The world has changed in the 10 years since the first edition of Absolute OpenBSD came out. I used to have hair, for one thing. In 2003 OpenBSD was somewhere on the edge of open source software, known mainly for an uncompromising, fanatical view of computing security and correctness. So uncompromising that other open source projects didn’t want to work with it. But a funny thing happened in the following decade: The uncompromising fanatics turned out to be right. More than once I’ve heard “That’s fixed in the latest Linux, and in OpenBSD 3.2.” OpenBSD code trickled into other BSDs, Linux, and even some commercial operating systems. Apple and BlackBerry products include the OpenBSD packet filter. Lots of BSDs support the OpenBSD wireless utilities. And everyone runs OpenSSH. So, the first people I have to thank are those who wrote all this code. It’s one thing to give a gift to the world, but when everybody and their pet orangutan has posted their code online, it’s another thing when your code is picked up and used dang near everywhere. Well done, guys.

I specifically want to thank Peter Hansteen and Henning Brauer. Henning read the early drafts of this book and pointed out innumerable errors and opportunities for improvement. Peter, the official tech reviewer, had the job of double-checking all the facts and finding what I’d broken when trying to incorporate Henning’s suggestions. While all the OpenBSD folks were friendly and open, these two sank deep into this book and didn’t come up for air until it was done. When you see either of them, please buy them a beer. They’ve earned it.

As always, No Starch Press does a great job producing books. Their indefatigable quest for making everything both correct and pleasing has made this book more than I thought it would be—as usual. Someday I’ll consider that excellence routine and, as a result, will be much less impressed when they retain their high standards. But the day their quest for perfection bores me has not yet come.

iXsystems provided me with hardware for testing this book. The way to really test an operating system is to push it to its limits. The only way to really find those limits is to exceed them. Preferably as greatly as possible. I used and abused that poor server, folded and spindled and mutilated it, and the blasted thing still ran. (The machine did finally fail, mind you, when I ripped out the hard drives as it was running. That’s probably considered cheating, but I had to test the software RAID chapter.) I greatly appreciate iX’s support. When iXsystems says their hardware runs BSD, they mean that they’ve actually used it. In production. For real work. Not just my puny little website and blog.

My blog readers and Twitter followers made researching this book much easier than it could have been. When I throw out a question, someone knows the answer. I try to reward them by throwing out facts, tutorials, observations, and random ranting as well as questions. Check http://www.michaelwlucas.com/ for links to these and more.

I considered dropping the haiku from this edition, but overwhelming reader feedback demanded that I not only retain them, but include more and better ones. As an experiment, I solicited haiku on my blog and used some in this book. Ludovic Simpson wrote the haiku for Chapter 7; Justin Sherrill, Chapter 12; and the relentless Josh Grosse, Chapter 1, Chapter 3, and Chapter 16. As a reward, each of them gets their name on the page you’re reading right now. Here’s your moment of glory, guys. Enjoy it before it—whoops, it’s gone. Sorry.

I wanted this book to come out in 2010. Life happened. It happens. Then life kept happening, apparently with malice aforethought, for four years. My fans waited. The publisher waited. The OpenBSD folks waited. And my long-suffering wife has waited—specifically, for me to quit grumbling that I had to take time away from the crisis du jour and finish this dang book.

Thanks to everyone for your patience and support. There’s a certain rightness in having this second edition come out almost exactly ten years to the day after the first edition. But six years would have done nicely, too.

Thanks, everyone.