Why OpenBSD Rocks
why-openbsd.rocks
Why OpenBSD Rocks
1–10 of 107 posts
Re: Why OpenBSD Rocks
#2Nice list. They may want to take Spectre off the list, however. It seems only hardware fixes actually work: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.05178.pdf
Signify sounds great. It has been ported to Linux: https://github.com/Blitznote/signify
Re: Why OpenBSD Rocks
#3Why does file(1)[1] need its own chroot sandbox instead of using the pledge(2)[2] facility. They say:
> Think of the following: You download a random file from the internet and analyze it using file. If file has a security hole (local code execution for example), he can run attacks with his prepared file. Thats why the file utility is sandboxed and chrooted by default.
Isn't that exactly the sort of case where file(1) would open(2) the downloaded file and its own database, and then proceed to drop all other access privileges before doing any of the parsing of the untrusted file?
Re: Why OpenBSD Rocks
#4I found OpenBSD to be pretty amazing, and after trying it now and then I finally loaded it onto my x220 to use it daily. Things worked fine, but I realized the battery life was poor (even using the functionality, I think in tpm, which regulates the clock speed to be slower) and support for what I began to need (like the Eclipse IDE) was shoddy. Unlike many others, I don't have much to say about the documentation, but that's also an endorsement for the system itself - I didn't need to access it more than once or twice.
Support for other file systems, which is a part of life for me, was pretty lacking; for me, ext4 write support and fat32 read/write isn't essential but would have been enough to stop me from moving back to GNU/Linux.
In the end, it looks like a great system but it just didn't fit my needs, just as, for instance, NixOS (and Guix) didn't fit my needs when I wanted a custom XKB layout.
Re: Why OpenBSD Rocks
#5It does just work (TM). Brightness and volume hotkeys work out of the box, without a desktop environment (even on the console). WiFi, including autojoining, works using a single ifconfig command or configuration file. Suspend/resume works on my laptop without any configuration.
If you’re using it on a laptop, just make sure to use an older, less ultrabook-like machine and you’ll be good.
Re: Why OpenBSD Rocks
#6Many of the items on this list seem to be some variation of "random place in memory so attackers can't guess"
It sounds nice, but can someone explain if there are any downsides?
Re: Why OpenBSD Rocks
#7Many of the items on this list seem to be some variation of "random place in memory so attackers can't guess" It sounds nice, but can someone explain if there are any downsides?
Slightly slower? Mechanical hard drive boot times aren’t the best, but they’re quite acceptable with an SSD. For my desktop use, OpenBSD seems plenty fast.
Re: Why OpenBSD Rocks
#8Why does file(1)[1] need its own chroot sandbox instead of using the pledge(2)[2] facility. They say: > Think of the following: You download a random file from the internet and analyze it using file. If file has a security hole (local code execution for example), he can run attacks with his prepared file. Thats why the file utility is sandboxed and chrooted by default. Isn't that exactly the sort of case where file(1…
> Why does file(1)[1] need its own chroot sandbox instead of using the pledge(2)[2] facility.
It does use pledge(2) these days, those references are to how file(1) was sandboxed before. Why the author has linked to that I don't know.
Re: Why OpenBSD Rocks
#9Does a blade server with hot swappable blades implement Hot KARL?
Re: Why OpenBSD Rocks
#10What are the desktop GUI environments or window managers available on OpenBSD that are comparable to those on Linux? I see a mention of running X as a user, but nothing more.
What about desktop hardware support? Does it have working drivers for different WiFi chipsets, video cards, trackpad, etc. (referring only to x86 based systems)?