OpenBSD 3.7 – Project Avatar

Approximately one week ago I was given an assignment to create a new dedicated server for a client. This would not be worth discussing in any normal situation, but as usual around here, this was a far from a normal situation. The client, who will remain nameless, wanted to host an advertisement splash page for an e-mail marketing campaign. Starting yesterday, they are planning to send out 60 million e-mails. To compound the matter I had no budget and three days to develop a robust, reliable solution. Needless to say I was concerned.

THE SOLUTION
OpenBSD has long been a pillar of security and reliability in the IT community. Until now I have never needed to use it. I have had experience with FreeBSD, and of course extensive experience with Linux. OpenBSD has always been on my list of exciting projects, but I have never had the opportunity to install it. With no hardware firewall, pissing off 60 million people requires a fairly secure operating system. Also, with little time to secure the server, I wanted a solution which was relatively safe out of the box. Below is the specific equipment

Dell OmniPlex GXPro
Intel Pentium Pro 200Mhz
256MB RAM
4GB Hard Drive

Yes that’s right, 60 million people are going to hit my old Pentium Pro. This might seem a little odd with the abundance of cheap equipment available. Frankly, I wouldn’t trust this project with anything else. This old workstation (around the office referred to as Old-Deller) is solid as a rock. Beside, it’s only going to be handing out two pages of static content. What could possibly go wrong?

I’ll admit the initial installation was a bit intimidating. Any time the install software recommends a calculator, you should be concerned. After some research I found a very helpful setup guide. I did not follow this exactly, but it helped me get past some of the initial sticky points, and gave me some helpful tips. If you’re going to install OpenBSD for the first time I recommend you read this guide.

Although the jury is still out, for now I can say this operating system truly rocks. Its fairly light weight so nothing get installed which you don’t need. If you like FreeBSD / Linux I recommend giving OpenBSD a try. It makes a prefect secure web server, firewall, or just about anything other mindless server job.

Below is a fairly interesting review of the latest release of OpenBSD.
http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/05/20/1426216&tid=8