i was recently using freebsd as my apache/bind/everything server. anyway i had some sort of messed up issue ( probably something i did), and i came to the conclusion that it is going to be easier to wipe it out rather then fix the problem.
I was wondering if i should stay with freebsd , or switch to the another distro.

out of the free distros, what is considered to be the most
a) stable
b) secure (by default, or not by default)
c) portable

If you mean portability as in you can yank the drive and throw it in a completely different machine and it'll work fine, then they're all pretty solid in that regard.

Stability and Security are the two prop points of OpenBSD, plus their firewalling rules, ipfilter is just about the easiest to deal with I've seen, and definately has much less complexity than iptables. Heck, all you have to read is chapter 6: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq6.html#PF

Cheers,

Finegan

I have used OpenBSD since 2.7 and I can say that it is easily the most secure OS I have used even when compared side by side with FreeBSD. I now run all web appliances on it, in cluding qmail, DNS, Apache, FTP, SSH and firewalls. As a small company I frequently deploy firewalls for small companies (and some larger) using OpenBSD and PF, or IPFilter in some requests. As for stability, well my qmail server handles about 1500 messages a day for about 25 people and has this to say:

$>uptime
11:07PM up 213 days, 21:29, 1 user, load averages: 0.46, 0.38, 0.38

So plainly I am stuck on OpenBSD.

I was really considering OpenBSD until I found out it wouldn't make use of my Dual-processor setup

Linux will.

FreeBSD supports SMP rather easily... uncomment two lines in the GENERIC config and rebuild a new kernel. Super easy to do. Have a Compaq Proliant 5000 with Dual P6-200's in it and FreeBSD 4.7 on it. Runs as smooth as velvet.

tpro

How many servers you know that are documented as up over three years?

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html

No MINIX clones there.

I think it was 2.2.14 and below that were open to an attack that required kernel upgrade. Not only that, but the 2.2.x series was the only one with really staying power and it hasn't been around long enough to edge into that list... give it a year though.

Cheers,

Finegan

TYeah I really am teasing. but those at the top of the list have been up over four years. That puts them back in the 3.X branch. 4.x is very mature at 4.7 and 4.8 is due out soon. In another year 5.x may be named stable and those 4.xen aren't going down anytime soon.

If you haven't tried it I highly recommend it, finegan, I think as an advanced linux ser you would enjoy it's stability, maturity, highly organized structure, ease of use and some of the advanced features not found in linux .

No need to be teasing, you're just dead right, the *BSDs have had more mature networking longer... that's what you get from the fact the Netlink group built the Linux networking stack from scratch and the BSDs had BSD4.4's rock-solid stack to come from. Heck, only in the past two year or so has Linux had the same sort of flexibility to offer. Although I guess being first to stable SMP was what really helped more... FreeBSD is just getting that into stable branching now, and Open and Net have just started tackling the problem. Still, Open claims a working beta SMP by sometime this summer, or autumn...?

I keep trying FreeBSD in fits and starts, usually have bungled net installs that don't leave me enough partitioned space for packages... I've compiled the kernel a couple of times, finally got it to boot SMP once.

Anyway, what am I rambling on about?

Cheers,

Finegan

OUCH!!!!!!!!

fairly new linux kernels (2.4.18'ish) still cycle their uptime at 497 days or so that might be true for older 2.2 kernels to, and in that case, that list doesn't really show anything

OpenBSD is by far the most secure by default and most secure in design, it's probably also the most stable, although FreeBSD is a very stable OS. I can't speak to NetBSD.

NetBSD will run on more platforms than Open or Free, but what is the point unless you mean to run it one something really obscure?

OpenBSD's major drawback is no SMP support yet.