OpenBSD 8.0: the 61st release of the security-focused BSD

The OpenBSD project has shipped a new version of its operating system. Theo de Raadt has announced the release of OpenBSD 8.0, the project's 61^st release. It is a free, multi-platform UNIX-like system built on 4.4BSD, long known for its emphasis on portability, correctness and proactive security.

As usual, the developers describe the release in measured terms: significant improvements, including new features, across nearly all areas of the system. The announcement puts most of its emphasis on changes tied to specific hardware platforms.

Platform-specific changes

On amd64, the kernel virtual address space has been raised from 4 GB to 512 GB. The pmap direct map is now placed at a random location, making the memory layout harder to predict. Swap encryption has also been sped up by using the CPU's AES instructions.

On arm64, hibernate support has been added, AES instructions likewise accelerate swap encryption, and bounce buffers have been implemented.

The luna88k platform received a set of fixes for the m88k architecture: multiple CMMU register writes were corrected, kernel-mode CMMU fault handling was extended to cover write-protection faults, and the CMMU walk was made faster.

For riscv64, the system now detects CPU extensions and advertises those usable by userland through AT_HWCAP and AT_HWCAP2 queries via the elf_aux_info(3) interface.

Downloads

Installation images are available for several architectures: amd64 (794 MB), arm64 (627 MB) and i386 (476 MB). A complete list of changes can be found in the official release announcement.

Source: DistroWatch