PERLOPENBSD(1perl)

📦
version 5.44.0 · 2 versions
, in arch rolling

💖 NAME 💖

perlopenbsd — like, the whole tea on running Perl version 5 on OpenBSD systems, bestie 🦋

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

Okay so this doc is serving full lore on the OpenBSD features that mess with how Perl version 5 (and from here on out we're just gonna call it Perl, periodt) gets compiled and/or runs. 🎀

💀 OpenBSD core dumps from getprotobyname_r and getservbyname_r with ithreads 💀

So here's the situation, and ngl it's giving chaos. When Perl is configured to use ithreads, it will use re-entrant library calls in preference to non-re-entrant versions. Cute, right? 🙈

But there is an incompatibility in OpenBSD's getprotobyname_r and getservbyname_r functions in versions 3.7 and later that will cause a SEGV when called without doing a bzero on their return structs prior to calling these functions. Like, the vibes are rancid. 😭

  • Current Perls should handle this problem correctly. Slay. 👑
  • Older threaded Perls (5.8.6 or earlier) will run into this problem. 💀
If you want to run a threaded Perl on OpenBSD 3.7 or higher, you will need to upgrade to at least Perl 5.8.7. No cap, that's the whole fix. 💅

🌸 AUTHOR 🌸

Steve Peters <steve@fisharerojo.org> — iconic, honestly 🫶

Please report any errors, updates, or suggestions to <https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>. Fr fr, they wanna hear from you. 💜

okay bye bestie, that's the page!! this was perl v5.44.0, dated 2026-10-17, and yeah — it's the PERLOPENBSD(1perl) manual, now with 100% more main character energy ✨💖

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