modes.
10)With all your points proven wrong, then I guess it really cant be dying.
11)The only reason I respond to this troll was to dispell some myths about the *BSD.
OpenBSD is supposedly more secure than FreeBSD, but in terms of direct remote root exploits, they're just about the same as FreeBSD- both use Openssh which hasn't had that great a security track record. OpenSSH appears to be developed and maintained by the OpenBSD team. Whether OpenSSH's security/quality is representative of the rest of the OpenBSD team's work is up to you to figure out.
Wrong. 99% of the OpenSSH vulnerablities don't affect OpenBSD. I can't tell you the specifics, but the reason is basicly that the way OpenSSH is integrated into the system along with kernel specific security measures prevent exploits that would affect another POSIX OS. If you read the security announcements for the OpenSSH vulnerabilities, you'll usually see that OpenBSD is immune.
Not Free(as in beer). Free(as in "I'm free to beat you over the head for being a dumbass")