Show off your *BSD desktop!

https://billboard.bsd.cafe/topic/72/show-off-your-bsd-desktop

#RunBSD #OpenBSD #FreeBSD #DragonflyBSD #NetBSD #Illumos #Screenshot #Desktop #picture #bsdcafe #billboard

There is no such thing as #StupidSaturday. Also me: #NetBSD #ZFS

Alt...

A fastfetch output display NetBSD running on a ThinkPad X280 where home, usr and var partition use ZFS.

First system upgraded to #NetBSD 11.0 RC3. Not the last.

Alt...

$ time neofetch jim@ ---- OS: NetBSD 11.0_RC3 amd64 Uptime: 5 mins Packages: 453 (pkg_info) Shell: sh Terminal: /dev/pts/2 CPU: Intel 686-class (2) Memory: 723MiB / 3987MiB real 0m0.497s user 0m0.176s sys 0m0.145s

Well, well, well... it's Friday, so let's have a little bit of fun, shall we?

#NetBSD 11, take two!

$ qemu-img create -f qcow2 ~/Documents/VM/netbsd11.img 20G

$ sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -accel kvm -m 2G -cpu host -smp 2 -boot d -hda /home/gil/Documents/VM/netbsd11.img -name NetBSD11 -cdrom Downloads/ISO/NetBSD/NetBSD-11.0_RC3-amd64-dvd.iso -display curses -net user,hostfwd=tcp::22222-:22 -net nic

Updated post!

The first time I installed NetBSD I used `sysinst`, a menu-based program that runs in the console. It has a concise layout and I was quickly up-and-running on my new BSD system.

For my next install I wanted to include disk encryption to protect personal data in case the device is lost or stolen. There is a trade-off to be made between how much to encrypt, the convenience of operating the system, and the ability for the system to boot...

https://www.dwarmstrong.org/netbsd-encrypt-install/

#NetBSD #RunBSD

I've just applied this recipe to boot #NetBSD using FDE on my T480s.
And it worked. Thanks @dwarmstrong

EDIT: maybe it was not a good idea to test it with the 11-beta release… wireless card not recognized, apmd not there, packages missing… got to redo this with a secured 10 release :p
https://fosstodon.org/@dwarmstrong/115011008168450086

What is considered state of the art for Endpoint management, and specifically security controls (EDR, SIEM, RMM, etc.) for BSD? There usually exists clients and agents for Linux in this space. There is an abandoned(?) Wazuh port for FreeBSD that I am aware of but I would like to know what people do.

Essentially how does one manage and monitor the security of 100’s or 1,000’s of BSD endpoints like a Windows or Linux or even Mac environment would?

#askfedi #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #infosec

Here are some things that one can add to the analysis of the MacOS TCP timeout clock freeze bug.

The code for calculate_tcp_clock() in XNU was changed in May 2025. Older versions of this function (e.g. in xnu-11417) worked quite differently and wouldn't have stopped ticking the clock at 32-bit unsigned integer wraparound.

None of #NetBSD, #FreeBSD, nor #OpenBSD share this exact way of doing TCP timeout processing with #XNU.

FreeBSD does not have a tcp_now and works off the global 32-bit ticks variable. OpenBSD effectively works off the kernel's system clock, too, but with a randomized offset, and does 64-bit unsigned modular arithmetic. NetBSD uses a distinct 32-bit unsigned tcp_now counter that it simply increments by 1 at regular intervals, and does modular arithmetic subtraction.

https://photon.codes/blog/we-found-a-ticking-time-bomb-in-macos-tcp-networking

#TCP #MacOS

System Administration, Week 1: Warming up to EC2

In this short video, we prepare for our first homework assignment and demonstrate how to launch a #NetBSD instance in AWS EC2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA_pgRH0IDw

Note: the AMI in the video is outdated; I have up to date images listed here:
https://stevens.netmeister.org/615/netbsd-amis.html

Or you can create your own:
https://www.netmeister.org/blog/creating-netbsd-ec2-amis.html

#sysadmin #devops #sre

System Administration: Week 3: Files go hier(7)

In this video, we're wrapping up our discussion of filesystems and partitions with a look at file types and partitions and filesystems mounted by default on #NetBSD, #FreeBSD, #OmniOS, and Fedora Linux. We close with a look at the filesystem hierarchy as defined in the hier(7) manual page.

https://youtu.be/J0ontdqxpUg

#sysadmin #devops #sre

System Administration: Week 3: Resizing a file system

In these two videos, we show how to resize an existing filesystem. First on #NetBSD using the resize_ffs(8) tool, where we first increase the size of a 512MB partition to 1GB, then shrink it down to 256MB. Next we repeat the same exercise on #Debian Linux, using the resize2fs(8) tool.

https://youtu.be/9l-g3keN48g

https://youtu.be/4V15y5Klo9Y

#sysadmin #devops #sre

System Administration: Week 4: OS Installation

In this video, we perform a step-by-step manual installation of #NetBSD onto a virtual machine to illustrate the details of the process, including partitioning, boot loader installation, OS set extraction etc.

We also discuss planning of the OS installation by looking at data classification into shareable/non-shareable and static/variable data and think about how to scale this process.

https://youtu.be/XRTDMgIpK68

#sysadmin #devops #sre

System Administration: Week 4: Package Management

In this video, we continue our discussion of the difference and relationship between the operating system and so-called "add-on software". We conclude that in order to install and maintain all such software, we want to use a package manager, and illustrate common features by example of the 'dpkg', 'rpm', and #NetBSD's #pkgsrc tools.

https://youtu.be/dU66_sPjnXg

#sysadmin #devops #sre

Alt...

A diagram illustrating the relationship between OS, Package Management, and the different components: Add-on software, System Software, Applications/Utitlities/ Kernel/Firmware / Hardware

Can anyone recommend a decent 2 port PCI network card?

Not PCIe or PCI-X!!!!

Bonus if its compatible with #NetBSD and has 1Gb ports

#Networking #oldcomputing

Have you been wondering about ZFS AnyRAID? Allan Jude will be giving a talk about Flexible Disk Layout @ BSDCan

If you register before May 1, the closing reception is free!

Register at https://www.bsdcan.org/2026/registration.html

#bsdcan #conference #bsd #unix #development #freebsd #netbsd #openbsd
#sysadmin #devops

The new way of selling 'AI' seems to be to push it as a bugfinder. The latest example being waved around as of yesterday includes, as one of its non-embargoed examples, what is patched by this #OpenBSD patch.

https://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/patches/7.8/common/025_sack.patch.sig

The problematic thing is that this sort of bugfixing hasn't changed the commentary in the code, which stated that p points to the last linked list entry at the point of the added null check and can never be null. But it actually can be, if there was a sole linked list entry that ended up being fully encompassed and thus deleted.

So this kind of 'AI' use is going to give us a lot more comments-do-not-match-code maintenance headaches down the road.

(Both #NetBSD and #FreeBSD factor this out into a separate tcp_sack.c and do the linked list handling slightly differently without a 'previous' pointer.)

#AI

https://red.anthropic.com/2026/mythos-preview/

I wonder why they didn't check #NetBSD ! 🤔
#FreeBSD #OpenBSD #runbsd

[discussion] the BSDs in the AI Age via @lattera https://lobste.rs/s/pdhar1 #culture #freebsd #netbsd #openbsd
https://lists.nycbug.org/pipermail/talk/2026-April/018894.html

An overview on running #FreeBSD, #NetBSD and #OpenBSD on the #PINE64 #ROCKPro64 #arm64 board, bare and with PCIe extension cards, in the context of building a NAS system.

https://www.tumfatig.net/2026/bsd-discovery-on-the-pine64-rockpro64/

Which has the best source code?

----

Best is whatever you care about code quality. For some it might be design coherence, for others it might be resistance to security exploits, for others it might be architecture portability.

#netbsd #openbsd #freebsd #opensource

@claudiom

#NetBSD to the rescue!!

And now, the #dmesg for this bare #PINE64 #ROCKPro64 board have been uploaded to NYC*BUG dmesgd:

• #FreeBSD 14.4
• #NetBSD 10.1
• #OpenBSD 7.8

*using a curl call inspired by https://gist.github.com/afresh1/99cdd481184147f0e8c0

#RunBSD

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/wlfi/name/george-goble-obituary?id=61144779

I remember the BBQ incident from years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sab2Ltm1WcM

#BSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #Unix

sysadmin socks && Thongs.

#NetBSD #Linux #FreeBSD #runbsd #unix

EuroBSDcon 2026's call for papers is open, see https://2026.eurobsdcon.org/cfp/

Here is a direct link to the submissions form https://events.eurobsdcon.org/2026/submit/ew426G/info/

@eurobsdcon #eurobsdcon #openbsd #netbsd #freebsd #conference #development #devops #sysadmin #freesoftware #libresoftware

Dear #NetBSD users what VPS service do you recommend ? I have spun up NetBSD on tunnelr.com before, but sometime after they switched management and names a few years back that dropped NetBSD images.

@khm this is also something i want. i'd love to chip in if i can.

(i've always wanted to learn about kernel/hw hacking on #netbsd but never managed to find the time to get into it.)

I just released netbsd-gce-0.4.2, with some minor bugfixes and updates.

https://github.com/google/netbsd-gce/releases/tag/v0.4.2

#NetBSD #GoogleCloudPlatform

I got #Slackware 15 on a #ThinkCentre M73 SFF (i3-4160 with 4GiB and an SSD), no sweat.

Then installed #OpenBSD on it just fine, it's running now.

However, #NetBSD fails on "no root devices" or similar and #FreeBSD, which is what i'd really like to install due to native #ZFS, just freezes on the boot screen.

These are all ISOs on the same Ventoy USB disk.

Boosts and suggestions appreciated.

Okay, folks, gather 'round, because you are not going to believe this one. My friend who is working at NASA told me this confidential news , but i can finally spill the beans: NASA is officially running NetBSD.

Yeah, you heard that right. Turns out, when you need an OS that can literally run on a potato *and* survive the vacuum of space without a hiccup, you do not mess around. They have been working under wraps with their deep space division on something they are calling "AstroBSD."

Apparently, the Perseverance rover on Mars? Yeah, it is not just taking pretty pictures; it is crunching data with a custom NetBSD kernel.

This just proves what foundation has been saying forever: "Of course it runs NetBSD!" From your ancient router to a rover on another planet.

#NetBSD #NASA #AstroBSD #AprilFools #OpenSource #Portability #MarsRover #SpaceTech #GeekHumor

Greetings BSD Cafe', I have been playing around with the NetBSD packet filter. Based on my understanding, I presume the following would pass as a basic filter for a stand alone host firewall. Its not clean but perhaps adequate enough?

$ext_if = { inet4(wm0) } # LAN Connection

group "external" on $ext_if {
pass stateful out final all
block all
}

group default {
pass final on lo0 all
block all
}

#NetBSD #npf

Ok, #NetBSD on Odroid M1S update: I'm setting this one down for a bit. I'm stumped by the ethernet phy and tired beating my head against it. I put in a PR for my current progress, and that's merged into the main repo. Spinning a release might be difficult (for submodule bitrot reasons), so I made a status post with release binaries: https://overeducated-redneck.net/blurgh/netbsd-on-odroid-m1s.html

I'm just going to use a USB-to-ethernet adapter for now and use the board for its intended purpose. Finally.

@napierge @stefano It is should be something like "wgconfig <WireGuard iface>". At least this is how I can get the same output on the #NetBSD

Alt...

Output of "iwconfig wg0" command on the NetBSD. It lists one interface and two endpoints

@trashheap @grahamperrin I don't know about #FreeBSD but #NetBSD has policy of not accepting AI/LLM generated code

https://www.netbsd.org/developers/commit-guidelines.html

#NetBSD and #PA-Risc friends

after installing the #hppa version on 10.1

I am trying to get a ssh tunnel going across the Atlantic
Works fantastic if i DON'T use -N flag
Tunnel goes down after 30sec

so
ssh -C -R port:blabla:port user@server
work flawless

any ideas why?

maybe i am betting too much on my HP715 beast 🤣

@scott @nuintari Probably, fot #NetBSD the next analog of FreshPorts could be used: https://www.pkgsrc.se/

Big kudos to the person testing #NetBSD 11.0 RC2 on an i386, loading the system from floppy disks. Gracias!

https://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-i386/2026/03/26/msg004230.html

A successful boot is often just beyond the moment you feel like giving up on that obscure piece of hardware. Keep hacking—the moment you can finally say, 'Of course it runs NetBSD,' is closer than you think.
#NetBSD 🚩 #RunBSD #Unix #Linux

The European BSD conference, EuroBSDcon 2026 will be in Brussels, 9-13 September 2026.

You can send your talk, tutorial, BOF or other session submission to our program committee before June 20th, see https://2026.eurobsdcon.org/cfp/

For more about the BSD conferences, see https://nxdomain.no/~peter/what_is_bsd_come_to_a_conference_to_find_out.html #freebsd #netbsd #openbsd #freesoftware #libresoftware #development #programming #devops #bsd #conference @EuroBSDCon