Netgate has released pfSense Community Edition (CE) software version 2.8.0, which includes new features such as Automatic Configuration Backup, a new PPPoE driver, and Kea DHCP feature integration. This update also introduces NAT64 support, gateway fail-back, and system aliases. The release addresses several security issues and includes updates to the operating system and base system components.
This episode of BSD Now covers the release of DragonFly BSD 6.4.2 and various other topics. Key points include isolating containers using ZFS and Linux namespaces, and the community's support for the zVault upstart. Additionally, the episode discusses upcoming PF tutorials, using SSH authorized keys for connection management, and a PDF brute-force tool for recovering locked files. The episode also delves into the high pricing of SaaS for university departments and invites listener feedback and questions.
Theo de Raadt proposes enhancements to the openat(2) family of system calls in OpenBSD to improve their practical utility. The current implementation often falls short due to inefficiencies and lack of security considerations. The proposed changes include introducing flags like OBELOW and FBELOW to prevent upward directory traversal, enhancing security and performance. This modification aims to make these system calls more effective and secure, potentially offering a user-level chroot-like functionality. Developers are encouraged to test and provide feedback on these proposed changes.
The FreeBSD operating system provides the sysctl system call to get or set the state of the system. The kernel exposes the parameters for sysctl as objects of a Management information Base (MIB). sysctltui is a new Text User Interface sysctl MIB explorer. It allow to view a parameter’s properties and get or set its value.
Netgate has released pfSense Community Edition (CE) software version 2.8.0, which includes new features such as Automatic Configuration Backup, a new PPPoE driver, and Kea DHCP feature integration. This update also introduces NAT64 support, gateway fail-back, and system aliases. The release addresses several security issues and includes updates to the operating system and base system components.
The NetBSD Foundation held its 2025 Annual General Meeting on May 17, featuring presentations from various teams including board, secteam, releng, core, and more. The event took place on the netbsd-agm IRC channel on Libera.Chat. A Q&A session followed the presentations, allowing for open discussion. For those who missed it, the IRC logs are available online. The meeting highlights the ongoing development and community engagement within the NetBSD project.
OpenZFS is a key feature on FreeBSD, allowing users to install a complete root-on-ZFS system. This article focuses on using Sanoid, a tool by Jim Salter, to manage automatic ZFS snapshots on FreeBSD. Sanoid enables users to define custom policies for snapshot frequency and retention, ensuring critical datasets are protected while optimizing storage usage. The article provides an example policy configuration and mentions an Ansible playbook for easy setup. Additionally, it introduces syncoid for transferring snapshots to a separate system for backup purposes.
The article details the author's experience with a refurbished Fujitsu FUTRO S930, purchased for €54. The hardware, initially equipped with an AMD GX-424CC, 4GB RAM, and 16GB mSATA storage, was upgraded with additional RAM, SATA, and NVMe drives. The author tested the device with various FOSS operating systems, including Debian GNU/Linux 13, FreeBSD 14.2, OpenBSD 7.7, and OmniOS r151054. Performance metrics such as power consumption, network stress, and storage tests were conducted, with results showing consistent performance across different OSes.
The Valuable News weekly series provides a summary of news and articles related to UNIX/BSD/Linux systems. This edition includes updates on OPNsense 25.1.7 release, Sylve for managing Bhyve/Jails on FreeBSD, and various FreeBSD updates and tutorials. Additionally, it covers hardware news such as Crucial's latest NVMe SSDs and insights into using Raspberry Pi as a NAS.
The article details the process of adding read-only volume support to the SoftRAID subsystem in OpenBSD. It begins by identifying an issue where attempting to attach a SoftRAID crypto volume on a read-only device fails with an unhelpful error message. The author then walks through the steps to diagnose and fix this problem, including modifying the sr_meta_probe() function to retry opening the volume with read-only permissions if the initial attempt fails. The article also addresses shortcomings in the system's handling of read-only volumes, such as misleading error messages and the inability to unmount volumes. Additionally, it explains the SCSI device read-only flag reporting mechanism and how to implement similar functionality on virtual devices. The article concludes with necessary changes to userland utilities like /sbin/bioctl and /sbin/scsi to fully support read-only mode, and provides a patchset for OpenBSD 7.7-release to apply the discussed changes.
After 20 years on macOS, author started using FreeBSD again — and wanted to switch from work MacBook to a mini PC without having to re-learn shortcuts, since they're used to macOS. So they spent hours tweaking MATE on FreeBSD to mimic the macOS look, feel, shortcuts.
This guide will cover: 🔹 Font rendering tweaks for macOS-like typography. 🔹 Custom UI settings (keyboard shortcuts, menus, mouse) 🔹 macOS themes for MATE + icons + cursors 🔹 Wallpapers and Dock setup
A new profiling subsystem has been introduced in OpenBSD -current by Theo de Raadt to address limitations of the old gprof subsystem. The updated system enhances the profil() syscall to handle file writing securely within the kernel, accommodating modern security features like privsep, chroot, and pledge. Key changes include the removal of the monstartup(3) interface and renaming the output file to avoid conflicts in multi-process environments. This development aims to facilitate profiling in applications such as rpki-client and bgpd, with support from the OpenBSD community. The changes are available in fresh snapshots for testing and feedback.
The fourth BETA build for the FreeBSD 14.3 release cycle is now available. ISO images for the amd64, i386, powerpc, powerpc64, powerpc64le, powerpcspe, armv6, armv7, aarch64, and riscv64 architectures are FreeBSD mirror sites.