cageymaru

Fully [H]
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Apr 10, 2003
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Theo de Raadt, an OpenBSD co-founder has officially announced that the open-source operating system will not utilize Hyper-threading for Intel processors. He complains that Intel isn't telling them about upcoming discovered threats and the steps that an OS developer needs to take to mitigate against TLBleed and T1TF; otherwise known as "Foreshadow." He has dropped support for older versions of OpenBSD and asks users to upgrade to version 6.4 as he doesn't have the manpower to backport the changes.

DISABLE HYPERTHREADING ON ALL YOUR INTEL MACHINES IN THE BIOS. Also, update your BIOS firmware, if you can. OpenBSD -current (and therefore 6.4) will not use hyperthreading if it is enabled, and will update the cpu microcode if possible. I'm going to spend my money at a more trustworthy vendor in the future.
 
Thanks intel, I should be able to push for a custom thread ripper build instead of a cookie cutter dell for a simulation box at work
 
I disabled HT a while back. They keep saying this is enterprise only.

But this is making Swiss cheese of the native protections on your PC. Malware gets the tip of a fingernail of a pinky on your system and it's game over.

This is Windows XP all over again. They average users PC is going to become part of a botnet that ruins everything for everybody else.
 
Hmm.

Many downstream projects rely on OpenBSD, including pfSense.

I have that shit running on a dual core with hyperthreading. I hope this doesn't impact performance too much.
 
New Desktop - I5-8400 , no HT
Servers: Dual E5-2643. I can disable HT and still have enough cores to go around
Old Desktop: i7-4770k -- my destkop has been demoted to an i5
Laptop: I5-7300u....ouch, 2 cores is painful...
 
Considering what type of work BSD does, this is a pretty logical fix.
 
Also, since macs use BSD, I wonder what their policy/advice on this issue is going to be going forward. They have already stated that they will be moving away from Intel anyway. Should be interesting to watch.
 
Also, since macs use BSD, I wonder what their policy/advice on this issue is going to be going forward. They have already stated that they will be moving away from Intel anyway. Should be interesting to watch.
They don't use bsd, not in a long time (unless they switched back). It's a forked kernel based on bsd, probably heavily modified by now, and some standard base tools.
 
This is good news. Time for the big boys to do the same. I am glad Intel is hurting.
Also, anything that gives SMT a bad name is welcome. It's always been a scam.

Hyperthreading = 50% performance...

:ROFLMAO:

Ah, you must have missed this guy I had arguments with in the Intel section a couple of years ago. He repeatedly posted benchmarks where HT is faster than real cores.
 
Perhaps the marketing is, but it absolutely has utility when properly addressed by software. Which it isn't always, of course ;)

Yes, I admit the blind followers is what bugs me the most. Of course it has some utility when used appropriately. Almost sure I'll turn it off on my next AMD build. Man, I can't stop drooling at those core numbers. Damn RAM prices. I am not paying that out of principle.
 
BSD is used in virtualization setups fairly often... and the mitigations for this tank performance in those scenarios.

From what I have seen I don't think turning off HT is going to be enough. They will still need mitigations and performance will still tank.

I feel for the companies that have 10s of thousands and potentially much more sunk into Intel hardware running customized versions of BSD. Well frankly it doesn't matter what OS they are running... the mitigations for Linux and Windows are going to tank performance in those types of setups as well.
 
Does this mean that future kernels of FreeBSD are going to be ban hammered as well from using HT?
 
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