This article will try to dive deeper into BSD family systems, without adding some notes from an old one, which is a bit chaotic to the reader. Another article that describe how to compile the kernel, is a little bit crazy, in how the article describe it self. I admit that this blog is for me, as a taking notes pages, but I can try to make them readable to all. The last articles that describe some basic commands, Being the Super crazy Dumb, illustrate, how all my articles could be connected and organized like Common People Do, but I like to be different.
So, BSD become in time, FreeBSD and from it, another BSD systems, were developed. OpenBSD is focused only in security, which make it the best system for a Firewall, a server or even to manage several VMs(Virtual Machines). If you compare the documentation of FreeBSD with OpenBSD, you will see that OpenBSD have a minimal website made with HTML and CSS only, like all my sites are, while FreeBSD make use of recent technologies to present the documentation. Anyway, Is always good to read about each system, before trying to use them, since some of the details that are already prepared in Linux Systems, like the X server, are not configured by default, while configuration files, are hosted in different locations. Even between these two BSD systems, there are some differences on the commands with need to use, as the files tree of configs.
To persons like me, who use Linux for many years, all this changes can be a little difficult to memorize, while with practice, everything is possible.
I really fall in love with the idea of the best jail in the world, which can be at home or at work, while being a bit more safe from the outside world.
So, the FreeBSD have most configuration files located in /usr/local/etc/ and /etc/rc.conf, while in OpenBSD /etc/rc.conf.local is the file that can be edited to make changes to the system. This idea of being inside a Jail goes deeper into anything else at most homes in the world. Each object can be inside boxes that are jails, while we organize everything in this way, "putting everything is boxes", things are there, "arrested" in "jails". Therefor FreeBSD and OpenBSD, like all other BSD systems, have this notion of "what is global and what is local", what is the outside world, the main machine and and virtual hosted, while all BSD systems have pf as a firewall system, to redirect the necessary packages to the right machine in a very simple way (style).
While both FreeBSD can run in a big list of hardware, OpenBSD have some limitations, compared with. To learn about each, the FreeBSD is the best choice, while if security is a concern, try OpenBSD.
If you go into FreeBSD, read more about ZFS, Jails and PF firewall located at /etc/pf.conf. Read the man pages, as they give you a lot of examples, that can be helpful. There are many websites that can be helpful too, while the idea is to force you to ReadTheFuckingManual. Original creators of OpenSSH and LibreSSL OpenBSD don't care about all industry that is not Open Source. Is really good to understand the difference between both, since each, follow different "philosophies".
Recently, I start to test Jails in FreeBSD, while trying to redirect traffic to the outside world into them. Is a Administration work, while having just one physical machine to manage, we can have many more. When everything is prepared and configured, we can levelup the security and lock jails, to being impossible to change them, without unlocking them. Is like preparing a service like Apache and test the communication, we can lock that service running inside a jail, and "rest a bit" about it.
In case you are using FreeBSD with jails, you can separed each process inside one single jail, with a dedicated IP, you can manage how much memory each Jail can use, etc, while is good to install those services that are inside the jails, in your main host. You will not use the software for the same propose you use them inside jails, but having them installed in the main system, can facilitate jails administration.
My experience with OpenBSD is almost none I admit, but I like that the X server workout with a old Lenovo Laptop I have, with X running without any issue, as in FreeBSD, you need to configure all services and files, to be possible to start X. OpenBSD use the classic TWM but you can install i3 for example, and change the value of twm in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc to i3 to start i3 by default, while the same in FreeBSD would be changing the value in /usr/local/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc file.
As you may see, there are some differences, but I admit that I am starting to like OpenBSD.