Many users have commented on their use of OpenBSD. The following are all extracts from our public mailing lists or, occasionally, other mailing lists (these have links to the original articles). -Postings have been shortened, and edited slighly for spelling and grammar, +Postings have been shortened, and edited slightly for spelling and grammar, but are otherwise unchanged.
-I have installed, secured, and maintained Linux, WindowsNT and OpenBSD in -highly secure environments. (yes you can secure Linux and WindowsNT in +I have installed, secured, and maintained Linux, Windows NT and OpenBSD in +highly secure environments. (yes you can secure Linux and Windows NT in this environment :) ). Having said that I have to point out that if you want a minimum administration to keep up with security issues option you need to pick OpenBSD by far. It is not uncommon for people to go years without @@ -89,7 +89,7 @@ any (important) machine on the Internet if there is not a firewall in front and for packet filtering I go for OpenBSD...
-For a cheap webserver I say hardware from a known vendor, an ordered +For a cheap web server I say hardware from a known vendor, an ordered OpenBSD CD-ROM and Apache... @@ -126,14 +126,14 @@ 9:05PM up 266 days, 4:23, 1 user, load averages: 0.06, 0.06, 0.06 %
As well, OpenBSD runs on my laptop. -A Gateway Solo 2500 with a Xircom modem, and a Linksys fast ethernet NIC. +A Gateway Solo 2500 with a Xircom modem, and a Linksys fast Ethernet NIC.
And it never crashes :)
One other incident that made me a believer... we were pingbombed [perhaps a predecessor to the early2000 DDOS attacks?]. I mean, 900 different hosts on different networks floodpinging an OpenBSD 2.3 box -simultaneously, while it was processing email and webpages for 3500 users. +simultaneously, while it was processing email and web pages for 3500 users.
It was a P133 with 64MB ram. And it didn't go down. It got a bit slower,
but never crashed :-)
@@ -143,15 +143,15 @@
Crypto-Gram:
(the comments he is responding to are Schneier's)
-
< Real systems show no signs of becoming less
-
< complex. In fact, they are becoming more complex,
-
< faster and faster. Microsoft Windows is a poster
-
< child for this trend to complexity.
+
> Real systems show no signs of becoming less
+
> complex. In fact, they are becoming more complex,
+
> faster and faster. Microsoft Windows is a poster
+
> child for this trend to complexity.
...
-
< The other choice is to slow down, to simplify,
-
< and to try to add security.
+
> The other choice is to slow down, to simplify,
+
> and to try to add security.
OpenBSD does this. I am unaware of any other group whose workings are publicly viewable that does so [emphasis added], which is regrettable, because @@ -166,10 +166,10 @@
Major kudos to Theo for being a man ahead of his time! ;-)
As I have to frequently explain to people *why* security is important at all ("if you have nothing to hide...", "nothing you do is important enough to -warrent encryption...", "only criminals and terrorists need to sneak around +warrant encryption...", "only criminals and terrorists need to sneak around anonymously...", etc. ad nauseam), let alone *why* it's important in this day and age of personal networks behind a DSL or even a full T1, I love being able -to point them to a page which sets out a well-reasoned explaination for taking +to point them to a page which sets out a well-reasoned explanation for taking computer security seriously.
[... OpenBSD installed] effortlessly onto a Pentium 90 Compaq LTE 5100 laptop -- even the no-name @@ -180,6 +180,6 @@
www@openbsd.org
-