OpenBSD 6.8

XXX Released Oct XXX, 2020
Copyright 1997-2020, Theo de Raadt.


Artwork by XXX.
  • See the information on the FTP page for a list of mirror machines.
  • Go to the pub/OpenBSD/6.8/ directory on one of the mirror sites.
  • Have a look at the 6.8 errata page for a list of bugs and workarounds.
  • See a detailed log of changes between the 6.7 and 6.8 releases.

  • signify(1) pubkeys for this release:

    openbsd-68-base.pub: RWQZj25CSG5R2oLo5735Hh6C48kkjFsj5rJDjW+fGZwyY+BkD5/zps8f
    openbsd-68-fw.pub: RWSYx4htNi/zavF8ZToMBDFz2xymRfFnnR1MEKV9csYbvnrTBwdkXhdy
    openbsd-68-pkg.pub: RWQlDXyHx5KlPoEiz4yWRK/Gt/rvPwI8KEAt3utge/dBS7R+EscdzA5K
    openbsd-68-syspatch.pub: RWRWuHkSV0U8PUX24vGa3ywrvKNQY6llV3PLvKEzDTiTVPfIRaXPfvzR

All applicable copyrights and credits are in the src.tar.gz, sys.tar.gz, xenocara.tar.gz, ports.tar.gz files, or in the files fetched via ports.tar.gz.

What's New

This is a partial list of new features and systems included in OpenBSD 6.8. For a comprehensive list, see the changelog leading to 6.8.

  • SMP-Improvements:
  • Improved hardware support and driver bugfixes, including:
  • New or improved network hardware support:
  • Added or improved wireless network drivers:
  • Removed hardware support
  • New arm64 and armv7 hardware support and bugfixes, including:
  • IEEE 802.11 wireless stack improvements and bugfixes:
  • Generic network stack improvements and bugfixes:
  • Installer improvements:
  • Security improvements:
  • Routing daemons and other userland network improvements:
  • ipsec(4) (and related userland programs) improvements and bugfixes:
  • tmux(1) improvements and bug fixes:
  • VMM/VMD and ldom/sparc64 virtualization improvements
  • OpenSMTPD 6.8.0
  • LibreSSL 3.1.1 XXX Temporary List, replace with LibreSSL ChangeLog:
  • OpenSSH 8.4
  • Ports and packages:

    The package system provides an easy way to install 3rd party software. New features include:

    Many pre-built packages for each architecture:

  • As usual, steady improvements in manual pages and other documentation.
  • The system includes the following major components from outside suppliers: XXX

    • How to install

    Please refer to the following files on the mirror site for extensive details on how to install OpenBSD 6.8 on your machine:

    Quick installer information for people familiar with OpenBSD, and the use of the "disklabel -E" command. If you are at all confused when installing OpenBSD, read the relevant INSTALL.* file as listed above!

    OpenBSD/alpha:

    If your machine can boot from CD, you can write install68.iso or cd68.iso to a CD and boot from it. Refer to INSTALL.alpha for more details.

    OpenBSD/amd64:

    If your machine can boot from CD, you can write install68.iso or cd68.iso to a CD and boot from it. You may need to adjust your BIOS options first.

    If your machine can boot from USB, you can write install68.fs or miniroot68.fs to a USB stick and boot from it.

    If you can't boot from a CD, floppy disk, or USB, you can install across the network using PXE as described in the included INSTALL.amd64 document.

    If you are planning to dual boot OpenBSD with another OS, you will need to read INSTALL.amd64.

    OpenBSD/arm64:

    Write miniroot68.fs to a disk and boot from it after connecting to the serial console. Refer to INSTALL.arm64 for more details.

    OpenBSD/armv7:

    Write a system specific miniroot to an SD card and boot from it after connecting to the serial console. Refer to INSTALL.armv7 for more details.

    OpenBSD/hppa:

    Boot over the network by following the instructions in INSTALL.hppa or the hppa platform page.

    OpenBSD/i386:

    If your machine can boot from CD, you can write install68.iso or cd68.iso to a CD and boot from it. You may need to adjust your BIOS options first.

    If your machine can boot from USB, you can write install68.fs or miniroot68.fs to a USB stick and boot from it.

    If you can't boot from a CD, floppy disk, or USB, you can install across the network using PXE as described in the included INSTALL.i386 document.

    If you are planning on dual booting OpenBSD with another OS, you will need to read INSTALL.i386.

    OpenBSD/landisk:

    Write miniroot68.fs to the start of the CF or disk, and boot normally.

    OpenBSD/loongson:

    Write miniroot68.fs to a USB stick and boot bsd.rd from it or boot bsd.rd via tftp. Refer to the instructions in INSTALL.loongson for more details.

    OpenBSD/luna88k:

    Copy 'boot' and 'bsd.rd' to a Mach or UniOS partition, and boot the bootloader from the PROM, and then bsd.rd from the bootloader. Refer to the instructions in INSTALL.luna88k for more details.

    OpenBSD/macppc:

    Burn the image from a mirror site to a CDROM, and power on your machine while holding down the C key until the display turns on and shows OpenBSD/macppc boot.

    Alternatively, at the Open Firmware prompt, enter boot cd:,ofwboot /6.8/macppc/bsd.rd

    OpenBSD/octeon:

    After connecting a serial port, boot bsd.rd over the network via DHCP/tftp. Refer to the instructions in INSTALL.octeon for more details.

    OpenBSD/powerpc64:

    After XXX Refer to the instructions in INSTALL.powerpc64 for more details.

    OpenBSD/sgi:

    To install, burn cd68.iso on a CD-R, put it in the CD drive of your machine and select Install System Software from the System Maintenance menu. Indigo/Indy/Indigo2 (R4000) systems will not boot automatically from CD-ROM, and need a proper invocation from the PROM prompt. Refer to the instructions in INSTALL.sgi for more details.

    If your machine doesn't have a CD drive, you can setup a DHCP/tftp network server, and boot using "bootp()/bsd.rd.IP##" using the kernel matching your system type. Refer to the instructions in INSTALL.sgi for more details.

    OpenBSD/sparc64:

    Burn the image from a mirror site to a CDROM, boot from it, and type boot cdrom.

    If this doesn't work, or if you don't have a CDROM drive, you can write floppy68.fs or floppyB68.fs (depending on your machine) to a floppy and boot it with boot floppy. Refer to INSTALL.sparc64 for details.

    Make sure you use a properly formatted floppy with NO BAD BLOCKS or your install will most likely fail.

    You can also write miniroot68.fs to the swap partition on the disk and boot with boot disk:b.

    If nothing works, you can boot over the network as described in INSTALL.sparc64.

    How to upgrade

    If you already have an OpenBSD 6.7 system, and do not want to reinstall, upgrade instructions and advice can be found in the Upgrade Guide.

    Notes about the source code

    src.tar.gz contains a source archive starting at /usr/src. This file contains everything you need except for the kernel sources, which are in a separate archive. To extract: 

    # mkdir -p /usr/src
# cd /usr/src
# tar xvfz /tmp/src.tar.gz

    sys.tar.gz contains a source archive starting at /usr/src/sys. This file contains all the kernel sources you need to rebuild kernels. To extract: 

    # mkdir -p /usr/src/sys
# cd /usr/src
# tar xvfz /tmp/sys.tar.gz

    Both of these trees are a regular CVS checkout. Using these trees it is possible to get a head-start on using the anoncvs servers as described here. Using these files results in a much faster initial CVS update than you could expect from a fresh checkout of the full OpenBSD source tree.

    Ports Tree

    A ports tree archive is also provided. To extract: 

    # cd /usr
# tar xvfz /tmp/ports.tar.gz

    Go read the ports page if you know nothing about ports at this point. This text is not a manual of how to use ports. Rather, it is a set of notes meant to kickstart the user on the OpenBSD ports system.

    The ports/ directory represents a CVS checkout of our ports. As with our complete source tree, our ports tree is available via AnonCVS. So, in order to keep up to date with the -stable branch, you must make the ports/ tree available on a read-write medium and update the tree with a command like: 

    # cd /usr/ports
# cvs -d anoncvs@server.openbsd.org:/cvs update -Pd -rOPENBSD_6_8

    [Of course, you must replace the server name here with a nearby anoncvs server.]

    Note that most ports are available as packages on our mirrors. Updated ports for the 6.8 release will be made available if problems arise.

    If you're interested in seeing a port added, would like to help out, or just would like to know more, the mailing list ports@openbsd.org is a good place to know.