FreeBSD – Page 22 – DragonFly BSD Digest

2015/01/102015/01/09

In Other BSDs for 2015/01/10

I got this done early, for once.

Dissecting OpenBSD’s divert(4). (via)
Running ownCloud with httpd on OpenBSD (via)
OpenBSD 2014 by the numbers. (via)
Code rot & OpenBSD. Many comments at the original link. (via)
Accessing radio hardware switches in NetBSD.
What does this Etherswitch framework do?
FreeBSD now has Elf Tool Chain utilities, which appears to be BSD-licensed versions of binutils; possibly more?
FreeBSD is now on Gnome 3.
BSDCan 2015’s Call For Papers is out.
NYCBUG is meeting January 13th at a new location for “Designing Versatile Unix Utilities“, presented by Eric Radman.
There’s a new BSD user group in the Albany, NY area.
BSD Magazine for December 2014 is out. (via)

2015/01/06

ZFS and Hammer conversation

There’s a FreeBSD Forums thread about ZFS and Hammer, as several people have pointed out to me. It’s interesting to see, but there isn’t a lot of quantitative discussion. (It’s a forum post, not a white paper, though.)

2015/01/032015/01/02

In Other BSDs for 2015/01/03

Remembered to do this all at the last minute, after I got the new server up.

LibertyBSD, an OpenBSD fork with no non-free firmware.
OPNSense, a FreeBSD-based firewall that is new to me.
OpenBSD projects that aren’t OpenBSD.
Broken build tracker for pkgsrc. (via)
pkgsrc-2014Q4 is out.
pkgviews is gone from pkgsrc.
NetBSD can now record MIDI files from /dev/music.
How to see hidden pf tables.
The OpenBSD Foundation met their fundraising goal for 2014.
Typing in Japanese in OpenBSD. (via)
Tor relay issues on OpenBSD, in two slightly munged threads.
OpenBSD and syslog, over TCP.
FreeBSD has updated to Unbound 1.5.1 and clang/llvm/lldb to 3.5.0.
bhyve on FreeBSD has an improved Real Time Clock.
GNU texinfo is out of FreeBSD.
FreeBSD’s asr(4) driver is gone too.
pcc 1.1.0 was recently released. (via)

2014/12/272014/12/26

In Other BSDs for 2014/12/27

The list is shorter this week; I blame the Christmas holiday.

OpenBSD now has position-independent executables for some architectures. That may mean changing your upgrade strategy. (5.6 upgrade guide here)
FreeBSD now has frequency/voltage control on the Raspberry Pi.
There’s a lot of v7 ARM architectures. I can see why people are waiting for AARMv8.
FreeBSD has a new NFS client/server.
RamNode is another VPS provider that supports BSD. (via)
Also, cloudspin.me.
[ is a binary program.

2014/12/202014/12/20

In Other BSDs for 2014/12/20

I sort of lost a day this week because of an accidental 20-hour workday, but I still have the links:

I love cross-pollination. (plus)
“Why I (mostly) hack on BSD licenced stuff: so I don’t have to deal with this.“
Tips on pkgsrc packaging.
Kerberos IV is going away in pkgsrc.
The pkgsrc-2014Q4 freeze is on.
A new way to build NanoBSD.
A new ZFS ARC tunable you may need.
I could have sworn vigr(8) already existed.
PC-BSD is moving to Qt5.
A domain blocking script.
Showing remote programs on your Mac using X.
Long thread about BSD VPS hosting. (consensus: try RootBSD or Vultr.)
OpenBSD man is now really mandoc.
freebsd-update issues for 10.1.
Steam on PC-BSD 2. (video)
The (new) PC-BSD upgrade to 10.1 is available.
Sunday Morning Linux Review on “FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials”
Sudo: You’re Doing It Wrong.
“…what’s the best place to start learning about BSD?“

Note: corrected VPS hosting link.

2014/12/19

BSDNow 068: Just the Essentials

BSDNow 068 has a large number video links to various BSD conference videos, a bunch of other article links,, and an interview of Michael W. Lucas about his new FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials book.

2014/12/132014/12/13

In Other BSDs for 2014/12/13

Get ready for some reading.

There’s some packages moving from pkgsrc-wip to pkgsrc proper.
pkgsrc-2014Q4 branching is planned for Monday the 15th.
PC-BSD now has an automatic package/security patch upgrade mechanism.
Steam on PC-BSD. Holy grail, there.
PC-BSD needs testers for the new Update Manager, for moving from 10 to 10.1
NetBSD has imported BIND 9.10.1-P1.
OpenBSD has added skgpio(4), a driver for the Soekris net6501 GPIO port and LEDs.
OpenBSD has updated Unbound to 1.5.1.
Some Japanese input methods for OpenBSD that may work on other BSDs, too.
pfqstat, a replacements for pfstat designed to work with Charted.
I don’t know what the ‘BERI Virtio Networking Frontend’ is, but FreeBSD’s got it.
fstyp(8), the filesystem detector.
FreeBSD has added AES-ICM and AES-GCM modes to OpenCrypto.
If you’re stopping in NYC, NYCBUG would like to hear you talk on a topic of interest.
The case for distributed operating systems in the data center. Sounds like DragonFly’s original charter. (via)
BSDNow wants to hear your getting-into-BSD story.
OpenBSD libc version 78.
There’s a lot of FreeBSD systems at NYI.
“FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials” is now in physical print.
“Networking for System Administrators” is next to come out.
And “Tarsnap Mastery” is next to be written.
…We’re all benefiting from Michael Lucas going full-time on writing.

2014/12/062014/12/05

In Other BSDs for 2014/12/06

I have been building up quite the variety this week.

Bitrig 1.0 has been released.
Writing NetBSD Sound Drivers in Haskell. (PDF, via)
ruBSD 2014, happening December 13th in Moscow. (via)
How to configure full disk encryption in PC-BSD 10.1. (via)
BSD Magazine for November 2014. (via) Why don’t they put new issue announcements in their RSS?
A week of pkgsrc #5.
FreeBSD Foundation’s 2014 year-end fundraising.
FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials is hitting the printers. There’s a quiet mention of the next two books in that series, too.
Two new kernel errata for OpenBSD.
BSDCan 2015 (June 2015) has opened up its call for papers, now through Jan 19th, 2015. (via)
A conversation about UTF-8, Unicode, and file systems.
A conversation about random vs. phrase passwords.
New Directions in Operating Systems conference notes. Lots of BSD stuff in there. (via)
nih-0.13.0 is out for pkgsrc.
BSD presentations (including DragonFly) at the X Developers Conference. I mentioned the event itself before, but that link wasn’t open to non-subscribers until later, as pointed out to me.
Coreboot on the BSDs.
More talk about embedded OpenBSD on cheap machines, including thin client machines repurposed into routers.
Noticed in that previous link: <$100 Ubuquiti EdgeRouter-Lites can run OpenBSD? FreeBSD too, apparently.
Is it time to give BSDs a try?
Fixing PC-BSD upgrade issues.

2014/11/292014/11/28

In Other BSDs for 2014/11/29

Despite the US holiday, here’s a pile of BSD material.

BSD on Mini ITX.
Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?
DiscoverBSD for 2014/11/24.
pkgsrc and i386 may have issues on partial rebuild. Or not? Follow the thread.
lang/guile16 is leaving pkgsrc soon.
check-update, a script for finding what packages in pkgsrc need to be updated.
FreeBSD now has libgpio, I think for those general purpose I/O connectors on small ARM boards that are all the rage.
FreeBSD has switched to mandoc.
Your SGI hardware running OpenBSD will now tell you via LCD.
Tools for checking for updated packages on OpenBSD. (read the whole thread)
Conversations about a home PF-based router. “APU units run hot but are OK” seems to be the thread consensus.

2014/11/222014/11/22

In Other BSDs for 2014/11/22

I actually got this started early, for once, instead of completing in a panic on Friday night.

The Move from Linux to FreeBSD. (via)
BSDTalk247 – FreeBSD: The Next 10 Years with Jordan Hubbard. I meant to post this before; lost track.
/var/tmp now links to /tmp on OpenBSD.
OpenBSD now has perl 5.20.1 in base.
Making FireFox less insecure on OpenBSD.
You can peek at what ‘roles’ are being put together for PC-BSD installs. Or just watch this video.
PC-BSD and TrueOS version 10.1 released, Lumina 0.7.2 tagged.
Linux Top 3: PC-BSD 10.1 Linux Mint 17.1 and Mageia 5.
FreeBSD now supports the Trendnet TEW-646UBH wireless adapter.
BSD Router Project (bsdrp) version 1.53 is out.
NetBSD has updated tcpdump/libpcap.
retiring crypt
shtk 1.6 now available.
NYCBSDCon made about $1k for each of the BSDs.
WhatsApp donate $1MM to the FreeBSD Foundation.
DiscoverBSD for 2014/11/17.
Workaday Software For BSD On the Desktop?
Book Review: Book of PF, 3rd Edition.

2014/11/152014/11/14

In Other BSDs for 2014/11/15

Totally last minute.

People still add things to telnet?
FreeBSD has removed faith(4) and faithd(8).
FreeBSD ports now has stack smashing protection on by default.
FreeBSD 10.1 is out. (And PC-BSD follows)
PC-BSd is looking at ‘roles‘.
Printing device trees in OpenBSD.
Munin and pf queues.
Contributing. (Applies to any BSD, really.)
pkgsrc-2014Q3 packages for illumos available.
DiscoverBSD for 2014/11/10.
from the annals of uvm, OpenBSD virtual memory.
BSD Magazine: Hardened BSD.
BSDFan, for Thinkpad fans on any? BSD.
FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials” is less than a month away. The author’s giving a sudo talk soon, too.

2014/11/082014/11/07

In Other BSDs for 2014/11/08

Snow finally hit my area yesterday, which makes me happy.

PC-BSD 10.1-RC2 Released.
FreeBSD 10.1-RC4 now available.
Building an OpenBSD firewall and router
Michael W. Lucas’s next book: “Networking for Sysadmins“. BSD-friendly, of course.
See also: his sci-fi work, not BSD related.
PC-BSD’s Lumina gains plugins. (one link of several)
pkgsrc-2014Q3 packages for OSX now available
OpenBSD adds SipHash.
OpenBSD has enabled USB3.
The signed Book of PF made $3000 at auction.
FreeBSD now uses vt(4) instead of syscons by default.
Improving bcd(6)

2014/11/012014/11/01

In Other BSDs for 2014/11/01

Hardly any source commits to point at this week, but there’s still lots of stuff happening in BSD-land.

MeetBSD is happening right now.
OpenBSD 5.6 is being released right now too.
Michael W. Lucas has released the cover to his upcoming FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials book.
Peter N. M. Hansteen’s 3rd edition of the Book of PF is out, and he’s running an auction for the first author-signed copy – with profits to OpenBSD. This is a good strategy. I have a copy of the book and will write a review here as soon as I can finish it – only up to chapter 3 right now. The presentation that spawned the book is updated and available.
FreeBSD 10.0 got an extension.
Don’t run wsmoused and X at the same time in OpenBSD.
NetBSD now has openresolv 3.6.1. It’s a resolv.conf management program I had not yet heard of.
FreeBSD has significant changes to /dev/random,
FreeBSD has gained TTM support in its AGP driver, and radeonkms in FreeBSD now supports AGP.
NYCBUG, upcoming.
DiscoverBSD for 2014/10/27.
The Apple Mac Takes Its Place In The Post-PC World. Unix-based computers are the best game in town, it appears. (via)
Lumina Desktop Build in FreeBSD / TrueOS. (video)

2014/10/252014/10/25

In Other BSDs for 2014/10/25

This week I was on top of the whole linking thing.

A Minecraft plugin for FreeNAS.
PC-BSD has a YouTube channel.
LibreSSL 2.1.0 is out.
OpenBSD 5.6 sneak peek.
Question about the current state of FreeBSD
Tanenbaum realizes BSD was a better idea. (via)
DiscoverBSD for 2014/10/13.
DiscoverBSD for 2014/10/20.
FreeBSD Foundation goes to EuroBSDCon 2014.
KDEConnect in PC-BSD.
Behind OS X’s modern face lies an aging collection of Unix tools. (via)
NYCBUG is looking for meeting space in 2015.
The FreeBSD Forums are running new software.
A 14 year old IP reference.
NetBSD has imported openresolv 3.6.0.
Getting snmpwalk to talk to snmpd on FreeBSD.
PC-BSD (starts to) gain EFI support.
Security Engineering for Linux Users. (via)
vxlan, virtio console driver, added to FreeBSD.
Setting a dedicated serial link on your OpenBSD system.
Chromium has some issues in OpenBSD-current in some situations.

2014/10/182014/10/17

In Other BSDs for 2014/10/18

Done at the last minute, like always, but surprisingly extensive this week:

DiscoverBSD for 2014/10/06.
FreeBSD Cheatsheet.
FreeBSD 10.1 RC2 is out.
Question about the BSD community as a whole.
mandoc now contains man.
PC-BSD now has a new Linuxulator and AppCafe.
GhostBSD 4.0 is out.
Frequent BSD author Michael W. Lucas is now a fulltime tech author.
Speaking of that, the first draft of his FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials is up.
Introducing sysupgrade for NetBSD.
37 year old bug, 22 year old fix, patched this month. (via)
PC-BSD has branched 10.1.
FreeBSD has netmap support in libpcap.
FreeBSD’s ipfw has received some updates.
A PC-BSD 10.0.3 review.
Building packages at scale.
MeetBSD 2014 is coming up in California.
NetBSD 6.1.5 and 6.0.6 are out.
The third quarter 2014 FreeBSD Status Report is out.
Send in your OpenBSD dmesg.
Importing pkg to NetBSD – an idea I support.

2014/10/042014/10/05

In Other BSDs for 2014/10/04

Whee!

FreeBSD 10.1 beta 3 is out – though it may be superseded by the time this article is published.
pkg is apparently supported in Salt and cdist. (via)
DiscoverBSD’s September BSD release list.
DiscoverBSD’s news roundup for 2014/09/29.
The September BSD Magazine is out. (via)
Undeadly has links to (all?) the EuroBSDCon 2014 OpenBSD papers.
OpenBSD 5.6 is available for pre-order, and at a new store.
Can’t tell if this is a joke or just dumb. No, it’s not a real problem.
Here’s an OpenBSD conversation about routing table changes and flaky ISPs, though much of it could apply to any BSD.
I daresay this counts as Shellshock fallout.
pkgsrc-2014Q3 is out and announced.
No more cvsup for FreeBSD.

2014/10/02

BSDNow 057: The Daemon’s Apprentice

This week’s BSDNow has an interview about mentoring with Steve Wills of FreeBSD, the usual array of news. This week has more small device news than normal – NetBSD on Raspberry Pi and pfSense on a mini-ITX system. And a mention of my desktop article! I’m relevant!

2014/09/272014/09/27

In Other BSDs for 2014/09/27

Not even trying source links this week; there’s plenty else to link.

FreeBSD 10.2 Beta 2 is out. (has been out, but this is the announcement.)
The Open Source Software Engagement Award. An excellent, excellent move by Colin Percival.
Shuffling Partitions on FreeBSD.
Outlining Thin Linux. The article linked to described a stripped down Linux that doesn’t have package dependencies just to run. That’s what BSD has been for several decades now…
DiscoverBSD for 2014/09/22.
pfSense has reached 2.2-beta.
“Can you recommend a good laptop that runs BSD well?“
NetBSD on the Raspberry Pi. (via)
Bash and PC-BSD.
The OpenBSD 5.6 theme song.
EuroBSDCon 2014 is going on right now. (via)

Update: EuroBSDCon is livestreaming! (via)

2014/09/26

BSDNow 056: Beastly Infrastructure

I normally post these on Thursday night, but I didn’t see it in my RSS feed. I think this one feed is behind. In any case, Episode 056 is a lengthy interview with Peter Wemm about the FreeBSD project infrastructure. Allan and Kris are at EuroBSDCon, so I expect there will be some European BSD people getting interviewed in upcoming episodes.

2014/09/202014/09/20

In Other BSDs for 2014/09/20

Low on the source links this week, but there’s plenty else.

TrueOS, CD-sized. Warning: lots of ads on that page. (via)
FreeBSD with a swap file instead of a swap partition. (via)
FreeNAS in VMWare Workstation, part 1. Lots of screenshots, little explanation. (via)
FreeBSD 10.1 Beta 1 is available.
A summary of the OpenBSD GSoC systemd compatibility program.
DiscoverBSD news summary for 2014/09/15.
Minix 3.3, with NetBSD userland and pkgsrc.
pkgsrc is now frozen in preparation for pkgsrc-2014Q3.
A pkgsrc pbulk cwrappers test.
PC-BSD gains pc-sysconfig, a system configuration utility.
Lumina supports OpenBSD now too.
FreeBSD has upgraded to OpenPAM “Ourouparia”.
OpenBSD has dropped sendmail.
openbsd-misc@ had discussion about low-power servers, with the APU mentioned often. (see below for update)
From this thread, this javascript program will get you web video instead of Flash on many sites.
From talk@nycbug, some cheap BSD laptop ideas. (look for “Cheap Laptops…” thread)

Update: from talk@nycbug, George Rosamond gives a nice APU setup summary.