OnLAMP/BSD has two new articles: “Running Cyrus IMAP” (using FreeBSD as an example, but the model holds), and an extensive article on Identifying Changes to a Macintosh File System. Why show that on a BSD site? Cause it’s BSD!
Matthew Dillon has updated the Release version of DragonFly (the most stable flavor) to 1.2.6. A list of the included updates are in his commit message.
If you are trying out pkgsrc now, Jeremy C. Reed recommends using the version that is in CVS, not the quarterly releases (of which 2005Q3 is the most recent). Yes, it’s bleeding edge, but so is your operating system.
bsdcertification.org has made available the objectives for the “BSD Associate” certification exam. The exam itself will be out in the second quarter of 2006.
Martin P. Hellwig has a not uncommon problem with his mail server: he’s transitioning from one provider to another, and he wants to get the new network connection working before he drops the old one. Matthew Dillon has a solution with ipfw that will last until we are able to establish multiple default routes under DragonFly.
Updated: Martin took notes on how he got it to work.
If you have a server with a Broadcom chipset (em driver) – specifically, models 82571EB, 82572EI and 82573E – Sepherosa Ziehau has a patch he’d like folks to try.
Simon ‘corecode’ Schubert wrote up his own description of DragonFly’s rather loosely-defined release schedule.
Emily Boyd’s Google Summer of Code project (of which FreeBSD had several) has paid off in the form of a nice site redesign for www.freebsd.org. (She’s apparently also worked on the postgresql .org site.)
This week, UnixReview.com has a lesson on including source code in groff documents, an example of deploying a large Content Management System, a review of the book “HP-UX 11i Version 2 System Administration” (HP-UX is BSDlike, if I recall correctly) and an article on certification.
Matthew Dillon bumped up the version of Development, so Simon ‘corecode’ Schubert could start work on LWPs, or Light Weight Processes. Simon’s already committed the first stage, and followed with a general explanation of how LWPs and LWKT work together.
Update: Simon also helpfully wrote out a roadmap for threading support.
Jeremy C. Reed asks that anyone running pkgsrc install and run pkgsrc/pkgtools/pkgsurvey. This will send (generally anonymous) data to the pkgsrc project on which packages are being used. Repeating this monthly (as though a cron job) would be best.
If you’re still on the ports system, mail Jeremy the output of pkg_info. He also hinted that the data on the most popular packages could be used for putting together a DVD.
Matthew Dillon proposed writing a polling mechanism that would work independently of the system hardclock. It’s apparently a simple task for anyone who has touched kernel code, and he’s looking for takers.
Simon ‘corecode’ Schubert has updated the example cvsup files; the new target names (‘dragonfly-‘ prefix) have been available for a long time already, so you probably only need an update if you are using a custom cvsup file.
I point this out for the command’s obtuseness, not its utility. Dirk Liebke described the command necessary to (probably) shut down and power off a Solaris machine: ‘shutdown -g 0 -i 5 -y‘
I’ve seen nothing in the way of good news lately, on the mailing lists or about the web. So, in an effort to keep content appearing here, I’ll ask an idle question of you, the reader: Where do you go on the web for BSD news?
If you’ve only ever used to ‘shutdown -h now‘ to halt a machine, Sepherosa Ziehau reminds that ‘shutdown -p now‘ is the way to get the server powered off.
Joseph Garcia got to fight with tftp on DragonFly; he wrote down the rather torturous procedure he had to follow, which may help anyone else with a Cisco router that needs to be configured.
Matthew Dillon has added some sysctls that can help secure your machine; the commit message for both contains a more in-depth explanation.
It’s rather quiet lately… Why not spend some time clicking Hubert’s links?
UnixReview.com has more than normal this week: 4 articles! There’s a regex article titled “Regular Expressions: Two Easy Steps Better Than One Hard One“, a writeup of: php | works Conference – Toronto Sept 14 – 16, 2005, a security article with the run-on title of “Computer Security, It’s Not About the Software“, and a review of the book “Brute Force: Cracking the Data Encryption Standard“.