Re: can't find books.html link
I found this by trial and error http://www.openbsd.org/books.html I wonder why the link was removed from the homepage though.
Re: Comprehensive user's/programmer's manual for OpenBSD: Do they exist?
Thanks for the response everyone. I tinkered with the system a bit more and the manpages were indeed better than what I expected, so in hindsight my question wasn't very informed. Based on the responses, it seems like OpenBSD does not deviate much from any Unix-like operating systems. I also picked up Design and implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System and that book really speaks to me. It tells me what I want to hear in terms of how the system operates, and also how the system DOESN'T operate: like how system calls are the only interface to the kernel, and nothing else. I hope most of the things on there is still correct in OpenBSD though. Anyway, I didn't want to pollute the mailing list with too much idle chitchat but it would be nice if there is a way to close a topic that I already feel has been answered satisfactorily because I feel somewhat guilty having people spend their time answering a question that I've already ``outgrown''. This community is really different... people really go out of their way to provide good answers to people's questions! :)
Comprehensive user's/programmer's manual for OpenBSD: Do they exist?
I wasn't able to find such a thing but perhaps I just missed it. I am wondering if anyone in the community knows whether such manuals exist for OpenBSD. Manpages are nice but they're not what I'm looking for. Trying to learn OpenBSD by looking up individual manpages is like trying to learn C programming by looking up individual functions. Sure you get a description of the functions but you will NOT get all the background information like C syntax, semantics, memory model, pointers, the whole shebang that every beginner *should* know, but don't have the background knowledge to know that they should be looking these up in manpages or elsewhere. I'd like to acquire confident working knowledge in OpenBSD. If no such manuals exist, then I'm wondering how did you or other expert users learn how to use and administrate the system, what the best programming practices are, etc. and have confidence that what they're doing is what they think they're doing? Surely it's not just by trial and error and seeing what appears to work because their ignorance will be a frustrating source of bugs and security flaws?
Re: Creating a blog using OpenBSD: technology choices and security considerations
Hello, Wow, thank you for all responses. I did not expect this many. You guys are really helpful! I had a feeling my original plan was too complicated. I appreciate that you guys are pointing it out. Honest feedback is good feedback. No need to spare any feelings if I'm doing something wrong. :) I think some people here are wondering what I'm "trying to do" with a blog. Honestly, for now I just want a piece of the web that I own, where I can just post whatever I want. It could just be that I have something I want to share with friends or colleagues, and I can direct them to a URL that points to a web server that belongs to *me*, where I'm in complete control, instead of Facebook or tumblr. I'm not too concerned with attracting an audience or search engine rankings right now---though maybe in the future I will. I think it's wonderful if other people visits my website but it's not why I'm trying to do all of this. So right now I'm considering a cheap VPS hosting service where I run OpenBSD because I really like OpenBSD's founding principles. I'm leaning towards VPS instead of just a webhost because having root access to a machine makes me *feel* like the machine is mine and I can do whatever the heck I want. My hope is that the sysadmin aspect doesn't turn out to be a nightmare. So, given all the feedback I got, I'm gonna adjust my proposed project a bit. It's just gonna be a web server, and a bunch of static content pages. You guys proposed many different solutions for these-- I haven't had the chance yet but I'll need to assess which one I'm going to use. Simplicity and stability (i.e. correct, secure, not buggy) will be my criteria. Instead of a comment section, which seems like a headache, I'll just replace it with an email address so a reader can reach me if he/she really wanted to. Though I'm not sure what's the best way to prevent spam (or other ways in which an email address can be abused)? The best idea I can come up with would be to not publicly show the email address but create a contact form with a capcha. A contact form also has the benefit that all the emails I get have a consistent format. Though I'm not sure if contact forms are really the best idea. (btw, isn't the "built-in" httpd webserver just Apache? Google seems to tell me that they're synonyms) David
Creating a blog using OpenBSD: technology choices and security considerations
Hello, This is my first post. :) I suppose this is a high level kind of question. When I say 'blog', I'm referring to a website that contains essentially many pages of content. Each content page has attributes such as title, date, category, tags, and so on. When a user browsers this website, the content pages are served in a visually attractive layout, with possible bells and whistles such as Facebook/Twitter share buttons, and comment sections. Additional features may include a search bar and an archive page. I'm shying away from popular solutions such as WordPress because (1) I'm not sure if it even installs on OpenBSD and more importantly (2) I'm not convinced that it adheres to the OpenBSD principles of correctness and proactive security. So with that said, I'd like to solicit some feedback on how such a blog website should be built. Personally I'm thinking of some kind of homegrown solution. First I'd design my own database that stores the attributes of all content pages. And then I'd use a web server--- whenever a user visits a webpage, the web server would run some kind of script that queries the database for all the necessary information and wraps the content page in a nicely designed HTML document. OpenBSD seems to come with nginx in the port tree as its web server but right now I don't know what scripting options it provides for serving dynamic web content. So going forward I'm planning to learn how to do all of these things. Does this sound like a good plan? What would you say is a good way to learn the correct and secure way of using these technologies? Lastly, just a side question. Not sure if this is an FAQ: Running a webserver on OpenBSD probably means I'll need to stay up to date with security patches. Is there an automatic script I can run so I don't have to constantly worry about this aspect of running a website? David
