Also noticed that #DNSCrypt provides a large amount of binary distributions for #FreeBSD, #OpenBSD, #NetBSD, #DragonFlyBSD, #Solaris, among several other OSs, plus many architecture-specific binaries. That is really nice! Next thing will be deploying it on the beastie server.
#Podman has been ported to #FreeBSD. And it can run Arch Linux for me.
Linux containers in FreeBSD can start through the old good #Linuxulator - which does not support complex features like cgroups or namespaces, which means I probably can't run a container inside a container. Yet.
But this Linux layer is actively supported in FreeBSD for almost 20 years and is rock-solid! It started in 2006 at Google, based on Linux kernel 2.6 and today it shows up as 5.15-compatible!
As a proud member of the open source community since 1995, as being part of the OSS revolution as a #RedHat, #Canonical and #SuSE employee, with regrets I have to admit @geerlingguy is not totally wrong:
I finally did it and moved to a more appropriate "home realm" for a #FreeBSD enthusiast. Thanks @stefano for offering this!
Moving followers worked flawlessly, restoring all my settings was pretty quick, but of course all my old toots are left on https://techhub.social/@zirias 🙈
So I guess I'll introduce myself here by writing a little thread, adding a few of my works that someone might find interesting. But first a bit of "who am I":
I'm a "professional" software architect/developer (mostly #dotnet platform in the day job), FreeBSD hobby-admin and ports committer, #C64 fan (and occassionally coder and even musician), and apart from computers also interested in music (playing a few instruments myself), traveling, cooking, sometimes sports, sometimes politics ... but probably won't toot about any non-technical stuff (or, very very rarely).
How can I be up-to-date with current developments of all #bsd without following their mailing lists? I'd love to know what they are cooking (got or graphical installer for example) but without following dev discussions, as those are too low-level for my needs.
> FreeBSD is working on a graphical installer. Finally.
"finally" what? like, what is the actual benefit to users here?
bsdinstall could definitely do with some improvements to its workflow (which people are working on) but it's already pretty intuitive and easy to use.
if you install FreeBSD with a graphical installer, you finish the install, and then... you end up with a "login:" prompt on a text terminal. so you didn't gain anything from having a graphical installer.
if the idea here is to make FreeBSD easier to install/use, then the focus should be on the post-install system (e.g., installing DRM/X/Wayland/etc. by default), not on the installer itself.
Recently got a cheap 128 GB SSD to see how BSD would run on my main machine, and this weekend threw FreeBSD on it. I'm sending this toot from the working system, and aside from the general configuration joy of being an Unix nerd, finding almost everything I need to know in the FreeBSD Handbook is a great perk on the second joy: reading docs and being able to flow acting on them.
I'm trying to figure out the best browser combination for my needs. Generally, Firefox covers almost everything I need, but it's slow on Android and drains a lot of battery. I've tried Vivaldi, Chrome, and Brave. Of these, only Brave has the features I need, like full history sync (not just typed URLs), and the ability to send tabs to other devices. However, with its focus on crypto and AI, it seems too hype-driven for me. Also, none of them work on FreeBSD without using a Linux jail.
Need to see your routing table on #macOS or #FreeBSD or #Linux ? Type:
netstat -rn
The entry with the "G" flag is your gateway. #Linux users may want to use the ip command (look for "default" entry which is your gateway):
ip route show
Jim ported your FAT filesystem driver to Haiku here https://review.haiku-os.org/c/haiku/+/7660 using a compatibility layer, to replace the previous driver we had inherited from BeOS sample code that was not working great.
I appreciate your input on how to handle this, maybe you're open to making/upstreaming some changes to the driver to make it easier to port? Maybe your driver is as bad as ours and you already plan to rewrite it? Anything else we should check?
Long story short: I have an important system failing to boot, and I've already broke something, and I would really appreciate someone giving some suggestions before I break it even further.
So I have a home server running FreeBSD, with a zfs-root SSD and a separate zfs volume with some spinning disks keeping all the data.
All of a sudden, the machine went down and failed to reboot. I connected a monitor to it and it was stuck with an error saying it was unable to boot an operating system, pressing a key got me to the "OK" prompt, and waiting for a reboot got me into the bios config.
It's been a while (and one upgrade to FreeBSD 14) since I installed it, and booting from the FreeBSD installer and using gpart to check the partitions shows that I have both an EFI and a freebsd-boot partition on there.
"There’s a multitude of Operating Systems to choose from. You may have been using something like Windows or MacOS and be perfectly happy with it. You can step up and use Linux, Haiku or even Amiga OS. So, why do I think a BSD system may be a great choice?"
Hello everyone! I wanted to share some exciting updates about the development of BSD Mail, our privacy-focused email service designed with robustness, security, and transparency in mind. Here’s a deep dive into the technical choices I've made, focusing on my use of open source solutions and open protocols:
🌍 Servers & Location
We're running on two physical servers:
One hosted by OVH in France
Another by Hetzner in Germany
Both servers operate on FreeBSD with NVMe drives in a ZFS mirror configuration for speed and data integrity.
🔒 Virtualization & Security
We utilize jails on both servers to ensure isolated environments for different services, managed via BastilleBSD. On one server, jails are set up directly on the hardware, whereas the other server employs nested jails.
Each server hosts a bhyve VM running OpenBSD with OpenSMTPD for handling SMTP duties securely.
🔗 Networking
A Wireguard setup connects the two servers, facilitating routing capabilities so that jails and VMs can communicate seamlessly, supporting both IPv4 and IPv6.
📧 Email Services
Dovecot is configured for maildir replication across the servers using Dovecot sync, ensuring email availability and redundancy.
Rspamd instances are tied to local KeyDB jails, set up in master-master replication for consistent and reliable spam detection and greylisting.
ClamAV runs in corresponding jails for virus scanning, maintaining a high level of security.
SOGo provides a web interface for email management, connected to MySQL databases in master-master replication to handle sessions and authentication smoothly.
💾 Data Management
Email data is stored on separate, encrypted ZFS datasets to secure emails at rest.
MySQL databases are used for storing credentials and managing sessions for SOGo, also in a master-master replication setup. Importantly, all passwords are securely hashed using bcrypt, ensuring they are salted and safe.
🔎 Monitoring & Reliability
Our DNS is managed through BunnyNet, which continuously monitors our server status. Should one server—or a specific service—become unavailable, DNS configurations are dynamically adjusted to avoid directing users to the affected IP until full service is restored.
🌐 Commitment to Open Source and Open Protocols
Every component of BSD Mail is built exclusively using open source software and open protocols. This commitment is crucial for ensuring data freedom and the reliability of the solutions we use.
This setup not only emphasizes our commitment to privacy and security but also our dedication to maintaining an open and transparent platform.
We're excited to bring you a service where your privacy, data integrity, and freedom are prioritized. Stay tuned for more updates!
I started a simple project called checkrc that validates the /etc/rc.conf file on #FreeBSD. I'm still a beginner in C programming, but I'm giving it a shot with something usful:
The project is still a work in progress, right at the beginning, so don't expect too much yet. But I'll be working on it every day. :blobfoxcofecute: :blobfoxcomputerowonotice: One day I'll be great!
The other day I have also committed an update to the sync(8) manual page, which documents that running sync three times in a row hasn't been necessary since the 80s.
🌟 New Case Study: Netflix's FreeBSD Fork Management 🌟
Netflix manages one of the world's most widely deployed FreeBSD networks to power their Open Connect CDN, delivering seamless streaming experiences to millions of users globally. Read their case study for insights on managing large-scale FreeBSD deployments and contributing to the open source community. Don't miss it!
What a wonderful conversation, discussing BSDs, communities and the joy of using cough legacy software, with @stefano, @gyptazy and a few more people whose handles I don't know yet.