Contributed by grey on from the can't wait for my unbloated puffy mascot tshirt dept.
http://www.blackant.net/other/docs/unpuffed/
(Comments are closed)
OpenBSD Journal
Contributed by grey on from the can't wait for my unbloated puffy mascot tshirt dept.
http://www.blackant.net/other/docs/unpuffed/
(Comments are closed)
Copyright © - Daniel Hartmeier. All rights reserved. Articles and comments are copyright their respective authors, submission implies license to publish on this web site. Contents of the archive prior to as well as images and HTML templates were copied from the fabulous original deadly.org with Jose's and Jim's kind permission. This journal runs as CGI with httpd(8) on OpenBSD, the source code is BSD licensed. undeadly \Un*dead"ly\, a. Not subject to death; immortal. [Obs.]
By Anonymous Coward (69.158.153.54) on
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By jitterbug (64.48.234.153) dance-i-said@yahoo.com on
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By Joe (24.1.16.2) on
Simply unbelievable.
By Anonymous Coward (67.141.129.97) on
"Though the default install allows for remote logins, little else is running by default, leaving a relatively useless install for no apparent gain. Contrast this with more robust OS's which run many more services."
The sad thing is that I know a large number of people who actually do see it this way and wouldn't get the joke at all. *Shiver*
By Anonymous Coward (71.0.126.14) on
I think that separating the the server daemons into serverXX.tgz package would be better than throwing them all in the baseXX.tgz. Some people don't always need them, like those using OpenBSD as a desktop system or for terminals needing client only access. This could also save a bit of FTP traffic in addition to the users disk space.
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By Michael Knudsen (217.157.199.114) on
Assuming that 50% of base36 is servers, then you might save perhaps a grand total of nearly 50MB!
How much is a 250GB IDE disk these days again?
Don't trade a non-issue for complexity. If space constraints is an issue, look at something like flashdist.
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By Anonymous Coward (213.118.35.44) on
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By Tim (168.253.133.120) on
OpenBSD is hard to learn. But when you learn something on OpenBSD, you are astounded with how easy and fast it is to accomplish your task.
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By Anonymous Coward (71.0.126.14) on
I probably should have stated that I think they should be optional, but still part of the default install in my original post.
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By Anonymous Coward (66.63.143.34) on
By Peter Dembinski (217.96.175.71) pdembinski@konin.lm.pl on http://www.pdembinski.konin.lm.pl
By Anonymous Coward (71.0.126.14) on
By Anonymous Coward (213.118.165.151) on
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By Anonymous Coward (71.0.126.14) on
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By Leon Yendor (218.214.194.113) on
Do you mean that we would lump ntpd, smtpd, sshd, spamd and others with httpd and ftpd for example?
I may want sshd on every install but ftpd never. Maybe I want ntpd as well on every workstation but I never want spamd on my webserver nor do I want, for example, httpd on my mailserver.
How about you just set the flags in rc.conf to not run the things you don't want running?
The way things are now I can do an install in a bit over 5 minutes. With too many splits I am going to feel like this is Lunix where I cannot do an install of one of the majors in less than 30 minutes.
In addition, however the daemon set(s) is/are split there will be whining about the selection.
As it is httpd is installed on every box I load. I rarely use it. Changing rc.conf to make it run at boot time PLUS doing a quick edit of httpd.conf takes me less than 10 minutes. BFD!
Next there will be crying about how it would be better to compile optimised kernels at install time....HarDeHarFingHar!
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By Anonymous Coward (128.36.236.30) on
It shouldn't take more than a few minutes to copy Lunix to a floppy disk and boot it.
By Anonymous Coward (71.0.126.14) on
There are two basic types of install. Server and client. A client needs no server components. Those would be httpd, ftpd, sshd, etc. Basically, any daemon used to allow remote access to the machine. You know, actually "serves" something per an outside user's request? A client install needs none of that, instead it needs basic tools that access those kinds of services.
You may not want to run ftpd but run sshd on everything. That is, after all, your perogative. And if that is the case, then install the server set, and then only start up the ones you want. At least you have a reason to install the server set. But that would be too complicated wouldn't it? Better that we all just install all of them by default, even if we wont run even one of them, right?
Or, you could build ftpd alone from the source. That would require that you install the optional compiler package though.
It's nothing shy of lazy if you won't type "servXX.tgz" to include the server collection. It says nothing less than incompetent if you can't figure out if your server might need server compnents.
Actually, you should have to type "-servXX.tgz" if you don't want them, because it should really be an opt-out package for those who know they wont be using it. With it being opt-out, nothing changes about your install process, except you forfeiting your ability to decline. But then again, typing "done" at the install sets prompt like you normally do it just too much effort isn't it?
This is about a logical divide between what constitues a "base" system, and what things are addons to its usability. A base system doesn't need a compiler, it is optional. A base system, doesn't need X, again, it's optional. Many would argue that man pages are essential, but even these are optional. Noone "needs" games, yet they too are optional, and even installed by default. Servers? Not everyone needs them, but eveyone gets them regardless.
What part of letting users choose thier install sets based on the systems inteded role doesn't make sense to you?
If I am building a system for a firewall, I don't need X, the compiler, the man pages, or much of anything else for that matter. Why would I need Apache? In fact, if I am running it diskless, I probably want as little cruft as possible clogging up my RAM. Why should I install anything but a real "base" system here if all I really need is a working kernel and pf?
Over complicating is trying to take a simple idea such as giving users the flexabilty to say "I wont be needing any of those", and turning it into "lets break it into a million pieces". It's not only a huge stretch of the imagination, it's also an indication of narrow thinking.
Oh, and since you don't really seem to be that familair with the nuances of the rc.conf file as you think, by default, no servers are set to run except sshd, for which you are asked to confirm that intent upon install. So really, out of the box, if a user has no intention of running any server daemons, he doesn't have to do a thing. That's real hard, isn't it?
The saying goes "Secure by Default", not "Server by Default".
The question still remains though, that if one doesn't plan to use OpenBSD in a server environment, and by default no servers work until properly configed and acivated anyway, why should they have to install server components at all?
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By Anonymous Coward (213.118.165.151) on
Other "daemons" you may want include lpd, ntpd, maybe a caching named, various daemons for netbooting (you never know when you have to temporarily set up a netboot server on your laptop in 5 minutes to install another box), ftpd (to serve the contents of the installation cd to that dusty sparc without cdrom you're installing), ...
So really, what do you gain by separating the daemons from base? You gain a tiny bit of disk space (which is dirt cheap on a client pc; heck, even a zaurus has plenty of space). You don't gain any security. But you lose convenience.
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By Anonymous Coward (71.0.126.14) on
By tedu (64.173.147.27) on
um, what? how does installing apache on an nfs server clog up your client machine's ram?
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By Anonymous Coward (71.0.126.14) on
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By tedu (64.173.147.27) on
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By Anonymous Coward (71.0.126.14) on
pxeboot(8)
For the rest, google is your freind.
Funny though, last I checked, the subject wasn't about the specifics of how to deflate the base package onto a ramdrive, but why server specific components should be optional. But unless a developer comes out and says it's a good idea personally, the rest of the community will never agree with the notion. And if one does say that, you all always thought so too. For those reasons, I won't hold my breath on this ever happening.
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By tedu (69.227.45.201) on
that was exactly my point. :)
even if there were some hypothetical client.tgz and server.tgz packages, nobody creating a ramdisk would shove the entire contents of either into a ramdisk. so the whole "clogging up my ram" argument is just absurd.
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By Anonymous Coward (71.0.126.14) on
that was exactly my point. :)
even if there were some hypothetical client.tgz and server.tgz packages, nobody creating a ramdisk would shove the entire contents of either into a ramdisk.
Sorry, but that was not your point. I cited a hypothetical example of how one could benifit from a smaller, more minimal base. It's not the best way to go about the suggestion, but it's actually alot less difficult than building your own minimal system. You were the one who made issue of how exactly to go about doing it, so don't even try to claim that your point was showing me as off subject.
so the whole "clogging up my ram" argument is just absurd.
Wow, shall I point you to the defintion of "context"? You are clearly trying to take "clogging up my RAM" out of it. Since I am speaking of a space needed to hold a file system on a ramdrive, the smaller that file system is, the smaller that ramdrive itself can be. A smaller ramdrive leaves more physical memory open for the actual processes. And if you can't see the logic in that, I feel sorry for you.
Further, I never said anything about a client.tgz, only seperating the server daemons from base into an optional-but-installed-by-default package. My idea probably naively assumes that everyone needs the basic client utils on almost every system, including servers. Or at least, a marginal few wont make use of them compared to the disproportionate number of those who wont make use of the servers.
It may be hard for some of you to imagine, but some people are actually using OpenBSD for desktops instead of or in addition to servers. I only recently started playing with it as such, even though I have been using OpenBSD for every other role I could think of for years. I find that it works well beyond my expecations, to the credit of all the developers and port maintainers. It works well enough that I now have no use for any other operating system. But that still doesn't mean that my desktop needs apache or an ftp server installed on it, even if they are not running by default. And that has been my only point in all along.
If we know we don't need them, let us have the option to skip them during install. It's not rocket science.
What is absurd is that I keep responding to a more or less dead horse of a passing comment, and feeding the trolls who would rather spew FUD about complication, or nit pick the semantics of how-to for every what-if that someone might do with an install. Yet, for all of it, not one person has stated a reason why they actually should remain in the base package.