NetBSD

NetBSD is an open source BSD distribution derived from the well known and stable FreeBSD operating system and designed from the ground up to provide users with a highly portable UNIX-like OS that supports a wide range of hardware platforms.

Key features include a clean design, packet filtering and network address translation (NAT), IPv6 support, Network File System (NFS) support, comprehensive and robust networking, hardware and software RAID, high performance PCI IDE, and support for large IDE disks.

Availability, supported architectures and boot options

The distribution is available for download as CD-size ISO images, which can be easily written to blank or RW CD discs or deployed to USB flash drives using the UNetbootin or Disks applications, as well as any CD/DVD burning software.

It has been engineered to be directly installed on a local disk drive. Therefore, you can use the boot prompt of the installation CD to install the operating system with default settings, without ACPI, or without SMP (Symmetric Multiprocessing) and ACPI. It is also possible to drop to a shell prompt.

Supported architectures include i386, amd64, Sparc/Sparc64, IBM RS/6000, CES FIC8234, Atari, Algorithmics, Amiga PowerPC, Commodore Amiga, Digital/Compaq Alpha, Acorn RiscPC/A7000, IBM Network Station 1000, Motorola MVME 68k, Digital VAX, Digital DNARD, and many others.

Installation

The NetBSD installation process is text-based, using a menu-driven utility that allows users to either install the operating system or upgrade an existing installation. It supports five languages (English, German, Spanish, French, Polish), and consists of choosing a keyboard layout, partition the disk drive, and setup users and passwords.

Bottom line

In conclusion, NetBSD provides users with a very fast and stable UNIX-like operating system that supports a plethora of architectures and can be deployed on server machines without much hassle. Applications can be installed through the comprehensive NetBSD Packages Collection.

What is new in this release:

• Support for Raspberry Pi Zero.
• Initial DRM/KMS support for NVIDIA graphics cards via nouveau (Disabled by default. Uncomment nouveau and nouveaufb in your kernel config to test).
• The addition of vioscsi, a driver for the Google Compute Engine disk.
• Linux compatibility improvements, allowing, e.g., the use of Adobe Flash Player 24.
• wm(4):
• C2000 KX and 2.5G support.
• Wake On Lan support.
• 82575 and newer SERDES based systems now work.
• ODROID-C1 Ethernet now works.
• Numerous bug fixes and stability improvements.

What is new in version :

• Support for Raspberry Pi Zero.
• Initial DRM/KMS support for NVIDIA graphics cards via nouveau (Disabled by default. Uncomment nouveau and nouveaufb in your kernel config to test).
• The addition of vioscsi, a driver for the Google Compute Engine disk.
• Linux compatibility improvements, allowing, e.g., the use of Adobe Flash Player 24.
• wm(4):
• C2000 KX and 2.5G support.
• Wake On Lan support.
• 82575 and newer SERDES based systems now work.
• ODROID-C1 Ethernet now works.
• Numerous bug fixes and stability improvements.

What is new in version 7.1:

• Support for Raspberry Pi Zero.
• Initial DRM/KMS support for NVIDIA graphics cards via nouveau (Disabled by default. Uncomment nouveau and nouveaufb in your kernel config to test).
• The addition of vioscsi, a driver for the Google Compute Engine disk.
• Linux compatibility improvements, allowing, e.g., the use of Adobe Flash Player 24.
• wm(4):
• C2000 KX and 2.5G support.
• Wake On Lan support.
• 82575 and newer SERDES based systems now work.
• ODROID-C1 Ethernet now works.
• Numerous bug fixes and stability improvements.

What is new in version 7.0.2 / 7.1 RC2:

• Greatly improved support for modern Intel and Radeon graphics hardware through a port of the Linux DRM/KMS code. Most X.Org components have been updated as well.
• ARM multiprocessor support
• Support for new ARM boards, some of which are listed below:
• Raspberry Pi 2
• ODROID-C1
• BeagleBoard-xM
• BeagleBone
• BeagleBone Black
• Banana Pi
• Cubieboard 2
• Cubietruck
• Merii Hummingbird
• Marvell ARMADA XP
• GlobalScale MiraBox
• Kobo
• Sharp Netwalker PC-Z1
• GPT support in sysinst
• Lua kernel scripting
• Multiprocessor USB stack
• Many improvements to NPF, the NetBSD packet filter
• GCC 4.8.4 (and optionally, LLVM/Clang 3.6.1)

What is new in version 7.0.2 / 7.1 RC1:

• Greatly improved support for modern Intel and Radeon graphics hardware through a port of the Linux DRM/KMS code. Most X.Org components have been updated as well.
• ARM multiprocessor support
• Support for new ARM boards, some of which are listed below:
• Raspberry Pi 2
• ODROID-C1
• BeagleBoard-xM
• BeagleBone
• BeagleBone Black
• Banana Pi
• Cubieboard 2
• Cubietruck
• Merii Hummingbird
• Marvell ARMADA XP
• GlobalScale MiraBox
• Kobo
• Sharp Netwalker PC-Z1
• GPT support in sysinst
• Lua kernel scripting
• Multiprocessor USB stack
• Many improvements to NPF, the NetBSD packet filter
• GCC 4.8.4 (and optionally, LLVM/Clang 3.6.1)

What is new in version 7.0.2:

• Greatly improved support for modern Intel and Radeon graphics hardware through a port of the Linux DRM/KMS code. Most X.Org components have been updated as well.
• ARM multiprocessor support
• Support for new ARM boards, some of which are listed below:
• Raspberry Pi 2
• ODROID-C1
• BeagleBoard-xM
• BeagleBone
• BeagleBone Black
• Banana Pi
• Cubieboard 2
• Cubietruck
• Merii Hummingbird
• Marvell ARMADA XP
• GlobalScale MiraBox
• Kobo
• Sharp Netwalker PC-Z1
• GPT support in sysinst
• Lua kernel scripting
• Multiprocessor USB stack
• Many improvements to NPF, the NetBSD packet filter
• GCC 4.8.4 (and optionally, LLVM/Clang 3.6.1)

What is new in version 7.0.1:

• Greatly improved support for modern Intel and Radeon graphics hardware through a port of the Linux DRM/KMS code. Most X.Org components have been updated as well.
• ARM multiprocessor support
• Support for new ARM boards, some of which are listed below:
• Raspberry Pi 2
• ODROID-C1
• BeagleBoard-xM
• BeagleBone
• BeagleBone Black
• Banana Pi
• Cubieboard 2
• Cubietruck
• Merii Hummingbird
• Marvell ARMADA XP
• GlobalScale MiraBox
• Kobo
• Sharp Netwalker PC-Z1
• GPT support in sysinst
• Lua kernel scripting
• Multiprocessor USB stack
• Many improvements to NPF, the NetBSD packet filter
• GCC 4.8.4 (and optionally, LLVM/Clang 3.6.1)

What is new in version 6.1.5 / 7.0 RC3:

• Greatly improved support for modern Intel and Radeon graphics hardware through a port of the Linux DRM/KMS code. Most X.Org components have been updated as well.
• ARM multiprocessor support
• Support for new ARM boards, some of which are listed below:
• Raspberry Pi 2
• ODROID-C1
• BeagleBoard-xM
• BeagleBone
• BeagleBone Black
• Banana Pi
• Cubieboard 2
• Cubietruck
• Merii Hummingbird
• Marvell ARMADA XP
• GlobalScale MiraBox
• Kobo
• Sharp Netwalker PC-Z1
• GPT support in sysinst
• Lua kernel scripting
• Multiprocessor USB stack
• Many improvements to NPF, the NetBSD packet filter
• GCC 4.8.4 (and optionally, LLVM/Clang 3.6.1)

What is new in version 6.1.5 / 7.0 RC1:

• Greatly improved support for modern Intel and Radeon graphics hardware through a port of the Linux DRM/KMS code. Most X.Org components have been updated as well.
• ARM multiprocessor support
• Support for new ARM boards, some of which are listed below:
• Raspberry Pi 2
• ODROID-C1
• BeagleBoard-xM
• BeagleBone
• BeagleBone Black
• Banana Pi
• Cubieboard 2
• Cubietruck
• Merii Hummingbird
• Marvell ARMADA XP
• GlobalScale MiraBox
• Kobo
• Sharp Netwalker PC-Z1
• GPT support in sysinst
• Lua kernel scripting
• Multiprocessor USB stack
• Many improvements to NPF, the NetBSD packet filter
• GCC 4.8.4 (and optionally, LLVM/Clang 3.6.1)

What is new in version 6.1.5:

• Security Advisory Fixes:
• NetBSD-SA2014-005 libXfont multiple vulnerabilities
• NetBSD-SA2014-006 Multiple OpenSSL vulnerabilities
• NetBSD-SA2014-007 bozohttpd basic http authentication bypass
• NetBSD-SA2014-008 Multiple OpenSSL vulnerabilities
• NetBSD-SA2014-009 Multiple vulnerabilities in the execve system call
• NetBSD-SA2014-010 Multiple vulnerabilities in the compatibility layers
• NetBSD-SA2014-011 User-controlled memory allocation in the modctl system call
• NetBSD-SA2014-012 Memory leak in the setsockopt system call
• Note: Advisories prior to NetBSD-SA2014-005 do not affect NetBSD 6.1.5.
• Other Security Fixes:
• Fix various issues in the mount syscall, which could be used by a local user to panic the system.
• OpenPAM: Fix incorrect error handling in PAM policy parser. CVE-2014-3879.
• Kernel:
• wm(4): Bump max TX DMA size to avoid pathological condition with TSO.
• tap(4): Fix a race. PR kern/47506 and kern/46199.
• urndis(4): Fix a panic.
• vioif(4): Fix a panic. PR kern/49007.
• Fix a mbuf leak in IPFilter.
• Fix two overflows and a memory corruption bug in ptyfs and umapfs.
• Reject unaligned PCI config register ioctl requests before we kassert.
• Miscellaneous:
• heimdal: Fix file descriptor leak. Fixes PR lib/48718
• Update to tzdata2014g.
• Update bozohttpd to 20140708.
• Update openssl to 1.0.1i.
• Fix Xserver crash on exit (causing screen palette settings to not be restored) when using wsfb.
• postinstall(8): Don't apply "ptyfsoldnodes" if /dev/pts does not exist.
• named: Update root.cache to 2014060201.
• alpha:
• Make sysinst deal correctly with Tru64 disklabels. PR port-alpha/48697.
• sparc64:
• Fix longjmp bug which causes a segmentation fault on sparc64 kernels with 32-bit userland.
• next68k:
• Move physmem calculations before nptpage initialization. PR port-m68k/45915.

What is new in version 6.1.4:

• Improving network stack concurrency and performance.
• Development of modern file systems and improvement of existing ones.
• Features which are useful in embedded environments, such as high resolution timers and execute in place (XIP) support.
• Automatic testing and quality assurance.
• NetBSD-SA2014-003 posix_spawn unbounded kernel memory allocation
• NetBSD-SA2014-004 OpenSSL information disclosure ("heartbleed")
• OpenSSL: CVE-2014-0076
• Fix memory leak on bogus ELF binary.
• veriexec: Avoid a use-after-free error.
• atari: Fix a kernel crash when a user tries to switch to a nonexistent terminal. Fixes PR#48599.

What is new in version 6.1.3:

• Security Advisory Fixes:
• NetBSD-SA2013-010Use after free in Xserver handling of ImageText requests (CVE-2013-4396)
• NetBSD-SA2013-011embryonic TCP sockets local DoS
• NetBSD-SA2013-012Router Advertisement sysctl local Denial of Service
• NetBSD-SA2013-013Memory leak when trying to execute bogus ELF binaries
• NetBSD-SA2014-001Stack buffer overflow in libXfont (CVE-2013-6462)
• NetBSD-SA2014-002ntpd used as DDoS amplifier
• Note: Advisories prior to NetBSD-SA2013-009 do not affect NetBSD 6.1.3.
• Other Security Fixes:
• bind: Fix CVE-2014-0591.
• Kernel:
• pci(4): Work around a QEMU bug preventing NetBSD from booting on some versions of QEMU and KVM. (PR#45671)
• Xen: fix dom0 crash with some domUs
• Xen: remove a bogus diagostic message spamming the console. (PR#46313)
• sparc64: fix a kernel diagnostic panic.
• Networking:
• NPF: fix byteorder for port range comparison.
• NPF: fix a race condition.
• File Systems:
• ffs: Fixed a fsck_ffs internal error on UFS1.
• Miscellaneous:
• Xserver(1): Fixed crash on i810e. (PR#48315)
• sysinst(8): Fixed wrong MBR partiton offset on small disks. (PR#48304)
• ld.elf_so(1): Fixed memory corruption. (PR#48324)
• sparc64: fixed gcc to not generate invalid asm.

What is new in version 6.1.2:

• Security Advisory Fixes:
• NetBSD-SA2013-009user settable small BPF buffer can cause a panic
• Note: Advisories prior to NetBSD-SA2013-009 do not affect NetBSD 6.1.2.
• Kernel
• virtio(4): Fixed a panic during shutdown on KVM. (PR#48105)
• uhci(4): Fixed USB device enumeration in some cases, fixed some ops on big-endian machines. (PR#47522, PR#48237)
• Networking:
• Include BRDADDR and NETMASK in the IPv4 ioctls we ban for IPv6.
• npf(3): Fixed panic with IPv6 when nbufs are reallocated.
• npf(3): Fixed filtering with dynamic rules.
• File Systems:
• udf: Fixed a problem which could result in garbage after the 4GB limit.
• Miscellaneous:
• pthread(3): Fixed error return from pthread_create() in some cases.
• Update tzdata to 2013e.
• Update some TNF ssh keys in /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts.
• Fixed an environment issue which could cause crashes in Emacs 24 and certain other applications.
• pkg_install: Fixed installation of signed packages. (PR#48194)
• Fixed regression introduced in NetBSD 6.1.1 affecting certain applications running under X. (PR#48170)
• mvme68k: Fixed boot panic. (PR#45915)

What is new in version 6.1:

• Security Advisory Fixes:
• NetBSD-SA2013-001, Kernel panic triggered from userland
• NetBSD-SA2013-002, kqueue related kernel panic triggered from userland
• NetBSD-SA2013-003, RNG Bug May Result in Weak Cryptographic Keys
• NetBSD-SA2013-004, Vulnerabilities in grep
• Security Fixes:
• expat: Fix CVE-2012-1147, CVE-2012-1148 and CVE-2012-0876.
• BIND: Address CVE-2012-5688: Named could die on specific queries with dns64 enabled.
• Fixed a crash which could happen with sysctl security.curtain=1 set. (PR#47598)
• Address CVE-2012-5667: Multiple integer overflows in GNU grep.
• Several fixes to entropy handling in the kernel.
• Prevent ktrace from being able to crash the kernel.
• General kernel:
• posix_spawn(): Fix processes with attributes.
• Resolve races between vget() and vrele() resulting in vget() returning dead vnodes.
• Prevent crash when unsupported fd's are used with kevent.
• Fix a bug where kmem_alloc() could be called from interrupt context.
• WAPBL: coalesce writes to the journal to speed up wapbl_flush() on raid5 by a factor of 3 to 4.
• Networking:
• Fix "atomic fragments" for IPv6.
• ipf: Fix alignment issues in ipmon. (PR#47101)
• npf: handle delayed checksums in the network stack. (PR#47235)
• Fixed some locking issues in ipf(4)
• npf(3): Many fixes and updates. Config syntax has changed somewhat, please check your config files.
• Fixed sendto(2) issue with IPv6 UDP datagrams. (PR#47408)
• vioif(4): Fixed an issue which caused recent QEMU to crash.
• File systems:
• smbfs: Make smbfs actually work on big-endian ports.
• smbfs: various fixes. (PR#25070)
• Allow mounting ext2fs and msdosfs in 32-bit compat mode.
• v7fs: fix off-by-one error.
• Drivers:
• ciss(4): don't try to handle sensors if there aren't any.
• isp(4): Fix FC-AL devices on QLogic ISP2100. (PR#47302)
• mfi(4): Add support for LSI Thunderbolt (SAS2208) controllers.
• mfi(4): Add support for running the MegaCLI Linux binary to manage the controller.
• puc(4): Additional device support.
• bge(4): Add support for Apple's Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet adapter. (PR#46961)
• mvgbe(4): fix a number of issues
• nfe(4): Avoid bounce buffering and improve performance.
• wm(4): Fix handling of 82578D and 82579V chips. Various other fixes.
• fss(4): Don't crash when running multiple dump -X. (PR#47514)
• fss(4): Fixed panic. (PR#47020)
• Platforms:
• alpha:
• Fixed longjmp/setjmp on alpha for statically linked programs such as those in /rescue.
• amiga:
• New ed(4) device driver for Hydra and ASDG Zorro2 bus network cards.
• arm:
• Fix gcc bugid 51408 for arm. (PR#46972)
• Fixed a bit check in the Kirkwood IRQ code.
• Fixed incorrect counts for 'vmstat -e' on Kirkwood.
• Make bigendian ARM get the MBR partition and offset correct. (PR#47081)
• Fixed bug where IRQ masks of GPIO were set incorrectly on Marvell SoCs.
• Fixed static linking on ARM platforms. (PR#47139)
• Properly block IRQs >= 32. (PR#45371)
• Greatly improved Raspberry Pi support - USB and onboard Ethernet now work.
• Enabled DCache Streaming Switch and Write Allocate for Sheeva CPUs.
• Added support for the watchdog timer in some Marvell SoCs.
• Fix for non-MBR disks on ARM. (PR#47463)
• mips:
• MIPS ports have switched to gdb 7.3.1. GDB6 is removed.
• vax:
• Reverted MAXPARTITION bump to 16, lowering it to 12 instead, to fix bootblocks and installboot for VAX 780 and other machines booting via VMB.EXE.
• x68k:
• Update bootloader: cdboot, netboot support and bugfixes.
• Add floppy format support.
• x86 (i386, amd64):
• Work around a possible gcc bug generating bad assembler code. (PR#45673)
• Disable C1E on AMD K8 CPUs, to prevent freeze during boot.
• Fix running BSDi and NetBSD

What is new in version 6.1 RC2:

• Various terminfo fixes (PR#46793, PR#47090, PR#47490, PR#47532)
• Fixed a segfault in awk(1) (PR#47553)
• Moved boottime50 and its associated sysctl into the compat module. (PR#47579)
• Updated tzdata to 2013b, with the latest timezone info
• Fixed a crash when the security.curtain sysctl is enabled (PR#47598)
• Fixed some IPF locking issues
• Fix a crash on statically-linked programs for NetBSD/alpha

What is new in version 6.1 RC1:

• Bugfixes and feature improvements to NPF, the NetBSD Packet Filter
• Improvements to several ARM platforms, including Raspberry Pi which now has nearly-complete support.
• Support for dtrace on amd64
• MIPS ports switched to gdb 7.3.1, gdb6 removed
• Additional device support in key drivers including wm(4), uftdi(4), mfi(4), bge(4), aac(4), tlp(4) and others.
• Various port-specific improvements to the amiga, arm, sparc64 and x68k ports.

What is new in version 6.0.1:

• Security Fixes:
• expat: Fix CVE-2012-1147, CVE-2012-1148 and CVE-2012-0876.
• BIND: Address CVE-2012-5688: Named could die on specific queries with dns64 enabled.
• General kernel:
• posix_spawn(): Fix processes with attributes.
• Resolve races between vget() and vrele() resulting in vget() returning dead vnodes.
• Prevent crash when unsupported fd's are used with kevent.
• Networking:
• Fix "atomic fragments" for IPv6.
• ipf: Fix alignment issues in ipmon. (PR#47101)
• npf: handle delayed checksums in the network stack. (PR#47235)
• File systems:
• smbfs: Make smbfs actually work on big-endian ports.
• Drivers:
• ciss(4): don't try to handle sensors if there aren't any.
• Platforms:
• x86 (i386, amd64):
• Work around a possible gcc bug generating bad assembler code. (PR#45673)
• Disable C1E on AMD K8 CPUs, to prevent freeze during boot.
• xen:
• Prevent a memory corruption issue that locks up a Xen DomU, and can potentially cause file system corruption. (PR#47056, PR#47057)
• Fix: Xen Dom0 NetBSD kernel could crash by adding duplicate xenwatches.
• Userland fixes:
• Update to tzdata2012j.
• cdb: don't refuse to open databases without entries or keys.
• Address graphics corruption in recent Cairo, manifested most commonly by certain rendered text sections appearing as solid rectangular blocks of color.

What is new in version 5.2 RC1:

• NetBSD 5.2 is intended for those who have an application using NetBSD 5.0.x or 5.1.x who don't want the churn of upgrading to NetBSD 6.0, but would like bug fixes and some stable new features. There have been a number of changes since 5.1. See src/doc/CHANGES-5.2 for the full list.