August 2019 – DragonFly BSD Digest

2019/08/312019/08/30

In Other BSDs for 2019/08/31

I have a number of BSD user group notifications here – please tell me if you have a group and I’m not regularly posting about it.

NYCBUG meeting on the 4th: Setting up a convenient working environment, with Ivan Ivanov. I’ll post a reminder.
ChiBUG is meeting on the 17th. RSVP on the mailing list if you are going. I’ll post a reminder.
vBSDCon 2019 is happening next weekend, on September 5-7, in Reston, VA. Go if you are near; every report I read about last year’s event said it was a rollicking good time. The schedule is up.
FreeBSD on RISC-V as a voting machine test. BSD is common for embedded, high-security hardware – and people tend to not know because it’s embedded, high-security hardware. (via)
What happened to Bitrig? I haven’t heard anything in some years.
‘Cube 2: Sauerbraten‘ on FreeBSD.
Checking your pf.conf file without leaving the editor.
The Sudo Mastery hardcover.
Gcc 4.2.1 to be removed before FreeBSD 13, a firm timeline. (via)
Add [FreeBSD] kernel-side support for in-kernel TLS. (via)
Project Trident 12-U4 now available.
GSoC 2019 Report: Adding NetBSD KNF to clang-format, Final.
GSoC 2019 Report: Implementation of compat_netbsd32 DRM ioctl/Getting DRM applications running under compat-linux.
Adapting TriforceAFL for NetBSD, Part 3.
Enchancing [sic] Syzkaller Support for NetBSD, Part 3.
Making sense of OpenBSD ‘pfctl -ss‘ output for firewall state tables.
Valuable News – 2019/08/26.
OPNsense® partners with Sunny Valley Networks.
OPNsense 19.7.3 released.
[ports] Datadir added to default postgres flags.
link-local address change.
Using FreeBSD with Ports (1/2): Classic way with tools.

2019/08/302019/08/29

Synaptics touchpad notes

For anyone who might need it in the future: some notes on getting Synaptics touchpads and trackpoints working.

2019/08/29

Jails, individualized

Jails on DragonFly now have their own sysctl tree, inherited from defaults. And are no longer MPLOCKed.

2019/08/29

BSD Now 313: In-Kernel TLS

The pleasingly-symmetrical BSD Now episode 313 is up now. If you use TLS (and you do), it may be interesting. Also, a link to a Thinkpad and BSD test – also of interest to many.

2019/08/282019/08/27

Radeon update on DragonFly

The radeon driver support on DragonFly now matches Linux 4.7.10. Update and test, especially if you have one of the chipsets mentioned.

2019/08/272019/08/27

dsynth details on DragonFly

First, history: DragonFly has had binaries of dports available for download for quite some time. These were originally built using poudriere, and then using the synth tool put together by John Marino. Synth worked both to build all software in dports, and as a way to test DragonFly’s SMP capability under extreme load.

Matthew Dillon is working on a new version, called dsynth. It is available now but not yet part of the build. He’s been working quickly on it and there’s plenty more commits than what I have linked here. It’s already led to finding more high-load fixes.

2019/08/26

New servers, new tech

Following up on an earlier post, the new servers for DragonFly are in place. The old 40-core machine used for bulk build, monster, is being retired. The power efficiency of the new machines is startling. Incidentally, this is where donations go – infrastructure.

2019/08/252019/08/23

Lazy Reading for 2019/08/25

I’m covering all my areas of interest this week, or nearly so.

Famous computer history quotes, some probably new to you.
The Bit Player, a movie about Claude Shannon, and a review of it.
A new Cyriak video, Breakfast. Another attempt to describe fractal infinity, I think. (via)
D&D plus Shakespeare. (via)
The Design of Dungeons and Dragons. Talking about the books themselves, not the game. (via)
Noise Machines, including the nonrepeating sound of a data center. (via)
Oddball analog smartphones.
Voyager 1 and 2 are still talking, still active, and possibly the highest-latency communication problem possible. (via)
Old video game advertisements. (via)
Absolute scale corrupts absolutely. Lots of great pull quotes in this.
Tumblr, the Day After. As a counterpoint to the last link, WordPress and Tumblr are two social networks that do not financially depend on either damaging privacy or encouraging outrage.
Waldenponding, a term new to me.
Paul Ford Uses This. I’ve linked to his excellent writing before.
Chesses, variations on chess. Immediately understandable, and playable if you have a second player right there. (via)

2019/08/242019/08/23

In Other BSDs for 2019/08/24

Incidentally, my employer, REDCOM, uses FreeBSD as a base for its main product, is deployed in rough areas and in high-security government locations, and is one of the few electronics manufacturers still working entirely in the U.S.. REDCOM also has jobs to fill in New York, where I work. Please, apply if you see a job that interests you – and tell me.

DistroTest.net, which happens to have runnable online versions of GhostBSD, FreeBSD, HardenedBSD, MidnightBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, OPNSense, and DragonFly. (via)
The VBSDCon schedule (Sept 5-7, very soon!) is up.
Update webmin/usermin if you have them installed.
Impact of Tariff Increases. Eventually relevant even if you aren’t a U.S. reader.
Project Trident 12-U3 and 19.08 now available.
Valuable News for 2019/08/14 and 2019/08/19.
Porting wine to amd64 on NetBSD, third evaluation report.
USBNET: A story of networking and threads that won’t stop pulling.
Getting the GNU gdbserver to work.
Fuzzing NetBSD Filesystems via AFL. [Part 2].
GSoC 2019 Report: Adding NetBSD KNF to clang-format, Part 2.
Brutal Doom 64 on OpenBSD.
OpenBSD -stable gets package updates! Release OpenBSD doesn’t normally get packages?
Blueprint and progress status for mixed environment multilevel backup. Really, the thing to see is a spreadsheet.
When a hacker tries to infiltrate an OpenBSD machine. Pufferfish reference.
CFT: CBSD project switched to its own cloud images.
Instant Workstation.

2019/08/232019/08/21

Boot environments and HAMMER2

Taken from IRC: “DFBEADM(1) A Boot Environment Manager for HAMMER2“. This could be fun! Here’s the users@ post to match.

2019/08/22

BSD Now 312: Why Package Managers

This week’s BSD Now covers a lot of topics, including linking to a gentle explanation of package management, which surely no reader here needs to have explained? Well, you are covered if so.

2019/08/212019/08/22

A CVE fixed but still hidden

Here’s something I haven’t see before: at the time of me typing this, there are commits in DragonFly, FreeBSD, and I assume NetBSD (haven’t found the commit), but the 2019-5612 CVE entry is still shown as reserved and not public. This may change by the time you read this article, of course.

Update: the original source, found by an intrepid reader.

2019/08/20

AM4 fix, Corsair fix

If you have an AM4 motherboard and also can’t EFI boot DragonFly on it, this recent change may fix that for you.

Also, if you are using a Corsair keyboard, this commit may be useful to you.

2019/08/19

Colo upgrade for dragonflybsd.org, plus future

Matthew Dillon posted an extensive writeup about the hardware changes for dragonflybsd.org; price to performance ratio has been improving so much for multiprocessor machines that we can jump forward both for hosting hardware and for a testbed.

He also mentions his immediate thoughts on what to tackle next, since SMP has been so relentless improved in DragonFly. It resulted in a very long conversational chain as people weighed in with opinions, so I’ve held off posting it until the conversation finished. (I chimed in too.)

2019/08/182019/08/10

Lazy Reading for 2019/08/18

Again, way behind cause of being online only irregularly over the last week. There’s still plenty to look at – August is made for Lazy Reading.

Never fast enough. (Scroll way down) There’s a nonlinear payoff for software speed … for tools.
Related: Fast Software, the Best Software.
Also related: Performance Matters.
On the flip side of that, limiting and slowing social software is a good idea. (via)
freemium.cc, free tools for makers.
https://thehistoryofweb.design/. The URL is perfectly descriptive. (via)
Typography Terms. Gadzook! (via)
Why is modern web development so complicated? A long yet hasty explanation: Part 1. (via)
Why Checklists Fail. Linked cause checklists are usually super-effective. (via)
The Roguelike Toolkit (RLTK), implemented for Rust. The comments in the source page have some interesting further links.
Dwarf Fortress Diary: The Basement Of Curiosity – Episode 22: Goatbusters.
The Last Working Olivetti Mainframe Sits In a Tuscan High School. Comments led me to this neat-looking Olivetti calculator from the year before I was born. (via)
There are even bots crawling gopherspace.
We all spend half our day using a keyboard. Do you use any specific keyboard? Which one? Why? Far more suggestions than you need.
USB-C Easy Bake Oven. Interesting for how power is handled. And cookies. (via)
Backblaze Hard Drive Stats Q2 2019. (via)
I chanced upon an ancient cache of code… (also via)

2019/08/172019/08/10

In Other BSDs for 2019/08/17

This is a somewhat pre-made post coming off a week on the road, so I packed it chock-full.

The UNIX Philosophy in 2019. (via)
Converse to previous: Brian Will – Replacing the Unix tradition.
Summer Sun and microsystems.
How does a “real” Unix system feel compared to *BSDs and Linux?
GSoC 2019 Report Update: Incorporating the memory-hard Argon2 hashing scheme into NetBSD.
Valuable News – 2019/08/05.
Removal of route-collector mode in bgpd(8).
tpmr(4) driver added to -current.
OPNsense 19.7.2 released.
Linux kernel’s inability to gracefully handle low memory pressure. Linked cause you know what performs well under memory restriction? Any BSD. (via)
Devine Lu Linvega’s Uses This entry. Interesting to see his workstation details because his workstation is 2 machines, with Plan 9 variations, and segregated on work vs. distraction. (and sometimes FreeBSD.)
NetBSD light weight theme.
Wanting to install Trident to boot from my USB stick…
LibreSSL 3.0.0 Released. (via)
Play Windows Games On FreeBSD. Encapsulating setup. (via)

2019/08/162019/08/06

dhcpcd and DragonFly, continued

Roy Marples, the ‘upstream‘ for dhcpcd(8), noticed that DragonFly was working with it as a dhclient/rtsold replacement, but the process wasn’t complete. So … welcome new committer!

2019/08/142019/08/06

tap/tun device changes

DragonFly’s tap(4)/tun(4) devices have been historically precreated – tap0, tap1, tap2, tap3. They are now auto-cloned, which might surprise any software counting on the prior behavior. I don’t know of any specific packages that are affected by this, though. DragonFly version 5.6 is unaffected by this; it’s in -current only.

2019/08/132019/08/05

pkg and pkg-static

If you upgrade DragonFly and one of the shared libraries used by pkg gets updated, you can’t run pkg until you get files, but pkg is the program you use to bring in new files. This chicken-and-egg problem is solved with pkg-static, a version of pkg built without shared libraries.

You may have noticed some format flip-flopping between pkg and pkg-static if you had to run it after the most recent DragonFly upgrade; that is fixed. There’s a larger issue of certificate installation identified there; I don’t know a solution to it, but I do want to mention this for next time pkg breaks for someone – pkg-static will work as backup, including to bring in a new version of pkg.

2019/08/132019/08/10

BSD Now 310: My New Free NAS

I’m posting this late cause I was traveling when it went up: BSD Now 310 is a nice cross-BSD roundup this week. I might miss the next BSD Now too, so don’t wait for me to link to it.