Dead Software Walking: The ongoing evolution of relayd(8) and httpd(8)

The article starts with

Start with WHY

As I mentioned in my OpenBSD 7.8 highlights post, development of relayd(8) and httpd(8) had stalled. Many diffs appeared on the tech@ mailing list from different contributors, but few were committed into the repository. The main reason was simple: Established OpenBSD developers weren’t interested in these daemons anymore. Call it momentum, or timing.

And he goes on to describe his motivation, and the numerous improvements that he and Kirill Korinsky (kirill@) added to those daemons once they got started.

Read the whole thing here: Dead Software Walking: The ongoing evolution of relayd(8) and httpd(8)

Call for testing: OpenBSD vmm(4)/vmd(8) fd-ification

Now breaking changes, but with with potential benefits in both process isolation and compartmentalization of functionality, are on the way. It almost goes without saying that this code needs testing.

In a message to the tech@ mailing list with the subject tests wanted: vmm(4)/vmd(8) fd-ification, Dave Voutila presents the code along with some explanation:

List:       openbsd-tech
Subject:    tests wanted: vmm(4)/vmd(8) fd-ification
From:       Dave Voutila <dv () sisu ! io>
Date:       2026-08-03 14:36:00
Message-ID: 87a4r3fezz.fsf () mars ! sisu ! io

Calling on vmm(4)/vmd(8) users to give this diff a test please!

This is a major breaking change I'm proposing to land soon. It changes
the vmm(4) design to create a new file type for each VM. When a VM is
created, the caller gets a new file descriptor for using ioctl(2) calls
against that VM.

Read more…