OpenBSD

---

Changes Relative to other *BSD's.

OpenBSD looks a lot like NetBSD (which it is derived from, following the 4.4BSD roots), but is now being developed seperately. Good changes from other free operating systems will be merged in (of course, depending on various factors like developer time for example.) OpenBSD tracks NetBSD changes very closely; say anywhere between 2 days to 10 days behind the state of NetBSD-current all the time. Hence you can truly say that OpenBSD is NetBSD PLUS MORE STUFF.

Various additions have been made. This is only a small partial list of the major machine independent changes (ie. it is the most interesting changes or what people ask about most often). Check the specific port you are interested in for further details of that port -- many of them have been extended too.

• Many many NetBSD PR's fixed (which NetBSD has not yet fixed)
• New curses library, including libform, libpanel and libmenu.
• a termlib library which understands termcap.db, needed for new curses.
• The FreeBSD ports subsystem was integrated and is usable by you!
• ipfilter for filtering dangerous packets
• better ELF support
• nlist() that understands ELF, ECOFF, and a.out, allowing non-a.out ports to use kvm utilies
• Verbatim integration of the GNU tools (using a wrapper Makefile)
• All the pieces needed for cross compilation are in the source tree.
• Some LKM support in the tree.
• ATAPI support (should work on all ISA busses)
• new scsi, md5, pkg_* commands
• Numerous security related fixes
• Kerberos and other crypto in the source tree that is exportable
• Solid YP master, server, and client capabilities.
• /dev/*random -- a device driver providing some kinds of random data
• In-kernel update(8) with an adaptive algorithm
• Some ddb improvements and extensions
• Numerous scsi fixes
• ncheck utility for ffs
• /sbin/init now deals with non-existant ttys, no longer spins gettys madly.
• new system calls: rfork(), minherit(), poll().
• select() that can handle any amount of file descriptors.
• kernfs extensions
• ATM support (support for one company's sparc & i386 cards available)
• Boot kernels with "-c" to edit/enable/disable device configuration tables
• pax as tar, gnutar is toast
• using AT&T awk, gawk is toast
• Even more security fixes.
• Accepts FreeBSD MD5 passwords in password maps, soon will be able to generate them too
• Linux ext2fs and BSD4.4 LFS support being worked on.
• Working ATAPI audio support for multiple architectures.
• terminfo database support.
• Fortran in the tree.
• The most secure rdist support anywhere.
• randomized port allocation in bind(), bindresvport(), and rresvport() -- security via unpredictability.
• Protection from the udp spamming and ftp bounce attacks.
• Significantly improved ftp daemon.
• Numerous more security policy and implimentation improvements (OpenBSD defaults to installing in a very secure mode)
• zlib (non-GPL'd gzip-compatible library)
• Newest version of pppd.
• _POSIX_SAVED_IDS behaviour with permitted BSD extensions.
• Fixed long-standing vm swap-leak.
• FreeBSD malloc() that uses mmap() and is able to free unused memory.
• Numerous FreeBSD userland fixes and improvements incorporated.
• new rdisc Router Discovery daemon
• generic protection against the bind() takeover problem.
• at -f security fix.
• install now supports -C, -p, and -S flags.
• POSIX & C2 requirement; lose setuid/setgid bits if owner/group changed by chown(). This can be turned off with sysctl.
• partial protection against tcp SYN attacks.
• added /etc/fbtab support to login & init.
• RCS version 5.7
• much newer join command (4.4lite2 with other fixes)
• scsi subsystem security fix
• Kerberos is much more silent if not configured
• arc4-based random support in kernel
• ncr53cXXX scsi scripts assembler
• Numerous ftpd improvements and fixes, including multihomed support.
• `lsof'-style features in fstat.
• /bin/ksh (latest version of pdksh) with more fixes.
• rudimentary support for ISA Plug-and-Play cards
• Fixed timeout support in RPC library, and also fixed it to support more than FD_SETSIZE file descriptors.
• improved locate command
• a good start at NETIPX support
• vi version 1.75
• gcc 2.7.2.1 (to get closer to native alpha support and fix a few other gcc bugs).
• latest version of perl, and a lndir command.
• Even more security fixes.
• cdio command for using CD audio.
• Kernel warns if /dev/console does not exist; nice warning for booting with an unpopulated /dev directory.
• libgnumalloc is gone; our malloc() is better.
• FreeBSD pipe() system call; quite a bit faster.
• Some serial drivers support /dev/cuaXX devices for transparent dialout+dialout, like in SunOS
• DDB can now access symbol tables from LKM modules
• Say goodbye to dump, restore, and mt security holes.

This list only mentions platform-dependent changes. For a list of changes made in a particular platform, please check the page for that platform.