FreeBSD 4.0 Released

Claes Leufven was one of the first to write in with the news that FreeBSD 4.0 is now available for download. Features added to 4.0 since it diverged from 3.x include: IPv6 and IPSec support built in (courtesy of the KAME project), OpenSSL and OpenSSH are integrated in to the base system, jail(2) ("chroot(2) on steroids") to help build secure environments, many, many NFS bug fixes and performance improvements, bug fixes and performance improvements to the VM subsystem, netware file and client connection support, gcc upgraded to 2.95.2 as the base compiler, better support for laptops, a much more complete threads library. . . see the Alpha or i386 release notes for more details. And before you all rush off to upgrade your production servers, read on for a brief message from Jordan Hubbard, FreeBSD's Release Engineer, and to find out where to download the release from.

"As with all FreeBSD releases ending in .0, the project recommends that production environments wait at least one or two releases after it before moving mission-critical services over. These dot-zero releases are primarily aimed at the developers and early adopters who are willing to work on refining the technology until it's production-ready. The 4-stable branch will also not be created until just before 4.1 is released, the period following a .0 release being the best time to collect serious feedback before branching the tree."

For a static list of mirrors, see this section in the FreeBSD Handbook. Alternatively, try Gavin Cameron's automatically updating list of mirror sites.

Re:Shipping crypto out of the US...

A leg up on OpenBSD?! OpenBSD already has OpenSSH and IPsec. And yes, during install you can choose the US or International crypto, but OpenBSD is done out of the US, so lame-laws need not directly hinder it. Its more an issue being a US business and wanting to pay or not pay RSA lisc. fees.
OpenBSD and its dev's played a big role in OpenSSH.

OpenBSD places alot of importance on security and doing it right. Read all about it and get facts.
http://www.OpenBSD.org [openbsd.org]
http://www.openssh.com [openssh.com]

Re:Okay, I'll bite.

Theo is the guy who started the OpenBSD project. He used to be a core member of the NetBSD development team, but there were certain personality "conflicts" within the group, and eventually his CVS access was revoked. You can read the whole spiel in his email logs, which he has saved somewhere on openbsd.org (I think). Needless to say, he forked the code and started his own BSD, which is now arguably more popular and traditionally thought of as more secure.

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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

A solid, feature rich, BSD flavor UNIX

I have worked with both Linux and FreeBSD, and can say that both are stable, and fast. It is good to see FreeBSD take an upgrade on GCC and the threaded libraries. The only reason I can see to chose one over the other is that some people prefer a BSD style environment over the POSIX/SYS5/BSD hodgepodge that Linux offers. Both environments are very good, and none is necessarily better than the other. Choose whatever you are most comfortable with. If you come from SunOS or even Solaris, then FreeBSD is probably a better fit. If you come from AIX, SCO, or HP/UX than Linux is probably a better fit. If you are new, pick either, you can't go wrong. Ofcourse, this is just my humble opinion. Anyhow, congrats FreeBSD folks, keep the up the excellent work!

OpenBSD, come in from the cold.

OpenBSD has traditionally differentiated itself by being way ahead on the security front. Hell, look at their cryptography pages [openbsd.org] - "because we can". And a damn good reason for doing something that is too. But, the world is changing now: FreeBSD has just sprouted a serious number of security enhancements, and the "because we can" argument is starting to look watered down.

So, maybe we can add to some of that "BSDi are integrating their code" good feeling by starting to patch things up with Theo and the OpenBSD crowd. Note that it's important to not underestimate the quality of work that has gone into OpenBSD - you're not going to buffer overrun that bastard, believe you me.

And please, no FreeBSD RULEZ! OpenBSD SUX! crap (or vice versa). It just seems like a great opportunity to make three great server OS's (BSDi, FreeBSD, OpenBSD) into one absurdly great server OS.

Dave :)

Shipping crypto out of the US...

What they've done is actually quite cool. They have linked the crypto libraries to stubs, and the stubs reference either the US or export versions of the crypto libraries (as appropriate for your system), and if you don't have either installed they issue an error message that tells you how to install them.

This is handled automatically during the normal install procedure, so the right crypto stuff is grabbed from the right archive site, and it all just plain works.

Way cool, and a leg up on even OpenBSD as far as this is concerned!
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Brad Knowles