The annotated tag v6.4.2 for DragonFly BSD has been created, replacing v6.4.1. Key updates include fixes for virtio block devices, improvements to fdisk(8), and a kernel fix addressing panic and user process corruption.
The second BETA build for the FreeBSD 14.3 release cycle is now available. ISO images for the amd64, i386, powerpc, powerpc64, powerpc64le, powerpcspe, armv6, armv7, aarch64, and riscv64 architectures are FreeBSD mirror sites.
The NetBSD Foundation is participating in Google Summer of Code 2025 with three projects: Enhancing Support for NAT64 Protocol Translation in NetBSD, Asynchronous I/O Framework, and Using bubblewrap to add sandboxing to NetBSD. The community bonding period will last for 3 weeks, during which mentors and contributors will familiarize themselves with the code and adjust deliverables.
Alexander Bluhm has committed changes to optimize parallel TCP input by caching the socket lock, reducing contention. This update improves performance by 12% to 22% with 10 parallel TCP streams and up to 100% with a single stream. The changes involve temporarily moving TCP packets to a per-thread queue, processing them under a shared lock, and reducing socket lock contention. This enhancement builds on previous work and contributes to significant performance gains in TCP processing.
OpenBSD 7.7, ZFS Orchestration Tools – Part 2: Replication, Switching customers from Linux to BSD because boring is good, Graphed and measured: running TCP input in parallel, Introducing an OpenBSD LLDP daemon, Hardware discovery: ACPI & Device Tree, The 2025 FreeBSD Community Survey is Here, and more.
Upstreaming FreeBSD changes is a strategic choice for commercial products, as it reduces technical debt, streamlines upgrades, and ensures long-term sustainability. By contributing to the upstream project, teams can lower upgrade friction, simplify security audits, and share maintenance efforts with the community. This approach also improves developer productivity and reduces the risk of regressions. Common barriers to upstreaming, such as perceived slowdowns or code quality concerns, can be overcome with incremental contributions and collaboration with maintainers.
The bpflogd(8) tool has been introduced into OpenBSD, offering enhanced packet logging capabilities. Unlike pflogd(8), it supports logging on any BPF interface and multiple interfaces simultaneously. It uses libevent for non-blocking operations and captures full packets by default. This tool aims to assist in debugging network issues by logging packets from multiple sources. Developers are encouraging user feedback on its performance and usability.
David Gwynne has committed lldpd(8), a daemon that acts as an LLDP agent on Ethernet interfaces, to OpenBSD -current. This daemon uses AF_FRAME Ethernet sockets to efficiently listen for LLDP packets across all interfaces. Additionally, a companion tool, lldp(8), was committed to interact with the daemon, allowing users to fetch and display LLDP packets. Both tools are now linked to the build, and further development and testing are encouraged.
OpenSSH has officially removed DSA signature support as of May 2025. The change, completed by Damien Miller, involved modifying and removing several files related to DSA in the OpenSSH codebase. This update aligns with ongoing efforts to phase out outdated cryptographic algorithms. Users are encouraged to verify the removal and adapt their configurations accordingly. The move is part of a broader initiative to enhance security and modernize the OpenSSH ecosystem.
In this blog post, Dane Harrigan explains how he added tab completion of paths in CDPATH to cd, in ksh.
OpenSSH is preparing to remove the final traces of DSA support, as announced by Damien Miller. This change aims to streamline the codebase but requires community testing to ensure compatibility, especially for interoperability tests. Users are encouraged to assist with testing before the changes are finalized. This follows earlier efforts to phase out DSA, aligning OpenSSH with modern cryptographic standards.
OpenBSD has implemented a security enhancement by moving SSH agent listener sockets from /tmp to ~/.ssh/agent. This change leverages the unveil(2) mechanism to prevent processes with restricted filesystem access, such as Firefox, from accessing SSH keys. The update also introduces new ssh-agent flags for managing stale sockets and supports NFS home directories. This improvement aims to enhance SSH security for users on the OpenBSD platform.
The OpenBSD installer has been updated to prefer disks larger than 1GB as the default root disk during installation. This change aims to avoid selecting smaller or less suitable disks, such as install media or external drives, as the default option. The update modifies the disk selection process to prioritize larger disks, enhancing user convenience. This improvement is expected to streamline the installation process by reducing the need for manual adjustments.