BSD Cafe Billboard

Thanks to everyone who pointed out Linux. Now that I'm paying attention this is clearly the systemd startup logging.

I recently visited a local YMCA branch and spotted a treadmill booting up... powered by OpenBSD.

A crazy discovery xD If I can power a treadmill with OpenBSD then I'll attempt any embedded project with it.

tl;dr I used wg(4), pf(4), and relayd(8), all OpenBSD native tools, to encrypt all inbound connections from a gateway VPS to my local home server. This also hides my local IP information and I managed it all without much hassle and pain.

I recently stood up a VPS running OpenBSD 7.9 on Vultr. The VPS is hosted in Chicago, Illinois, USA. I then took OpenBSD's native WireGuard driver, wg(4), to establish an encrypted tunnel to my local home lab server. Using relayd(8), OpenBSD's native reverse proxy, I can now forward virtual host connections to my home lab server, which has httpd(8) as a web server frontend. I used pf.conf(5) to configure OpenBSD's native fireweall, pf(4), which was incredibly easy.

The result is a secure gateway that routes all traffic via WireGuard to my local server, obfuscating its location and other IP information. This was done by simply configuring handful of system daemons. I've done some OpenBSD network configuration before, but this was the most work I've done. The best part, it wasn't that difficult, and all manual pages provided sufficient details to work with them.

Once I get my site set up I'll write up the experience and step-by-step instructions and share the page here.

New OpenBSD milestone unlocked; no intent to stop anytime soon

Happy hacking, hackers!

@grahamperrin said:
...

I'm glad they limit their use of AI. Keep us updated with any news on the project, I might see if I can run it in a VM.

Awesome! Thanks for sharing.

Differences between between FreeBSD/Darwin and NextBSD:
https://github.com/nextbsd-redux/nextbsd#whats-different-from-other-bsds

This is a neat project but I personally dislike Darwin as an OS. This project isn't for me but I think it hits a good niche in the BSD community.

AI is extensively used in this project. When I use AI I have it generate git-diff(1)s so I can inspect and change things on-the-fly (reduce hallucinations and poor code logic, etc.) and add the code to source tree myself. This project has one active dev and each commit I saw is co-authored by Claude. This is a non-starter for me.

That said I do think it's an interesting project and there are people out there who'd love hacking on this.

@CiotBSD excellent, tyvm for the share! Yeah Solene's articles have been quite helpful for me the last few years as I transition more workloads to OpenBSD.

I've heard she has since moved onto other projects and I am thankful for all the OpenBSD content she has left for the community.

Found this great article (by Solene, no less!) on setting up a Roundcube mail server on OpenBSD.

Just what I was looking for! The link: https://dataswamp.org/~solene/2024-07-24-openbsd-email-server-setup.html

Happy hacking!

@grahamperrin said:

Distros do not divide us, because the kernel unites us.

I love this quote. Hear hear

Hear, hear

I'm revisiting amd64 assembly programming and came across this [1] great post on nasm programming on Linux.

Sharing this in case anyone else is looking for information on the topic.

[1] https://linuxvox.com/blog/basic-yet-thorough-assembly-tutorial-linux/

Sharing this [1] link as I dive into amd64 assembly programming on OpenBSD (it really came in handy!).

This [2] Reddit thread also helped me understand the elf(5) requirements for programming assembly on OpenBSD.

Happy hacking!

[1] https://astharoshe.net/2020-06-28-Hello_assembler.html
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/openbsd/s/JN0hTLNKQF

e: typo

I'm looking to set up a WireGuard VPN on OpenBSD and found this helpful article: https://www.n3s0.tech/feed/build/wireguard/personal-wireguard-server-on-openbsd/

My use case: I am exposing some local/home services to the Internet but want added security, so I am placing them behind a wg(4) VPN. I've never done this so I am sharing this in case one finds it useful.

Happy hacking

Always a great read from Miod, thanks for the updates!

I came across this [1] nice post detailing how to customize the ksh(1) experience. I came for the tab completions but it has some general ksh wisdom.

Sharing it as ksh(1) is the default shell on OpenBSD and it's a great shell in general.

[1] https://www.vincentdelft.be/post/post_20210102

Love the content on jails in this post. Thanks for the share!

I love bhyve but OpenBSD's security defaults (as well as its cohesiveness) are what pulled me to hosting on OpenBSD. vmm(4) is not a bad hypervisor, hopefully more work goes into it.

@izder456 said:

@naltun report your experience to this thread please when you do:
https://github.com/outpaddling/desktop-installer/issues/30

thanks for the kind words!

et voila

Thanks for the work on desktop-installer @izder456 I'll update the PR with my experience when I get a chance

e: retake screenshot

e: I added a comment in the PR thread

I've never participated in GSoC but have wanted to get involved with some NetBSD hacking. Is this open to all potential contributors or just students?

@grahamperrin said:

A user group solely for locals to meet in person and, occasionally, online?

Exactly. I was part of my Computing Society at university; it was a great way to meet, learn, and share. I haven't attended a LUG/BUG in years... I miss being part of a 3rd place for Unix nerds and am up to try and steward a group.

Great work! I've always manually set up OpenBSD (I remember desktop-installer but I don't think it supported what I wanted before). Will definitely try this on my Dell Inspiron I'm installing OpenBSD on this week