OpenBSD Journal

May 1st 2012: OpenBSD 5.1 Released

Contributed by pitrh on from the who-you-gonna-call dept.

May 1st 2012, Calgary, Alberta, Canada and elsewhere: OpenBSD project leader Theo de Raadt (deraadt@) today announced the release of and general availability of OpenBSD 5.1, the latest version of the project's namesake operating system, via FTP, HTTP and other network distribution.

In the run-up to the general release, reports of pre-ordered CD sets, T-shirts and other OpenBSD 5.1 merchandise arriving at their destinations have trickled in from Europe and elsewhere.

Today's OpenBSD 5.1 release is the 32nd iteration of the OpenBSD every-six-months-like-clockwork release cycle. In addition to pioneering work in operating system and network security, the project is the originator of several important components that are re-used by other operating systems, such as the OpenSSH secure shell system, the PF packet filter and its suite of related tools, the OpenBGPD and OpenNTPD network daemons, and the mandoc suite of documentation tools.

Notable improvements in OpenBSD 5.1 over previous versions include

  • Improved hardware support, including support for numerous mobile broadband devices, various network driver improvements, improved resume functionality for USB devices
  • Network stack improvements include enhanced IPv6 functionality and ipsec support in ppp and pppoe, IPv6 functionality improvements in general, increased robustness in the IEEE 802.11 subsystem, and various CARP improvements
  • A general sprinkling of improvements in network commands and daemons, including wider routing domain support
  • Improved IPv6 functionality in PF, including enhanced fragment handling, NAT64 via af-to as well as ICMP and ICMPv6 fixes, plus a number of fixes to pfsync.
  • OpenSSH version 6.0 is included in OpenBSD 5.1, with a number of fixes and enhancements.
  • Incremental functionality enhancements in the package handling and package building tools, making interactions with the ports tree of more than 7000 third-party packages even easier. In this release, the i386 and amd64 architectures both ship with more than 7000 prebuilt binary packages ready to install, other architectures slightly less.

See the OpenBSD 5.1 release page or the OpenBSD 5.1 announcement for a fuller description of the release, or see the OpenBSD 5.1 changelog for detailed descriptions of the changes between the previous release and OpenBSD 5.1.

Note that the revenue from sales of CDs, T-shirts and other items is a major source of income for the project, so even if you can now download the release from a convenient nearby mirror, please consider stopping by the orders page or even the donations page to contribute a little something to the project. Perhaps make it a recurring donation, even!

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  1. By Noryungi (noryungi) noryungi@yahoo.com on


    As a side note, I received my CDs a couple of days ago! Kudos to the entire team of programmers for a great release!

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