OpenBSD 5.0 is released there is little time, bringing news and updates. This relatively small system in comparison to other and discreet in the news is nonetheless one of the most important because he is OpenSSH which is used everywhere today. OpenBSD is renowned for his intransigence on the freedom of software and their security with particular code audits.
Installation
The installation phase is very simple since it is dealing with an assistant posing of the questions (in text mode) must be answered. Host name, network-partitioning… it’s really very fast and very simple. At the end it also indicates the “sets” to recover.
Discovery
Network
The configuration of the network is carried out by the installer however it is interesting to take a look. Unlike NetBSD, which uses the rc.conf, OpenBSD runs on an /etc/hostname.interface file system. For example, for the re0 interface will be/etc/hostname.re0. The default gateway should be added in/etc/mygate and DNS in/etc/resolv.conf.
Daemons
The /etc/rc.conf file is used to control the daemons. It works with a system of “flags”. For example, dhcpd_flags = “” will cause the activation of the dhcpd daemon at startup. If it is not, it must specify dhcpd_flags = NO. Different daemons scripts are located in/etc/rc.d.
Size
The basic system, without the X 11 libraries, approaching the 500 MB of disk space which may seem a bit much compared to the 80 MB of NetBSD. But the targets are not the same.
# uname-a
OpenBSD vmbox.my.domain 5.0 GENERIC #53 amd64
# df h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/ dev/wd0a 1005M 25.7 M 913 M 4%.
/ dev/wd0k 8.5 G 42.3 K 13.1 G 0% / home
/ dev/wd0d 2.1 G 2.0 K 2.0 G 0% / tmp
/ dev/wd0f 2.0 G 443 M 1.4 G 23% / usr
/ dev/wd0g 1005M 2.0 K 955 M 0% / usr/X11R6
/ dev/wd0h 4.4 G 9.0 M 4.2 G 0% / usr/local
/ dev/wd0j 2.0 G 2.0 K 1.9 G 0% / usr/obj
/ dev/wd0i 1.5 G 2.0 K 1.4 G 0% / usr/src
/ dev/wd0e 3.3 G 4.0 M 3.1 G 0% / var
# free
Packages and ports
Like FreeBSD and NetBSD, OpenBSD has its ports system to install third-party software. Packages are also made available on HTTP and FTP mirrors to install without having to compile. The PKG_PATH variable and the pkg_add(1) tool are still used. No change of scenery on this side.
Practice
Install a system and 3 packages is not enough to learn all the features, in the coming days I will try installing on a server with SMTP and IMAP daemon. This will allow me to familiarize myself with the administration.
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