Published : 2013-05-02

OpenBSD 5.3

OpenBSD 5.3 was released on May 1. This release includes several notable features:

  • The new npppd service provides PPTP/L2TP(IPsec)/PPPoE tunnel services and can authenticate against a RADIUS server.
  • Improvements to routing processes, including OpenBGPD.
  • OpenSMTPd received many feature additions:
    • A PF-like configuration syntax
    • Matching by user and domain
    • Performance improvements
    • And many other enhancements
  • Disk driver performance improvements
  • Ability to boot from an encrypted software RAID1
  • New features in OpenSSH 6.2
  • Improved hardware support, notably Broadcom 5717/5719/5720 NICs found in recent Dell servers

See the full changelog for details: http://www.openbsd.org/53.html

Upgrade steps (high level):

  • Boot from the OpenBSD 5.3 ISO
  • Choose the Upgrade option
  • Select the disk and partition
  • Optionally run fsck on non-root partitions
  • Choose the package CD or mirror
  • Optionally exclude X11 and Games packages
  • Reboot

Afterwards you can run sysmerge to update /etc configuration files if desired:

mount /dev/cd0c /mnt
sysmerge -s /mnt/5.3/amd64/etc53.tgz