Blogging All About BSDs

With a commit dated 2011-09-06, Theo de Raadt (deraadt@) enabled 5.0 pre-orders and made the release song available:

CVSROOT:	/cvs

Module name:	www

Changes by:	deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org	2011/09/06 21:07:12

Modified files:
	.              : index.html items.html lyrics.html older.html 
	                 orders.html tshirts.html 
Added files:
	.              : 50.html 
	images         : MAD.jpg cd50-s.gif openbsd50_cover.gif 
	                 poster26-s.gif poster26.jpg tshirt-35-s.gif 
	                 tshirt-35.jpg tshirt-36-s.gif tshirt-36.jpg 

Log message:
activate pre-orders 
 (Read more...)

Kristaps Dzonsons wrote in with news on the documentation front:

In a previous article, it was said that UNIX manuals can look "indistinguishable from magic". This makes sense given the arcane syntax of mdoc, the language of OpenBSD's manuals.

But mdoc is just another language. Why is it so strange-looking when C or shell or Perl appears commonplace?

(Read more...)

Pete Vickers wrote in with the first Slackathon 2011 report:

Back in February when Þórður Björnson (thib@) exclaimed 'roadtrip!' to me suggesting I fetch his bunch of lab machines at Slackathon2011 to host them at our Oslo datacenter; it sounded like a good idea. After 8 tedious hours behind the wheel I was not so sure, but at

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Just a quick reminder if anyone missed the free conference in Stockholm this Saturday.
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The EuroBSDCon organizers wrote in to tell us that registration for EuroBSDCon 2011 is now open. The conference is scheduled for October 6 - 9 2011 in Maarsen, The Netherlands.

As usual the (preliminary) talks schedule has a strong OpenBSD showing, with talks from Henning Brauer (henning@) and Ryan McBride (mcbride@), Paul Irofti (pirofti@),

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A little while back, Ray Lai wrote in about a very interesting commit by Damen Miller (djm@). With this, OpenSSH's privilege separation is further tightened:

CVSROOT:	/cvs
Module name:	src
Changes by:	djm@cvs.openbsd.org	2011/06/22 15:57:01

Modified files:
	usr.bin/ssh    : servconf.c servconf.h sshd.c sshd_config.5 
	usr.bin/ssh/sshd: Makefile 
Added files:
	usr.bin/ssh    : sandbox-rlimit.c sandbox-systrace.c sandbox.h 

Log message:
introduce sandboxing of the pre-auth privsep 
 (Read more...)

Peter Hansteen was the first to write in that earlier today (July 18, 2011), Theo de Raadt (deraadt@) switched the version string in -current, taking us to 5.0-beta:

CVSROOT:	/cvs
Module name:	src
Changes by:	deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org	2011/07/18 01:07:52

Modified files:
	sys/sys        : param.h 
	sys/conf       : newvers.sh 
	share/mk       : sys.mk 
	sys/arch/macppc/stand/tbxidata: bsd.tbxi 

Log message:
take us to 5.0-beta

Which

(Read more...)

Remi Pointel (rpointel@) has changed the default Python version from 2.6 to 2.7:

CVSROOT:	/cvs
Module name:	ports
Changes by:	rpointel@cvs.openbsd.org	2011/06/08 11:28:14

Modified files:
	lang/python    : python.port.mk 

Log message:
Switch default to python 2.7.
Discussed and ok from many. Bumps will follow.
"go go go" from jasper@.

Please read on for Remi's announcement to the ports@ mailinglist. Read

(Read more...)

Peter Hansteen writes in with a question for our readers:

“

As Undeadly readers may be aware, I've been maintaining a PF tutorial for a few years, and the tea leaves (and apache logs) tell me that in the near future my unique visitor number 100,000 will turn up.

My question is, what would be an appropriate way to celebrate

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It's time to restart the tradition of yearly OpenBSD conferences in Sweden again. After a missing year in 2010, we have decided to hold the Slackathon on the 6th of August.
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Henning Brauer (henning@) has just sent an e-mail to misc@ announcing the publication of his presentation from BSDCan 2011. Weighing in at 82 pages, he gives a detailed overview of what happened to our favourite firewall in the last 10 years. I can still remember running IPF so a big thank you to all the developers involved in PF over

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Stefan Sperling (stsp@) writes in with a summary on encrypting the root filesystem with softraid.

“

When softraid is used for disk encryption the root partition is usually left unencrypted to allow bioctl(8) to ask for a passphrase upon boot (as we wrote earlier).

I don't want to use such a setup for several reasons:

• I don't want

  (Read more...)

Reader Renaud Allard writes in with an update he received from the OpenBSD Europe store:

I just received a mail telling me that my OpenBSD 4.9 CDs were dispatched:

This is an automated message from OpenBSD Europe with regard to
your order on 16/03/2011 at 22:05 .

Order no. 562.

The order has been despatched and will be with you 
 (Read more...)

Antoine Jacoutot (ajacoutot@) writes in with a story about how M:tier, the company he works for, uses OpenBSD.

For several years now I've been working for M:tier, a very OpenBSD-friendly company, and I think it's about time that we share about "how" we use OpenBSD in some aspects.

As for "what" we use it for, it's simple: everything.

Read

(Read more...)

Bob Beck (beck@) wrote an important appeal to the readers of the misc@ and tech@ mailinglists, explaining that things like bigmem and other developments can be worked on and added to the tree because of the sale of CDs and OpenBSD paraphernalia.

     Hi all,

   A number of you may have noticed the recent flurry of activity,
leading to stuff
like 
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Since this commit:

CVSROOT:	/cvs
Module name:	src
Changes by:	beck@cvs.openbsd.org	2011/04/02 11:36:45

Modified files:
	sys/arch/amd64/amd64: machdep.c 

Log message:
Enable bigmem by default on amd64.
ok deraadt@

amd64 machines may now use more than 4G of ram.
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No April Foolery: The Portable C Compiler version 1.0 was released on April 1st!
As with so many things BSD, this project proves that good code is timeless and can benefit from literally generations of review. It can build the majority of the BSD base systems (C++ code aside) and is undergoing continuous improvement.
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What is the answer to life, the universe and everything? Naturally 42. Quite different from the answer to "what shall I pre-order today?", as that is obviously OpenBSD 4.9, which is scheduled for release on May 1st, 2011.

This new release is again packed with lots of goodies like mandoc(1) as the groff(1) replacement, TCP send and receive buffer

(Read more...)