OpenBSD 5.9 template now available

Date published: April 6th, 2016
Posted in OpenBSD | No Comments »

Following the recent release of OpenBSD 5.9, we have now added the OpenBSD 5.9 64-bit template to our library for cloud server deployments.  RootBSD customers can now deploy a new OpenBSD 5.9 server in minutes, or use the template to re-deploy an existing server.

Among the new features in 5.9, we are most excited to see Xen domU device support, including the xnf(4) driver for Xen paravirtualized network interface.  Since our cloud uses Xen hypervisor, this xnf driver provides improved network performance – faster throughput with less overhead.  Thanks for Mike Belopuhov for his work on this driver!

OpenBSD 5.9 is also the first release to ship with the new pledge(2) security framework.  Pledge aims to provide additional security at the application level, by restricting (in the kernel) that only system calls necessary to the function of an application can be executed.  Check out this presentation from Theo de Raadt for an introduction to Pledge.  With 5.9, already 453 of OpenBSD’s 707 base system binaries have been adapted to use Pledge.

Read the full release notes, and let us know if you have any issues with deploying!