OpenBSD ports is a collection of third party software that are ready to install. These packages do not undergo the same security audit that the OpenBSD base system goes through.

Getting the ports tree:

[user@host ~]$ su -
[user@host ~]# cd /usr
[uesr@host usr]# ftp ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/`uname -r`/ports.tar.gz
[user@host usr]# tar xzvf ports.tar.gz
[user@host usr]# rm ports.tar.gz

Search the ports tree:

[user@host usr]# cd ports
[user@host ports]# make search key=keyword

Install a port:

[user@host usr]# cd appDir
[user@host appDir]# make install

References:
OpenBSD FAQ

The Y2k date issue was caused by the fact that computers were programmed to add a two digit number to some epoch (most notably 1900). So 100 became 00 and was added to 1900 to become 1900. This was corrected by increasing the number of digits used to store the year. The next date issue will occur in 2038 when the date field (a 32 bit signed integer) runs out of room to hold the number of milliseconds since the epoch. The fix for this will be a little more elaborate and will most likely involve the use of 64 bit integer.

Here is a perl script to see what time your computer will return when the Y2k38 hits. It will return the second just before and just after the event.

More »

When compiling application form source, being able to cleanly and easily uninstall is only capable if the developer added an uninstall target in the makefile. This will also require the source to be extracted when the need to uninstall arises. There is also the issue that is no record of what is installed or what version is installed.

[user@host ~]$ cd app
[user@host app]$ ./configure && make && make install

CheckInstall can be used to convert source to a Debian, RPM, or Slackware package. It does this by running make install and tracking of every file modified using the installwatch utility. Then the package management system can be used to show what is installed and what version as well as uninstall the applications.

More »

POP3 is a protocol that provides remote access to a users email. It runs on port 110 and is sent in the clear. In order to offer some degree of privacy

More »

Due to recent storage requirements I have had to upgrade my file server. I wanted a contiguous partition and since these files would be highly critical, I also wanted some sort of recovery capability. With that in mind I chose to use Raid 5. I was also putting together a few other servers at the time, so I ended up “standardizing” the parts which lead to some added expense and overkill.

More »