Guys I think I’ve decided to base my homelab on #FreeBSD instead of Debian.
#FreeBSD
170 posts130 participants12 posts today
Continued thread
From the results I can see there is a solid group of Korn Shell users but I'm a bit surprised abouth the C Shell. I didn't though there was such a difference betwen the number of CSH users and KSH users. I guess part of it is because Korn is more similar to Bourne.
Thank you all for taking part and for your comments. I learned some things 
The European *BSD 
event of 2025 is getting noticed!
https://www.netokracija.com/event/eurobsdcon-2025
Ako znaš čitati hrvatski, dobar si.
If you can't, you probably need to translate the article. 
Grab your tickets 
at https://tickets.eurobsdcon.org
For everything else, peek at https://2025.eurobsdcon.org/
More information is added all the time.
EuroBSDCon 2025 in Zagreb, Croatia 
September 25-28, 2025
NetokracijaEuroBSDCon 2025.Tehnička konfrenecija namijenjena profesionalcima i entuzijastima koji rade na operativnim sustavima temeljenim na BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) u Zagreb dovodi oko 250 sudionika iz 30 zemalja
Weekend Reads
* FreeBSD Journal https://freebsdfoundation.org/our-work/journal/browser-based-edition/networking-3/
* Anatomy of DDoSia https://www.recordedfuture.com/research/anatomy-of-ddosia
* Dataplane BGP hijack mitigation https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.14842
* Formal specifications for protocols https://cacm.acm.org/research/it-takes-a-village-bridging-the-gaps-between-current-and-formal-specifications-for-protocols/
* PyPI ecosystem vulnerability analysis https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.18075
Flashy flashy - backing up has never been so pretty.
Replied in thread
One of those someones was Rob Pike in 2004.
https://interviews.slashdot.org/story/04/10/18/1153211/rob-pike-responds
And the underlying kernel change happened in 2007.
Interestingly, modern #FreeBSD has a sysctl() limit (kern.ps_arg_cache_limit) on how large processes can resize their argument block and environment string block and still have it show up in the ps command.
I just raised mine to 768 bytes, coincidentally. I could have got away with just 512, I think.
interviews.slashdot.orgRob Pike Responds - SlashdotHe starts by clearing up my error in saying he was a Unix co-creator in the original Call For Questions. From there he goes on to answer your questions both completely and lucidly. A refreshing change from the politicians and executives we've talked to so much recently, no doubt about it....
Replied to Leonieke
erturk.me · Notes on FreeBSD on MacBook ProIt's me!
“Most often this is done by the use of the boot floppy you used to install the system, and then using the “fixit” floppy.”
apparently this manual page (crash.8) was last updated in 2011. i have doubts.
... so have an unused macbook pro (2018-ish) with a draining battery: where would I start if I wanted to install FreeBSD/etc on it?
hello @BastilleBSD
How does #BastilleBSD interact with preexisting jails? Is there a way to "import" those jail into Bastille management or are they doomed to live side-by-side, ignoring each other?
Continued thread
In case anyone asks, yes, I've seen the recent pf addition of the af-to rules in #FreeBSD to implement nat64/clat. I do plan to give them a spin a bit later on once I've got a better feel for how this is working. The documentation is thin and I didn't have a good understanding of what I was trying to do. If pf's af-to didn't work for me I would have had no baseline to compare it against.
I've seen enough nat64 stuff that doesn't properly translate icmp/icmp6 to be deeply suspicious of anything in this area. I'd want to see that working before relying on it and I know apalrd-tayga does it properly.
I've seen enough nat64 stuff that doesn't properly translate icmp/icmp6 to be deeply suspicious of anything in this area. I'd want to see that working before relying on it and I know apalrd-tayga does it properly.
It’s clear to me. I will adapt the next space installer to get it working on #FreeBSD Its embarrassing that Linux users have a better NeXT approximation than BSD users do.
The devs have lovely shell scripts in place and the missing patches I can likely pull from ports. It should be possible.
https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace/blob/master/Documentation/NEXTSPACE_Screenshot.png
GitHubnextspace/Documentation/NEXTSPACE_Screenshot.png at master · trunkmaster/nextspaceNeXTSTEP-like desktop environment for Linux. Contribute to trunkmaster/nextspace development by creating an account on GitHub.
Want to check or tweak jail settings?
> bastille config TARGET [get|(set|add)|remove] PROPERTY [VALUE]
Lets you get or set boot status, boot priority and more:
bastille config TARGET get boot
bastille config TARGET set boot off
bastille config TARGET set priority 10
i am fixing the important issues in #freebsd
https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/commit/?id=bf0ee5f2175a3c6eb52f9fc74b93b445d37a6086
you're welcome!
slam my coffee, buy me a subscribe, etc. etc.
cgit.freebsd.orgMaking sure you're not a bot!
Bug 277788 - editors/vim: make optional language bindings pkg flavors, reported 20240318,
by Matt S,
https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=277788
#FreeBSD unburdened #vim #softwareDependencies
bugs.freebsd.orgMaking sure you're not a bot!
My #FreeBSD home network / homelab refresh is progressing well enough. So far:
isc-dhcpd -> Kea (local HW address reservation scripts not fully converted yet, but Kea is the source of truth.)
NAT64 + DNS64 active and extensively in use.
DHCP option 108 (ipv6-only) active.
Surprises:
omfg, Kea's json config files are terrible. I'm definitely going to use yaml + scripts + ports/textproc/go-yq to generate them. yq is like jq, except it speaks yaml, json and xml and can convert freely between them in addition to the usual jq-like things.
NAT64 / 464xlat (using apalrd-tayga) / dhcp option 108 in kea works great and covers a large portion of my client traffic.
I used ports/dns/kea-devel instead of dns/kea because kea-devel is 3.0.0 and it's the new stable and LTS release. It does dhcp option 108 properly, unlike dns/kea. The kea-2.6.x family doesn't implement it well, 3.x does.
My VOIP phone system broke at the same time but that was probably coincidence. I was using stateful nat for return paths to the provider.. and for some reason they started replying on different IP addresses (!!!!!). Oookay. A pf rule tweak resolved it. I'll have to look into this more.
Homepods apparently will just up and change their MAC address if they're elected to be the home hub. And change it back afterwards. Oookay.
So far so good.
isc-dhcpd -> Kea (local HW address reservation scripts not fully converted yet, but Kea is the source of truth.)
NAT64 + DNS64 active and extensively in use.
DHCP option 108 (ipv6-only) active.
Surprises:
omfg, Kea's json config files are terrible. I'm definitely going to use yaml + scripts + ports/textproc/go-yq to generate them. yq is like jq, except it speaks yaml, json and xml and can convert freely between them in addition to the usual jq-like things.
NAT64 / 464xlat (using apalrd-tayga) / dhcp option 108 in kea works great and covers a large portion of my client traffic.
I used ports/dns/kea-devel instead of dns/kea because kea-devel is 3.0.0 and it's the new stable and LTS release. It does dhcp option 108 properly, unlike dns/kea. The kea-2.6.x family doesn't implement it well, 3.x does.
My VOIP phone system broke at the same time but that was probably coincidence. I was using stateful nat for return paths to the provider.. and for some reason they started replying on different IP addresses (!!!!!). Oookay. A pf rule tweak resolved it. I'll have to look into this more.
Homepods apparently will just up and change their MAC address if they're elected to be the home hub. And change it back afterwards. Oookay.
So far so good.
Replied to BastilleBSD 
@BastilleBSD A dual Pentium II 266MHz with several massive 9GB SCSI drives running Mandrake Linux 9.2. Summer of 2004 at work. That was my first exposure to #Linux. A year or two later was my first exposure to #FreeBSD 6 on a similarly spec'd machine.
Both were big beige boxes.