Are you using OpenBSD for anything other than a firewall or router?

Question

I have been wondering about the relatively small adoption rate of OpenBSD (excepting firewalls and routers).

Is anybody here using OpenBSD for other purposes?

Answer 1

I'm using FreeBSD for a Nagios server at work. I decided to give it a shot over Linux for a change of pace, and ended up liking it. The general directory structure and administration seemed clearer to me than the different versions of Linux I've worked with in the past.

Answer 2

I've heard it being used for an Asterisk server.

Answer 3

My web server (site) run's OpenBSD. I also use it as a server for my Git repo's. It was also a file/media server for a while.

For a period of time I had both a OpenBSD desktop and laptop. Both very capable machines.

Answer 4

See picture for more details:
http://openbsd.4ezi.com/pic/openbsd.jpg

I am using OpenBSD for:
- CA certificate authority (openssl)
- DNS domain name server
- MAIL server (postfix)
- MySQL server
- reverse PROXY server (squid)
- WEB server (apache)
- ...

Answer 5

We run a complete ISP infrastructure on OpenBSD.

• Web Hosting Servers (with PHP, Perl, Python, SQLite, WebDAV, SSL)
• Database Servers (MySQL, PostgreSQL)
• Authoritative and Recursive DNS Servers (BIND)
• Complete Mailing System (SMTP with Postfix, IMAP/POP with Cyrus, Webmail with Roundcube)
• RADIUS Server (FreeRADIUS)
• NTP Server (OpenNTPD)
• VPN Server (IPSec, OpenVPN, Poptop, L2TPd)
• Central Log Server (syslogd)
• Central Snapshots and Backup Server (rsync)
• Central Configuration Management Server (cvs)
• Infrastructure monitoring (Monit, Nagios, MRTG and custom SNMP pollers)
• Intrusion Detection Systems (Snort, Prelude, OSSEC)
• Layer 3/4 and Layer 7 load balancer (relayd)
• SSL Accelerator Proxy with a hardware crypto co-processor. (relayd)

I'm not mentioning the incredible potential, agility and ease of operation of OpenBSD when employed as a router and firewall. Compared to many open source projects, the collective contribution of OpenSSH, pf and OpenBGPd/OpenOSPFd projects to our modern information technology assets is tremendous.

Answer 6

I used it to serve webpages and a database to other hosts. For some time in the past (but about two years ago), I used it as a development system on a laptop.

I did that, because at that time, I mainly developed in emacs and any windowing system would do. :-)

OpenBSD is a lovely system to tinker with. It's BSD, it has ports, it's small and the installation procedure was so simple that it was a joy. Oh, and it's rather secure and drives technology in some interesting fields (at that time, pf was such a clean solution and iirc came from OpenBSD).

Answer 7

I've implemented a PCI compliant KeyServer and a CreditCard Transaction gateway. I also use it for a desktop, email server, web server, and NAS.

Answer 8

I'm using it as a toy desktop in a VM for learning system internals. The source for OpenBSD is amazing in it's clarity and structure, very easy to understand. I think it can be a good desktop OS, but I am not currently using it as such.

Answer 9

I've used OpenBSD for everything - webserver, mailserver, fileserver, firewall and so on.

I also used on my laptop for a while. The only reason I don't do that anymore is the lack of UTF-8 support. You can, and I did, work around it in X11 but it's a hack.

Answer 10

We solely using OpenBSD on all servers. These include several web-, DNS-, mail- firewall- and database servers. We are also starting to deploy Java (Tomcat) on OpenBSD. I absolutely love the cleanliness and stability. We did however switch to Nginx in favor over the default 1.3-based Apache. On high traffic sites that makes a huge difference as OpenBSD is not the fastest OS around. But it is very stable and secure.

I used to run it as my main desktop on my laptop but the lack of things like Flash make it somewhat uncomfortable for 'freetime' surfing. And most ports are somewhat behind on current versions of applications, which means you will have to compile a lot from source if you want new shiny features. Other than that it is also a great desktop OS.

As for servers - you can not choose better IMHO.

Answer 11

I have used OpenBSD as my MTA, WWW and SSH servers for years. About two years ago I virtualized them on OpenBSD running QEMU. About a year ago I switched the base machine to Ubuntu desktop edition running VirtualBox. Around the same time I integrated my MTA and WWW to the same OpenBSD VM.

I also ran it as a laptop OS a while back and it was great, but as others have mentioned the lack of Flash and lag in apps made me move away.

Answer 12

I recently installed it on a spare Celeron 900Mhz 128Mb RAM, no X. I run Erlang OTP R14B and Yaws on it, and I have been using it as my development/test server. It's amazing how after I launch all the processes I need, I still have 70 Mb free RAM. I plan to deploy it soon for my iPhone app.