As always I brought some properly obsolete hardware: a 486slc2 running #NetBSD (or OS/2 on request), a Toshiba luggable 486SX2-66 with #DOS and #MonkeyIsland, #DOTT, #Larry, #SpaceQuest or whatnot, and - surprisingly - a Pentium 3-based Gericom laptop gifted to me by @outofcreativity which is now upgraded from #OpenBSD to NetBSD ;-)

#EuroBSDCon2026

Alt...

Two screens from our booth: on the left showing Netscape 2.02 on OS/2 with the floppy museum page on #RecoveryWhiskers, on the right Monkey Island 1 running on the Toshiba.

Alt...

Me on the train preparing the Toshiba. Big honkin' machine on the table, silly blue headphones on my head.

I have some questions for the #FreeBSD folks in the room:

1.) What are the best practices for Poudriere and Packages. I understand one shouldn't mix Ports and packages, but I want to have some custom builds for my machines, like vim, zsh, wget, mutt, nano, while not relying on compiling everything. Is there a safe way to do this? Presumably one tracks the same quarterly ports tree as packages. But is there more to it?

2.) When managing software using Poudriere and Ports, how does one manage emergency OOB patches? I would imagine switching Poudriere to use LATEST is an operational death wish.

#RunBSD #homelab #tech #unix #software #sysadmin

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲/𝟬𝟵/𝟭𝟰 (Valuable News - 2026/09/14) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2026/09/14/valuable-news-2026-09-14/

Past releases: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/news/

#verblog #vernews #news #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #linux #unix #zfs #opnsense #ghostbsd #solaris #vermadenday

Is it supposed to be so obtrusive to install #FreeBSD as a #desktop on a laptop with a DE? Configuring sysrc, manually editing lightdm #xkb although correct keyboard layout has been configured on installation? No username display just "User &", having to manually click and type your username and pw. Genuinely interested if FreeBSD is just not meant to be used as a desktop. #unix

Omar Polo (op@) has announced the release of #OpenSMTPD 7.9.0p0 -portable. ​

Release notes: https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-announce&m=178933407248507&w=2

https://github.com/OpenSMTPD/OpenSMTPD/releases/tag/7.9.0p0

#FreeBSD #Linux

How do you all #FreeBSD desktop users, transfare files between an android phone and your desktops/laptops? ❤

#BSD #OpenBSD #Linux #Unix

PFWall: building firewall images to run at scale - the last presentation of this wonderful conference

#FreeBSD #EuroBSDCon2026 #eurobsdcon

Alt...

Ready to present the firewall slides

DaemonForums is offline as its owner/administrator j65nko is terminally ill and in the hospital. DaemonForums was a *BSD forum and community for nearly 20 years, a replacement when BSDForums was taken over by spambots around 2008. There was a lot of good information and discussion there over the years. https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/daemonforums.103642/ #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #bsd #daemonforums

Olivier: supporting hibernate (s4) on FreeBSD

#FreeBSD #EuroBSDCon #EuroBSDCon2026

Alt...

Olivier is presenting

Laatste dag van de European *BSD event of the year! 😈⛳🐡

The last day of the event starts today!

Registration and ☕☕☕ starts at 09:00

The second keynote starts at 09:30 in D.0.02, The current state of "Green AI" by Anne Currie.

After the break at 10:30, there will be three tracks, also streaming via Peertube and Youtube:

- D.0.02
https://exquisite.tube/w/dFceGLUNjX8niTHc96TVEv

- D.0.03
https://exquisite.tube/w/2WFqRYvcpmYAEPRUZsdyo3

- D.0.07
https://exquisite.tube/w/bPdoz2UUAxACHQooyUpXiw

There is a 15 minute break between each talk to give you plenty of time to move from one room to another and grab some ☕
Lunch will be served after the family picture at 12:30. :)

At 18:15 the closing session of EuroBSDCon will be in D.0.02

You can find the full program and streams at: https://2026.eurobsdcon.org/program.html

EuroBSDCon 2026 in Brussels, Belgium 🇧🇪
September 09-13, 2026

#EuroBSDCon #EuroBSDCon2026 #BSD #RUNBSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #Talks

From EuroBSDCon 2026: "What has (can) the EU Cyber Resilience Act done (do) for you?" by Peter Hansteen - video https://exquisite.tube/w/pZuKtVxhfgGYYayG81SwVa article https://nxdomain.no/~peter/what_hascan_eu_cra_donedo_for_you.html @eurobsdcon #eurobsdcon #freebsd #netbsd #openbsd #cra #cyberresilience #softwareengineering #engineerup #softwaredevelopment #PDE #digitalelements

Baptiste presenting: rcd(8): modern service manager the FreeBSD way

#FreeBSD #EuroBSDCon2026 #EuroBSDCon

Alt...

Baptiste is presenting

Lukas is presenting: pkgbase in Production: A Practical Overview

#EuroBSDCon #EuroBSDCon2026 #FreeBSD #RunBSD

Alt...

Lukas is ready to start

Haha, been there, asked that 😆

#FreeBSD #EuroBSDcon #EuroBSDcon2026

@RueNahcMohr Yeah, that happens - upgrading one virtual Linux instance (my main systems are #FreeBSD) ended in a quiet death after booting the latest kernel. I had to select the old kernel in GRUB and set it as the default.

Then there’s another one that decides to recompile certain kernel modules during an update and fails at it. Now, whenever I install any package, it keeps trying to recompile that damn module over and over - but at least it still runs.

Bookmarking 🔖
https://events.eurobsdcon.org/2026/talk/QTAQKG/

#eurobsdcon #freebsd #rcd

Hi,
SoCBSD is a new FreeBSD fork focused on bringing FreeBSD support to embedded systems and SoCs.

The project is just getting started, and we’re working on drivers, board support, and improving FreeBSD on ARM-based platforms.

👉 https://github.com/SoCBSD

Contributions, testing, feedback, and ideas are very welcome!

#FreeBSD #OpenSource #Embedded #ARM #BSD #SOCBSD, #Mediatek

@ax6761
When I tried installing #NetBSD I ran into the same issues: the boot screen would freeze. Eventually I solved that with #FreeBSD but maybe I'll try Net again.
Had no issues installing and running both #OpenBSD and #Slackware

@rl_dane

Maybe you learned #VHDL in the interim. (-:

By the way, you made me re-visit the doco for case. It should be ;& (just the one semi-colon) to fall through in all sh-conforming shells, because that was standardized back in 2024. #NetBSD and #FreeBSD knew it was coming in 2017 and adjusted their Almquist shells.

And I realized that I've been writing for a highest common factor that is actually too low, because the #FreeBSD manual for sh(1) is wrong. They kept the shell conformant, but didn't keep the doco in synch.

#AlmquistShell

@JdeBP

Maybe you learned #VHDL in the interim.  (-:

Uh, NO, do you see me staring far off into the distance and drooling? 😂

By the way, you made me re-visit the doco for case.  It should be ;& (just the one semi-colon) to fall through in all sh-conforming shells, because that was standardized back in 2024.  #NetBSD and #FreeBSD knew it was coming in 2017 and adjusted their Almquist shells.

And I realized that I've been writing for a highest common factor that is actually too low, because the #FreeBSD manual for sh(1) is wrong.  They kept the shell conformant, but didn't keep the doco in synch.

Huh, I tried sh, ksh, mksh, and bash with ;;, ;&, ;;&, and ;| on NetBSD, and the only ones that worked were bash and ksh.

(Ok, I see how I miscommunicated here. I meant the only ones where ;;& or ;| worked, not ;&)

On this Devuan box, bash accepts ;;, ;&, and ;;& just as the manpage states (short-cut, accept all after first accpetance, evalute all, respectively)
mksh works just like bash, but also accepts ;| as equivalent to bash's ;;& (which it also accepts)
Dash's sh (debian almquist) only accepts ;;, and gives an execution-stopping syntax error with all of the other forms.

On a freebsd server I tried, ksh (ksh93) only accepts ;; and ;&. sh acts the same. Tried an OpenBSD server and got the same result.

Here's the test script:

echo
echo 'trying ;;'
case a in a) echo its a;; b) echo its b;; *) echo its something;; esac
echo
echo 'trying ;&'
case a in a) echo its a;& b) echo its b;& *) echo its something;& esac
echo
echo 'trying ;;&'
case a in a) echo its a;;& b) echo its b;;& *) echo its something;;& esac
echo
echo 'trying ;|'
case a in a) echo its a;| b) echo its b;| *) echo its something;| esac

@rl_dane

The #NetBSD #AlmquistShell has supported ;& for years. I was just reading the CVS changelog to see when it was added to its manual, which was back in 2017.

It definitely works.

The #FreeBSD Almquist Shell has supported ;& for years. I actually have a 2017 version of that.

It definitely works, too.

Neither the Xu Debian Almquist Shell nor the #Debian Debian Almquist Shell (Herbert Xu is maintaining the two in parallel for some reason, and they are different.) support ;& .

Alt...

A terminal session in mostly white on black. At the coloured Z shell prompt, uname shows that the system is NetBSD, and the NetBSD Almquist shell and the Debian Almquist shell are run with a small case statement that uses ";&". The NetBSD Almquist shell can be seen working, and the Debian Almquist shell failing.

Alt...

A terminal session in mostly white on black. At the coloured Z shell prompt, uname shows that the system is FreeBSD, and the FreeBSD Almquist shell and the Debian Almquist shell are run with a small case statement that uses ";&". The FreeBSD Almquist shell can be seen working, and the Debian Almquist shell failing.

@rl_dane

I do not use it in shell script, and the lack of it in the #Debian Almquist Shells obviously inhibits its spread on several operating systems; but in compiled languages rather than interpreted ones: yes, people use it all of the time. And our compilers nowadays nag us when we don't put in the [[clang:yes, I bloody know it's falling through]]; markers in our code.

The Bournist shell syntax pretty obviously has its roots in trying to provide something that the C shell had been providing since the late 1970s.

An amusing thing here is that when I was working on that dash patch I accidentally implemented the ;| behaviour by mistake, initially. It's actually simpler to implement. But I was aiming merely to bring Xu's dash to parity with the #NetBSD and #FreeBSD Almquist shells, rather than add a feature that they don't have, so I didn't keep the mistake. (-:

@mirabilos
#Unix #UnixShells #AlmquistShell

I wrote this to a FreeBSD luminary who posts a lot about the harms of LLMs. Heard nothing back so I'll open it up to the community. I don't get how LLMs can be dangerous, but FreeBSD using them is okay...? Anyway, comments welcome:

...

Hey, a question for you. I'm fond of FreeBSD. This Mastodon instance runs on it, for example. But the noises I'm hearing suggest a pro-slop FreeBSD policy on the way.

You post enough stuff that indicates you see the dangers that you must have some thoughts about FreeBSD approaching slop, and I'd love to hear them. I truly hate the notion of having to give up so much technology I love because of this stuff, but the slop has to be opposed for a variety of reasons.

#freebsd

FreeBSD 14.5-RELEASE is now available!

As the sixth release of the stable/14 branch, FreeBSD 14.5 focuses primarily on maintenance, including bug fixes, driver updates, and updated versions of externally maintained software.

For new systems, users are encouraged to deploy FreeBSD 15.1.

Explore the release notes and learn more: https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.5R/announce/

#FreeBSD #OpenSource #BSD

Well... it looks as though i can get #FreeBSD on a #ThinkCentre M73 (SFF). As soon as the boot screen shows up it freezes.
Any other #BSD with #ZFS support out there? Or maybe linux?

@ricardo latest 15.1, direct off freebsd.org's big download button.

Real hardware though, could be the difference. IIRC there have been other reports, dismissed as "not a problem" with a VM screenshot as well.

As mentioned, this is not a proper bug report. It's more: "I am an experienced #FreeBSD user that contributes patches whenever possible, and still this kind of thing happens. There is something here worth looking into, because we are doing something wrong."

Once I manage to setup my machine again I will certsinly take a good look at bsdinstall zfsboot, there are a couple things that seem off.

EuroBSDCon is not a traditional conference, but a family gathering. The kind of family you like, the one you choose, the one that always makes you feel at home.

As soon as we landed, we dropped our bags off at the hotel luggage room and rushed straight to the conference venue.

It was fantastic to meet old and new friends again, with that kind of welcome that only BSD conferences can give you.

I've only had the chance to talk to a fraction of the people I'll meet over the next few days, and to me, that's fantastic.

#EuroBSDCon #EuroBSDCon2026 #RunBSD #BSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #DragonFlyBSD

Alt...

Close-up of a EuroBSDCon 2026 speaker badge on a red lanyard, lying on a white fabric surface. The badge reads "Stefano Marinelli, BSD Cafe Barista" and features the EuroBSDCon logo, "Speaker" label, QR codes, BSD-themed artwork, and "Brussels, 9th - 13th Sep. 2026".

NetBSD. In FreeBSD’s bhyve. On a RK3566.

"Why?” you ask. Because I can.
"Why not OpenBSD?” you also ask. Because I can’t.

Was trying out virtualization on a Radxa Zero 3E. bhyve worked as expected for NetBSD, including networking. OpenBSD gets through the loader and looks like it's about to handoff to the kernel, then reboots. So close.

#FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #bhyve #Radxa #Rockchip

Since #FreeBSD people are already at #EuroBSDcon, here is a complain in the void (*):
It looks like the installer ignores the desire to encrypt the disk when using ZFS.
Realised this after setting up things and rebooting, and noticing "hey, it's not asking for the passphrase".
And, boy do I have some thoughts regarding bsdinstall zfsboot.

(*) haven't gotten the spoons yet for a proper bug report, but it will come once things are back to normal

22:52—Good night #Fediverse! ❤

#FreeBSD #Meme

Counting down, for real now, to the European *BSD event of the year! 😈⛳🐡

https://stagetimer.io/r/X21SK1YB/

📅 You can check out the program at https://
events.eurobsdcon.org/2026/schedule/

EuroBSDCon 2026 in Brussels, Belgium 🇧🇪
September 09-13, 2026

#EuroBSDCon #EuroBSDCon2026 #BSD #RUNBSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD

Alt...

Image of Homer Simpson on a blue background with the text: Let the countdown begin

When your jails are on a private network how do you reach them from the outside? Redirect the port from the host:

bastille rdr TARGET tcp 443 443
bastille rdr TARGET tcp 2200 22

List them with bastille rdr TARGET list, clear with ... clear.

VNET jails don't need and don't use this.

#TeachingTuesday #BastilleBSD #FreeBSD

I don’t think I’ve upgraded any of my #FreeBSD systems to 15. This is probably the longest I’ve gone after a new release without upgrading at least some machines (14.5 just came out). I even ran FreeBSD 5.0.

I don’t have any reason for avoiding 15, it’s just that I don’t really have a reason to upgrade. 14 was more than good enough. A more stable pkgbase would be a compelling reason, as would rcd landing. So I’m actually quite excited for 16.

Safe travels for everybody who is making their way to the European *BSD event of the year! 😈⛳🐡

📅 You can check out the program at https://
events.eurobsdcon.org/2026/schedule/

EuroBSDCon 2026 in Brussels, Belgium 🇧🇪
September 09-13, 2026

#EuroBSDCon #EuroBSDCon2026 #BSD #RUNBSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD

Alt...

4 images of Tom Hanks in in different roles. The first 3 images (probably) from Cast Away the last from (probably) The Terminal. The first image is an exited Tom Hanks and has the text: "First Day Traveling" Second image, looking more serious with the text: "Counting days left". Third image looking desperate and a little beat, "Last day". The last image looking anxiously in the camera, "Waiting at airport".

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲/𝟬𝟵/𝟬𝟳 (Valuable News - 2026/09/07) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2026/09/07/valuable-news-2026-09-07/

Past releases: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/news/

#verblog #vernews #news #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #linux #unix #zfs #opnsense #ghostbsd #solaris #vermadenday

Hey #FreeBSD folks! 🐡

I recently, as of yesterday, installed FreeBSD on my ThinkPad E14 Gen 4, and will document my journey coming from Debian GNU/Linux over to something that is BSD.

I’ve had some knowledge of FreeBSD from past interactions here on Mastodon, as well as from YouTube and other social media platforms. My ThinkPad also has two ssd drives, so I decided to wipe one of them and install FreeBSD, and using it as my daily driver.

I used to be on kolektiva.social a while back. Not sure how long I’ll stick around on this one either, but I came across bsd.cafe while reading through some FreeBSD documentation and figured I’d join.

Feel free to boost me if you remember me, or not, no worries!

Also, here are some relevant and useful links to check out:

https://www.freebsd.org/
https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/

#BSD #OpenBSD #GhostBSD #Unix #Linux #Midtsveen

Alt...

Screenshot of the LXQt desktop environment with a fullscreen terminal window displaying the output of fastfetch, a command-line utility that shows system information such as the operating system, hardware, kernel, and desktop environment.

#FreeBSD makes me wanna understand computers again! ❤

As a new #FreeBSD user, I’ve genuinely come to love working in a TTY. There’s something incredibly satisfying about navigating, configuring, and using my OS straight from the terminal! 😍

#FreeBSD #tty #Unix #FreeSoftware #OpenSource

Hi #FreeBSD, how’s development going on the MediaTek MT7921 Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) driver? Is there currently any progress toward getting it supported?

#Wifi #Unix #BSD #OpenBSD #Linux #MediaTek #MT7921

Manpage Monday: bastille pkg

Manage packages inside your jails without ever consoling in.

Install nginx in myjail
> bastille pkg myjail install nginx

Use the host's pkg binary instead of the jail's
> bastille pkg -H myjail install nginx

Works with any pkg args: update, upgrade, search, audit, info, etc

#BastilleBSD #FreeBSD #ManpageMonday

There will be a PF tutorial at EuroBSDCon 2026 in Brussels:

Network Management with the PF Packet Filter Toolset on OpenBSD and FreeBSD
Featuring Tom Smyth and Peter Hansteen, 2026-09-11, 10:30, full day

See https://events.eurobsdcon.org/2026/talk/RKCHRW/
To register: https://tickets.eurobsdcon.org/eurobsdcon/brussels/
#eurobsdcon #bsd #openbsd #freebsd #networking #firewall #security

Learn about software engineering for cyber resiliency at EuroBSDcon 2026 in Brussels:

The night before CRAmas - why EU regulations are a gift to open source
Alice Sowerby, Pierre Pronchery and Peter Hansteen 2026-09-10, 10:30 full day

See https://events.eurobsdcon.org/2026/talk/RER8UZ/
To register: https://tickets.eurobsdcon.org/eurobsdcon/brussels/

#eurobsdcon #bsd #netbsd #openbsd #freebsd #development #engineering #cra #cyberresilience #cybersecurity

We are counting down to the European *BSD event of the year! 😈⛳🐡

For when you need another reason to come to EuroBSDCon 2026, the closing auction!

Don't forget to bring your monies!!

If you haven't secured your spot yet, now's the time!
https://
tickets.eurobsdcon.org/

📅 You can check out the program at https://
events.eurobsdcon.org/2026/schedule/

EuroBSDCon 2026 in Brussels, Belgium 🇧🇪
September 09-13, 2026

#EuroBSDCon #EuroBSDCon2026 #BSD #RUNBSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD

Alt...

Image of two plush Puffies in an empty suit case.

I'm dismayed that the three systems and communities I love the most, Debian, FreeBSD, and Slackware, are falling into the trap we might call "Uncanny Valley as a Service".

Debian has their pro-slop policy now, and FreeBSD and Slackware both have influential developers who are pro-slop. FreeBSD is shooting for a "balanced" policy - but how do you balance the copyright and license violations, the cognitive harm, and the climate impact against a dubious "convenience?" And I don't expect Slackware will say anything formal.

I'm hoping I can rekindle my fondness for NetBSD, and I've probably got Gentoo in my future for desktops. I know I can live with NetBSD and if I set up a local binary build server I can minimize the energy cost of having to compile everything for Gentoo. (Maybe if I figure out the implications of the USE flags from default/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop/gnome that'll end up being reasonable. I'm not a G.N.O.M.E. user. See https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Gentoo_binhost/Available_packages_and_configurations )

#debian #freebsd #slackware #noai

New 𝗔𝗠𝗗 𝗕𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗕𝗦𝗗 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗸𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝗥𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗱 [AMD Based FreeBSD Desktop Reloaded] article on vermaden.wordpress.com blog.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2026/09/06/amd-based-freebsd-desktop-reloaded/

#verblog #desktop #freebsd #gpu #server #x11 #xlibre

https://github.com/ksh93/ksh

#RunBSD #OpenBSD #NetBSD

Yesterday, I tried deploying #invidious on #FreeBSD using #podman (and podman-compose). The only thing that failed was the postgresql container… 😳 The was an error about missing fd something probably due to the Linux emulation stack… Even the classical pgsql container does not start… 🤔

Anyone is successfully running pgsql using a Linux container?

PS: no, I don’t want to run a native pgsql. because $REASONS

Next Saturday at #EuroBSDCon 2026, I'll tell the story of one of the longest nights of my career.

On 10 March 2021, I had just fallen asleep when the alerts started arriving. One server down. Then another. And another.
Different servers, different workloads, one thing in common: the OVHcloud Strasbourg data centre.

Then came the news: SBG2 was on fire.

I had 142 servers there.

The mission for the night was simple to state: bring the critical services back before 8, then recover everything else as quickly as possible.

This talk is about what happened next. The things that worked, the architectural choices that saved us, and especially the ones that failed when we needed them most.

And it's also the story of why that night changed the way I design infrastructure, and why BSD systems became such an important part of it.

The night 142 of my servers went up in the clouds. Physically.

📅 Saturday 12 September, 11:15
📍 EuroBSDCon 2026, D.0.02

#BSD #FreeBSD #EuroBSDCon #Sysadmin #Infrastructure #RunBSD #NetBSD #OwnYourData #Linux #DisasterRecovery

Alt...

Cover slide for Stefano Marinelli’s EuroBSDCon 2026 presentation. A nighttime photo shows the OVHcloud Strasbourg data centre engulfed in flames and thick smoke. A huge orange "142" overlays the fire. Below, on a black background, the title reads: "The night 142 of my servers went up in the clouds. Physically." In the top-right corner: "Stefano Marinelli · EuroBSDCon 2026 · Saturday 12 September, 11:15 · D.0.02."

Naive #FreeBSD PkgBase buildworld question:

I assumed I could build world with only the FreeBSD-src package, but the build wants sys/sys/params.h

Is that all it needs and if so, should that live in the src (non-sys) package?

Happy Friday #FreeBSD

@stefano
@crocidb

Hell yeah! 🔥

#FreeBSD #RunBSD

Beautiful post by @crocidb :

This blog ran on Ubuntu 16.04 for 10 years. I migrated it to FreeBSD

https://crocidb.com/post/this-blog-ran-on-ubuntu-16-04-for-10-years-i-migrated-it-to-freebsd/

#FreeBSD #RunBSD #IT #SysAdmin

I still have not understood how to create an ephemeral / cronjob #FreeBSD #jail… The one that cron launches to run a (backup) script and which terminates itself with the script. They always end up in a half-broken state after the script terminates.

So right now, I have a normal jail with nothing running in it (thank you persist;) and a crontab entry with a jexec call to the script.

It seems to be working great. But I feel like this is a dirty hack.

One of today’s tasks: migrating an old Ubuntu server hosting around 15 WordPress sites to a FreeBSD server, with Caddy acting as a reverse proxy in its own jail, one jail per WordPress instance, and a shared database in yet another jail.

Yesterday I configured Caddy to reverse proxy all the domains while still pointing to the old server. That allowed the customer to update the DNS records in advance, while I could migrate each site one by one and simply switch the upstream in Caddy as soon as it was ready.

Zero downtime. Just a reload.

I asked only for one thing: freeze everything this morning, so a colleague asked the customer not to make any changes to the websites after 7 today.

Ack.

So I go to clone one of the sites… and notice the customer published a totally deferrable post at 9.

Which, of course, means I now get to resync everything.

Ah, the joys of working "behind the scenes". 😆

#IT #SysAdmin #Ubuntu #FreeBSD #RunBSD #ITLife

Join Tuukka Pasanen today for our next Lunch & Learn as he explores the work underway to transition the FreeBSD Vulnerability Database from VuXML to OSV, a widely used vulnerability format that officially supports FreeBSD in its schema.

📅 Wednesday, September 2 | 11:00 AM CDT / 16:00 UTC
Speaker: Tuukka Pasanen | FreeBSD Foundation Lunch & Learn

YouTube Live Link:
https://buff.ly/m5XZp1S

#FreeBSD

Anyone running #FreeBSD and #unbound (DNS resolver) and finding unbound doesn't actually start after a reboot?

The init script has:

# PROVIDE: unbound
# REQUIRE: FILESYSTEMS defaultroute netwait resolv
# BEFORE: NETWORKING
# KEYWORD: shutdown

However, unbound needs to listen on an interface or IP. Why have the script run before networking and yet "require" defaultroute? This makes no sense.

Join Klara's Allan Jude and FreeBSD Security Officer Gordon Tetlow for a technical webinar on securing production FreeBSD systems. Klara Inc

In this session, you'll learn about FreeBSD's security features, best practices for securing production environments, how the FreeBSD Security Team responds to vulnerabilities and publishes security advisories, and common operational mistakes that can increase risk.

📅 September 2, 2026
🕚 11:00 AM EDT

Register here: https://klarasystems.com/webinars/freebsd-security-production-vulnerability-response-best-practices/

#FreeBSD

Monthly reminder to periodically check your bastille.conf for updates or new entries from the sample config:

cd /usr/local/etc/bastille
diff -u bastille.conf bastille.conf.sample

We try to keep config updates to a minimum, but sometimes they are required.

#BastilleBSD #FreeBSD

Hey #IPv6 folks: If I do NOT have a /64 assigned to me and only have a single IPv6 assigned, am I better off adding fd00::/7 addresses to the jails and then NAT'ing to them like I do with the IPv4 addresses?

I don't think I have any other kind of choice here.

#FreeBSD #networking

Thanks everyone for helping me find the right hardware!

I went with a T640, two Intel Xeon Gold 6248R, 192GB ram, 10gbit sfp+ networking, HBA330 and redundant 1100W PSUs.

It's not the newest hardware out there, but the spare parts are cheap enough and it has more than enough power for my needs.

Jails, VMs, Storage (if there is need for more than 8x3.5 HDDs, I'll go JBOD).

I'll update as soon as I have put everything together and moved over all VMs, storage and jails. It'll be great to free up one Lenovo m75q Gen5, one Lenovo 720q and to decommission the "old" N100 32GB RAM NAS hardware (a friend will most likely take it).

#selfhosted #freebsd #zfs #nas

I did build >1500 FreeBSD packages until I noticed that HT was disabled.

Machine was only using 48 instead of 96 cores.

#freebsd

With me building a lot of packages my tool to trigger single package builds via a web interface is now resurrected.

Don't worry, the one job it has is to trigger #freebsd poudriere builds and have queue that triggers the next job in case a worker is running.

I'm a simple man and I used #elixir for that.

Before you ask: Yes, it can (if you choose to) persist the selected package to the default build that gets triggered every night).

#selfhosted #elixir #freebsd

BSDnas

https://github.com/bsdnas

― a community fork of TrueNAS CORE, kept on a FreeBSD that still gets security fixes.

https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1vy8ahl/bsdnas/

#AI #FreeBSD #TrueNAS

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲/𝟬𝟴/𝟯𝟭 (Valuable News - 2026/08/31) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2026/08/31/valuable-news-2026-08-31/

Past releases: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/news/

#verblog #vernews #news #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #linux #unix #zfs #opnsense #ghostbsd #solaris #vermadenday

We are counting down to the European *BSD event of the year! 😈⛳🐡

Big thank you to our silver sponsor: FreeBSD Foundation
https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/

If you haven't secured your spot yet, now's the time!
https://tickets.eurobsdcon.org/

📅 You can check out the program at https://events.eurobsdcon.org/2026/schedule/

EuroBSDCon 2026 in Brussels, Belgium 🇧🇪
September 09-13, 2026

#EuroBSDCon #EuroBSDCon2026 #BSD #RUNBSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD

some days I wish upgrading #FreeBSD was as mindless as upgrading my #OpenBSD machines.

On OpenBSD, it's generally `sysupgrade`, let it do its thing, rebooting itself a couple times (entering my FDE passwords as necessary), and then a `pkg_add -u` to upgrade my packages. Sometimes a `sysmerge` if it can't do it automatically. But very much two (or three) idiot-proof commands with very little demand on this idiot's brain to recall where I am in the process.

While I like the automatic ZFS boot-environment snapshotting, FreeBSD requires me to know the next version-number I want to upgrade to (can't determine it or prompt me for viable options?), transcribe it as part of the upgrade command, then manually running `freebsd-update install` multiple times, rebooting manually multiple times between each, then `pkg update` and a `pkg upgrade` to update userspace. I'm sitting at a login…is this the first, second, or third reboot? I don't know, it was taking a while and I ended up wandering off to do something else.

This post brought to you by this morning's 14.3→14.4 FreeBSD upgrade 😆

EDIT: the recording is available here: https://exquisite.tube/w/nQbc54t4G7YGaqiryZ7mg1

On 10 March 2021, I had only just fallen asleep when my phone started buzzing. Then another notification, and another. In a matter of minutes, 142 of my servers went up in the clouds. And not the cloud-computing kind.

Most of them were physically going up in a column of smoke in Strasbourg.

My wife looked at me and asked if I wanted a coffee. I nodded. It was going to be a very long day.

At EuroBSDCon 2026, I won't be giving a theoretical lecture on high availability. Instead, I’m going to tell the raw story of that night: the emergency recovery, the architectural choices that actually saved us, and the ones that crumbled under pressure (because we rarely talk about what fails).

Most of all, I’ll explain why that night changed my perspective, and why I’ve come to see BSD systems not just as operating systems, but as essential, practical tools for building simpler, more resilient infrastructure.

The official schedule is now live. If you want to hear a real-world post-mortem, join me on Saturday, 12 Sept at 11:15 (Room D.0.02).

EuroBSDCon Full schedule: https://events.eurobsdcon.org/2026/schedule/
See you there! ☕️

#FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #DragonFlyBSD #RunBSD #EuroBSDCon #SysAdmin #SelfHosted #IT #EuroBSDCon2026 #BSDCon

Great news! My presentation for #EuroBSDCon has been accepted!

Expect a mix of disasters, horror stories, recoveries, BSDs, and one very, very long day.

Stay tuned!

#EuroBSDCon2026 #BSD #RunBSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #Linux

Coming next week: a post about the FediMeteo bot, how it works, how it has evolved, and the overall structure of jails. The following week: caching the BSD Cafe Mastodon instances on nginx.

Stay tuned on ITNotes!

#ITNotes #haproxy #nginx #FreeBSD #Mastodon #snac

When I wrote about FediMeteo (https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/02/26/fedimeteo-how-a-tiny-freebsd-vps-became-a-global-weather-service-for-thousands/) for the first time, I told the story from the beginning: the idea born almost by chance while checking the weather for a holiday, the memory of my grandfather, who for years had been my personal meteorologist, the decision to build something small and useful, and then the surprise of seeing people actually use it. What began as a personal experiment quickly became a small global service, still running with the same philosophy: FreeBSD, jails, simple scripts, snac, text, emoji, and a lot of small pieces doing their work quietly.

That article was mostly about the birth and growth of the project. This one is about one of the less romantic parts of the same story, although I have to admit that I find a certain beauty in it too: keeping the service light as it grows.

FediMeteo (https://fedimeteo.com) is still intentionally simple from the outside. A homepage, some numbers, a list of countries, and many ActivityPub accounts publishing weather forecasts. The posts are text and emoji. There is no JavaScript requirement to read the pages, no heavy frontend, no unnecessary media attached to every forecast, and no dynamic homepage recalculated at every visit just to show the same numbers. This is not accidental. It is the way I wanted the service to behave from the beginning.

But the more the service is used, the more the small details matter. A request that looks harmless when there are ten followers may become a repeated request when there are thousands of followers, remote instances, crawlers, previews, and other servers fetching the same public objects. In the Fediverse, the same small thing can be asked many times by many different places, each one with a perfectly legitimate reason. The backend doesn't care: it just needs to deal with the requests.

And in FediMeteo, the backend is snac (https://codeberg.org/grunfink/snac2).

I like snac very much precisely because it is small, clear, and efficient. It is not a giant application that tries to be everything. It does a focused job and does it well. But this also means that I want to respect its shape. I do not want to waste its threads on work that the reverse proxy can safely do. A snac thread serving the same public avatar again and again is not a tragedy, but it is still a waste. A snac thread answering the same public ActivityPub object several times in the same minute is doing real work, but often not necessary work.

This is the reason behind the HAProxy (https://www.haproxy.org) tuning I am currently using in front of FediMeteo.

It is not about making the configuration look clever. It is about keeping snac quiet.

A continuation of the same idea

This is especially important because snac uses a limited number of threads. I like that. Limits are healthy. They force us to understand what the service is doing, and they prevent a small program from pretending to be an infinite resource. But limits also make waste visible. If a few threads are busy serving files that could have been served from cache, those threads are not available for something more useful.

With FediMeteo the implementation is different because the reverse proxy is HAProxy, but the reasoning is the same. I have many small snac instances, each one in its own FreeBSD (Bastille (https://github.com/BastilleBSD/bastille)) jail, and one public entry point that has to route, terminate TLS, compress, cache, and generally remove as much repetitive work as possible from the backends.

This is, in a way, the natural continuation of the original FediMeteo design. In the first article I wrote that I wanted to manage everything according to the Unix philosophy: small pieces working together. This is another piece of that same puzzle. HAProxy does the edge work. snac does the ActivityPub work. Scripts generate forecasts. cron launches updates. ZFS gives me snapshots. FreeBSD jails keep countries separated. Nothing is particularly heroic by itself, but the whole system becomes pleasant because each part has a clear responsibility.

Why there is almost no media

FediMeteo does not use media in its forecasts.

No images attached to the posts, no generated weather cards, no maps for each city, no decorative banners. The forecasts are text and emoji. This was a deliberate decision. Weather information does not become more useful just because it is put inside an image, and every media file used by the service would become something to store, serve, cache, federate, expire, back up, and occasionally debug.

Text and emoji are enough. They are accessible, light, readable in text browsers, friendly to timelines, and understandable even when someone does not know the local language perfectly. This was one of the original design principles of FediMeteo, and it also helps the infrastructure. Less media means less work, fewer cache entries, fewer repeated fetches, fewer surprises.

There is one exception: the avatar.

All FediMeteo accounts use the same avatar, and this is also intentional. I could have used a different avatar for each country, or for each city, or created something visually richer. It would have been nicer in some screenshots, perhaps. It would also have been operationally worse.

With one shared avatar, the reverse proxy has one very useful object to cache. It is public, identical for everyone, small, requested often, and therefore almost always hot in cache. HAProxy can serve it directly instead of asking each snac instance to return the same file. Since avatars are requested by remote instances, browsers, profile previews, and all sorts of federation-related fetches, this single decision removes a surprising amount of pointless backend traffic.

So the avatar is not only a visual identity. It is part of the architecture.

This is the kind of optimization I like most, because it starts before the software. It starts with deciding not to create a problem.

The homepage is static because it can be static

It is a static HTML page generated from a template. Once per hour, a cron script updates the numbers and statistics. It counts the data I want to show, regenerates the page, and then the page remains static until the next run.

This is not because I cannot make a dynamic page. It is because I do not need one. Boring is good.

The homepage does not need to query all the country instances on every visit. It does not need a database request for each user who opens it. It does not need to ask snac anything in real time. The numbers are useful, but they do not need to be updated every second. Once per hour is enough, and it also fits the spirit of the whole project: do the work when it is needed, then serve the result cheaply.

I have seen too many small services become heavy because the first implementation was convenient rather than appropriate. A cron job and a template are not fashionable, but they are often exactly what a page like this needs.

Many countries, one entry point

fedimeteo.com
www.fedimeteo.com
it.fedimeteo.com
uk.fedimeteo.com
jp.fedimeteo.com
us.fedimeteo.com
usa.fedimeteo.com
can.fedimeteo.com
canada.fedimeteo.com

At the beginning, it is always tempting to write one ACL after another in the HAProxy frontend. It is quick, it is explicit, and for five hostnames it is perfectly fine. But FediMeteo did not remain at five hostnames. As countries and aliases grew, a long chain of ACLs would have turned the frontend into a list of names instead of a description of how the proxy behaves.

So I moved the hostname to backend mapping into a map file:

fedimeteo.com        backend_fedimeteo
www.fedimeteo.com    backend_fedimeteo
it.fedimeteo.com     backend_it
uk.fedimeteo.com     backend_uk
jp.fedimeteo.com     backend_jp
us.fedimeteo.com     backend_us
usa.fedimeteo.com    backend_us
can.fedimeteo.com    backend_ca
canada.fedimeteo.com backend_ca

use_backend %[req.hdr(host),field(1,:),lower,map(/usr/local/etc/fedimeteo.map,backend_fedimeteo)]

I like this because it keeps the configuration honest. The frontend contains the policy. The map contains the data. Adding a country means adding an entry to the map and defining a backend. I do not need to make the frontend more complicated every time the service grows.

Backends as small compartments

backend backend_it
    mode http
    http-reuse safe
    server srv1 10.0.0.2:8001 maxconn 30
backend backend_uk
    mode http
    http-reuse safe
    server srv1 10.0.0.7:8001 maxconn 30
backend backend_jp
    mode http
    http-reuse safe
    server srv1 10.0.0.32:8001 maxconn 30

The maxconn 30 value is not a magic number. It is a ceiling. I want each small backend to have a visible limit in front of it. If something starts hammering a country instance, I prefer the pressure to appear at the HAProxy layer instead of becoming unlimited concurrent work inside snac.

http-reuse safe lets HAProxy reuse backend connections where appropriate. This is another small reduction in unnecessary work. Opening connections repeatedly is not the biggest problem in the world, but avoiding it is still better, especially when many small services sit behind the same proxy.

The front door

frontend https_in
    bind :::443 v4v6 ssl crt /usr/local/etc/certs/ alpn h2,http/1.1
    mode http
    option http-keep-alive

ssl-default-bind-ciphersuites TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256:TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
ssl-default-bind-options no-sslv3 no-tlsv10 no-tlsv11 no-tls-tickets

acl letsencrypt-acl path_beg /.well-known/acme-challenge/
http-request redirect scheme https code 301 unless letsencrypt-acl
use_backend letsencrypt-backend if letsencrypt-acl

http-request set-header X-Real-IP %[src]
http-request set-header X-Forwarded-Proto https

http-response set-header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"

Two caches, because the requests are different

cache mediacache
  total-max-size 128
  max-object-size 10000000
  max-age 3600
  process-vary on
  max-secondary-entries 12
cache jsoncache
  total-max-size 16
  max-object-size 1000000
  max-age 60
  process-vary on
  max-secondary-entries 12

The media cache is larger and has a longer maximum age. In FediMeteo, this mostly means the shared avatar and a few static-looking objects. Since there is intentionally almost no media, the important cached object is requested very often and remains warm.

The JSON cache is smaller and short-lived. It is there for public ActivityPub GET requests, not to store federation state forever. A 60 second cache is enough to collapse many repeated requests that arrive close together in time, without pretending that ActivityPub responses should be treated like immutable files.

This distinction is important. Caching is not one decision. It is a set of small decisions about what a response means, who can see it, how often it changes, and what happens if it is served again.

Recognizing media

acl is_media path_end -i .jpg .jpeg .png .gif .webp .svg .ico .mp4 .webm .mp3 .ogg .wav .flac .mov .avi .mkv .m4v

http-request set-var(txn.is_media) bool(true) if is_media

http-request cache-use mediacache if { var(txn.is_media) -m bool true }

http-response set-header Cache-Control "max-age=3600, public" if { var(txn.is_media) -m bool true }
http-response del-header Set-Cookie if { var(txn.is_media) -m bool true }
http-response del-header Vary if { var(txn.is_media) -m bool true }
http-response cache-store mediacache if { var(txn.is_media) -m bool true }

This is aggressive only if removed from its context. In this service, with this media policy, it is a reasonable choice. FediMeteo is not serving private media under these paths. It is mostly serving the same public avatar over and over.

For the same reason, I clean the request before it reaches the backend:

http-request del-header Authorization if { var(txn.is_media) -m bool true }
http-request del-header Cookie        if { var(txn.is_media) -m bool true }

The result is exactly what I want: the shared avatar becomes an almost perfect cache object. Small, public, repeatedly requested, and served by HAProxy instead of snac.

ActivityPub JSON microcaching

acl is_ap_json   req.hdr(Accept),lower -m sub application/activity+json
acl is_ap_ldjson req.hdr(Accept),lower -m sub application/ld+json
acl is_outbox    path_end /outbox
acl is_get       method GET
acl has_auth     req.hdr(Authorization) -m found
acl has_cookie   req.hdr(Cookie) -m found

So I only mark public ActivityPub GET requests as cacheable:

http-request set-var(txn.is_activitypub) bool(true) if is_get !is_outbox is_ap_json !has_auth !has_cookie
http-request set-var(txn.is_activitypub) bool(true) if is_get !is_outbox is_ap_ldjson !has_auth !has_cookie

It must be a GET, because I am not caching deliveries or anything that changes state. It must not be /outbox, because outbox collections are not the traffic I want to cache here. It must not have Authorization, and it must not have cookies, because authenticated or user-specific requests do not belong in a shared public cache.

Then the cache can be used and populated:

http-request cache-use jsoncache if { var(txn.is_activitypub) -m bool true }
http-response set-header Cache-Control "max-age=60, public" if { var(txn.is_activitypub) -m bool true }
http-response cache-store jsoncache if { var(txn.is_activitypub) -m bool true }

This is microcaching in the most practical sense. It reduces repeated work without changing the nature of the service.

Static media paths

acl is_short_path path_reg ^/[^/]+/s/
http-request cache-use mediacache if is_short_path

In FediMeteo this is less central than on a normal social instance, because I deliberately do not use media except for the avatar and basic static objects. Still, the rule fits the general policy: let HAProxy handle repeatable edge work, and let snac spend its threads where they are actually needed.

Vary, but not without limits

process-vary on
max-secondary-entries 12

For media, I remove Vary before storing the response. A shared avatar does not need to vary by Accept. For ActivityPub JSON, I am more careful because the representation matters.

Again, the important thing is not the number itself. It is the decision to make variation explicit and limited.

Seeing whether it works

http-response set-header X-Cache-Status HIT if !{ srv_id -m found }
http-response set-header X-Cache-Status MISS if { srv_id -m found }

Did this request reach snac?

A test can be as simple as:

curl -I https://it.fedimeteo.com/path/to/avatar.png
curl -I https://it.fedimeteo.com/path/to/avatar.png

For ActivityPub JSON, the test must use the right Accept header:

curl -I \
  -H 'Accept: application/activity+json' \
  https://it.fedimeteo.com/some/activitypub/object

curl -I \
  -H 'Cookie: test=value' \
  -H 'Accept: application/activity+json' \
  https://it.fedimeteo.com/some/activitypub/object
curl -I \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer fake' \
  -H 'Accept: application/activity+json' \
  https://it.fedimeteo.com/some/activitypub/object

Compression and operational paths

filter compression
compression algo gzip
compression type text/css text/html text/javascript application/javascript text/plain text/xml application/json application/activity+json

There is also a local Prometheus exporter:

frontend prometheus
  bind 127.0.0.1:8405
  mode http
  http-request use-service prometheus-exporter
  no log

What this changes in practice

The map keeps hostname routing manageable. The backend definitions keep each country isolated and limited. The static homepage avoids dynamic work for something that changes once per hour. The shared avatar gives HAProxy one very hot media object to serve directly. The media cache keeps public files away from snac. The JSON microcache absorbs short ActivityPub bursts. Header cleanup prevents useless variation. Connection reuse avoids unnecessary backend connection churn.

But all of this is only a longer way of saying one thing:

fewer requests reach snac.

That is the metric I care about here.

Not because snac is slow. If anything, FediMeteo exists in its current form because snac is efficient enough to make this kind of project possible on a very small VPS. But precisely because the whole architecture is small and pleasant, I do not want to waste resources where there is no need.

This is also consistent with the rest of the project. Forecasts are serialized by scripts. Updates happen every six hours. The homepage is regenerated hourly. Countries live in separate jails. Snapshots and backups are handled outside the application. No single component tries to be the entire system.

HAProxy is just another small piece, but it sits in the right place to remove a lot of repeated work.

Caveats

It matches FediMeteo as it is now: almost no media, one shared avatar, static homepage, public forecasts, many small snac instances, and ActivityPub traffic that can benefit from a short public cache when there are no cookies or authorization headers.

If I decide one day to use media in forecasts, the media cache rules will need to be reviewed. If I use different avatars for each city or country, the cache will still work, but I will lose the very nice property of one shared, always-hot avatar. If ActivityPub responses become actor-dependent, public JSON caching must be reconsidered. If one country grows a very different traffic pattern from the others, it may deserve a different limit or policy.

This is why I do not like presenting configurations as magic. A good configuration is a written form of the assumptions behind a service. When the assumptions change, the configuration must change too.

Conclusion

The HAProxy layer follows this idea. It terminates TLS, routes hostnames through a map, reuses backend connections, serves the shared avatar from cache, microcaches public ActivityPub JSON, avoids authenticated and cookie-based traffic, and gives me a small diagnostic header to see what is happening.

There is no single brilliant directive here. There is only the usual work of matching infrastructure to reality.

FediMeteo publishes weather forecasts as text and emoji. The homepage is static HTML updated every hour. The accounts share the same avatar because it is enough, and because it is better for the cache. Each country has its own snac instance in its own FreeBSD jail. HAProxy stands in front of them and tries, quietly, not to bother them unless it has to.

I like this kind of infrastructure.

Not because it is invisible, but because when it works well, it leaves very little to say.

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2026/05/18/fedimeteo-haproxy-and-the-art-of-not-wasting-snac-threads/

#ITNotes #NoteHUB #fediverse #freebsd #haproxy #hosting #jail #networking #ownyourdata #server #snac #snac2 #social #web

Here is the CPU usage graph for the last 24 hours of the FediMeteo VM. A full 24 hours, during which a huge number of people are connecting, helped by the traction gained from being among the top stories on Hacker News and Lobsters, as well as the many shares across the Fediverse.

RAM usage? Active, around 450 MB. Then there is cache, ARC, and so on. But in practice, zero swap in use after days of uptime.

39 jails running, 39 snac instances, nginx serving the homepage, and HAProxy. HAProxy caching enabled. ZFS snapshots every 15 minutes, backups via zfs send and receive every hour. The same hourly schedule applies to the recalculation of cities, countries, and followers for the homepage.

All of this on a 4 euro per month FreeBSD VM.

If anyone has doubts about the quality and efficiency of FreeBSD, this is the data to show.

#FediMeteo #FreeBSD #RunBSD #IT #SysAdmin

Alt...

Time series graph showing CPU usage percentage over roughly 24 hours. The x axis represents time from about 13:00 to 12:00 the next day, and the y axis shows CPU usage from 0 to 100 percent. CPU usage fluctuates mostly between 15 and 35 percent, with periodic rises during daytime and early morning hours. Several short spikes reach around 45 to 55 percent, and one brief peak climbs to about 60 percent. Usage drops to lower levels, around 10 to 20 percent, during late evening and early morning periods. Overall, the graph shows moderate, variable CPU load with occasional sharp peaks.

This morning, as the zfs-send/receive had finished its job during the night, I performed the last sync and moved FediMeteo from the previous 4 euros/month VPS - netcup - to a 4 euros/month VPS - OVH, Milano, Italy.

Thanks to #BastilleBSD and the jail setup, it was easy peasy.

So, the weather forecasts are now broadcast from Italy and the performance has skyrocketed - while still being served by a 4 euro/month VPS.

I suspect the netcup VM had been capped by the provider - but I'll investigate.

So...Ciao, FediMeteo!

https://fedimeteo.com

#FreeBSD #RunBSD #OwnYourData #VPS #FediMeteo

In the past few days FediMeteo seemed to be having some performance trouble. I dug into it and only found minor issues, until I realised the VM itself had fallen off a cliff. After several reboots it became clear that both bandwidth and I/O latency had dropped to absurd levels. I suspect the provider slapped a cap on it.

So I took the chance to move everything to another VM and provider, still at 4 euro per month. And starting today, forecasts will be delivered straight from Italy. The performance jump feels like going from a storm to clear skies.

FediMeteo’s mission goes on. More countries are coming (stay tuned!) and we will keep aiming to serve everything from a 4 euro VM. I do have powerful hardware available, but proving that the project can run on tiny resources is still part of the mission.

#FediMeteo #FediMeteoAnnouncements #FediMeteoServices #VM #RunBSD #FreeBSD

Static Web Hosting on the Intel N150: FreeBSD, SmartOS, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Linux Compared

Update: This post has been updated to include Docker benchmarks and a comparison of container overhead versus FreeBSD Jails and illumos Zones.

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/11/19/static-web-hosting-intel-n150-freebsd-smartos-netbsd-openbsd-linux/

#ITNotes #freebsd #illumos #jail #linux #netbsd #openbsd #ownyourdata #server #smartos #sysadmin #zoneshosting

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/11/19/static-web-hosting-intel-n150-freebsd-smartos-netbsd-openbsd-linux/

#ITNotes #NoteHUB #freebsd #illumos #jail #linux #netbsd #openbsd #ownyourdata #server #smartos #sysadmin #zoneshosting

the list

#unix_surrealism #comic #poster #openbsd #freebsd #netbsd #dragonflybsd #9front #plan9 #glenda #cirno #girl #daemon #puffy #rabbit #mata #openblade #penguin #linux #foss

Alt...

MATACORP'S MOST WANTED HACKERS Fish Daemon Cirno OpenBlade Rabbit Frederick "the Hammer" Glenda II Sphence Purple "Penguin" Pentium-M Man Girl

This Isn't a Battle

After reading a post describing the FreeBSD community as 'toxic', I share a different perspective. This isn't a battle. It's a reflection on coexistence, the original Open Source spirit, and the quiet richness of taking a different path.

https://my-notes.dragas.net/2025/11/14/this-isnt-a-battle/

#MyNotes #IT #SysAdmin #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #Linux #OpenSource

#beastie #freebsd

Alt...

A cute crocheted red daemon, pretty similar to FreeBSD's mascot

FediMeteo: How a Tiny €4 FreeBSD VPS Became a Global Weather Service for Thousands

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/02/26/fedimeteo-how-a-tiny-freebsd-vps-became-a-global-weather-service-for-thousands/

#Fediverse #FreeBSD #RunBSD #Hosting #ITNotes #Networking #NoteHUB #Server #Snac #Snac2 #Social #Web

Some technical details for those interested:
The entire FediMeteo setup runs on a FreeBSD VM costing around 4 euros per month. It supports almost all major EU countries (plus the UK), with just a few left to complete. Currently, there are 25 separate jails, each running its own instance of snac, totaling 25 instances. The VM load typically stays around 10%, which increases to 30% when updates are published for countries with larger numbers of cities (currently Germany and Italy). The only time the load spikes is when new countries are announced; during that time, all remote instances connect to all cities to download their details.
As for RAM usage, excluding the ZFS cache, it's currently a total of 213 MB. Yes, MB.

#FreeBSD #FediMeteo #snac #Fediverse #Efficiency #RunBSD

Client: Help, emergency. I have 24 hours to move my workload to another server. What do we do?
Me, five minutes later: "Done. Your workload is now running on the new server."
Client: "How did you move over 200GB with just a minute of downtime, from one provider to another and in a different country?"
Me: "Thanks to FreeBSD, ZFS, and a little bit of proactive planning."

I have a task that replicates all the VMs from one server to another every 15 minutes using zfs-send/zfs-receive. This VM connects to a VPN with two reverse proxies.
Meaning, when I move this VM, we don’t need to change any IPs since it’s not directly exposed.
I powered it off, cloned the differences in seconds, and restarted it.

Client in disbelief.
Me, relaxed and happy.

Thank you, FreeBSD, thank you, ZFS!

#FreeBSD #ZFS #TechSupport #ServerMigration #OpenZFS #SysAdmin #RunBSD

Announcing FediMeteo – Weather in the Fediverse!

UPDATE: I have created an account for updates and other information on FediMeteo - follow the account @admin to stay updated!

UPDATE: Ireland, Poland, Portugal and Switzerland have just been added

Weather has always influenced our lives: from agriculture to outdoor activities, to extreme events that, thanks to modern technology, can now be predicted with greater reliability. Personally, weather plays a significant role in my daily decisions, which is why I decided to create a service tailored for the Fediverse.

FediMeteo uses Open-Meteo data to publish updates every 6 hours, including current weather conditions, forecasts for the next 12 hours, and predictions for the upcoming days. Each country is served by its own dedicated instance (e.g., it.fedimeteo.com for Italy), managed through snac to ensure simplicity and efficiency in publishing.

You can follow FediMeteo directly in the Fediverse (on Mastodon and compatible platforms), via RSS, or by visiting the dedicated page for your city (e.g., fr.fedimeteo.com/paris).

Currently supported countries include:
Austria, Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, – with many more regions coming soon!

FediMeteo is hosted on a FreeBSD-based VPS, with each country isolated in its own jail to ensure security and scalability.

Visit the main site to explore the national instances and start following your local weather updates today:
https://fedimeteo.com

Happy weather monitoring to all! 🌦️

FediMeteo is dedicated to my grandfather, who every evening would give me the weather forecast based on TV, radio, and his personal experience. He would convince me that the weather would be bad, so he had an excuse to accompany me to school instead of me going alone.

#FediMeteo #Announcements #FreeBSD #FediMeteo #WeatherForecasts #Weather #Meteo #snac #Fediverse #Mastodon

Right so my personal #snac instance seems to be working ok and I have managed to import all of the accounts I follow here on bsd.cafe . I'll still be using this account but will try and see how I get on with snac. You may notice that it always shows that I have no followers and that I'm not following anyone. This is intentional by the author of #snac as they feel numbers should not matter which is quite true. Feel free to follow me over there if you haven't already and hello to any new followers.
@justine@snac.smithies.me.uk
All of this is hosted in my #HomeLab on a #FreeBSd server jail running over my home FTTP connection. I'm impressed I've gotten this far. Next I'll be doing some html and css customisation's to theme it a little.

**BSD Mail Project Update!**

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!

#BSDMail #OpenSource #Privacy #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #EmailHosting #Email