User:Paul/sandbox/OpenBSD Basic Server

OpenBSD has earned its reputation as a BSD descendant focused on security. With the increased development of OpenBSD's httpd and OpenSMTPD, plus most of the components commonly used in a basic web server, OpenBSD provides a highly secure and efficient choice for building simple mail servers.

Finding online support for OpenBSD can be much more difficult when compared to Linux. While the OpenBSD project requires its man pages to be very complete, support beyond man pages such as tutorials or sample configurations can be much harder to find. This has largely been due to the project being targeted at use primarily by professional systems administrators.

This tutorial will establish a basic web server that includes a functioning transactional mail server with local maildir.

Notable differences from Ubuntu Linux

Shell

Ubuntu default shell uses Bash (BASH) while OpenBSD uses KornShell (ksh).

ll (ls -alF)

Ubuntu has a convenient command, ll, for viewing directory contents that is a shortcut for ls -alF.

To add ll to the OpenBSD command line:

$ nano .profile

Add the following line:

alias ll="ls -alF"

Default editor

The default text editor in OpenBSD is vi, which may increase the learning curve of adoption of OpenBSD for enthusiasts. To change to a different default text editor:

$ nano .profile

Add the following line:

export EDITOR=nano