OpenBSD Journal

Running on OpenBSD - Parts 1, 2 and 3

Contributed by merdely on from the in-a-world dept.

Will Backman writes about an interesting series of blog entries detailing how Echothrust Solutions uses OpenBSD throughout the company:

"In a world that three operating systems dominate (Windows, Linux, MacOS) and alternative sounds weird we gave a run at OpenBSD as our operating system from end-to-end. The following document is the first part of a four part paper that describes how we managed to setup our entire company using only OpenBSD and its provided ports and tools."

Follow the links to the first three parts of the series:

  • Part 1 explains how they set up their backend systems (Web, Mail, File, Firewalling, VPN, Backups, Routing, ...)
  • Part 2 describes their workstation configuration
  • Part 3 discusses their development network using SVN and Trac

(Comments are closed)

Comments

  1. By almeida (almeida) on

    Nice article, if for no other reason than it introduced me to rdesktop. I had no idea there were RDP clients for Unix.

    Comments

    1. By Anonymous Coward (74.13.46.118) on

      > Nice article, if for no other reason than it introduced me to rdesktop. I had no idea there were RDP clients for Unix.

      For cereal? I mean, that's like been around for ever. So I guess you were just using VNC up till now, huh?

      Comments

      1. By almeida (almeida) on

        > For cereal? I mean, that's like been around for ever. So I guess you were just using VNC up till now, huh?

        For cereal. I've never used a non-Windows desktop long enough to need an RDP client.

        Comments

        1. By Anonymous Coward (64.156.199.189) on

          > > For cereal? I mean, that's like been around for ever. So I guess you were just using VNC up till now, huh?
          >
          > For cereal. I've never used a non-Windows desktop long enough to need an RDP client.

          Yea, I was using VNC for the longest time, until I figured that windows has "remote assistance" for XP, so I began looking for RDP clients, and found out about Rdesktop anc Xrdp.

          Hell, I have Rdesktop on my Solaris box at work now. People in my unix group worship me like a god now. We don't have to have two boxes on our desk now...

          If I could only install OpenBSD on my Ultra-60, that would be great.

          You know, I hate admitting it, but Remote desktop on Windows works better than the UltraVNC I was using before...

          Comments

          1. By Anonymous Coward (66.92.79.15) on

            > If I could only install OpenBSD on my Ultra-60, that would be great.

            Um...what's holding you back? OpenBSD is what's running my Ultra-60 at home.

            Comments

            1. By Anonymous Coward (65.91.30.130) on

              > > If I could only install OpenBSD on my Ultra-60, that would be great.
              >
              > Um...what's holding you back? OpenBSD is what's running my Ultra-60 at home.

              Why won't it install? Ultra 60 was the first box I put OpenBSD on, didn't have any issues at all. Ran from 3.3 to 3.9 before I donated it to the project.

              Comments

              1. By Anonymous Coward (138.163.0.42) on

                > > > If I could only install OpenBSD on my Ultra-60, that would be great.
                > >
                > > Um...what's holding you back? OpenBSD is what's running my Ultra-60 at home.
                >
                > Why won't it install? Ultra 60 was the first box I put OpenBSD on, didn't have any issues at all. Ran from 3.3 to 3.9 before I donated it to the project.

                Because it's my work box, and we cannot install operating systems that aren't in my companies "agility alliance"

                Google that shit... You'll know who I work for.

                Comments

                1. By Anonymous Coward (74.15.66.46) on

                  > > > > If I could only install OpenBSD on my Ultra-60, that would be great.
                  > > Why won't it install? Ultra 60 was the first box I put OpenBSD on, didn't have any issues at all. Ran from 3.3 to 3.9 before I donated it to the project.
                  >
                  > Because it's my work box, and we cannot install operating systems that aren't in my companies "agility alliance"
                  >
                  > Google that shit... You'll know who I work for.

                  I work there too, and I'm amazed that they let you use a Sun box as your work computer. All our Unix support guys have to run Winblows on their work machines. I'm awaiting the stern lecture when they find out that I've got Cygwin on the desktop, as well as OpenBSD inside VMWare.

                  Comments

                  1. By Anonymous Coward (24.30.154.251) on

                    > > > > > If I could only install OpenBSD on my Ultra-60, that would be great.
                    > > > Why won't it install? Ultra 60 was the first box I put OpenBSD on, didn't have any issues at all. Ran from 3.3 to 3.9 before I donated it to the project.
                    > >
                    > > Because it's my work box, and we cannot install operating systems that aren't in my companies "agility alliance"
                    > >
                    > > Google that shit... You'll know who I work for.
                    >
                    > I work there too, and I'm amazed that they let you use a Sun box as your work computer. All our Unix support guys have to run Winblows on their work machines. I'm awaiting the stern lecture when they find out that I've got Cygwin on the desktop, as well as OpenBSD inside VMWare.
                    >

                    Well, If you work at the PCL in San Diego, You'll find me... I do testing for Remedy and Assetcenter, and Oracle, or as I say "Whore-acle".

                    I use a sun box for connection the test network we have. I can't use it to access e-mail (other than Google Mail), but I use it more than my EDS and NMCI boxes.

                    I find that they don't give you flak for running software on your EDS boxes, but god forbid you use Firefox on your NMCI...

                    I am still trying to get in good with the IA folks here, so that I could get away with using OpenBSD on it. I am not sure right now if our IDS can do OS fingerprinting. Or if it does, what the output of an OpenBSD is...

    2. By Anonymous Coward (202.81.60.133) on

      > Nice article, if for no other reason than it introduced me to rdesktop. I had no idea there were RDP clients for Unix.
      that's one of the first program I installed whenever I installs OpenBSD for desktop use.
      heck, I even have RDP client in my cell phone...

    3. By Anonymous Coward (82.154.118.169) on

      > Nice article, if for no other reason than it introduced me to rdesktop. I had no idea there were RDP clients for Unix.

      You may not recall, but you've seen it working at least once during a meeting in Coimbra two or three years ago. Me and my windows needs...

      Comments

      1. By almeida (almeida) on

        > You may not recall, but you've seen it working at least once during a meeting in Coimbra two or three years ago. Me and my windows needs...

        I do not recall that. I've never been to Coimbra.

  2. By jason (TheDudeAbides) jason@snakelegs.org on http://www.snakelegs.org

    For backups, rsnapshot works well -- perl script that rotates hard links and rsync's changes. It's in ports/packages.

  3. By Bernte (129.132.239.8) on

    I was mostly interested in Part 2, as I am no admin. Looks like more a "what applications are available for what job under OpenBSD" than a real, critical review of the system in production to me. What are the users saying? Are "non-techies" also using this setup? What application do they actually use? Are there major incopatibilties? Are there things that just cannot be done? If you could change something for OpenBSD on the Desktop, what would it be? I just look all to "beautiful world" to me, and as an OpenBSD Desktop user, I know that life is diffucult sometimes ...

    Comments

    1. By Pantelis Roditis (prod) on http://blogs.echothrust.org/pantelis-roditis/

      > I was mostly interested in Part 2, as I am no admin. Looks like more a "what applications are available for what job under OpenBSD" than a real, critical review of the system in production to me.

      You are correct on that part (explained bellow).

      > What are the users saying? Are "non-techies" also using this setup? What application do they actually use? Are there major incopatibilties? Are there things that just cannot be done? If you could change something for OpenBSD on the Desktop, what would it be?

      The reason why you don't see any of these in the posts is that the 4th (and final) part is missing. I was hoping to complete the series before I post it on undeadly but "merdely" beat me to it. I was mostly trying to follow in the footsteps of other similar posts that have been surfaced on undeadly (such as "OpenBSD in the Jungle") and didn't try to include much technical details.

      > I just look all to "beautiful world" to me, and as an OpenBSD Desktop user, I know that life is diffucult sometimes ...

      Yeap, that is true, we did came across a few difficulties also mentioned on the final part. Due to quite busy schedule the final part is lacking some parts, but undeadly provided me with enough motivation, so I'll post it soon enough.

      Comments

      1. By Anonymous Coward (24.22.214.92) on

        I wonder, did you have KDE (or kdeartwork) installed? I'm not too familiar with what comes with Qt bare (no KDE), but I've always preferred Qt applications' in both functionality and appearance over GTK ones. Maybe if you get the Plastik theme (I think it's included with kdebase, but you might need kdeartwork; hard disks these days are so cheap it shouldn't be too much of a cost) installed, you'll feel better about the appearance of Qt, granted this is only my opinion.

      2. By Anonymous Coward (129.132.239.8) on

        > Yeap, that is true, we did came across a few difficulties also mentioned on the final part. Due to quite busy schedule the final part is lacking some parts, but undeadly provided me with enough motivation, so I'll post it soon enough.

        I am really looking forward to this story. Hands on experience, specially with OpenBSD on the Desktop is always exciting. We all know how beautiful OpenBSD as a Server OS is, but for me, fun only starts with OpenBSD everywhere ...

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