What is BSD Weekly and what does it provide?

Updated

BSD Weekly is a free, once-weekly email newsletter that rounds up BSD news and articles in a single issue. It is aimed at people who want one consolidated digest of what is happening across the BSD family — releases, security advisories, news, and tutorials — rather than tracking many separate sources. Each issue is numbered and dated, so you can follow it as a running publication (the sample issue shown is Issue 301, published October 21, 2026).

What each issue covers

The newsletter organizes content into recurring sections. In the sample issue, the headings are Releases, BSDSec, News, and Tutorials.

Section What it contains Example from Issue 301
Releases New BSD version announcements with notable changes OpenBSD 8.0: multi-processor support for up to 64 guest VCPUs in vmd, DRM graphics updated to Linux 6.18.53 with Intel Arc support, boot-time random relinking for httpd and smtpd, amd64 kernel virtual address space expanded to 512G, hibernate support on arm64, sparc64 moved to the LLVM toolchain, plus installer, pf, and driver updates
BSDSec Security advisories and errata OpenBSD errata for ppp, isakmpd, NSD, X11, IPsec crypto, and video drivers (OpenBSD 7.8, 7.9, 8.0; binary updates via syspatch on amd64, arm64, i386); FreeBSD-SA-26:71.sound (TOCTOU race in sound(4) buffer resizing and mmap); FreeBSD-SA-26:72.bhyve (bhyve device model vulnerabilities); FreeBSD-SA-26:70.tcp (tcp_rack buffer overflow in FreeBSD 15.1); FreeBSD errata on TCP timer overflow, hastd, and tzdata
News Community and project news NetBSD's AI-free stance, among other items
Tutorials How-to and instructional articles Listed as a section in the issue

How to use it

  1. Subscribe by email — the newsletter is distributed as a weekly email, which is the primary delivery format described on the site.
  2. Read by section — if you administer systems, start with BSDSec to see whether any advisory affects your versions; if you are evaluating upgrades, check Releases.
  3. Follow issue numbers — issues are numbered sequentially (e.g., Issue 301), which makes it easy to reference or catch up on a specific week.

Who it is for

BSD Weekly suits system administrators, developers, and enthusiasts who run OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, or related systems and want a periodic summary instead of monitoring each project's announcement channels. Because security items include affected versions and patch paths (for example, syspatch on OpenBSD or freebsd-update/pkg on FreeBSD), it can serve as a lightweight prompt to check whether your systems need updating — though you should always confirm details against the original advisory before acting.

Limitations to keep in mind

  • It is a round-up, not a primary source: release notes and advisories are summarized, so verify specifics at the originating project.
  • Content is weekly, so urgent security news may reach you with a delay of up to a week.
  • The site describes the newsletter as free; no pricing or account requirements beyond email subscription are indicated in the available material.