OpenBSD 4.7

Released May 19, 2010
Copyright 1997-2010, Theo de Raadt.
ISBN 978-0-9784475-5-7
4.7 Song: "I'm still here"

• Order a CDROM from our ordering system.
• See the information on The FTP page for a list of mirror machines.
• Go to the pub/OpenBSD/4.7/ directory on one of the mirror sites.
• Briefly read the rest of this document.
• Have a look at The 4.7 Errata page for a list of bugs and workarounds.
• See a detailed log of changes between the 4.6 and 4.7 releases.

All applicable copyrights and credits can be found in the applicable file sources found in the files src.tar.gz, sys.tar.gz, xenocara.tar.gz, or in the files fetched via ports.tar.gz. The distribution files used to build packages from the ports.tar.gz file are not included on the CDROM because of lack of space.

What's New

This is a partial list of new features and systems included in OpenBSD 4.7. For a comprehensive list, see the changelog leading to 4.7.

• New/extended platforms:
  • OpenBSD/alpha
    • Added support for the DS15/DS25/ES45.
  • OpenBSD/loongson
    New platform for systems based on the Loongson 2E and 2F MIPS-compatible processors. Supported machines include:
    • Lemote Fuloong 2F mini-PC
    • Lemote Lynloong all-in-one-PC
    • Lemote Yeeloong netbook (8.9" and 10.1" models)
    • EMTEC Gdium Liberty 1000 netbook
  • OpenBSD/sgi
    • Added support for multi-node SGI Origin systems, in M mode.
    • Added support for the SGI Origin 350, Onyx 350, Onyx 4 and Tezro systems.
    • Added SMP support on the SGI Octane.
    • Support for many more onboard devices on Octane and Origin systems. (see below)
  • OpenBSD/socppc
    • Added support for the RouterBOARD RB600A.
  • OpenBSD/sparc64
    • Preliminary support for running OpenBSD in a guest domain on top of an OpenBSD control domain on sun4v machines.

• Improved hardware support, including:
  • Revamped SCSI midlayer and improved driver support.
  • UDF 2.5 and 2.6 (HDDVD and Blu-ray) disks support.
  • Added mpath(4), a driver that steals paths to scsi devices if they could be available via multiple paths and then made available via mpath(4).
  • New aibs(4) driver for ASUSTeK AI Booster hardware monitoring.
  • New uthum(4) driver for the TEMPerHUM USB temperature and humidity sensors.
  • New utrh(4) driver for USBRH temperature and humidity sensors.
  • New uyurex(4) driver for the Maywa-denki & KAYAC YUREX twitch/jiggle of knee sensor.
  • New urndis(4) driver for remote NDIS Ethernet over USB devices (phones).
  • New xf86-video-wsudl(4) Xorg driver for USB DisplayLink devices supported by udl(4).
  • New mpii(4) driver for LSI Logic Fusion MPT Message Passing Interface II based SAS 2 controllers.
  • New athn(4) driver for Atheros IEEE 802.11a/g/n wireless network devices.
  • New alc(4) driver for Atheros AR8131/AR8132 10/100/Gigabit Ethernet devices.
  • New lisa(4) driver for STMicroelectronics LIS331DL MEMS motion sensors.
  • New gcu(4) driver for Intel EP80579 Global Configuration Unit.
  • New lom(4) driver for LOMLite and LOMLite2 as found on many of Sun's UltraSPARC-IIi servers.
  • New vsw(4) driver for virtual switches on sun4v machines.
  • New vds(4) driver for virtual disk servers on sun4v machines.
  • Support for EP80579 integrated Ethernet and ICH9 M V has been added to em(4).
  • Support for 82599 and SFP+ 82598 devices has been added to ix(4).
  • Support for the Sun GigabitEthernet SBus Adapter 1.0/1.1 has been added to ti(4).
  • Support for SBus variants of the QLogic Fibre Channel host adapters has been added to isp(4).
  • Support for SBus variants of the Sun Gigabit Ethernet has been added to gem(4).
  • Support for Intel WiFi Link 1000 and Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200/Ultimate-N 6300 has been added to iwn(4).
  • Support for Ralink RT3572 based 802.11n devices has been added to run(4).
  • VIA Tremor 5.1, M-Audio Revolution 5.1 cards has been added to envy(4).
  • New uhts(4) driver for USB HID touchscreens.
  • Improved touchscreen support in the xf86-input-ws(4) Xorg driver and improved calibration using the new device properties from Xinput.
  • Support for ON CAT6095 and ON CAT34TS02 temperature sensors added to sdtemp(4).
  • Several improvements and bug fixes to existing Ethernet drivers, including em(4), re(4), ti(4) and vge(4).
  • Support for the PIC PCI-X controller added to the SGI xbridge(4) driver.
  • Support for the onboard Fast Ethernet interface found on SGI Octane and many SGI Origin family systems, iec(4).
  • Support for more SGI input and video devices on Octane and Origin systems, with iockbc(4), impact(4), and odyssey(4).
  • Improved PCI resource allocation; more hardware left unconfigured by the machine's firmware (including hotplugged hardware) should work now.
  • Support for recording/full-duplex added to mavb(4).
  • Improved support for USB audio devices in uaudio(4).
  • Improved support for bwi(4) devices on strict-alignment architectures like armish.
  • Eliminate usage of SCSI tagged queueing mechanisms other than simple queuing, thus avoiding incorrect implementations on various disk devices.
  • Eliminate spurious dhclient(8) error messages when the specified interface does not exist.
  • Eliminate spurious softraid(4) error messages for removable devices without media.

• New tools:
  • newfs_ext2fs(8) for creating ext2 filesystems.
  • mkuboot(8) for creating U-Boot boot loader images.
  • midicat(1) MIDI server allowing MIDI programs to communicate
  • POSIX-compliant fuser(1) to identify process IDs holding a file open

• Filesystem midlayer improvements:
  • Dynamic Buffer Cache now supported to a max size set with sysctl kern.bufcachepercent
  • Dynamic VFS name cache rewrite, now uses Red/Black trees instead of linked lists.
  • Numerous NFS client stability fixes.
  • Fix FAT32 mounting.
  • Fix cd9660 directory handling to eliminate looping and random truncation of directory entries.
  • Fix various internal locking problems with cd9660, udf, msdosfs and ffs file systems.

• pf(4) improvements:
  • nat-to, rdr-to, binat-to options replace the nat, rdr and binat translation rules. See pf(4) address translation changes for more info.
  • The route-to, reply-to, dup-to and fastroute options in pf.conf move to filteropts. See pf(4) route-to/reply-to syntax change for more info.
  • pf(4) can now translate packets between different routing domains.
  • Added -S and -L options to pfctl(8) to store and load pf state table from a file.
  • Added support for IPV4 and IPv6 divert sockets.

• OpenBGPD, OpenOSPFD and other routing daemon improvements:
  • Update capability code in bgpd(8) to follow RFC 5492.
  • BGP MPLS VPN (RFC 4364) support added to the bgpd RIB.
  • In bgpd(8), implement the RFC4486 BGP Cease Notification Message subcodes.
  • It is now possible to enable/disable specific BGP capabilities.
  • Update bgpctl(8) irrfilter to support IPv6 and 4-byte AS numbers.
  • Minimal router-dead-time of 1 second and sub-second hello intervals added to ospfd(8). Additionally it is now possible to specify sub-second SPF timers for faster route fail-over.
  • ospf6d(8) is now installed by default. The RIB can be synced with the kernel routing table now. Support for AS-ext LSA has been added. This is still work-in-progress but testing is highly appreciated.
  • ldpd -- the MPLS label distribution protocol daemon -- is now installed by default. A custom kernel with option MPLS is needed to use it.

• Generic network stack improvements:
  • brconfig is now integrated into ifconfig(8)
  • Added vether(4), a virtual Ethernet device.
  • Two bugs in IPsec/HMAC-SHA2 were fixed, resulting in an incompatibility with the HMAC-SHA-256/384/512 hash algorithms with previous versions of OpenBSD and other IPsec implementations sharing the bugs.
  • In dhcpd(8), echo back the Relay Agent Information option if present, and add support for the ipsec-tunnel hardware type.
  • Make dhcrelay(8) pick up the routing domain from the specified interface and use that rdomain for relaying the packets to the server.
  • Added support in dhcrelay(8) for RFC3046 "DHCP-over-ipsec".
  • Make the tcpdump(8) BGP OPEN capability parser RFC 5492 compliant.
  • Added an exec command to route(8) to run a process and its children in a specified routing domain.
  • ifconfig(8) now deals with more than 64 alias addresses.
  • Various fixes to mbuf defragmenting and mbuf chain copying improve reliability.

• Assorted improvements:
  • malloc(3) now has an S flag to turn on the options that help debugging and improve security.
  • Updated terminfo(3) database and ncurses(3) library.
  • Added support for lazy binding in ld.so(1) on hppa.
  • Added POSIX silent check option (-C) to sort(1).
  • Added POSIX extended regular expression support to sed(1) (-E option).
  • Added GNU-compatible macro prefix option (-P) to m4(1).
  • Make it possible to specify a port in resolv.conf(5).
  • Improved FILE locking support in stdio(3).
  • Added SO_SNDTIMEO and SO_RCVTIMEO support in pthreads(3).
  • cdio(1) no longer prints bogus information if no TOC is found on the disk.
  • New -v flag causes cdio(1) to print profile and feature information.
  • whois(1) no longer attempts to keep the memory of 6Bone alive.
  • Added per-application MIDI-controlled volume knob to aucat(1)
  • Added MMC and MTC support to aucat(1) making possible MIDI-to-audio synchronization
  • Added mio_open(3) interface to access hardware and software MIDI ports
  • Many memory leaks found by parfait and eliminated.
  • Make handling of floppy disk disklabels more reliable by properly initializing starting label.

• Install/Upgrade process changes:
  • Take more care to ensure all filesystems are umount'ed when restarting an install or upgrade.
  • If no possible root disk is found, keep checking until one appears.
  • The default ftp directory for -stable is now the release directory instead of the snapshot directory.
  • Selection of TZ during installs is no longer confused by trailing slashes.
  • If /etc/X11 is found during upgrades, add the X sets to the list of default sets to install.

• OpenSSH 5.5:
  • New features:
    • SSH protocol 1 is disabled by default.
    • Remove the libsectok/OpenSC-based smartcard code and add support for PKCS#11 tokens.
    • Add support for certificate authentication of users and hosts using a new, minimal OpenSSH certificate format (not X.509).
    • Added a 'netcat mode' to ssh(1).
    • Add the ability to revoke keys in sshd(8) and ssh(1).
    • Rewrite the ssh(1) multiplexing support to support non-blocking operation of the mux master.
    • Add a 'read-only' mode to sftp-server(8) that disables open in write mode and all other fs-modifying protocol methods. (bz#430)
    • Allow setting an explicit umask on the sftp-server(8) commandline to override whatever default the user has. (bz#1229)
    • Many improvements to the sftp(1) client.
    • New RSA keys will be generated with a public exponent of 65537 instead of the previous value 35.
    • Passphrase-protected SSH protocol 2 private keys are now protected with AES-128 instead of 3DES.
  • The following significant bugs have been fixed in this release:
    • Fixed a minor information leak of environment variables specified in authorized_keys if an attacker happens to know the public key in use.
    • When using ChrootDirectory, make sure we test for the existence of the user's shell inside the chroot and not outside. (bz#1679)
    • Cache user and group name lookups in sftp-server using user_from_[ug]id(3) to improve performance on hosts where these operations are slow. (bz#1495)
    • Fix problem that prevented passphrase reading from being interrupted in some circumstances. (bz#1590)
    • Ignore and log any Protocol 1 keys where the claimed size is not equal to the actual size.
    • Make HostBased authentication work with a ProxyCommand. (bz#1569)
    • Avoid run-time failures when specifying hostkeys via a relative path by prepending the current working directory in these cases. (bz#1290)
    • Do not prompt for a passphrase if we fail to open a keyfile, and log the reason why the open failed to debug. (bz#1693)
    • Document that the PubkeyAuthentication directive is allowed in a sshd_config(5) Match block. (bz#1577)
    • When converting keys, truncate key comments at 72 chars as per RFC4716. (bz#1630)
    • Do not allow logins if /etc/nologin exists but is not readable by the user logging in.
    • Output a debug log if sshd(8) can't open an existing authorized_keys. (bz#1694)
    • Quell tc[gs]etattr(3) warnings when forcing a tty (ssh -tt), since we usually don't actually have a tty to read/set. (bz#1686)
    • Prevent sftp(1) from crashing when given a "-" without a command; also, allow whitespace to follow a "-". (bz#1691)
    • After sshd(8) receives a SIGHUP, ignore subsequent HUPs while sshd(8) re-execs itself; prevents two HUPs in quick succession from resulting in sshd(8) dying. (bz#1692)
    • Clarify in sshd_config(5) that StrictModes does not apply to ChrootDirectory; permissions and ownership are always checked when chrooting. (bz#1532)
    • Set close-on-exec on various descriptors so they don't get leaked to child processes. (bz#1643)
    • Fix very rare race condition in x11/agent channel allocation
    • Fix incorrect exit status when multiplexing and channel ID 0 is recycled. (bz#1570)
    • Fail with an error when an attempt is made to connect to a server with ForceCommand=internal-sftp with a shell session. (bz#1606)
    • Warn but do not fail if stat(2)ing the subsystem binary fails. (bz#1599)
    • Change "Connecting to host..." message to "Connected to host." and delay it until after the sftp protocol connection has been established. (bz#1588)
    • Use the HostKeyAlias rather than the hostname specified on the commandline when prompting for passwords. (bz#1039)
    • Correct off-by-one in percent_expand(). (bz#1607)
    • Fix passing of empty options from scp(1) and sftp(1) to the underlying ssh(1); also add support for the stop option "--".
    • Fix an incorrect magic number and typo in PROTOCOL. (bz#1688)
    • Don't escape backslashes when displaying the SSH2 banner. (bz#1533)
    • Don't unnecessarily dup() the in and out fds for sftp-server(8). (bz#1566)
    • Force use of the correct hash function for random-art signature display. (bz#1611)
    • Do not fall back to adding keys without constraints when the agent refuses the constrained add request. (bz#1612)
    • Fix a race condition in ssh-agent(1) that could result in a wedged or spinning agent. (bz#1633)
    • Flush stdio before exec() to ensure that everything has made it out before the streams go away. (bz#1596)
    • Set FD_CLOEXEC on in/out sockets in sshd(8). (bz#1706)

• Over 5,800 ports, major robustness and speed improvements in package tools.
• Many pre-built packages for each architecture:

  i386: 5951 sparc64: 5745 alpha: 5641

  sh: 768 amd64: 5879 powerpc: 5785

  sparc: 4053 arm: 3711 hppa: 5500

  vax: 1785 mips64: 3690 mips64el: 4316

  Some highlights:
  • Gnome 2.28.2.
  • KDE 3.5.10.
  • Xfce 4.6.1.
  • MySQL 5.1.42.
  • PostgreSQL 8.4.2.
  • Postfix 2.6.5.
  • OpenLDAP 2.3.43.
  • Mozilla Firefox 3.0.18 and 3.5.8.
  • Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.23.
  • OpenOffice.org 3.1.1.
  • Emacs 21.4 and 22.3
  • Vim 7.2.267.
  • PHP 5.2.12.
  • Python 2.4.6, 2.5.4 and 2.6.3.
  • Ruby 1.8.6.369.

• As usual, steady improvements in manual pages and other documentation.

• The system includes the following major components from outside suppliers:
  • Xenocara (based on X.Org 7.4 with xserver 1.6.5 + patches, freetype 2.3.9, fontconfig 2.6.0, Mesa 7.4.2, xterm 250 and more)
  • Gcc 2.95.3 (+ patches) and 3.3.5 (+ patches)
  • Perl 5.10.1 (+ patches)
  • Our improved and secured version of Apache 1.3, with SSL/TLS and DSO support
  • OpenSSL 0.9.8k (+ patches)
  • Groff 1.15
  • Sendmail 8.14.3, with libmilter
  • Bind 9.4.2-P2 (+ patches)
  • Lynx 2.8.6rel.5 with HTTPS and IPv6 support (+ patches)
  • Sudo 1.7.2
  • Ncurses 5.7
  • Latest KAME IPv6
  • Heimdal 0.7.2 (+ patches)
  • Arla 0.35.7
  • Binutils 2.15 (+ patches)
  • Gdb 6.3 (+ patches)

How to install

Following this are the instructions which you would have on a piece of paper if you had purchased a CDROM set instead of doing an alternate form of install. The instructions for doing an FTP (or other style of) install are very similar; the CDROM instructions are left intact so that you can see how much easier it would have been if you had purchased a CDROM instead.

• CD1:4.7/i386/INSTALL.i386

• CD2:4.7/amd64/INSTALL.amd64
• CD2:4.7/macppc/INSTALL.macppc

• CD3:4.7/sparc64/INSTALL.sparc64

• FTP:.../OpenBSD/4.7/alpha/INSTALL.alpha
• FTP:.../OpenBSD/4.7/armish/INSTALL.armish
• FTP:.../OpenBSD/4.7/hp300/INSTALL.hp300
• FTP:.../OpenBSD/4.7/hppa/INSTALL.hppa
• FTP:.../OpenBSD/4.7/landisk/INSTALL.landisk
• FTP:.../OpenBSD/4.7/loongson/INSTALL.loongson
• FTP:.../OpenBSD/4.7/mvme68k/INSTALL.mvme68k
• FTP:.../OpenBSD/4.7/mvme88k/INSTALL.mvme88k
• FTP:.../OpenBSD/4.7/sgi/INSTALL.sgi
• FTP:.../OpenBSD/4.7/socppc/INSTALL.socppc
• FTP:.../OpenBSD/4.7/sparc/INSTALL.sparc
• FTP:.../OpenBSD/4.7/vax/INSTALL.vax
• FTP:.../OpenBSD/4.7/zaurus/INSTALL.zaurus

Quick installer information for people familiar with OpenBSD, and the use of the "disklabel -E" command. If you are at all confused when installing OpenBSD, read the relevant INSTALL.* file as listed above!

OpenBSD/i386:

Play with your BIOS options to enable booting from a CD. The OpenBSD/i386 release is on CD1. If your BIOS does not support booting from CD, you will need to create a boot floppy to install from. To create a boot floppy write CD1:4.7/i386/floppy47.fs to a floppy and boot via the floppy drive.

Use CD1:4.7/i386/floppyB47.fs instead for greater SCSI controller support, or CD1:4.7/i386/floppyC47.fs for better laptop support.

If you can't boot from a CD or a floppy disk, you can install across the network using PXE as described in the included INSTALL.i386 document.

If you are planning on dual booting OpenBSD with another OS, you will need to read INSTALL.i386.

To make a boot floppy under MS-DOS, use the "rawrite" utility located at CD1:4.7/tools/rawrite.exe. To make the boot floppy under a Unix OS, use the dd(1) utility. The following is an example usage of dd(1), where the device could be "floppy", "rfd0c", or "rfd0a".

# dd if=<file> of=/dev/<device> bs=32k

Make sure you use properly formatted perfect floppies with NO BAD BLOCKS or your install will most likely fail. For more information on creating a boot floppy and installing OpenBSD/i386 please refer to FAQ 4.3.2.

OpenBSD/amd64:

The 4.7 release of OpenBSD/amd64 is located on CD2. Boot from the CD to begin the install - you may need to adjust your BIOS options first. If you can't boot from the CD, you can create a boot floppy to install from. To do this, write CD2:4.7/amd64/floppy47.fs to a floppy, then boot from the floppy drive.

If you can't boot from a CD or a floppy disk, you can install across the network using PXE as described in the included INSTALL.amd64 document.

If you are planning to dual boot OpenBSD with another OS, you will need to read INSTALL.amd64.

OpenBSD/macppc:

Put CD2 in your CDROM drive and poweron your machine while holding down the C key until the display turns on and shows OpenBSD/macppc boot.

Alternatively, at the Open Firmware prompt, enter boot cd:,ofwboot /4.7/macppc/bsd.rd

OpenBSD/sparc64:

Put CD3 in your CDROM drive and type boot cdrom.

If this doesn't work, or if you don't have a CDROM drive, you can write CD3:4.7/sparc64/floppy47.fs or CD3:4.7/sparc64/floppyB47.fs (depending on your machine) to a floppy and boot it with boot floppy. Refer to INSTALL.sparc64 for details.

Make sure you use a properly formatted floppy with NO BAD BLOCKS or your install will most likely fail.

You can also write CD3:4.7/sparc64/miniroot47.fs to the swap partition on the disk and boot with boot disk:b.

If nothing works, you can boot over the network as described in INSTALL.sparc64.

OpenBSD/alpha:

Write FTP:4.7/alpha/floppy47.fs or FTP:4.7/alpha/floppyB47.fs (depending on your machine) to a diskette and enter boot dva0. Refer to INSTALL.alpha for more details.

Make sure you use a properly formatted floppy with NO BAD BLOCKS or your install will most likely fail.

OpenBSD/armish:

After connecting a serial port, Thecus can boot directly from the network either tftp or http. Configure the network using fconfig, reset, then load bsd.rd, see INSTALL.armish for specific details. IOData HDL-G can only boot from an EXT-2 partition. Boot into linux and copy 'boot' and bsd.rd into the first partition on wd0 (hda1) then load and run bsd.rd, preserving the wd0i (hda1) ext2fs partition. More details are available in INSTALL.armish.

OpenBSD/hp300:

Boot over the network by following the instructions in INSTALL.hp300.

OpenBSD/hppa:

Boot over the network by following the instructions in INSTALL.hppa or the hppa platform page.

OpenBSD/landisk:

Write miniroot47.fs to the start of the CF or disk, and boot normally.

OpenBSD/loongson:

Write miniroot47.fs to a USB stick and boot bsd.rd from it or boot bsd.rd via tftp. Refer to the instructions in INSTALL.loongson for more details.

OpenBSD/mvme68k:

You can create a bootable installation tape or boot over the network.
The network boot requires a MVME68K BUG version that supports the NIOT and NBO debugger commands. Follow the instructions in INSTALL.mvme68k for more details.

OpenBSD/mvme88k:

You can create a bootable installation tape or boot over the network.
The network boot requires a MVME88K BUG version that supports the NIOT and NBO debugger commands. Follow the instructions in INSTALL.mvme88k for more details.

OpenBSD/sgi:

To install on an O2, burn cd47.iso on a CD-R, put it in the CD drive of your machine and select Install System Software from the System Maintenance menu.

On other systems, or if your machine doesn't have a CD drive, you can setup a DHCP/tftp network server, and boot using "bootp()/bsd.rd.IP##" using the kernel matching your system type. Refer to the instructions in INSTALL.sgi for more details.

OpenBSD/socppc:

After connecting a serial port, boot over the network via DHCP/tftp. Refer to the instructions in INSTALL.socppc for more details.

OpenBSD/sparc:

Boot from one of the provided install ISO images, using one of the two commands listed below, depending on the version of your ROM.

ok boot cdrom 4.7/sparc/bsd.rd
or
> b sd(0,6,0)4.7/sparc/bsd.rd

If your SPARC system does not have a CD drive, you can alternatively boot from floppy. To do so you need to write floppy47.fs to a floppy. For more information see FAQ 4.3.2. To boot from the floppy use one of the two commands listed below, depending on the version of your ROM.

ok boot floppy
or
> b fd()

Make sure you use a properly formatted floppy with NO BAD BLOCKS or your install will most likely fail.

If your SPARC system doesn't have a floppy drive nor a CD drive, you can either setup a bootable tape, or install via network, as told in the INSTALL.sparc file.

OpenBSD/vax:

Boot over the network via mopbooting as described in INSTALL.vax.

OpenBSD/zaurus:

Using the Linux built-in graphical ipkg installer, install the openbsd47_arm.ipk package. Reboot, then run it. Read INSTALL.zaurus for a few important details.

Notes about the source code:

src.tar.gz contains a source archive starting at /usr/src. This file contains everything you need except for the kernel sources, which are in a separate archive. To extract:

# mkdir -p /usr/src
# cd /usr/src
# tar xvfz /tmp/src.tar.gz

sys.tar.gz contains a source archive starting at /usr/src/sys. This file contains all the kernel sources you need to rebuild kernels. To extract:

# mkdir -p /usr/src/sys
# cd /usr/src
# tar xvfz /tmp/sys.tar.gz

Both of these trees are a regular CVS checkout. Using these trees it is possible to get a head-start on using the anoncvs servers as described here. Using these files results in a much faster initial CVS update than you could expect from a fresh checkout of the full OpenBSD source tree.

How to upgrade

If you already have an OpenBSD 4.6 system, and do not want to reinstall, upgrade instructions and advice can be found in the Upgrade Guide.

Ports Tree

A ports tree archive is also provided. To extract:

# cd /usr
# tar xvfz /tmp/ports.tar.gz
# cd ports

The ports/ subdirectory is a checkout of the OpenBSD ports tree. Go read the ports page if you know nothing about ports at this point. This text is not a manual of how to use ports. Rather, it is a set of notes meant to kickstart the user on the OpenBSD ports system.

The ports/ directory represents a CVS (see the manpage for cvs(1) if you aren't familiar with CVS) checkout of our ports. As with our complete source tree, our ports tree is available via anoncvs. So, in order to keep current with it, you must make the ports/ tree available on a read-write medium and update the tree with a command like:

# cd [portsdir]/; cvs -d anoncvs@server.openbsd.org:/cvs update -Pd -rOPENBSD_4_7

[Of course, you must replace the local directory and server name here with the location of your ports collection and a nearby anoncvs server.]

Note that most ports are available as packages through FTP. Updated packages for the 4.7 release will be made available if problems arise.

If you're interested in seeing a port added, would like to help out, or just would like to know more, the mailing list ports@openbsd.org is a good place to know.