I'm thrilled to announce that my talk for EuroBSDcon 2024 has been accepted! I am incredibly happy and honored. It will be a fantastic experience. Thank you to the team for your trust!
To try to set up such a thing as your first entry into a BSD might be frustrating, but if you kept on until it worked, you would definitely have dived deep. (Dove? Doven? Diven?)
I'm a long-time Linux user now using FreeBSD on my home server. The first few times I looked at BSDs, they seemed old and stale, like nothing was happening there, and the coreutils were less comfortable to use because they were missing some switches. But what I've learned is that FreeBSD builds incrementally, without undermining itself, and my own understanding of it can do the same. What I've learned about previous versions of FreeBSD is more likely to still be true about the next version of FreeBSD.
BSD people often mention how the BSD in question is built as a whole, not cobbled together as a distribution. This difference can be stated far more quickly than it can be fully understood: like a culture, of which you gather a nuanced understanding from a broad survey of its literature, rather than a movement, whose goals are painted in broad strokes by a manifesto.
Anyway, welcome! My experience has been that #freebsd on libera.chat is more lively during US daytime hours than later at night. The Handbook is definitely your first documentation stop. ZFS, with its snapshots and replication, seems to be the most-hailed feature of FreeBSD; DTrace didn't even make the top 10, but when I didn't understand why NFSv4+Kerberos was failing, it was indispensable. Have fun!
lnav is a terminal-based log file viewer (TUI) for #Linux, #FreeBSD, #macOS, and other #Unix like systems. It combines the functionality of tools like tail, grep, awk, sed, and cat into a single interface. It also allows you to run SQL queries against your log files to build reports and offers basic support for Linux containers like Docker. lnav – Awesome terminal log file viewer https://www.cyberciti.biz/open-source/lnav-linux-unix-ncurses-terminal-log-file-viewer/
Proxmox vs FreeBSD: Which Virtualization Host Performs Better?
Since migrating many servers from Proxmox to FreeBSD, we have consistently felt that the VMs are more responsive. It's time to conduct some concrete tests.
One of the most fundamental yet little-known features of FreeBSD is its ability to be used in read-only mode very easily. By installing the system on a UFS file system, you just need to modify the fstab file, change "rw" to "ro," and reboot. On the next boot, the system will automatically create mount points in RAM for the main directories (/tmp, log, etc.), and it will run perfectly.
This was the main reason why, many years ago, I chose FreeBSD for almost all my embedded systems. Even today, on my Raspberry Pies, I keep the SD cards in read-only mode and use external storage in read-write mode. This ensures that, in case of an unexpected poweroff, the system will come back up, and there will be no wear on the memory card.
I've been meaning to do this for a while, and tonight I finally supported @mwl for his new book: Run Your Own Mail Server: A Book for Independence & Privacy
Every book I've read by mwl has gifted me with smiles, laughter, knowledge, awareness, and a desire to experiment.
Can't wait to dive into this new work!
Recently got a cheap 128 GB SSD to see how BSD would run on my main machine, and this weekend threw FreeBSD on it. I'm sending this toot from the working system, and aside from the general configuration joy of being an Unix nerd, finding almost everything I need to know in the FreeBSD Handbook is a great perk on the second joy: reading docs and being able to flow acting on them.
"There’s a multitude of Operating Systems to choose from. You may have been using something like Windows or MacOS and be perfectly happy with it. You can step up and use Linux, Haiku or even Amiga OS. So, why do I think a BSD system may be a great choice?"
Hello everyone! I wanted to share some exciting updates about the development of BSD Mail, our privacy-focused email service designed with robustness, security, and transparency in mind. Here’s a deep dive into the technical choices I've made, focusing on my use of open source solutions and open protocols:
🌍 Servers & Location
We're running on two physical servers:
One hosted by OVH in France
Another by Hetzner in Germany
Both servers operate on FreeBSD with NVMe drives in a ZFS mirror configuration for speed and data integrity.
🔒 Virtualization & Security
We utilize jails on both servers to ensure isolated environments for different services, managed via BastilleBSD. On one server, jails are set up directly on the hardware, whereas the other server employs nested jails.
Each server hosts a bhyve VM running OpenBSD with OpenSMTPD for handling SMTP duties securely.
🔗 Networking
A Wireguard setup connects the two servers, facilitating routing capabilities so that jails and VMs can communicate seamlessly, supporting both IPv4 and IPv6.
📧 Email Services
Dovecot is configured for maildir replication across the servers using Dovecot sync, ensuring email availability and redundancy.
Rspamd instances are tied to local KeyDB jails, set up in master-master replication for consistent and reliable spam detection and greylisting.
ClamAV runs in corresponding jails for virus scanning, maintaining a high level of security.
SOGo provides a web interface for email management, connected to MySQL databases in master-master replication to handle sessions and authentication smoothly.
💾 Data Management
Email data is stored on separate, encrypted ZFS datasets to secure emails at rest.
MySQL databases are used for storing credentials and managing sessions for SOGo, also in a master-master replication setup. Importantly, all passwords are securely hashed using bcrypt, ensuring they are salted and safe.
🔎 Monitoring & Reliability
Our DNS is managed through BunnyNet, which continuously monitors our server status. Should one server—or a specific service—become unavailable, DNS configurations are dynamically adjusted to avoid directing users to the affected IP until full service is restored.
🌐 Commitment to Open Source and Open Protocols
Every component of BSD Mail is built exclusively using open source software and open protocols. This commitment is crucial for ensuring data freedom and the reliability of the solutions we use.
This setup not only emphasizes our commitment to privacy and security but also our dedication to maintaining an open and transparent platform.
We're excited to bring you a service where your privacy, data integrity, and freedom are prioritized. Stay tuned for more updates!
Do you do anything interesting with any of the *BSDs :flan_hacker: ? If so, please consider giving a talk at EuroBSDCon, which is held in Dublin, September 19-22. More info on submitting your paper can be found here.
@Reiddragon
OpenBSD: Relentlessly security & correctness focused. Theo is an asshole who's usually/always right.
FreeBSD: Comes with most of the nice amenities of a user-friendly UNIX. Fantastic documentation. Friendly community. Dragonfly, etc. have even more desktop stuff configured.
How could I get started with BSD?
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/23633869...