Many people have received their 4.6 CDs in the mail by now, and we
really don't want them to be without the full package repository.
Oct 18, 2009.
We are pleased to announce the official release of OpenBSD 4.6.
This is our 26th release on CD-ROM (and 27th via FTP). We remain
proud of OpenBSD's record of more than ten years with only two remote
holes in the default install.
As in our previous releases, 4.6 provides significant improvements,
including new features, in nearly all areas of the system:
- New/extended platforms:
o mvme88k
o MVME141 and MVME165 boards are now supported.
o sgi
o SGI Octane, SGI Origin 200 and SGI Fuel systems are now supported.
o Several bugs in interrupt handling have been fixed, resulting
in significantly improved system response.
o sparc
o The bootblock load address has been moved so that larger kernels
can be loaded.
o sparc64
o Acceleration support has been added for many of the PCI frame buffer
drivers, such as the Sun PGX, PGX64 and XVR-100, and Tech Source
Raptor GFX graphics cards.
- Improved hardware support, including:
o Several new/improved drivers for sensors, including:
o The ips(4) driver now has sensor support, complementing the bio support.
o The acpithinkpad(4) driver now has temperature and fan sensor support.
o New endrun(4) driver for the EndRun Technologies timedelta sensor.
o The fins(4) driver now has support for F71806, F71862 and F71882 ICs.
o The acpitz(4) driver now shows correct decimals for temperature.
o Added radeonfb(4) to sparc64, an accelerated framebuffer for
Sun XVR-100 boards.
o Added support for RTL8103E and RTL8168DP devices in the re(4) driver.
o Added support for BCM5709/BCM5716 devices in the bnx(4) driver.
o Added support for ICH10 variants of em(4).
o Added support for VIA VX855 chipset in the viapm(4) and pciide(4) drivers.
o Added support for Intel SCH IDE to pciide(4).
o Added support for the Broadcom HT-1100 chipset in the piixpm(4) driver.
o Added support for 82574L based devices in the em(4) driver.
o Added support for VIA CX800 south bridge to the viapm(4) driver.
o A number of network drivers including bge(4), bnx(4), hme(4), iwn(4),
ix(4), msk(4), sis(4), sk(4), vr(4) and wpi(4) now make use of the
MCLGETI(9) allocator in order to reduce memory usage and increase
performance when under load or attack.
o Added support in em(4) for the newer 82575 chips.
o zyd(4) now supports devices with Airoha AL2230S radios.
o zyd(4) now works on big-endian machines
o urtw(4) now supports RTL8187B based devices.
o New otus(4) driver for Atheros AR9001U USB 802.11a/b/g/Draft-N
wireless devices.
o New berkwdt(4) driver for Berkshire Products PCI watchdog timers.
o New udl(4) driver for USB video devices.
o Support for a variety of newer models in bge(4).
o Initial version of vsw(4), a driver for the virtual network switch
found on sun4v sparc64 systems.
o Implemented machfb(4), an accelerated driver for the sparc64 PGX/PGX64
framebuffers.
o New vcc(4) and vcctty(4) drivers for the "Virtual Console Concentrator"
found on the control domain of sun4v systems.
o Implemented 64-bit FIFO modes for ciss(4) devices.
o Enabled hardware VLAN tagging and stripping on ix(4).
o Added basic support for Envy24HT chips to the envy(4) driver.
o Many improvements and updates to the isp(4) driver.
o Added support for 88E8057-based Yukon 2 Ultra 2-devices in msk(4).
o The ips(4) driver now works reliably.
o Added raptor(4), an accelerated framebuffer driver for the Tech Source
Raptor GFX cards on the sparc64 platform.
o Enabled schsio(4) on i386 and amd64 and added watchdog timer support.
o New acpivideo(4) driver for ACPI display switching and brightness control.
o Added support for the IBM ServeRAID-8k in the aac(4) driver.
o Added support for the BCM5825 and 5860/61/62 Broadcom CryptoNetX
IPSec/SSL Security processor in the ubsec(4) driver.
o Added support for AES-CBC with BCM5823-based ubsec(4) devices.
o Firmware for bnx(4) has been updated.
o Added support to fxp(4) for the 82552 MAC found on some ICH7 chipsets.
o Added support to umsm(4) for Truinstall enabled modems like the
Sierra 881U.
o Added support to pciide(4) for ICH10 SATA devices not operating in
AHCI mode.
o dc(4) now reads the MAC address from the eeprom rather than CIS.
o em(4) now correctly handles MAC addresses for dual-port 8257[56] cards.
o IPv6 receive TCP/UDP checksum offloading has been enabled for jme(4).
o IPv6 receive TCP/UDP checksum offloading has been enabled in bge(4) for
the 5755 and later chips.
o iwi(4) now associates with APs that refuse non-short slot-time capable
STAs.
o IP, TCP and UDP checksum offloading has been enabled in vr(4) for
VT6105M-based devices.
o VGA BIOS repost support has been added for amd64 and i386 platforms.
- New tools:
o Added smtpd(8), a new privilege-separated SMTP daemon.
o Imported the tmux(1) terminal multiplexer, replacing window(1).
- New functionality:
o httpd(8) can now serve files larger than 2GB in size.
o Mice with many buttons are now supported by wsmoused(8).
o New "nfsserver" and "nfsclient" views have been added to systat(1).
o Automatic partition allocation has been added to disklabel(8), with a
variety of smart heuristics.
o An undo command has been added to disklabel(8), which reverts the
label back to its previous state.
o When running in auto-mode, sysmerge(8) will now install binary files
from X sets automatically.
o sysmerge(8) now creates a report summary file in the work directory.
o httpd(8) now drops privileges to www/www rather than nobody/nogroup
if the User/Group entries are not present within the configuration file.
o ELF based platforms now generate ELF core dumps and gdb(1) is now able
to read ELF core dumps.
o Additional diff options have been added to opencvs(1).
o When sendbug(1) is run as root, the pcidump(8) and acpidump(8) output
is included.
o Support for audible ping(8) and ping6(8) has been added.
o ftpd(8) now logs both the remote IP and remote hostname when receiving
a new connection.
o relayd(8) now allows both UDP and TCP redirections.
o SSL sessions are now maintained by relayd(8) for each checked host,
resulting in subsequent checks being lighter and faster on the server.
o Added support to relayd(8) for client-side TCP connections from relays.
o Added support to relayd(8) for specifying a CA file to verify SSL server
certificates when connecting as a client from relays.
- pf(4) improvements:
o Enabled pf(4) by default in the rc.conf(8).
o Removed pf(4) scrub rules, and only do one kind of packet reassembly.
Rulesets with scrub rules need to be modified because of this.
o Regular rules can now have per-rule scrub options.
o Added new "match" keyword which only applies rule options but does
not change the current pass/block state.
o Make all pf(4) operations transactional to improve atomicity of reloads.
o Stricter pf(4) checking for ICMP and ICMPv6 packets.
o Various improvements to pfsync(4) to lower sync traffic bandwidth and
optionally allow active-active firewall setups.
o Fix pf(4) scrub max-mss for IPv6 traffic.
- softraid(4) improvements:
o Rebuild support has been added and RAID 1 volumes can now be rebuilt.
o Boot time assembly has been significantly improved, with volume and
chunk ordering now being respected. Duplicated chunks and version
mismatches are also handled gracefully.
o Volumes with missing members are now brought online.
- OpenBGPD, OpenOSPFD and other routing daemon improvements:
o In bgpd(8), rework most of the RDE to allow multiple RIBs.
It is possible to filter per-RIB and attach neighbors to a specific RIB.
o Added an option to bgpd(8) to change the "connect-retry" timer.
o Allow bgpd.conf(5) and bgpctl(8) to contain 32-bit ASN numbers written in
ASPLAIN format.
o Fix bgpd(8) to correctly encode MP unreachable NLRI so IPv6 prefixes get
removed correctly.
o Changed the behaviour of "redistribute default" for ospfd(8) and ripd(8).
A default route has to be present in the FIB to be correctly advertised.
o Make ospfd(8) and ripd(8) track reject and blackhole routes and allow
them to be redistributed even if pointing to 127.0.0.1.
o Allow an alternate control socket to be specified for ospfd(8).
o ospfd(8) can now be bound to an alternate routing domain.
o Fix ospfd(8) route metric for "redistribute default".
o Initial version of ldpctl(8) and ldpd(8), a label distribution protocol
daemon for mpls.
o Make dvmrpd(8) RDE aware of multicast group members per interface.
o Added support for pruning in dvmrpd(8).
- Generic Network-Stack improvements:
o Support for virtual routing and firewalling with the addition of routing
domains.
o Added support for ifconfig(8) to bind an interface to a routing domain.
o Added support to ping(8), traceroute(8), arp(8), nc(1) and telnet(1) to
specify which routing domain to use.
o Allow ifconfig(8) to turn off IPv6 completely for an interface and
make rtsold(8) turn on inet6 on the interface.
o Routes track the interface link state.
o route(8) flush accepts "-iface" or "-priority" to only flush routes
matching these conditions.
o Multiple dhclients can now coexist without causing mayhem.
o Make wireless interfaces have an interface priority of 4 by default.
Makes them less preferred then wired interfaces.
o Do not accept IPv4 ICMP redirects by default.
o Added the MAC address to the log entries in dhclient(8).
o Make systat(1) show interface description names in the interface view,
and add new NFS server and client views.
o Make tun(4) emulate link state depending on the open and close of the
device fd.
o Use pf state-table information to speed up decision on whether a packet
is to be delivered locally or forwarded.
o More routing socket checks added to make userland applications more
resilient to kernel changes.
- Install/Upgrade process changes:
o The installer has almost been rewritten, primarily with a focus on
simplifying the installation process.
o Automatic disk layout can now be used during installation, allowing for
simple single-disk installs.
o VLAN support is now available in some installation media.
o A standard user account can now be created during the install process.
- OpenSSH 5.3:
o Do not limit home directory paths to 256 characters.
o Several minor documentation and correctness fixes.
- Over 5,800 ports, minor robustness improvements in package tools.
o Many pre-built packages for each architecture:
i386: 5606 sparc64: 5413 alpha: 5346 sh: 1261
amd64: 5544 powerpc: 5427 sparc: 3711 mips64: 3443
arm: 5291 hppa: 4790 vax: 1785
- As usual, steady improvements in manual pages and other documentation.
- The system includes the following major components from outside
suppliers:
o Xenocara (based on X.Org 7.4 + patches, freetype 2.3.9,
fontconfig 2.6.0, Mesa 7.4.2, xterm 243 and more)
o Gcc 2.95.3 (+ patches) and 3.3.5 (+ patches)
o Perl 5.10.0 (+ patches)
o Our improved and secured version of Apache 1.3, with SSL/TLS
and DSO support
o OpenSSL 0.9.8k (+ patches)
o Groff 1.15
o Sendmail 8.14.3, with libmilter
o Bind 9.4.2-P2 (+ patches)
o Lynx 2.8.6rel.5 with HTTPS and IPv6 support (+ patches)
o Sudo 1.7.2
o Ncurses 5.2
o Latest KAME IPv6
o Heimdal 0.7.2 (+ patches)
o Arla 0.35.7
o Binutils 2.15 (+ patches)
o Gdb 6.3 (+ patches)
If you'd like to see a list of what has changed between OpenBSD 4.5
and 4.6, look at
http://www.OpenBSD.org/plus46.html
Even though the list is a summary of the most important changes
made to OpenBSD, it still is a very very long list.
we provide patches for known security threats and other important
issues discovered after each CD release. As usual, between the
creation of the OpenBSD 4.6 FTP/CD-ROM binaries and the actual 4.6
release date, our team found and fixed some new reliability problems
(note: most are minor and in subsystems that are not enabled by
default). Our continued research into security means we will find
new security problems -- and we always provide patches as soon as
possible. Therefore, we advise regular visits to
http://www.OpenBSD.org/security.html
and
http://www.OpenBSD.org/errata.html
Security patch announcements are sent to the security-annou...@openbsd.org
mailing list. For information on OpenBSD mailing lists, please see:
http://www.OpenBSD.org/mail.html
OpenBSD 4.6 is also available on CD-ROM. The 3-CD set costs $50 CDN and
is available via mail order and from a number of contacts around the
world. The set includes a colourful booklet which carefully explains the
installation of OpenBSD. A new set of cute little stickers is also
included (sorry, but our FTP mirror sites do not support STP, the Sticker
Transfer Protocol). As an added bonus, the second CD contains an audio
track, a song entitled "Planet of the Users". MP3 and OGG versions of
the audio track can be found on the first CD.
Lyrics (and an explanation) for the songs may be found at:
http://www.OpenBSD.org/lyrics.html#46
Profits from CD sales are the primary income source for the OpenBSD
project -- in essence selling these CD-ROM units ensures that OpenBSD
will continue to make another release six months from now.
The OpenBSD 4.6 CD-ROMs are bootable on the following four platforms:
o i386
o amd64
o macppc
o sparc64
(Other platforms must boot from floppy, network, or other method).
For more information on ordering CD-ROMs, see:
http://www.OpenBSD.org/orders.html
The above web page lists a number of places where OpenBSD CD-ROMs
can be purchased from. For our default mail order, go directly to:
https://https.OpenBSD.org/cgi-bin/order
All of our developers strongly urge you to buy a CD-ROM and support
our future efforts. Additionally, donations to the project are
highly appreciated, as described in more detail at:
http://www.OpenBSD.org/goals.html#funding
For those unable to make their contributions as straightforward gifts,
the OpenBSD Foundation (http://www.openbsdfoundation.org) is a Canadian
not-for-profit corporation that can accept larger contributions and
issue receipts. In some situations, their receipt may qualify as a
business expense writeoff, so this is certainly a consideration for
some organizations or businesses. There may also be exposure benefits
since the Foundation may be interested in participating in press releases.
In turn, the Foundation then uses these contributions to assist OpenBSD's
infrastructure needs. Contact the foundation directors at
direct...@openbsdfoundation.org for more information.
The OpenBSD distribution companies also sell tshirts and polo shirts.
And our users like them too. We have a variety of shirts available,
with the new and old designs, from our web ordering system at, as
described above.
The OpenBSD 4.6 t-shirts are available now. We also sell our older
shirts, as well as a selection of OpenSSH t-shirts.
If you choose not to buy an OpenBSD CD-ROM, OpenBSD can be easily
installed via FTP. Typically you need a single small piece of boot
media (e.g., a boot floppy) and then the rest of the files can be
installed from a number of locations, including directly off the
Internet. Follow this simple set of instructions to ensure that
you find all of the documentation you will need while performing
an install via FTP. With the CD-ROMs, the necessary documentation
is easier to find.
1) Read either of the following two files for a list of ftp
mirrors which provide OpenBSD, then choose one near you:
http://www.OpenBSD.org/ftp.html
ftp://ftp.OpenBSD.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.6/ftplist
As of Oct 1, 2009, the following ftp mirror sites have the 4.6 release:
ftp://ftp.stacken.kth.se/pub/OpenBSD/4.6/ Sweden
ftp://ftp2.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.6/ NYC, USA
ftp://ftp3.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.6/ CO, USA
ftp://ftp5.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.6/ CA, USA
ftp://rt.fm/pub/OpenBSD/4.6/ IL, USA
The release is also available at the master site:
ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.6/ Alberta, Canada
However it is strongly suggested you use a mirror.
Other mirror sites may take a day or two to update.
2) Connect to that ftp mirror site and go into the directory
pub/OpenBSD/4.6/ which contains these files and directories.
This is a list of what you will see:
ANNOUNCEMENT armish/ mvme68k/ sparc64/
Changelogs/ ftplist mvme88k/ src.tar.gz
HARDWARE hp300/ packages/ sys.tar.gz
PACKAGES hppa/ ports.tar.gz tools/
PORTS i386/ root.mail vax/
README landisk/ sgi/ xenocara.tar.gz
alpha/ mac68k/ socppc/ zaurus/
amd64/ macppc/ sparc/
It is quite likely that you will want at LEAST the following
files which apply to all the architectures OpenBSD supports.
README - generic README
HARDWARE - list of hardware we support
PORTS - description of our "ports" tree
PACKAGES - description of pre-compiled packages
root.mail - a copy of root's mail at initial login.
(This is really worthwhile reading).
3) Read the README file. It is short, and a quick read will make
sure you understand what else you need to fetch.
4) Next, go into the directory that applies to your architecture,
for example, i386. This is a list of what you will see:
INSTALL.i386 cd46.iso floppyB46.fs pxeboot*
INSTALL.linux cdboot* floppyC46.fs xbase46.tgz
MD5 cdbr* game46.tgz xetc46.tgz
base46.tgz cdemu46.iso index.txt xfont46.tgz
bsd* comp46.tgz install46.iso xserv46.tgz
bsd.mp* etc46.tgz man46.tgz xshare46.tgz
bsd.rd* floppy46.fs misc46.tgz
If you are new to OpenBSD, fetch _at least_ the file INSTALL.i386
and the appropriate floppy*.fs or install46.iso files. Consult the
INSTALL.i386 file if you don't know which of the floppy images
you need (or simply fetch all of them).
If you use the install46.iso file (roughly 200MB in size), then you
do not need the various *.tgz files since they are contained on that
one-step ISO-format install CD.
5) If you are an expert, follow the instructions in the file called
README; otherwise, use the more complete instructions in the
file called INSTALL.i386. INSTALL.i386 may tell you that you
need to fetch other files.
6) Just in case, take a peek at:
http://www.OpenBSD.org/errata.html
This is the page where we talk about the mistakes we made while
creating the 4.6 release, or the significant bugs we fixed
post-release which we think our users should have fixes for.
Patches and workarounds are clearly described there.
Note: If you end up needing to write a raw floppy using Windows,
you can use "fdimage.exe" located in the pub/OpenBSD/4.6/tools
directory to do so.
X.Org has been integrated more closely into the system. This release
contains X.Org 7.4. Most of our architectures ship with X.Org, including
amd64, sparc, sparc64 and macppc. During installation, you can install
X.Org quite easily. Be sure to try out xdm(1) and see how we have
customized it for OpenBSD.
The OpenBSD ports tree contains automated instructions for building
third party software. The software has been verified to build and
run on the various OpenBSD architectures. The 4.6 ports collection,
including many of the distribution files, is included on the 3-CD
set. Please see the PORTS file for more information.
Note: some of the most popular ports, e.g., the Apache web server
and several X applications, come standard with OpenBSD. Also, many
popular ports have been pre-compiled for those who do not desire
to build their own binaries (see BINARY PACKAGES, below).
A large number of binary packages are provided. Please see the PACKAGES
file (ftp://ftp.OpenBSD.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.6/PACKAGES) for more details.
The CD-ROMs contain source code for all the subsystems explained
above, and the README (ftp://ftp.OpenBSD.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.6/README)
file explains how to deal with these source files. For those who
are doing an FTP install, the source code for all four subsystems
can be found in the pub/OpenBSD/4.6/ directory:
xenocara.tar.gz ports.tar.gz src.tar.gz sys.tar.gz
OpenBSD 4.6 includes artwork and CD artistic layout by Ty Semaka,
who also arranged an audio track on the OpenBSD 4.6 CD set. Ports
tree and package building by Jasper Lievisse Adriaanse, Michael Erdely,
Simon Bertrang, Stuart Henderson, Antoine Jacoutot, Robert Nagy,
Nikolay Sturm, and Christian Weisgerber. System builds by Theo de Raadt,
Mark Kettenis, and Miod Vallat. X11 builds by Todd Fries and Miod Vallat.
ISO-9660 filesystem layout by Theo de Raadt.
We would like to thank all of the people who sent in bug reports, bug
fixes, donation cheques, and hardware that we use. We would also like
to thank those who pre-ordered the 4.6 CD-ROM or bought our previous
CD-ROMs. Those who did not support us financially have still helped
us with our goal of improving the quality of the software.
Our developers are:
Alexander Bluhm, Alexander Hall, Alexander von Gernler,
Alexander Yurchenko, Alexandre Ratchov, Alexey Vatchenko,
Anders Magnusson, Andreas Gunnarsson, Anil Madhavapeddy,
Antoine Jacoutot, Ariane van der Steldt, Artur Grabowski,
Austin Hook, Benoit Lecocq, Bernd Ahlers, Bob Beck, Bret Lambert,
Can Erkin Acar, Chad Loder, Charles Longeau, Chris Cappuccio,
Chris Kuethe, Christian Weisgerber, Claudio Jeker,
Constantine A. Murenin, Dale Rahn, Damien Bergamini, Damien Miller,
Darren Tucker, David Gwynne, David Hill, David Krause, Eric Faurot,
Esben Norby, Federico G. Schwindt, Felix Kronlage, Gilles Chehade,
Giovanni Bechis, Gordon Willem Klok, Hans-Joerg Hoexer,
Henning Brauer, Ian Darwin, Igor Sobrado, Ingo Schwarze,
Jacek Masiulaniec, Jacob Meuser, Jakob Schlyter, Janne Johansson,
Jared Yanovich, Jason Dixon, Jason George, Jason McIntyre,
Jason Meltzer, Jasper Lievisse Adriaanse, Jim Razmus II, Joel Sing,
Joerg Goltermann, Johan Mson Lindman, Jolan Luff, Jonathan Gray,
Jordan Hargrave, Joris Vink, joshua stein, Kenneth R Westerback,
Kevin Lo, Kevin Steves, Kjell Wooding, Kurt Miller, Landry Breuil,
Laurent Fanis, Marc Espie, Marco Peereboom, Marco Pfatschbacher,
Marco S Hyman, Marcus Glocker, Mark Kettenis, Mark Uemura,
Markus Friedl, Martin Reindl, Martynas Venckus,
Mathieu Sauve-Frankel, Mats O Jansson, Matthias Kilian,
Matthieu Herrb, Michael Erdely, Michael Knudsen, Michele Marchetto,
Mike Larkin, Miod Vallat, Moritz Grimm, Moritz Jodeit,
Nicholas Marriott, Nick Holland, Nikolay Sturm, Okan Demirmen,
Oleg Safiullin, Otto Moerbeek, Owain Ainsworth, Paul de Weerd,
Paul Irofti, Peter Hessler, Peter Stromberg, Peter Valchev,
Philip Guenther, Pierre-Emmanuel Andre, Pierre-Yves Ritschard,
Rainer Giedat, Ray Lai, Reyk Floeter, Robert Nagy, Rui Reis,
Ryan Thomas McBride, Simon Bertrang, Stefan Kempf, Steven Mestdagh,
Stuart Henderson, Ted Unangst, Theo de Raadt, Thordur I. Bjornsson,
Tobias Stoeckmann, Tobias Weingartner, Todd C. Miller, Todd Fries,
Will Maier, William Yodlowsky, Xavier Santolaria, Yojiro Uo
