The Openwall Project is a source for various software, including Openwall GNU/*/Linux (Owl), a security-enhanced Linux distribution designed for servers. Openwall patches and security extensions have been included into many major Linux distributions.

Openwall Project
Developer(s)Solar Designer
Operating systemUnix-like
TypeSecurity
Websiteopenwall.com

As the name implies, Openwall GNU/*/Linux draws source code and design concepts from numerous sources; most importantly to the project is its usage of the Linux kernel and parts of the GNU userland, and others include the BSDs, such as OpenBSD for its OpenSSH suite and the inspiration behind its own Blowfish-based crypt for password hashing, compatible with the OpenBSD implementation.

Public domain software

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The Openwall project maintains also a list of algorithms and source code which is public domain software.[1]

Openwall GNU/*/Linux releases

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Openwall Version Release date End-of-life date Kernel version
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.1 13 March 2002 ? 2.2.20
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.0 2002-≈≤≥10-15 2.2.22
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.1 23 December 2003 2.4.23
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.0 14 February 2006 2.4.32
Old version, no longer maintained: 3.0 16 December 2010 2.6.18
Current stable version: 3.1 5 January 2015
Legend:
Old version, not maintained
Old version, still maintained
Latest version
Latest preview version
Future release

LWN.net reviewed Openwall Linux 3.0.[2] They wrote:

The first question most people will have is: what is so "security-enhanced" about Owl? Aren't major Linux distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, openSUSE, and so on secure? Of course, they continuously patch known security vulnerabilities and some of them (Red Hat in particular) implement security features to decrease the impact of vulnerabilities, but none of them really are focused on preventing vulnerable software from getting into the distribution in the first place.

PoC||GTFO

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Rt. Revd. Pastor Manul Laphroaig[3]

Issues of the International Journal of Proof-of-Concept or Get The Fuck Out (PoC||GTFO) are mirrored by the Openwall Project under a samizdat licence.[4] The first issue #00 was published in 2013, issue #02 featured the Chaos Computer Club.[5] Issue #07 in 2015 was a homage for Dr. Dobb's Journal, which could be rendered as .pdf, .zip, .bpg, or .html.[6]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Source code snippets and frameworks placed in the public domain on openwall.info
  2. ^ Openwall Linux 3.0: Linux for the security-conscious [LWN.net]
  3. ^ Laphroaig, Manul. "An epistle from the desk of Rt. Revd. Pastor Manul Laphroaig" (PDF). openwall.info. GTFO issues. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
  4. ^ "International Journal of PoC || GTFO issues". Openwall Project. Retrieved 2015-03-21.
  5. ^ "PoC||GTFO or PoC or GTFO". alchemistowl.org. Retrieved 2016-04-15.
  6. ^ "Vier-in-eins - Poc||GTFO". lost+found (in German). Heise security. 2015-03-20. Retrieved 2016-04-17.
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