9 ms·

FreeBSD 14.0-Release

273 points by cperciva 3y ago

vedranm 3y ago
Congratulations! Here's a summary of the highlights from the release announcement [1]: - OpenSSH has been updated to version 9.5p1. - OpenSSL has been updated to version 3.0.12, a major upgrade from OpenSSL 1.1.1t in FreeBSD 13.2-RELEASE. - The bhyve hypervisor now supports TPM and GPU passthrough. - FreeBSD supports up to 1024 cores on the amd64 and arm64 platforms. - ZFS has been upgraded to OpenZFS release 2.2, providing significant performance improvements. - It is now possible to perform background filesystem checks on UFS file systems running with journaled soft updates. - Experimental ZFS images are now available for AWS and Azure. - The default congestion control mechanism for TCP is now CUBIC. [1] https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/announce/ https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/announce/
- throw0101a 3y ago
  > - ZFS has been upgraded to OpenZFS release 2.2, providing significant performance improvements. Post-2.2 OpenZFS has RAID-Z expansion committed: * https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/discussions/15232 https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/discussions/15232 Also committed to FreeBSD -HEAD/development: * https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/e716630d4cf89e69ec3f675ebfceee09f1a85e05 https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/e716630d4cf89e...
  - e12e 3y ago
    How about zfs native encryption?
    - wut42 3y ago
      > There is a new zfskeys rc(8) service script, which allows for automatic decryption of ZFS datasets encrypted with ZFS native encryption during boot
      - e12e 3y ago
        Thanks! But does that mean zfs native encryption is now supported in freebsd? Last i checked (a good while back) - I got the impression geli(?) was strongly preferred and zfs native encryption was generally discouraged?
        olgeni 3y ago
        Works for me :) I have per-dataset encryption and seems to work just fine.
        avhception 3y ago
        Adding another anecdotal "works for me" data point. I'm running it on 2 machines, encrypting certain datasets (no boot volumes).
- scythe 3y ago
  - cperciva (also submitter of this post) now head of the releng team
  - cperciva 3y ago
    To be clear, me taking over the release engineering team a few days before the release announcement was entirely coincidental timing.
- jbverschoor 3y ago
  - The bhyve hypervisor now supports TPM and GPU passthrough Supernice.. I'm really looking forward to more separation between OS installs. similar to Qubes.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
1500100900 3y ago
[flagged]
- vedranm 3y ago
  I wish more random guys gave 2^18 dollars to open source.
- yangl1996 3y ago
  Gosh... This is not some random guy. He wrote the release announcement https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-announce/2023-November/000101.html https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-announce/2023-Nov...
  - gruturo 3y ago
    Whoooooooosh Colin is extremely well known on HN. Famously he was a center of a.... peculiar exchange where his skills were questioned, and he had the comeback of a lifetime: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079
- koito17 3y ago
  OP is the founder of Tarsnap, a Silver sponsor of the FreeBSD foundation for over a decade at this point. This means donations between $10,000 - $24,999 for the fiscal year. See https://freebsdfoundation.org/our-donors/donors/ https://freebsdfoundation.org/our-donors/donors/
  - blast 3y ago
    GP might have been joking
- BSDobelix 3y ago
  [flagged]
- cperciva 3y ago
  Yes, I do. Obligatory reference: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35083
ksec 3y ago
I think a lot of the work for serving 800Gbps of TLS encrypted traffic from Netflix landed on FreeBSD 14. Cant wait to see if they are doing 1600Gbps.
- crest 3y ago
  IIRC the limit right now is per CPU socket memory bandwidth and inter-socket bandwidth. There just isn't enough bandwidth available to treat dual socket Xeon or EPYC systems as a single node ans the networks colocating their appliances aren't able to steer connections to the NICs in the same NUMA domain as the NVMe storage holding the data users want.
  - ksec 3y ago
    Probably need to dig up those info, because I keep remembering they were on Dual Socket 64core Zen 3 with PCI-e 4 and DDR 4. The 128Core Zen4C with more memory channel and DDR5 should be able to push further.
BSDobelix 3y ago
Thanks to everyone who made FreeBSD possible! Cheers!!
boznz 3y ago
> FreeBSD supports up to 1024 cores on the amd64 and arm64 platforms. Sounds pretty future proofed unless I'm missing a x86 processor out there that does this
- Koshkin 3y ago
  > up to 1024 Curious where this (rather large, yet still seemingly arbitrary) limit comes from.
  - throw0101a 3y ago
    > Curious where this (rather large, yet still seemingly arbitrary) limit comes from. It is Good Enough for now, while keeping various pre-allocated, statically created structures with-in reasonable size limits: > Global and allocated arrays sized by MAXCPU result in excessive bloat on systems with lower core counts. In addition, some code used u_char (8 bits) to hold a CPU index, which is not valid if MAXCPU is greater than 256. > A number of recent commits addressed these sorts of issues, including at least: […] * https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/commit/?id=9051987e40c5 https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/commit/?id=9051987e40c5 See: > The SMP system now supports up to 1024 cores on amd64 and arm64. Many kernel CPU sets are now dynamically allocated to avoid consuming excessive memory. The kernel cpuset ABI has been updated to support the higher limit. 76887e84be97[1] d1639e43c589[2] 9051987e40c5[3] e0c6e8910898[4] (Sponsored by The FreeBSD Foundation) * https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/#kernel-general https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/#kernel-gene...
  - toast0 3y ago
    Gotta have some limit, 4x the current limit of 256 seems reasonableish. Dual socket Epyc 9654 is 96 cores * 2 threads / core * 2 sockets = 384 threads. Intel says their Xeon Platinum 8490H can live on an 8 socket board[1], if you can find one (SuperMicro has one, no price listed [2]; not sure if this is really an 8 socket system, or if it's 4x dual-socket nodes in one chassis?); 60 * 2 * 8 = 960, so that's within the limit, and 8 socket boards are pretty difficult to find. [1] https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/231747/intel-xeon-platinum-8490h-processor-112-5m-cache-1-90-ghz.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/231747/... [2] https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/system/mp/6u/sys-681e-tr https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/system/mp/6u/sys-681e...
dang 3y ago
Related: FreeBSD 14.0 Release Information - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38291436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38291436 - Nov 2023 (6 comments) FreeBSD 14.0 has reached – RELEASE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38219578 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38219578 - Nov 2023 (93 comments) FreeBSD 14.0-RC1 Now Available - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37881293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37881293 - Oct 2023 (17 comments) FreeBSD 14.0-BETA2 Now Available - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37532706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37532706 - Sept 2023 (7 comments)
Gud 3y ago
Finally FreeBSD has fast WiFi? "WiFi 6 support has been added to wpa (wpa_supplicant(8) and hostapd(8)). c1d255d3ffdb 3968b47cd974 bd452dcbede6" https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/ https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/
- ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
  Yes, but only if your card's driver does too. Mine uses iwm [0], which makes me sad: >Currently, iwm only supports 802.11b and 802.11g modes. It will not associate to access points that are configured to operate only in 802.11n or 802.11ac modes. Thankfully, 802.11a seems to work, so I can use my 5 GHz radio. But it's not fast. [0]: https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?iwm https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?iwm
- throw0101a 3y ago
  > The iwlwifi(4) driver for Intel wireless interfaces has been updated to the latest version, supporting chipsets up to WiFi 6E AX411/AX211/AX210, and with preparations for upcoming BX and SC chipsets. (Sponsored by The FreeBSD Foundation) * https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/#drivers-device https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/#drivers-dev... * https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=iwlwifi&manpath=FreeBSD+14.0-RELEASE https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=iwlwifi&manpath=Fr...
  - ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
    >While iwlwifi supports all 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax the compatibility code currently only supports 802.11 a/b/g modes. Support for 802.11 n/ac is to come. 802.11ax and 6Ghz support are planned.
    - csdreamer7 3y ago
      What exactly is the compatibility code?
    - doublepg23 3y ago
      I am reading it correctly that FreeBSD doesn't have 802.11n wifi support?
adamddev1 3y ago
I want to love FreeBSD, but there are some things I wished were easier. Like getting the firewall pf set up. When I install Debian with ufw I get a really nice starting ruleset that works well with IPv6 and good ICMP filtering etc. With FreeBSD I was confused for awhile about how to get IPv6 working with (the very powerful) pf, which you have to write a config file completely from scratch for. I was left with a lot of suggestions and snippets but struggling to dig through the man pages and set all the complex rules for which types of ICMP messages to filter, etc. I wish there was an easier way to get going with the firewall with a good ready-made pf.conf file for a web server that works well with IPv6. Yes the power and easy customability of pf is great. But for many users who aren't network experts, some nice, accepted starting templates would be great.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- BSDobelix 3y ago
  Well there are some examples: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/tree/main/share/examples/pf https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/tree/main/share/examp... But yeah that pf.conf could be expanded allot, but there are many source to cobble a conf together. My conf is massive but 99.9% commented out so i have my "template" for nearly everything, from mail to web to blacklistd etc.
  - torstenvl 3y ago
    Have you considered putting your conf on GitHub? One of my most popular repos (which isn't saying a lot) is a single config file.
    - BSDobelix 3y ago
      Let me think about it..it's really massive and has comments like "*uck that if scrub on" or "set aggressive -> emailservers try and try again" and those are the best understandable comments believe me. All is mixed from highly reliable and fast connections to dial-up "industry" stuff. However that would be a good motivation to clean that monster up...hmmm
throw0101a 3y ago
Full release notes at: * [1] https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/announce/ https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/announce/
ggm 3y ago
RACK? No mention of RACK or BBR. I thought the kld was being enabled by default in this release cycle. or is this "old news" and it was rolled into an older release?
- throw0101a 3y ago
  See "Request for Testing: TCP RACK" at: * https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-current/2023-November/subject.html https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-current/2023-Nove... tcp_rack(4) has been available since FreeBSD 13.0, just not the default: * https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=tcp_rack&manpath=FreeBSD+14.0-RELEASE https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=tcp_rack&manpath=F... An article from 2021: * https://klarasystems.com/articles/using-the-freebsd-rack-tcp-stack/ https://klarasystems.com/articles/using-the-freebsd-rack-tcp... * 2021 Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28549370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28549370
- alwillis 3y ago
  If you really want BBR, you can build a custom kernel: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/frebsd-13-tcp-bbr-congestion-control-andrew-antonopoulos https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/frebsd-13-tcp-bbr-congestion-...
  - ggm 3y ago
    I know. I was asking if it had been brought into the premade, mainline state.
petecooper 3y ago
I was introduced to FreeBSD (v3.3) in the late 90s by /user?id=gjvc. I bought the CD set and the FreeBSD Handbook in paperback format from The FreeBSD Mall. I was too young to appreciate it back then, but now in my mid-40s I find myself hankering back to those early days for me. It's a shame that some cloud providers like DigitalOcean and Hetzner have dropped native support for FreeBSD as base operating systems for their VPSes. I think this release will be the turning point for me getting back into FreeBSD after too many years away. Thanks to the FreeBSD release team!
- jbverschoor 3y ago
  Yup.. FreeBSD was awesome becausethe FreeBSD handbook has always been top notch. It covers everything you need to install and administer FreeBSD + many of its packages
- Kimitri 3y ago
  If it's a FreeBSD VPS you're after, I'd suggest you give UpCloud a chance. I'm currently running a few FreeBSD VPSs on UpCloud and I have not run into any issues. It's kinda great!
- BSDobelix 3y ago
  Talking about hetzner, they write you an image on a USB-Stick and put it in your Server (at no cost). Since it's a real server i don't need any "native" support from them. Otherwise Oracle-Cloud or Vultr. But you are right, it's sad that hetzner dropped the "webinstall no hands-on" support.
- Lammy 3y ago
  https://tornadovps.com/ https://tornadovps.com/ (formerly prgmr) has first-class FreeBSD support. I've been with them since 2011.
- yourfate 3y ago
  I run freebsd on a hetzner cloud vps, don’t remember how exactly I did it but I think I uploaded the install medium to the server console. Wasn’t too much hassle iirc.
samtheprogram 3y ago
I tried out FreeBSD and loved it, between the documentation, cohesion, and the ports system. Unfortunately, I need Docker for work on a few different projects -- one for Supabase migrations, and another project that's orchestrated (in development too) via docker-compose. Highly recommend it otherwise.
- ptx 3y ago
  You could run Docker in a Linux VM, which is what Docker Desktop does anyway. FreeBSD has Bhyve for this.
  - waynesonfire 3y ago
    I have a similar requirement and will be doing exactly this.
  - magicalhippo 3y ago
    I do this and the only thing that sucks is that network speed is limited. Between host and guest I only get about 1.5Gpbs on a Threadripper 1950X. NIC pass-through should work though, I already got NVMe pass-through working, so if I had a spare PCIe slot I'd do that with a 10G adapter.
  - dehrmann 3y ago
    Do you even need a VM? FreeBSD has linux binary compatibility.
    - wut42 3y ago
      Docker is a container based tech. the binary compatibility won't help.
      - dehrmann 3y ago
        Binary compatibility is the key part. You can ignore a lot of what cgroups and namespaces give you and containers will still "work" (but without the insecure sandbox). Without the binary, you're out of luck.
akoster 3y ago
From the release notes, it appears this may be the last release with i386 / 32-bit Intel x86 (as well as 32-bit armv6 and PowerPC) support. “FreeBSD 15.0 is not expected to include support for 32-bit platforms other than armv7. The armv6, i386, and powerpc platforms are deprecated and will be removed. 64-bit systems will still be able to run older 32-bit binaries.“ Source: https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/ https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/
- cperciva 3y ago
  Probably 14.3 will be the last release with i386. But yes, 14.x will be the last major branch with i386.
- csdreamer7 3y ago
  Surprised that armv7 will be getting 32bit support but not x86. I know arm is huge, but it's platform support is also fragmented compared to an x86 box. Can anyone share some more info on this? Also surprised they are cutting Power. That is one of the 4 platforms RHEL supports.
  - packetlost 3y ago
    I have 2 ARMv7 boards sitting on my desk. They're still extremely common in industry.
    - dragontamer 3y ago
      Which ones? ... If you don't mind me asking? At least the microprocessor if you can't tell me the board :-)
      - packetlost 3y ago
        I'm cheating a bit because it's 2 of the same board, they're Zynq 7010s
        3y ago
BSDobelix 3y ago
I love how easy it is to be a part of FreeBSD: Open a account at https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/ https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/ Go to https://portscout.freebsd.org/ https://portscout.freebsd.org/ and find your outdated port (or port without maintainer (ports@freebsd.org)) Update port (makefile) open a bugreport add your diff and that's it...or ask to take additionally maintainership of that port. https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/porters-handbook/ https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/porters-handbook/
alberth 3y ago
A. Huge thanks for all involved in FreeBSD. It's amazing how polished, supported and performant it is for the relative size of the team involved. B. Please consider donating. https://freebsdfoundation.org/donate/ https://freebsdfoundation.org/donate/ C. I have much love for FreeBSD and as such, these are things I hope get address in the next major version (15.0) - turning all internet facing services (except ssh) off, by default. OpenBSD does this. - move all non-core things out of the base, like sendmail (now DMA, what a nice import from DFly btw) - the base should only have one way to do things (don’t have 3 different firewalls in base like today) - better defaults, https://vez.mrsk.me/freebsd-defaults.html https://vez.mrsk.me/freebsd-defaults.html - something like io-uring, (async-sendfile is similar but that’s only for sendfile) Thank you again for an amazing OS. EDIT: I updated the first bullet of C for more clarity.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- toast0 3y ago
  > - turning all services (except ssh) off, by default. OpenBSD does this. I think people would be rightfully upset if syslogd, cron, and getty weren't started by default. moused and a mailer daemon I get not wanting to start. What else starts by default that you don't want? > - the base should only have one way to do things (don’t have 3 different firewalls in base like today) I dunno about ipf; but ipfw and pf don't have complete overlap --- I need to use both to run my network how I want to (pfsync has no equivalent in ipfw, ipfw pipe/queue/sched doesn't have an equivalent in pf)
  - alberth 3y ago
    Regarding the first bullet, thanks. I just updated my post for more clarity. I meant internet facing services (e.g. not referring to cron, etc).
    - toast0 3y ago
      Well still, what's running out of the box other than a mail daemon (which I agree with you about), and maybe sshd? (I think it asks you during setup for that one, but I'm not sure anymore)
eatbitseveryday 3y ago
When will the torrents be created and released? https://wiki.freebsd.org/Torrents https://wiki.freebsd.org/Torrents EDIT: Looks like they're up now!
waynesonfire 3y ago
I'm a fairly new FreeBSD user and this will be one of my first major upgrade. What should I be aware of when performing major upgrades? On Linux, I would avoid it and just start from a clean system. Curious what more experienced users thoughts are.
- rwky 3y ago
  I've had some issues with the opensmtpd port when upgrading from 13 to 14 which is probably due to the openssl upgrade. Apart from that the upgrade process tends to be pretty simple the updater warns you of any potential problems. As with any upgrade take a backup first so you can restore to 13 if you need to.
- olavgg 3y ago
  Compared to RHEL, CentOS, FreeBSD upgrading is a breeze. Debian is easiest. I have done like 100 different upgrades of FreeBSD and most has been without any issues. If you use Jails, you have to upgrade them also, there are guides for this.
- adamddev1 3y ago
  I just upgraded to FreeBSD 14 from 13 and it was fairly clean. It asks you to evaluate diffs for a few config file changes. The only issue I had was that sudo was uninstalled for some reason so I had to go back to my server console, go in as root and re-install sudo.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  With care - and upgrading a test system or two first to re-familiarize myself - it's worked fine for me. Two tips: - Understand `gpart bootcode` (or equivalents), and be really sure that your low-level bootcode gets upgraded. - If you're running zfs, `zpool checkpoint` can give you a way to rewind the entire state of the pool to a prior point. Used with some care, it can be extremely useful. Or just reassuring, as your "Plan B".
  - waynesonfire 3y ago
    This is interesting. I was just playing around with a VM that had mirrored ZFS root and I wanted to test if I could boot from either mirror--it requires a bit of hand-holding since /etc/fstab seems to hard-code the gpt label of the boot device making it difficult to boot from the mirror without first changing that reference. I didn't realize this and went down a rabbit hole of trying to recreate boot partitions which I found interesting. With that said, I'm curious whether the upgrade procedure updates the bootcode on both drives in the mirror. --- Slight tangent. The reason for playing around on the VM was that when I installed FreeBSD, I selected the zfs root auto-fs feature. It created a zfs partition that spanned the entire disk which I later decided that I didn't want. My goal was to shrink the zroot, and I was able to accomplish that using zfs send / receive and re-creating the partition withe the desired size. Fun exercise. I need to revisit the installer to see if I'm able to provide any parameters to tune the size of the zroot. I really didn't want to create the filesystems manually from the installer shell.
Decabytes 3y ago
I hope we eventually get .NET support for FreeBSD
- adderthorn 3y ago
  I have two linux VMs that run .NET processes that I'd love to put in a jail.
mortallywounded 3y ago
I have always been interested in FreeBSD, and it seems my ideal environment is easy enough to get going on *BSD (Xorg w/custom DWM) but I have never been able to pull it off. My machine wasn't able to boot FreeBSD for some reason :(

273 points by cperciva 3y ago

Congratulations! Here's a summary of the highlights from the release announcement [1]: - OpenSSH has been updated to version 9.5p1. - OpenSSL has been updated to version 3.0.12, a major upgrade from OpenSSL 1.1.1t in FreeBSD 13.2-RELEASE. - The bhyve hypervisor now supports TPM and GPU passthrough. - FreeBSD supports up to 1024 cores on the amd64 and arm64 platforms. - ZFS has been upgraded to OpenZFS release 2.2, providing significant performance improvements. - It is now possible to perform background filesystem checks on UFS file systems running with journaled soft updates. - Experimental ZFS images are now available for AWS and Azure. - The default congestion control mechanism for TCP is now CUBIC. [1] https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/announce/ https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/announce/

throw0101a 3y ago
> - ZFS has been upgraded to OpenZFS release 2.2, providing significant performance improvements. Post-2.2 OpenZFS has RAID-Z expansion committed: * https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/discussions/15232 https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/discussions/15232 Also committed to FreeBSD -HEAD/development: * https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/e716630d4cf89e69ec3f675ebfceee09f1a85e05 https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/e716630d4cf89e...
- e12e 3y ago
  How about zfs native encryption?
  - wut42 3y ago
    > There is a new zfskeys rc(8) service script, which allows for automatic decryption of ZFS datasets encrypted with ZFS native encryption during boot
    - e12e 3y ago
      Thanks! But does that mean zfs native encryption is now supported in freebsd? Last i checked (a good while back) - I got the impression geli(?) was strongly preferred and zfs native encryption was generally discouraged?
      - olgeni 3y ago
        Works for me :) I have per-dataset encryption and seems to work just fine.
      - avhception 3y ago
        Adding another anecdotal "works for me" data point. I'm running it on 2 machines, encrypting certain datasets (no boot volumes).
scythe 3y ago
- cperciva (also submitter of this post) now head of the releng team
- cperciva 3y ago
  To be clear, me taking over the release engineering team a few days before the release announcement was entirely coincidental timing.
jbverschoor 3y ago
- The bhyve hypervisor now supports TPM and GPU passthrough Supernice.. I'm really looking forward to more separation between OS installs. similar to Qubes.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

1500100900 3y ago

[flagged]

vedranm 3y ago
I wish more random guys gave 2^18 dollars to open source.
yangl1996 3y ago
Gosh... This is not some random guy. He wrote the release announcement https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-announce/2023-November/000101.html https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-announce/2023-Nov...
- gruturo 3y ago
  Whoooooooosh Colin is extremely well known on HN. Famously he was a center of a.... peculiar exchange where his skills were questioned, and he had the comeback of a lifetime: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079
koito17 3y ago
OP is the founder of Tarsnap, a Silver sponsor of the FreeBSD foundation for over a decade at this point. This means donations between $10,000 - $24,999 for the fiscal year. See https://freebsdfoundation.org/our-donors/donors/ https://freebsdfoundation.org/our-donors/donors/
- blast 3y ago
  GP might have been joking
BSDobelix 3y ago
[flagged]
cperciva 3y ago
Yes, I do. Obligatory reference: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35083

ksec 3y ago

I think a lot of the work for serving 800Gbps of TLS encrypted traffic from Netflix landed on FreeBSD 14. Cant wait to see if they are doing 1600Gbps.

crest 3y ago
IIRC the limit right now is per CPU socket memory bandwidth and inter-socket bandwidth. There just isn't enough bandwidth available to treat dual socket Xeon or EPYC systems as a single node ans the networks colocating their appliances aren't able to steer connections to the NICs in the same NUMA domain as the NVMe storage holding the data users want.
- ksec 3y ago
  Probably need to dig up those info, because I keep remembering they were on Dual Socket 64core Zen 3 with PCI-e 4 and DDR 4. The 128Core Zen4C with more memory channel and DDR5 should be able to push further.

BSDobelix 3y ago

Thanks to everyone who made FreeBSD possible! Cheers!!

boznz 3y ago

> FreeBSD supports up to 1024 cores on the amd64 and arm64 platforms. Sounds pretty future proofed unless I'm missing a x86 processor out there that does this

Koshkin 3y ago
> up to 1024 Curious where this (rather large, yet still seemingly arbitrary) limit comes from.
- throw0101a 3y ago
  > Curious where this (rather large, yet still seemingly arbitrary) limit comes from. It is Good Enough for now, while keeping various pre-allocated, statically created structures with-in reasonable size limits: > Global and allocated arrays sized by MAXCPU result in excessive bloat on systems with lower core counts. In addition, some code used u_char (8 bits) to hold a CPU index, which is not valid if MAXCPU is greater than 256. > A number of recent commits addressed these sorts of issues, including at least: […] * https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/commit/?id=9051987e40c5 https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/commit/?id=9051987e40c5 See: > The SMP system now supports up to 1024 cores on amd64 and arm64. Many kernel CPU sets are now dynamically allocated to avoid consuming excessive memory. The kernel cpuset ABI has been updated to support the higher limit. 76887e84be97[1] d1639e43c589[2] 9051987e40c5[3] e0c6e8910898[4] (Sponsored by The FreeBSD Foundation) * https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/#kernel-general https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/#kernel-gene...
- toast0 3y ago
  Gotta have some limit, 4x the current limit of 256 seems reasonableish. Dual socket Epyc 9654 is 96 cores * 2 threads / core * 2 sockets = 384 threads. Intel says their Xeon Platinum 8490H can live on an 8 socket board[1], if you can find one (SuperMicro has one, no price listed [2]; not sure if this is really an 8 socket system, or if it's 4x dual-socket nodes in one chassis?); 60 * 2 * 8 = 960, so that's within the limit, and 8 socket boards are pretty difficult to find. [1] https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/231747/intel-xeon-platinum-8490h-processor-112-5m-cache-1-90-ghz.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/231747/... [2] https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/system/mp/6u/sys-681e-tr https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/system/mp/6u/sys-681e...

dang 3y ago

Related: FreeBSD 14.0 Release Information - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38291436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38291436 - Nov 2023 (6 comments) FreeBSD 14.0 has reached – RELEASE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38219578 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38219578 - Nov 2023 (93 comments) FreeBSD 14.0-RC1 Now Available - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37881293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37881293 - Oct 2023 (17 comments) FreeBSD 14.0-BETA2 Now Available - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37532706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37532706 - Sept 2023 (7 comments)

Gud 3y ago

Finally FreeBSD has fast WiFi? "WiFi 6 support has been added to wpa (wpa_supplicant(8) and hostapd(8)). c1d255d3ffdb 3968b47cd974 bd452dcbede6" https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/ https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/

ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
Yes, but only if your card's driver does too. Mine uses iwm [0], which makes me sad: >Currently, iwm only supports 802.11b and 802.11g modes. It will not associate to access points that are configured to operate only in 802.11n or 802.11ac modes. Thankfully, 802.11a seems to work, so I can use my 5 GHz radio. But it's not fast. [0]: https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?iwm https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?iwm
throw0101a 3y ago
> The iwlwifi(4) driver for Intel wireless interfaces has been updated to the latest version, supporting chipsets up to WiFi 6E AX411/AX211/AX210, and with preparations for upcoming BX and SC chipsets. (Sponsored by The FreeBSD Foundation) * https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/#drivers-device https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/#drivers-dev... * https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=iwlwifi&manpath=FreeBSD+14.0-RELEASE https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=iwlwifi&manpath=Fr...
- ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
  >While iwlwifi supports all 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax the compatibility code currently only supports 802.11 a/b/g modes. Support for 802.11 n/ac is to come. 802.11ax and 6Ghz support are planned.
  - csdreamer7 3y ago
    What exactly is the compatibility code?
  - doublepg23 3y ago
    I am reading it correctly that FreeBSD doesn't have 802.11n wifi support?

adamddev1 3y ago

I want to love FreeBSD, but there are some things I wished were easier. Like getting the firewall pf set up. When I install Debian with ufw I get a really nice starting ruleset that works well with IPv6 and good ICMP filtering etc. With FreeBSD I was confused for awhile about how to get IPv6 working with (the very powerful) pf, which you have to write a config file completely from scratch for. I was left with a lot of suggestions and snippets but struggling to dig through the man pages and set all the complex rules for which types of ICMP messages to filter, etc. I wish there was an easier way to get going with the firewall with a good ready-made pf.conf file for a web server that works well with IPv6. Yes the power and easy customability of pf is great. But for many users who aren't network experts, some nice, accepted starting templates would be great.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
BSDobelix 3y ago
Well there are some examples: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/tree/main/share/examples/pf https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/tree/main/share/examp... But yeah that pf.conf could be expanded allot, but there are many source to cobble a conf together. My conf is massive but 99.9% commented out so i have my "template" for nearly everything, from mail to web to blacklistd etc.
- torstenvl 3y ago
  Have you considered putting your conf on GitHub? One of my most popular repos (which isn't saying a lot) is a single config file.
  - BSDobelix 3y ago
    Let me think about it..it's really massive and has comments like "*uck that if scrub on" or "set aggressive -> emailservers try and try again" and those are the best understandable comments believe me. All is mixed from highly reliable and fast connections to dial-up "industry" stuff. However that would be a good motivation to clean that monster up...hmmm

throw0101a 3y ago

Full release notes at: * [1] https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/announce/ https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/announce/

ggm 3y ago

RACK? No mention of RACK or BBR. I thought the kld was being enabled by default in this release cycle. or is this "old news" and it was rolled into an older release?

throw0101a 3y ago
See "Request for Testing: TCP RACK" at: * https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-current/2023-November/subject.html https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-current/2023-Nove... tcp_rack(4) has been available since FreeBSD 13.0, just not the default: * https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=tcp_rack&manpath=FreeBSD+14.0-RELEASE https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=tcp_rack&manpath=F... An article from 2021: * https://klarasystems.com/articles/using-the-freebsd-rack-tcp-stack/ https://klarasystems.com/articles/using-the-freebsd-rack-tcp... * 2021 Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28549370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28549370
alwillis 3y ago
If you really want BBR, you can build a custom kernel: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/frebsd-13-tcp-bbr-congestion-control-andrew-antonopoulos https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/frebsd-13-tcp-bbr-congestion-...
- ggm 3y ago
  I know. I was asking if it had been brought into the premade, mainline state.

petecooper 3y ago

I was introduced to FreeBSD (v3.3) in the late 90s by /user?id=gjvc. I bought the CD set and the FreeBSD Handbook in paperback format from The FreeBSD Mall. I was too young to appreciate it back then, but now in my mid-40s I find myself hankering back to those early days for me. It's a shame that some cloud providers like DigitalOcean and Hetzner have dropped native support for FreeBSD as base operating systems for their VPSes. I think this release will be the turning point for me getting back into FreeBSD after too many years away. Thanks to the FreeBSD release team!

jbverschoor 3y ago
Yup.. FreeBSD was awesome becausethe FreeBSD handbook has always been top notch. It covers everything you need to install and administer FreeBSD + many of its packages
Kimitri 3y ago
If it's a FreeBSD VPS you're after, I'd suggest you give UpCloud a chance. I'm currently running a few FreeBSD VPSs on UpCloud and I have not run into any issues. It's kinda great!
BSDobelix 3y ago
Talking about hetzner, they write you an image on a USB-Stick and put it in your Server (at no cost). Since it's a real server i don't need any "native" support from them. Otherwise Oracle-Cloud or Vultr. But you are right, it's sad that hetzner dropped the "webinstall no hands-on" support.
Lammy 3y ago
https://tornadovps.com/ https://tornadovps.com/ (formerly prgmr) has first-class FreeBSD support. I've been with them since 2011.
yourfate 3y ago
I run freebsd on a hetzner cloud vps, don’t remember how exactly I did it but I think I uploaded the install medium to the server console. Wasn’t too much hassle iirc.

samtheprogram 3y ago

I tried out FreeBSD and loved it, between the documentation, cohesion, and the ports system. Unfortunately, I need Docker for work on a few different projects -- one for Supabase migrations, and another project that's orchestrated (in development too) via docker-compose. Highly recommend it otherwise.

ptx 3y ago
You could run Docker in a Linux VM, which is what Docker Desktop does anyway. FreeBSD has Bhyve for this.
- waynesonfire 3y ago
  I have a similar requirement and will be doing exactly this.
- magicalhippo 3y ago
  I do this and the only thing that sucks is that network speed is limited. Between host and guest I only get about 1.5Gpbs on a Threadripper 1950X. NIC pass-through should work though, I already got NVMe pass-through working, so if I had a spare PCIe slot I'd do that with a 10G adapter.
- dehrmann 3y ago
  Do you even need a VM? FreeBSD has linux binary compatibility.
  - wut42 3y ago
    Docker is a container based tech. the binary compatibility won't help.
    - dehrmann 3y ago
      Binary compatibility is the key part. You can ignore a lot of what cgroups and namespaces give you and containers will still "work" (but without the insecure sandbox). Without the binary, you're out of luck.

akoster 3y ago

From the release notes, it appears this may be the last release with i386 / 32-bit Intel x86 (as well as 32-bit armv6 and PowerPC) support. “FreeBSD 15.0 is not expected to include support for 32-bit platforms other than armv7. The armv6, i386, and powerpc platforms are deprecated and will be removed. 64-bit systems will still be able to run older 32-bit binaries.“ Source: https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/ https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/

cperciva 3y ago
Probably 14.3 will be the last release with i386. But yes, 14.x will be the last major branch with i386.
csdreamer7 3y ago
Surprised that armv7 will be getting 32bit support but not x86. I know arm is huge, but it's platform support is also fragmented compared to an x86 box. Can anyone share some more info on this? Also surprised they are cutting Power. That is one of the 4 platforms RHEL supports.
- packetlost 3y ago
  I have 2 ARMv7 boards sitting on my desk. They're still extremely common in industry.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    Which ones? ... If you don't mind me asking? At least the microprocessor if you can't tell me the board :-)
    - packetlost 3y ago
      I'm cheating a bit because it's 2 of the same board, they're Zynq 7010s
      - 3y ago

BSDobelix 3y ago

I love how easy it is to be a part of FreeBSD: Open a account at https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/ https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/ Go to https://portscout.freebsd.org/ https://portscout.freebsd.org/ and find your outdated port (or port without maintainer (ports@freebsd.org)) Update port (makefile) open a bugreport add your diff and that's it...or ask to take additionally maintainership of that port. https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/porters-handbook/ https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/porters-handbook/

alberth 3y ago

A. Huge thanks for all involved in FreeBSD. It's amazing how polished, supported and performant it is for the relative size of the team involved. B. Please consider donating. https://freebsdfoundation.org/donate/ https://freebsdfoundation.org/donate/ C. I have much love for FreeBSD and as such, these are things I hope get address in the next major version (15.0) - turning all internet facing services (except ssh) off, by default. OpenBSD does this. - move all non-core things out of the base, like sendmail (now DMA, what a nice import from DFly btw) - the base should only have one way to do things (don’t have 3 different firewalls in base like today) - better defaults, https://vez.mrsk.me/freebsd-defaults.html https://vez.mrsk.me/freebsd-defaults.html - something like io-uring, (async-sendfile is similar but that’s only for sendfile) Thank you again for an amazing OS. EDIT: I updated the first bullet of C for more clarity.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
toast0 3y ago
> - turning all services (except ssh) off, by default. OpenBSD does this. I think people would be rightfully upset if syslogd, cron, and getty weren't started by default. moused and a mailer daemon I get not wanting to start. What else starts by default that you don't want? > - the base should only have one way to do things (don’t have 3 different firewalls in base like today) I dunno about ipf; but ipfw and pf don't have complete overlap --- I need to use both to run my network how I want to (pfsync has no equivalent in ipfw, ipfw pipe/queue/sched doesn't have an equivalent in pf)
- alberth 3y ago
  Regarding the first bullet, thanks. I just updated my post for more clarity. I meant internet facing services (e.g. not referring to cron, etc).
  - toast0 3y ago
    Well still, what's running out of the box other than a mail daemon (which I agree with you about), and maybe sshd? (I think it asks you during setup for that one, but I'm not sure anymore)

eatbitseveryday 3y ago

When will the torrents be created and released? https://wiki.freebsd.org/Torrents https://wiki.freebsd.org/Torrents EDIT: Looks like they're up now!

waynesonfire 3y ago

I'm a fairly new FreeBSD user and this will be one of my first major upgrade. What should I be aware of when performing major upgrades? On Linux, I would avoid it and just start from a clean system. Curious what more experienced users thoughts are.

rwky 3y ago
I've had some issues with the opensmtpd port when upgrading from 13 to 14 which is probably due to the openssl upgrade. Apart from that the upgrade process tends to be pretty simple the updater warns you of any potential problems. As with any upgrade take a backup first so you can restore to 13 if you need to.
olavgg 3y ago
Compared to RHEL, CentOS, FreeBSD upgrading is a breeze. Debian is easiest. I have done like 100 different upgrades of FreeBSD and most has been without any issues. If you use Jails, you have to upgrade them also, there are guides for this.
adamddev1 3y ago
I just upgraded to FreeBSD 14 from 13 and it was fairly clean. It asks you to evaluate diffs for a few config file changes. The only issue I had was that sudo was uninstalled for some reason so I had to go back to my server console, go in as root and re-install sudo.
bell-cot 3y ago
With care - and upgrading a test system or two first to re-familiarize myself - it's worked fine for me. Two tips: - Understand `gpart bootcode` (or equivalents), and be really sure that your low-level bootcode gets upgraded. - If you're running zfs, `zpool checkpoint` can give you a way to rewind the entire state of the pool to a prior point. Used with some care, it can be extremely useful. Or just reassuring, as your "Plan B".
- waynesonfire 3y ago
  This is interesting. I was just playing around with a VM that had mirrored ZFS root and I wanted to test if I could boot from either mirror--it requires a bit of hand-holding since /etc/fstab seems to hard-code the gpt label of the boot device making it difficult to boot from the mirror without first changing that reference. I didn't realize this and went down a rabbit hole of trying to recreate boot partitions which I found interesting. With that said, I'm curious whether the upgrade procedure updates the bootcode on both drives in the mirror. --- Slight tangent. The reason for playing around on the VM was that when I installed FreeBSD, I selected the zfs root auto-fs feature. It created a zfs partition that spanned the entire disk which I later decided that I didn't want. My goal was to shrink the zroot, and I was able to accomplish that using zfs send / receive and re-creating the partition withe the desired size. Fun exercise. I need to revisit the installer to see if I'm able to provide any parameters to tune the size of the zroot. I really didn't want to create the filesystems manually from the installer shell.

Decabytes 3y ago

I hope we eventually get .NET support for FreeBSD

adderthorn 3y ago
I have two linux VMs that run .NET processes that I'd love to put in a jail.

mortallywounded 3y ago

I have always been interested in FreeBSD, and it seems my ideal environment is easy enough to get going on *BSD (Xorg w/custom DWM) but I have never been able to pull it off. My machine wasn't able to boot FreeBSD for some reason :(