OpenBSD 3.9 Released

An anonymous reader writes "OpenBSD 3.9 was released this morning and is now available for download from the OpenBSD mirror sites. Among the new features is integrated framework for monitoring hardware sensors, a BSD licensed driver for nvidia nforce ethernet, and loads of new drivers and bug fixes. Of course you can still purchase the CD-ROM set which includes support for five platforms: i386, amd64, macppc, sparc, sparc64, and also includes the complete blob free source tree and prebuilt packages for many architectures. As always your contributions help to continue the devlopment of this great opeating system."

Comments

Rock Solid Already

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the CDs have been shipped for those that preordered, I got mine a couple fo weeks ago. The best thing, it just installs like a dream. I tried setting it up inside a VMware Workstation, took all of about 5 minutes from the CD.

I also made my first donation to OpenBSD for a long time, to keep it going, since I use OpenSSH every day, infact my job depends on it.

Re:A new twist on the old Soviet Russia joke

[CRCulver]

We have all come to know and love the "BSD is dying" jokes, but I'm noticing so much publishing going on in the BSD world, with O'Reilly offering a BSD security guide and Addison-Wesley releasing a guide to BSD's design. Clearly enough people are using it and continuing to get the most out of it if it is still profitable for tech publishers to offer documentation. If BSD were really sinking, we'd start noticing more BSD-to-Linux migration guides.

Torrents!

[Gandalf360]

Before the weight of the collective slashdot effect kills the main BSD servers, check out the bit torrents that are located here: http://openbsd.somedomain.net/

Re:Not to disagree with you...

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Not to disagree ith you but I'm a longtime Ubuntu user (since Jan 2005) and I'd like to ask: what, among the things you've listed, couldn't have been done without Linux?

Go to the Ubuntu packages pages & search for openbsd Two pages of results! And that's barely scrathing the surface.

Furthermore, as someone else in this thread mentions, openBSD audits their code more thoroughly prior to inclusion in their system. Many packages used in Ubuntu (apache, x.org, etc etc etc) have bug fixes contributed back from the openBSD port.

You're thinking I'm saying that openBSD can do something linux can't - I'm not really, its more like openBSD is the cranky old uncle of the free-unix family, telling all the youngsters to lock their doors & not walk around at night :-)

Re:Not to disagree with you...

[TheRaven64]

This article, covering the release of 3.9 includes some discussion of the ways in which users of other operating systems benefit from the continued health of the OpenBSD project, including the views of one of the OpenBSD devs.

Very cool feature (new)

[Atlantic Wall]

3.9 adds Zaurus remote control (zrc) support.
info: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=zrc&s ektion=4&arch=zaurus

BSD licensed nve driver?

[toadlife]

"a BSD licensed driver for nvidia nforce ethernet"

PLEASE, for love of Beastie, port this over to FreeBSD. The existing nve driver in FreeBSD is a POS.

Re:BSD licensed nve driver?

[Anonymous Coward]

The existing FreeBSD driver is wrapper around a binary blob from nVidea is it not? Not really worth compromising opensource principles for eh?

Re:Rackmount firewall hardware recommendations?

[darkuncle]

eRacks and Hawk are two of the commonly-suggested vendors that sell machines with hardware specifically chosen for OpenBSD compat (and will even pre-install, if that's your thing). I'd suggest any 1U generic box built in the last 5 years with 512-1024MB of RAM. Good NICs are going to be more important than CPU (fxp(4) is a good choice; see the misc@openbsd.org archives, since this question comes up regularly). Either of the above vendors (or others; check Google for "openbsd rackmount server") should be able to get you a 1U box with a good quad-port card in it (use the built-in port(s) for the management channel). Get a pair of identical machines and set up carp(4) so they can do failover and you should be set. You can terminate VPNs using isakmpd(8) or you can just use OpenSSH (supports tunneling any arbitrary traffic, including layer 2 stuff, as of v4.3).

Re:Rackmount firewall hardware recommendations?

[darkuncle]

for a really secure wireless connection, you may want to take a look at authpf(8), and use ssh to tunnel all your traffic (at least between your laptop and the gateway).

Re:architectures?

[Spit]

I'm glad they support Sparc, as Solaris is no longer supported and Linux has some serious problems on Sparc systems. The old Sparc hardware is very reliable and neat and OpenBSD makes a nice replacement for Solaris.

Re:Not to disagree with you...

[Anonymous Coward]

4.4BSD was released in 1993 (lite in 94). Linux was released in 1991.

Of course, 4.4BSD descended from earlier BSDs, which predate Linux. But 4.4 certainly was not "way before Linux."

Re:Source updates on a minimal system?

[smithtodda]

Jacek Artymiak explicitly states (no less than three times) in his book, Building Firewalls with OpenBSD and PF, Second Edition, that you shouldn't install source code and a compiler on your pf box (firewall). To quote him from page 71, "There is just too much possible risk" in doing so. While he doesn't go into the minutiae of the consequences, one can guess that if the pf box were compromised, you are giving the attacker everything he/she needs to own your box. I recommend you read his book and refer to pages 71, 72, and 101 for his statements on this scenario.