OpenBSD Musings
I installed OpenBSD 4.0 on my firewall last night. The install went without a hitch, and I'm rather pleased with the results. Some thoughts:
- The install is a bit more intimidating than FreeBSD's, but is actually no harder to use – it just looks harder.
- For a while I put off doing the install because I didn't want to order the CD and didn't want my network down for an FTP install. Turns out that the OS is pretty small, and my local mirror was pretty fast.
- Having used FreeBSD for years, I felt perfectly at home with OpenBSD. In fact, the only thing about the OS that I don't like is the RC system. FreeBSD is using NetBSD's new rc system, and I've been spoiled by it. OpenBSD's rc seems primitive and hackish in comparison. (Though, I do see why the OpenBSD developers haven't included it...)
- PF is the shit. I realize that I could have ran PF under FreeBSD, but given 6.x's poor UDP performance... Anyways, PF is the nicest firewall I've ever used. Fast, powerful, and easy to configure.