This week on BSDNow, we have all sorts of interesting news, including a Kernel Fuzzing audit done for OpenBSD, a much improved

“Manually encapsulating CockroachDB using Linux cgroups is no easy task, which is why tools like Docker exist in the first place. By comparison, running server processes natively in FreeBSD jails is straightforward and robust.”

“(Note: Linux compatibility files / packages / libraries are not needed further. CockroachDB uses Linux’s procfs to inspect system properties via gosigar. If/when gosigar evolves to read FreeBSD properties natively, CockroachDB will not need linprocfs any more.)”

“Be up-front about security: OpenSSL is known to have issues, you can't trust what comes down the pipe, and your private key's integrity is a hard requirement. Not a situation where you can be careless. letskencrypt is a client for Let's Encrypt users, but one designed for security. No Python. No Ruby. No Bash.A straightforward, open source implementation in C that isolates each step of the sequence.”

read and parse an account and domain private key

“Over the past 20 years, OpenBSD’s focus on uncompromising quality and code correctness has yielded an operating system second-to-none. Code auditing and review is core to the project’s development process. The team’s focus on security includes integrated cryptography, new security mitigation techniques, and an optional-security-is-no-security stance, making it arguably the most secure operating system available today. This approach pays off in the form of only a few security updates for a given release, compared to other operating systems that might release a handful of updates every week.”

“ In the mid 90s, I went back to school to learn network and system administration. As graduation grew near and I started looking for a work, I noticed that all the interesting jobs wanted Unix skills. Wanting to increase my skills, and not having any money, I did an Internet search for “Free Unix”. The first hit was freebsd.org. I went to the website and started reading the Handbook and thought “I can do this”. Since I only had access to one computer and wanted to ramp up my skills quickly, I printed out the installation and networking chapters of the Handbook. I replaced the current operating system with FreeBSD and forced myself to learn how to do everything I needed to do on that computer in FreeBSD. It was a painful (and scary) few weeks as I figured out how to transition the family’s workflow to FreeBSD, but it was also exhilarating to learn that “yes, I can do this!. Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to try out or administer the other BSDs, several Linux distros, SCO, and Solaris. I found that the layout, logic, and release engineering process of the BSDs makes the most sense to me and I’m happiest when on a BSD system.”

“Students who haven’t been exposed to open source before are used to thinking of technology in terms of a purchasable brand consisting of “black boxes” that are supposed to “just work”, without having to think about how they work. You can (and should) slow down and learn how things work. It can be a mind shift to learn that the freedom to use and change how something works does exist, and isn’t considered stealing. And that learning how something works, while hard, can be fun. BSD culture, in particular, is well suited for those who have the time and temperament to dive into how things work. With over 40 years of freely available source and commit messages, you can dive as deep as you want into learning how things came to be, how they evolved over the years, how they work now, and how they can be improved. There is a diverse range of stuff to choose from: from user tools to networking to memory management to hardware drivers to security mechanisms and so on. There is also a culture of sharing and learning and encouragement for users who demonstrate that they have done their homework and have their own ideas to contribute.”