A wild #blog post appears!

I revived pkgsrc on AIX.

(Yes, I already sent a PR to NetBSD.)

https://briancallahan.net/blog/20250516.html

#linux #unix #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #dragonflybsd #aix #ibm #solairs #illumos #pkgsrc #opensource #freesoftware

You've probably seen the local root privilege escalation vulnerability in GNU screen(1):
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/05/12/1

The note there suggests that #NetBSD ships with a vulnerable version of screen(1). This is incorrect: NetBSD includes screen(1) in #pkgsrc as a _possible add-on package_ you can choose to install. It does _not_ include screen(1) in the base system.

if there's anything to say about #NetBSD or even #OpenBSD users (to an extent) its:

"if there's a will, there's a way"

or perhaps more accurately:

"if there's a way, someone will, even if impractical"

addendum: I've found something more or less useful to do with the aforementioned setup. I'm still trying to iron out a few things, but it's amazing what a little overclocking can do.

I'm quite impressed at how responsive #NetBSD on the #RapberryPi Model 1 B (without the "plus" but with 512MB RAM - it's a rather early board manufactured in 12/2011) is.

So I decided to run #MagickaBBS on it, simply because it was the only #BBS software that I was able to compile on NetBSD - most other #bulletinboardsystem #software will not compile on #NetBSD (evbarm platform) for one or another reason - what a shame.

Anyway: about five years ago, I've had quite a creative burst and designed several #ANSI screens (example: see below) that I've never put into use. But this seems to be the right time to finally change that.

Stay tuned or follow: #netbsdonoldpi (NetBSD on old Pi) - I'll try to provide further updates in case you are interested ...

Alt...

ASNI art of a wooden signpost representing the main menu of a classic bulletin board system. icicles hang from the top af the screen above the signpost.

#netbsd

I need to get myself another dongle to get this thing on the network... but I'm excited to play around with #netBSD on some cutting edge hardware.

(what do you mean the wii was released in 2006?)

#BSD #runBSD

Alt...

cables and hardware strewn haphazardly on the floor, ultimately resulting in a nintendo wii running netBSD. the wii's component cables are plugged into a HDMI adapter and 3.5mm adapter for video and audio, those plugged into wired headphones and a computer monitor (on the floor, without a stand) respectively. The wii sensor bar is on top of a wooden stool, and the wii remote is on the floor next to a variety of dongles and my split keyboard. It's a total mess. But it works. Off to one side you can see my laptop with the netBSD mailing list open.

I have a bunch of old #RaspberryPi Model 1 B+ gathering dust, so out of a mood I decided to install #NetBSD 10.1 on one of them and do a little overclocking. See, I'm quite fond of NetBSD, it's my favourite of the BSDs.

So now I just need to find a proper use for it ... 🤔

Alt...

NetBSD shell, green text on black background showing the CPU frequency as reported by the command: sysctl -a | grep 'freq' which is currently 1GHz but will drop to 700MHz when idle.

@LaF0rge "LibreSSL was ported to other operating systems in the form of the libressl-portable project. Unfortunately, it is rarely packaged in Linux distributions, and is typically used in BSD environments." <- zumindest @netbsd benutzt im Base System OpenSSL, nicht LibreSSL

#NetBSD #OpenSSL

Question for all the #BSD admins out there: have you ever deployed #DragonflyBSD in production?

Personally I deployed my fair share of #OpenBSD and #pfsense firewalls in production. I've also encountered a few #FreeBSD servers and I know that SDF runs on #NetBSD but I've yet to see a DragonflyBSD machine in prod.

Exactly one month from today, I'll be at #BSDCan to present my talk "Why (and how) we're migrating many of our servers from Linux to the BSDs" (AKA: "I solve problems").

As the days go by, I feel increasingly honored to be a speaker at this event, more and more excited to live an experience similar to the incredible one I had last September at #EuroBSDCon in Dublin, and more confident than ever in the technical choices I’ve made over the years - which I’ll be happy to share.

BSD conferences aren’t just technical events - they’re snapshots of the BSD community as a whole: friendly, collaborative, pragmatic, and positive.

To everyone attending: see you in Ottawa!

https://indico.bsdcan.org/event/5/contributions/123/

#BSDCan2025 #RunBSD #BSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #DragonflyBSD

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/05/13/the_server_that_wasnt_meant_to_exist/

#ITNotes #NoteHUB #blogging #data #horrorstories #netbsd #ownyourdata #server

@darkuncle

But only on #NetBSD - provided you recompile the kernel with the correct options.

Takes a couple of days, but works flawlessly after that.

Here is one for @imil: viogpu(4) for #NetBSD, added into the MICROVM kernel!

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟱/𝟭𝟮 (Valuable News - 2025/05/12) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/05/12/valuable-news-2025-05-12/

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

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

Finally ... A fully working NetBSD install and matching colors in the Fish shell

#netbsd

Alt...

A screenshot of a NetBSD TTY console with a Fastfetch output showing system informations and a orange-themed Fish shell

NetBSD 10.x kernel MATH_EMULATION
#NetBSD #linux #RunBSD #pkgsrc

https://mezzantrop.wordpress.com/2025/02/04/netbsd-10-x-kernel-math_emulation/

Today is orange flag day! I will experiment with NetBSD as I want to see how it compares to FreeBSD and OpenBSD and possibly use it as a new host operating system for my virtual machines

@stefano has made the best advertisement for NetBSD with the 10 year old server that's possibly still running as of today 😉

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2023/08/27/that-old-netbsd-server-running-since-2010/

#netbsd

Congratulations to the @Google #SummerOfCode students who will work on Enhancing Support for NAT64 Protocol Translation, Asynchronous I/O Framework and Using bubblewrap to add sandboxing for @netbsd this summer.

https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/programs/2025/organizations/the-netbsd-foundation

#NetBSD #Google #SummerOfCode #gsoc

I'm not disappointed by the result, it still could be used as a semi dumb terminal for ssh(1). The memory usage is low because I deactivated all services but cron(8); it may be lower with a tailored kernel, but I don't mind 🙂

Alt...

A screenshot showing the system infos as displayed by fastfetch(1) in a tmux(1) session itself in a uxterm(1) window

Yesterday, I told you about incus - today I tell you how you can easily run #FreeBSD, #OpenBSD & #NetBSD with #incus!

#RUNBSD! #opensource #homelab #virtualization #proxmox

https://gyptazy.com/run-freebsd-openbsd-netbsd-vms-in-incus/

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟱/𝟬𝟱 (Valuable News - 2025/05/05) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/05/05/valuable-news-2025-05-05/

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

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

Great article from @gyptazy :

Run FreeBSD, OpenBSD & NetBSD VMs in Incus

https://gyptazy.com/run-freebsd-openbsd-netbsd-vms-in-incus/?utm_source=discoverbsd

#FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #Incus #VM #Virtualization

I've been reading an interesting article by Liguo Yu et. al., "Maintainability of the kernels of open-source operating systems: A comparison of Linux with FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD" (DOI: 10.1016/j.jss.2005.08.014). Keep in mind, the article is from 2005 (published in 2006), so it would be interesting to know how things have changed since then. We are talking here about #Linux 2,4,20, #FreeBSD 5.1, #NetBSD 1.6 and #OpenBSD 3.3.
The article basically explores maintainability of said OSes judging mainly by usage of global variables.
Here's some interesting takeouts.
"Unsafe definition" is in their terms a usage of global variables between kernel modules and non-kernel modules.

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Two graphs showing number of global variables and unsafe definitions in Linux and three BSDs. Linux has significantly more of both.

Better the *daemon* you know than the *devil* you don't

#runbsd #netbsd #freebsd #openbsd

#FreeBSD - I had to use 15-CURRENT as the video card isn't supported. Even in 15-CURRENT, trackpad doesn't seem to be working and the video performance is poor. I'll have to investigate.

#OpenBSD - better video performance, the wifi card is recognised but it seems to have some performance issues (packets lost, etc). Trackpad is not working

#NetBSD - video card is not supported, trackpad isn't working

I'll test the whole system with a Fedora, just to be sure that the hardware is ok (but a small test, yesterday, was successful).

#aceBSD

Don't tell me you still don't have a boxyBSD VM. Request one while they last

Here's the status of the hypervisors running boxyBSD VMs

@gyptazy

https://boxybsd.com/status/

.🖋️ #bash #freeBSD #boxyBSD #sh #zsh #ksh #csh  #netBSD #openBSD #POSIX

Alt...

The screencap shows a terminal screen with a black background and white text. At the top, there is a status bar displaying the time (22:12), battery level (81%), and temperature (27°). The terminal window is titled "BoxyBSD" in a stylized font. The command line shows the user "guest" logged in to the system "mgmt-boxybsd" with the command "cat status.md" being executed. The terminal output includes a "Status" section listing hypervisors with their locations and latency times, such as "virt01: 42.1 ms (Location: France, Ro)" and "virt09: 277. ms (Location: Japan, Toky)." Below this, there is a "[looking glass]" section with miscellaneous information like "Website: Online," "Matrix Bot: Online," "Provisioning: Enabled," and "gyptazy services: Online." The "Statistics" section shows "Boxes provisioned: 500+," "OS Images: 7," and "Uptime: 99.9%." At the bottom, there is a note about contacting support and the system's creation date (2025-04-12 11:59:34.695945). Ovis2-8B 🌱 Energy used: 0.310 Wh

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟰/𝟮𝟴 (Valuable News - 2025/04/28) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/04/28/valuable-news-2025-04-28/

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

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

Please boost for a larger each and thank you. xoxo
#FreeBSD #OpenBSD #NetBSD #RunBSD

@BoxyBSD was always for BSD based systems only. I focussed to push the whole BSD community and to encourage people to try BSD based systems (such like #FreeBSD. #NetBSD, #OpenBSD, etc.) but I'm not sure if it might provide more value to the whole #opensource community by also supporting #Linux systems (such like #Debian, #Ubuntu, #RockyLinux, #SuSe and more).

I'm not sure if the #BoxyBSD project still provides a value for the community right, now.

What do you think?

As it approaches, the excitement for the upcoming #BSDCan keeps growing. It'll be my first time in Canada, and therefore my first time at BSDCan, and it will be a great opportunity to meet people I couldn't meet at #EuroBSDCon in Dublin. In the meantime, the next EuroBSDCon is also getting closer. All in all, when I look at the coming months, I feel an overwhelming sense of positivity and enthusiasm!

#RunBSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #DragonFlyBSD #BSD

Testing #nginx on #NetBSD on my Raspberry Pi Zero W, connected via wifi:

http:
wrk -t4 -c50 -d10s http://192.168.111.143
Running 10s test @ http://192.168.111.143
4 threads and 50 connections
Thread Stats Avg Stdev Max +/- Stdev
Latency 70.52ms 18.01ms 133.58ms 73.66%
Req/Sec 170.04 38.91 280.00 65.00%
6816 requests in 10.07s, 5.54MB read
Requests/sec: 677.05
Transfer/sec: 563.99KB

Not huge, but stil 677 requests per second.

In https:
wrk -t4 -c50 -d10s https://192.168.111.143
Running 10s test @ https://192.168.111.143
4 threads and 50 connections
Thread Stats Avg Stdev Max +/- Stdev
Latency 764.43ms 397.17ms 1.99s 75.79%
Req/Sec 14.31 10.93 69.00 78.64%
418 requests in 10.07s, 17.66MB read
Socket errors: connect 0, read 0, write 0, timeout 38
Requests/sec: 41.51
Transfer/sec: 1.75MB

Much worse - but I expected it. Still, 41 requests per second in https is more than I expected.

I'm going to compile the NetBSD kernel directly on the Raspberry Pi Zero W, which is running NetBSD.

Let's wait and see 🙂

#NetBSD #RunBSD

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/04/22/make-your-own-internet-presence-with-netbsd-and-a-1-euro-vps-part-1-your-blog/

#ITNotes #NoteHUB #blogging #bssg #netbsd #ownyourdata #series #server #ssg #tutorial #web

Make Your Own Internet Presence with NetBSD and a 1 euro VPS – Part 1: Your Blog

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/04/22/make-your-own-internet-presence-with-netbsd-and-a-1-euro-vps-part-1-your-blog/

#NetBSD #RunBSD #OwnYourData #BSSG #SSG #SelfHosting

Hosting a webpage on a nintendo wii with NetBSD.

If it doesn't load, have patience and reload. I took me a while to me. It's a nintendo wii, after all.

#netbsd #nintendowii

https://blog.infected.systems/posts/2025-04-21-this-blog-is-hosted-on-a-nintendo-wii/

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟰/𝟮𝟭 (Valuable News - 2025/04/21) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/04/21/valuable-news-2025-04-21/

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

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

Saturday night.
Wife is listening to some music and singing, relaxed.
I'm writing a part of a new blog post about doing something with #NetBSD, relaxed.

Have great weekend, #BSDCafe, have a great weekend, #Fediverse!

Today, I implemented the #async / #await pattern (as known from #csharp and meanwhile quite some other languages) ...

... in good old #C! 😎

Well, at least sort of.

* It requires some standard library support, namely #POSIX user context switching with #getcontext and friends, which was deprecated in POSIX-1.2008. But it's still available on many systems, including #FreeBSD, #NetBSD, #Linux (with #glibc). It's NOT available e.g. on #OpenBSD, or Linux with some alternative libc.

* I can't do anything about the basic language syntax, so some boilerplate comes with using it.

* It has some overhead (room for extra stacks, even extra syscalls as getcontext unfortunately also always saves/restores the signal mask)

But then ... async/await in C! 🥳

Here are the docs:
https://zirias.github.io/poser/api/latest/class_p_s_c___async_task.html

#C #coding

Mmm parallel seem to have some troubles on NetBSD. Sometimes it's just stuck, doesn't start to process the task.
For now, when BSSG will detect it's running on NetBSD, it will use the slower but more reliable sequential build process

#BSSG #NetBSD

I finally eliminated the need for a dedicated #thread controlling the pam helper #process in #swad. 🥳

The building block that was still missing from #poser was a way to await some async I/O task performed on the main thread from a worker thread. So I added a class to allow exactly that. The naive implementation just signals the main thread to carry out the requested task and then waits on a #semaphore for completion, which of course blocks the worker thread.

Turns out we can actually do better, reaching similar functionality like e.g. #async / #await in C#: Release the worker thread to do other jobs while waiting. The key to this is user context switching support like offered by #POSIX-1.2001 #getcontext and friends. Unfortunately it was deprecated in POSIX-1.2008 without an obvious replacement (the docs basically say "use threads", which doesn't work for my scenario), but still lots of systems provide it, e.g. #FreeBSD, #NetBSD, #Linux (with #glibc) ...

The posercore lib now offers both implementations, prefering to use user context switching if available. It comes at a price: Every thread job now needs its private stack space (I allocated 64kiB there for now), and of course the switching takes some time as well, but that's very likely better than leaving a task idle waiting. And there's a restriction, resuming must still happen on the same thread that called the "await", so if this thread is currently busy, we have to wait a little bit longer. I still think it's a very nice solution. 😎

In any case, the code for the PAM credential checker module looks much cleaner now (the await "magic" happens on line 174):
https://github.com/Zirias/swad/blob/57eefe93cdad0df55ebede4bd877d22e7be1a7f8/src/bin/swad/cred/pamchecker.c

#C #coding