OpenBSD 5.5 Released

ConstantineM (965345) writes "Just as per the schedule, OpenBSD 5.5 was released today, May 1, 2014. The theme of the 5.5 release is Wrap in Time, which represents a significant achievement of changing time_t to int64_t on all platforms, as well as ensuring that all of the 8k+ OpenBSD ports still continue to build and work properly, thus doing all the heavy lifting and paving the way for all other operating systems to make the transition to 64-bit time an easier task down the line. Signed releases and packages and the new signify utility are another big selling point of 5.5, as well as OpenSSH 6.6, which includes lots of DJB crypto like chacha20-poly1305, plus lots of other goodies."

YAY for BSD

[CheshireDragon]

Even though I've never used it...

Re:

[davester666]

OMG. Lesbians are recommending the use of OpenBSD. I have just got to install it, just to be like lesbians.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Fire up a VM and try it out, OpenBSD is a really nice OS to work with IMO.

Re:

[rubycodez]

it is a joke, you're funny

you could have made a backup copy of fstab before dicking with it. or followed the excellent OpenBSD documentation and made backup root partition.

Re:

[evilviper]

...until you put a typo in /etc/fstab when you're not used to plain old vi, and get to discover the joys of learning ed. Without a man page because that was in /usr too.

Some reason you can't just manually run "mount" from the command-line to mount the /usr partition, and get vi and man pages back?

And is there some reason you couldn't just visit the website to access the man pages?

http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin... [openbsd.org]

Re:

[evilviper]

No, the manual is on the file system, and they're far better than the crap documentation you get from Linux or other Unixes. It just also happens to be available, in a convenient location on the web.

Re:

[i kan reed]

Yep, that's pretty much what 99.7% of people can contribute to this discussion(maybe 95% of slashdotters specifically, but still).

You can kinda go "Yay open source operating system that creates a bit of systemic competitive pressure to keep updating other open source operating systems through some really bizarre application of economics towards a system built around entirely free exchange"

It gets real abstract.

Re: YAY for BSD

[the_humeister]

If not for the lack of ZFS, I would use OpenBSD. Instead my fileserver is running FreeBSD 10.

Re:

[unixisc]

Which file system do they use?

Re:

[rubycodez]

openbsd has the Unix FFS (up to about 1TB volume size) and FFS2 (up to 8 zettabytes volume size)

Re:

[unixisc]

So FFS2 - how does it compare w/ ZFS, aside from license (which I'm assuming here is ISC, right?)

Re:

[TheRaven64]

FFS2 is basically the original Berkeley FFS (also known as UFS, but there are at least half a dozen incompatible filesystems called UFS, so that just gets confusing) with some extensions. It basically just increases the size of various fields in the inode data structure so that various limits are much larger. I'm not familiar with the OpenBSD implementation, but on FreeBSD it also supports soft updates (where metadata and data writes are sequenced so that the filesystem is aways consistent, although fsck

Re:

[evilviper]

Creating snapshots with ZFS is a O(1) operation.

That doesn't relate to any of the (layering) changes you listed. That's a simple byproduct of ZFS being a copy-on-write (CoW) file system, unlike most other popular file systems. But there are other CoW file systems out there, which similarly have O(1) snapshots.

Re:

[rubycodez]

OpenBSD does have soft updates which are optionally enabled at mount time. It also has software RAID 0 or 1, and 1 allows more than two volumes to be mirrored, kind of like a hot spare that doesn't need rebuild time.

So it's not as full featured as ZFS, though compared to most linux filesystems the FFS and FFS2 are extremely robust at surviving unexpected power failure.

Re:YAY for BSD

[wonkey_monkey]

It gets real abstract.

Well, which is it?

Re:

[CODiNE]

The former latter.

Re:YAY for BSD

[QuietLagoon]

And there you go with the problem with it. OpenBSD has no holes in the install...

Regardless of how you use an operating system, if the OS foundation is not secure, then anything you put on top of it cannot be secure.

At least OpenBSD provides the secure foundation upon which you can build what you'd like. The security of what you build on top of OpenBSD is your responsibility.

Re:

[metrix007]

Yeah, no. Heartbleed showed how meaningless theire claims of a secure default install are in this day and age.

It used to mean something against Windows Servers and Linux Distros that had everything enabled by default, but not so much these days.

All these years, and they hadn't even audited openssl, a key core component of the default install.

Re:

[Dan Ost]

I was under the impression that OpenBSD did not enable heartbeats by default and, as such, was not vulnerable to Heartbleed by default.

Am I wrong?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenBSD have software in place that wouldn't allow the Heartbleed bug to work in the first place. As soon as a Heartbleed event occurred, the OpenSSL software would immediately terminate in OpenBSD.

Re:

[TheRaven64]

Not true. It would have done if OpenSSL hadn't used a custom allocator, but the use of the custom allocator bypassed the policy in OpenBSD's malloc() that aggressively returns unused pages to the OS and causes this kind of fault. And why does OpenSSL have this custom allocator? Because without it people complain that malloc() implementations like the one in OpenBSD are too slow...

Re:

[metrix007]

Honestly I'm not sure. If heartbleeds are not enabled that's great.

It still lessons their claim since they missed a vulnerability from 2011 in the base install. No doubt there are others.

Re: YAY for BSD

[Anonymous Coward]

How to update Open BSD: insert CD, boot CD, select update. Wait a few minutes. Upgrade ports. Wait a few minutes. You are done.

No CD? Copy base files to machine through SSH. Install files. Reboot. Upgrade ports. Wait a few minutes. You are done.

Any other questions?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

You got it. I've updated remote (read: "in other countries") OpenBSD machines for over a decade. There is still the anxiety of waiting for the system to boot, but I don't recall ever having it blow up on me.

Re:

[i kan reed]

Why do we not like scripts? Honest question.

Re:

[jones_supa]

They break easily and are slow to interpret.

Re:

[i kan reed]

Break easy compared to machine code in some specific way?

Re:

[jones_supa]

Not in any specific way. For example when a called subprogram returns an unexpected result, or a result in an unexpected format. Also when the script interpreter is upgraded, it might break something. Heck, sometimes the problem is caused by something silly like a space in a file name.

Re:

[i kan reed]

That is to say: it's software.

Re:

[jones_supa]

Not really. Machine code is more robust and, as I said, faster. There might still be other good reasons to use scripts, I'm not denying that. They are easier to maintain, for example.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing we have systemd to bring all of that Windows goodness to Linux.

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

Its not one script anymore. Its one script hundreds of lines long that calls other scripts to finally accomplish something you could do with seconds and ifconfig. Don't get me started with the mess systemd is.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you even change the ip address from the command line?

"ip addr add $IP_NUM dev $IP_DEV"

Or, if you like, you can use ifconfig, even though that's obsolete.

They'll collect your nerd card on the way out, troll.

Not quite

[ArchieBunker]

Wasn't that easy on my BeagleBone Black board http://derekmolloy.ie/set-ip-a... [derekmolloy.ie]

How anyone is supposed to figure that out is beyond me. Is a script calling ifconfig too good for you people?

Re:

[Jakeula]

What an odd measure of the quality of an OS. Like changing your IP from the command line is something that speaks to how well Linux has been developed. And you can change your IP from the command line. ifconfig does this just fine, even if its not the preferred method. you can also do something like this: sudo ip addr add xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
but I guess I just fed a troll, so jokes on me.

Re:

[metrix007]

You use the same tools the scripts use. Ifconfig.

Choose a better distro and things wont be so obfuscated.

Re:

[evilviper]

You use the same tools the scripts use. Ifconfig.

Nope, doesn't work on Linux. NetworkManager or some other daemon will come along and overwrite your manual ifconfig change in short order.

Re:

[just_another_sean]

/sbin/ifconfig

It's not just for listing!

Re:

[Kremmy]

There's a little bit of header, a little bit of license, BSD...

It's the silent protagonist in the technological world - they build and refine the technology that seeps into all other operating systems.
The code is licensed so liberally that Stallman's arguments literally boil down to "everyone can use it so it's not free".
If you dig into the credits portion of almost any software, it's there.
We all use BSD.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Stallman has never called the BSD license non-free. You're either delusional or a liar.
All free software licenses are wonderful for us users. Copyleft ones are also wonderful for free software as a whole.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The code is licensed so liberally that Stallman's arguments literally boil down to "everyone can use it so it's not free".

Given that Stallman's main organisation, the Free Software Foundation, almost actively supports [gnu.org] the BSD license, declaring it a Free Software License compatible with the GPL, I wonder what it is that drives you to say such a thing. A feeling that since the truth normally supports Richard, it's worth spreading almost any lie in the hope of discrediting him?

Re:

[Arker]

"The code is licensed so liberally that Stallman's arguments literally boil down to "everyone can use it so it's not free"."

Stallman has always acknowledged it as Free and continues to do so.

Dont be a troll.

Re:

[Kremmy]

That is EXACTLY what he is saying given his comments regarding LLVM.
Referring to this [gnu.org] post in particular.
His stance is a demonization of liberally licensed code, to a very unfortunate degree.
I am absolutely not trolling when I say that man has given up freedom for ideology.

Re:

[Arker]

"That is EXACTLY what he is saying given his comments regarding LLVM.
Referring to this post in particular."

I suggest you re-read his post. If your opinion has not corrected by then, you might need to seek remedial help in Reading or English. "EXACTLY" and "not at all" are not synonyms, and this is actually not at all what he is saying in that post.

Re:

[Arker]

Q. Where in that does he say the BSD license is not Free?

A. Nowhere.

"What is the correct interpretation of his comment that BSD devs basically avoid talking about freedom if it doesn't mean it isn't truly free?"

That despite being Free they do not share the values and goals of copyleft, do not recognise or care about the need for copyleft.

Free Software: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Copyleft: https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/

List of Free Software Licenses: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.h

Re:

[Kremmy]

I don't consider this a special case. As you've just said, people have been trying to replace GCC for ages. There are a lot of motivations for that, many of which coming down to a distaste for the GPL. There have been hard criticisms for a long time. I've personally run into some of the stranger code malformation issues affecting certain versions while compiling my own code. I think they may have been bit by the same hubris that affects the rest of the software organizations, which leads us to crap like Met

Re:

[rubycodez]

you sure? your printer doesn't have have controller running BSD? or network appliance?

*Ahem*

[Anonymous Coward]

oblig [xkcd.com]

Re:

[ledow]

Except we're not on 64-bit.

The full announcement tells you that a load of things had to be converted to unsigned 32-bit because that's all you could do.

And they can conceivably affect things in your children's lifetimes (if not before, with long date calculations like mortgages etc.).

Fact is, however, that system support for 64-bit time only means your taskbar clock will go up that far. It means nothing in terms of your application actually supporting and calculating things correctly once we get anywhere n

Re:

[fnj]

Making time_t an int64_t instead of an int32_t has absolutely NOTHING to do with whether the architecture is 32 or 64 bits. An application that does time manipulations NOT using time_t is a stupid, broken application.

Missing libReSSL, as expected

[Anonymous Coward]

Before anyone asks, no, this new version of OpenBSD (version 5.5) does not include libReSSL yet.
That's not how OpenBSD operates. Neat announcements made even a month before an OpenBSD release do not usually appear in the very next OpenBSD release. There are cutoffs/deadlines, and the OpenBSD group is far more interesting in ensuring reliability than flashy new code that is only partially ready.
If you check the libReSSL.org website, libReSSL is planning to be included in OpenBSD 5.6, which I expect will be released on November 1, 2014. The OpenBSD group has a solid track record of making their official releases publicly available by the expected date.
To see an overview on what did get included in this version (like signed packages), see the release notes (which is pointed to by the first hyperlink of this Slashdot news story).

Next release...

[msauve]

The next release is scheduled for a few years prior to Sunday, 4 December 292,277,026,596.

Re:

[fnj]

[time between releases is] just really prolonged compared to other *nix distros

Horse shit. It's exactly the same timing as Ubuntu and Fedora and much qicker than Debian and Redhat Enterprise.

Re:

[unixisc]

I was gonna ask - which year would people have to look out for now?

Re:

[jones_supa]

You should call yourself lucky. I just made the finishing touches to my Y2K survival basement.

Re:

[TheRaven64]

Pretty much all 64-bit systems have used 64-bit time_t forever, so the Y2038 problem is only an issue if people are still using 32-bit platforms in 24 years. Given that even ARM is now 64-bit, that seems quite unlikely (none of those old mainframes that were a problem for Y2K have this problem and most databases use 64-bit time values because people care about dates further in the past than can be expressed with a 32-bit UNIX time_t). Of course, Google has just released a new Java implementation for Andro

USB Installer!

[Dimwit]

There's a USB installation image for i386 and amd64! Finally! Dear lord, it's been years. That's as big a deal as the time_t thing for me.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

A more flexible way to create an OpenBSD flash installer:
http://blog.breeno.net/2014/02/creating-flexible-openbsd-usb-installer.html

Signed packages!

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

No, the biggest thing for me is the signed packages. For a security-focused distribution, the lack of signed packages seemed quite ironic.

NetBSD time_t

[Anonymous Coward]

I use OpenBSD almost exclusively, but in all fairness NetBSD was the first to move to a 64-bit time_t on all its platforms.

Also, there's no chance that Linux would ever make such a jump. They'll invent something complex and annoying to maintain backward compatibility with all the proprietary crapware. OpenBSD and NetBSD can do it because they're not afraid to make everybody recompile their software.

(For people who don't understand the issue: on NetBSD and OpenBSD time_t is now 64-bits, even on 32-bit platforms. So the 2038 problem is non-existent going forward, even for 32-bit software.)

Re:

[TheRaven64]

Especially anything that used threads. Going from a strongly ordered x86, where basically anything is sequentially consistent for free, to the extremely weakly ordered Alpha, where things are only visible between threads with explicit barriers breaks a lot of stuff where people only tested on x86. ARM has a similar problem.

Re:

[unixisc]

I think you got it the other way around - it's Linux that's unafraid to break backwards compatibility, while the BSDs are pretty religious about that point

Re:

[rubycodez]

but this openbsd release is a "flag day" release, meaning it *will* break old binaries, they need to be recompiled.

Re:

[AndroSyn]

I disagree. Look at multiarch support in Linux. There is little reason to support 32-bit binaries on 64-bit architectures, _especially_ for FOSS software.

Not all platforms are as brain damaged as the x86. On SPARC64 type systems, you'll find that most all software is run in 32bit mode, as the ABI still allows you full register access. Most software doesn't need to access more than 4GB of memory anyways.

Also there is a lot of non-FOSS software that is only available as Linux x86 32bit executables, keeping t

Re:

[TheRaven64]

On x86, you can (now) use the x32 ABI to get the same effect. The problem comes when you need to run one or two 64-bit binaries. Now they are pulling in a different libc and so on and the extra i-cache churn from multiple copies of the same library can quickly offset the reduced d-cache churn from smaller pointers (main memory usage is largely irrelevant: it's rarely a bottleneck and the average 5-10% saving from reduced pointer size is in the noise).

So how does it perform?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have used OpenBSD a number of times over the years but when I have tried to use it as a high performance server it falls on its face. Has it gotten any better?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenBSD is not meant to be the fastest or most scalable OS in the world -- just the safest. The right tool for the job. You use OpenBSD as a firewall in front of your high performance server, which can then run whatever OS you choose. I wouldn't trust anything else. More specifically, the bare bones, well documented, best practice coded, continuously audited, secure by default approach means you can deploy an OpenBSD firewall router with minimal effort and minimal worry. Save the worry and effort for t

Can I relax now?

[NMBob]

Does this mean I don't have to worry about Tuesday January 19, 2038 at 03:14:07 UTC anymore? What's the new date/time when things will crash and burn?

Re:

[Jurily]

Using a signed 64-bit value introduces a new wraparound date that is over twenty times greater than the estimated age of the universe: approximately 292 billion years from now, at 15:30:08 on Sunday, 4 December 292,277,026,596.

Re:

[NMBob]

Yeah, but isn't it going to take like 10^500 (or is it 10^800?) years for all of the baryons to fizzle out? Rats. More code to write.

Everyone forgot the most important bit!

[ConstantineM]

5.5 base signify pubkey: RWRGy8gxk9N9314J0gh9U02lA7s8i6ITajJiNgxQOndvXvM5ZPX+nQ9h
5.5 fw signify pubkey: RWTdVOhdk5qyNktv0iGV6OpaVfogGxTYc1bbkaUhFlExmclYvpJR/opO
5.5 pkg signify pubkey: RWQQC1M9dhm/tja/ktitJs/QVI1kGTQr7W7jtUmdZ4uTp+4yZJ6RRHb5

Heartbleed not fixed in 5.5 by default

[cmdrbuzz]

Just an FYI, heartbleed is not fixed in 5.5 without extra (source) patches.

See http://www.openbsd.org/errata5... [openbsd.org]

  002: SECURITY FIX: April 8, 2014 All architectures
Missing bounds checking in OpenSSL's implementation of the TLS/DTLS heartbeat extension (RFC6520) which can result in a leak of memory contents.
A source code patch exists which remedies this problem.

Re:

[rubycodez]

patching openbsd is usually this dance:

1. wget or whatever to download the patch
2. best practice, use "signify" to check signature
3. cd /usr/src and apply patch with patch -p0 my_patch.txt
4. make obj; make; make install

Re:

[rubycodez]

oh, slashdot filter knocked out the < sign; nice going for a supposed geek tech forum eh?

/. IS a geek tech forum

[ConstantineM]

patch -p0 < 005_openssl.patch.sig

Re:

[machine321]

A third party has created an auto-update app.

https://stable.mtier.org/ [mtier.org]

Re:

[iggymanz]

some caveats, that only does i386 and amd64. the package manager in openbsd automatically updates packages anyway, as for the openbsd binaries despite what that mtier.org says it's very simple and fast to update, in less than four minutes I had applied all outstanding patches to a system I brought up today.

Re:

[iggymanz]

by "automatic" I mean you type in pkg_add -u and it then updates all packages that have updates

Wayland

[unixisc]

Does OBSD include support for Wayland in 5.5? Is it stated for a future version, or have they decided to stay w/ X11?

Re:

[iggymanz]

no it doesn't, just X

so far wayland has less features than X, but who knows about the future

Re: *BSD is dying

[ConstantineM]

http://meta.unix.stackexchange... [stackexchange.com]