Arriving six months after version 7.9, OpenBSD 8.0 is now available, marking the 61st release of the security-focused Unix-like operating system.
One of the biggest changes concerns OpenBSD’s built-in VMM/VMD virtualization system, which now supports up to 64 virtual CPUs per guest. It also introduces x2APIC support, MSI/MSI-X interrupts for virtio devices, checksum offloading, and improved handling of QCOW disk images.
Several fixes improve compatibility with 32-bit Linux guests, while changes to virtual machine ownership management and interrupt emulation make the virtualization infrastructure more capable.
Graphics support has also been upgraded, with DRM drivers updated to those from Linux kernel 6.18.53. Notably, OpenBSD 8.0 adds support for Intel Arc A-Series (Alchemist) graphics cards through the inteldrm driver.
Another important change increases the amd64 kernel’s virtual address space from 4 GB to 512 GB, allowing the system to map over 4 GB of video memory. The release also addresses GPU timeout issues affecting some Intel Alder Lake systems.
On the hardware front, ARM64 systems now support hibernation, and several fixes improve suspend and resume functionality on Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered laptops. RISC-V support has also expanded with kernel support for the V vector extension, Advanced Interrupt Architecture, and the Sstc timer extension.
Wireless networking receives many improvements, particularly in the qwx and qwz drivers. Both now support 802.11n with 40 MHz channels. Additional fixes address crashes, firmware communication, roaming reliability, and power management.
Networking improvements extend to Ethernet hardware, including support for Intel Panther Lake and Wildcat Lake devices and Intel E610 controllers.
For security, OpenBSD 8.0 adds checks and fixes across the kernel and system utilities, including improvements to pledge and unveil, tighter validation of executable files, and protections against memory corruption and information disclosure.
The PF firewall also receives several fixes addressing TCP connection tracking, packet handling, race conditions, and potential out-of-bounds memory access. The built-in HTTP server also gains support for custom HTTP headers and switches its default TLS cipher configuration from “compat” to “secure.”
For network administrators, the release introduces rtrd and rtrctl, providing support for the RPKI-to-Router protocol. Additional improvements to bgpd address route validation, reconnect handling, and various routing-related issues.
On the cryptography side, OpenBSD 8.0 ships with LibreSSL 4.4, which makes the hybrid post-quantum X25519MLKEM768 key exchange the preferred TLS 1.3 group in libtls. The release also includes numerous improvements to certificate validation, TLS handling, and cryptographic implementations.
OpenSSH has been updated to version 10.6, bringing experimental support for composite post-quantum ML-DSA44/Ed25519 signatures, additional authentication options, and multiple security fixes. These include disabling the LZ77 dictionary coder to prevent a potential side-channel leak.
Package management has also improved, with the pkg_add utility now handles certain dependency-processing loops more reliably, fw_update introduces stricter signature validation, and syspatch avoids unnecessary full archive downloads when checking for updates.
Finally, the ports collection provides updated desktop environments and applications, including KDE Plasma 6.7.5, GNOME 49, Xfce 4.20, Firefox 157, Chromium 154, LibreOffice 26.8, GCC 16.1, and PostgreSQL 18.6. Wayland 1.26 is also available, along with compositors such as Sway, Niri, Labwc, and Wayfire.
For more information, see the official OpenBSD 8.0 release announcement. The release is available for download from the project’s mirror network.
