7 ms·

Using FreeBSD to make self-hosting fun again

399 points by todsacerdoti 1y ago

SurceBeats 1y ago
This really resonates. Sometimes the best reason to switch tech is just to feel that spark of learning again. I build self-hosting platforms and have spent years trying to make it “easy”, even getting it to work on Windows/macOS. But honestly, the magic isn’t in convenience. It’s in that figuring it out phase imho...
- awesomecomment 1y ago
  When we don't have convenience and rather jump into the sea directly, we would actually learn how the stack works and not how the convenience wrapper worked. We would feel more confident in our ability to do more things without requiring somebody else's help and more. It is this reason why figuring out this phase feels really important and lovely even, yet most people feel its hardness and leave it aside since they just want something which just works Fortunately, for them, I think with technologies like docker/podman, flatpak, appimage etc. I feel like its already easy-ish enough. Side nit pick but I hate when apps create docker/podman containers when they can also have flatpak, I would love to see some self hosting apps which have a gui or maybe even some cli hosted via flatpak but I rarely saw cli apps in flatpak etc.
fluffypony 1y ago
I spent a lot of time 25 years ago learning to love BSD in general, but FreeBSD in particular. I tried to make DragonflyBSD my desktop OS for a time. It’s sad how little love BSD gets nowadays…especially given how much of modern iOS / macOS owes BSD (for BSD subsystem that’s on top of the Mach kernel).
- wkat4242 1y ago
  I use it every day as my desktop OS. Vanilla FreeBSD even, not dragonfly. I like it because it's so stable. They don't have this Linux thing where they have to change everything around to incorporate the latest fad, and there's also not so many big tech companies constantly messing with the code. Linux has too much corporate influence for me. I don't want Huawei or Amazon to be messing with the code I run all the time. The grassroots nature of Linux is kinda gone and the suits have taken over, just like with the internet itself. I also love how the OS is stable but the apps are rolling. This really helps to be on the latest KDE etc. And the documentation is excellent. ZFS on root as a first class citizen too. There's a small team of maintainers working hard to keep everything going in this age of increasing linuxisms. But so far they've been doing a great job.
  - elcritch 1y ago
    I really wish I could run FreeBSD on Apple silicon. The shared *BSD base seems fitting.
    - doublerabbit 1y ago
      I bought my iPhone out right in cash and we should have outright full access to the hardware. Not just the screen.
      - vpShane 1y ago
        Agreed. Our hardware, our software, our choice.
    - wkat4242 1y ago
      Apple isn't really BSD. The mach kernel is very different. There's some shared heritage dating back to nextstep but it's very deep. And some userland. But that's really all.
      - elcritch 1y ago
        Sure it's very distinct but the vibe still feels more *BSD due to that early userland. That shared heritage runs deep. I'd also say it also feels more like Solaris/Illumos. Linux has just always had a very different vibe to it.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
        > There's some shared heritage dating back to nextstep but it's very deep. And some userland. The userland is pretty important. To most Debian users, Debian GNU/FreeBSD would feel more familiar than Alpine/Linux (with busybox and no GNU coreutils).
  - inatreecrown2 1y ago
    I just started using FreeBSD as my desktop OS on an old x230. I was surprised to find that for my use case, wine works faster and is more stable than on linux or Mac. Now I will install it on my desktop pc next.
- clanky 1y ago
  Is this the fluffypony of Monero fame? If so, I got into FreeBSD a bit after hearing you praise it on crypto podcasts back in 2017/18. Surprised your handle was still available on HN!
irusensei 1y ago
Nice website design. I don't like to use the same stuff I use for work at home because home is supposed to be fun. So I used to have everything FreeBSD but I've stopped using around 2020 when I've started buying computers that have different core configurations like ARM RockChip and Intel Alder Lake. I believe the term is called big.LITTLE when you have efficient and performance cores. As of now the FreeBSD scheduler is not making full use of big.LITTLE. TBF It works and your mileage might vary and you might also pin stuff to cores but not ideal. Meanwhile I went back to Linux and fell into the Nix rabbit hole. I might go back once they get ULE to be able to use my Alder Lake efficiently.
sehugg 1y ago
I used FreeBSD as my daily desktop for a while in the 2000s. IIRC, the package manager had to compile each package from source, but that wasn't a huge deal. Things just worked in a non-overly-clever fashion.
- elcritch 1y ago
  They added binary packages.
  - Gud 1y ago
    Binary packages were there in the 2000s also.
adamddev1 1y ago
I really wanted to love FreeBSD. Growing up in grade school my friend's older brother was a contributor and I thought he was the coolest guy ever. I loved the ethos and I agreed with this post. But practically, I just ran I into too much pain. - firewall? Lots of pain and hard to find friendly, best practice starter templates. Wherever I looked, people said "it's complicated." After a lot of tinkering and learning I finally got a setup that was pretty safe. (I think.) - pm2 was buggy on FreeBSD because of some issue with process IDs getting lost. That was pm2's fault, not FreeBSD's. But I still wanted to simply run different processes and keep my logs somewhere. Well, I guess I could write rc.d scripts for that. But keeping logs from the processes started by rc.d scripts? That also appeared to be a world of pain, and wherever I looked for answers people said "it's complicated." In the end, it was just too much having to re-invent the wheel for common server tasks and I had to say goodbye. It's not you FreeBSD, it's me. I'm just not an OS dev.
- laxd 1y ago
  - firewall? PF seems to me like pretty much the most well regarded firewall there is - with a nice, sensible DSL for config. If you don't like like it, you can use use IPFW or IPFILTER, which are alternative, built-in, firewall front-ends. - In the end, it was just too much having to re-invent the wheel for common server tasks Maybe you have built your routine around a system that have reinvented the wheel? I think FreeBSD knowledge degrades more slowly than that of Linux distros. - I'm just not an OS dev. That's how I feel when I enter the chaotic Linux world. Do you think my life revolve around keeping up with this shit? :)
  - hecifato 1y ago
    > That's how I feel when I enter the chaotic Linux world. I feel that as a Linux user. I really like Linux, I use it on my desktop and it runs all my servers. Delving into forum posts to find some solution to a specific problem can be exhausting. Sometimes you get a top result from like 2011 and it is out of date so you then need to spend X minutes trying to look up something more recent.
    - 1y ago
opentokix 1y ago
Its fine to have fun with self-hosting. The problem is when self-hosting amateur stuff leaks into professional life. And then you have a expert beginner pushing their homelab/Self-hosting
- TheRealPomax 1y ago
  If a single expert beginner can call the shots in your org, your org is the kind where that is absolutely fine.
  - opentokix 1y ago
    It's more common than you think. Talking from 30 years of experience 20+ of them in very senior roles.
tombert 1y ago
I still run a server for hosting my Jellyfin and n8n, but I've honestly been moving a lot of my stuff to cloud hosting stuff. I found that trying to maintain uptime for all my services started to become a pretty huge time sink and I realized that I really didn't gain anything by hosting my blog on my own server with Nginx instead of just using a free Cloudflare Pages with Quartz. I think it's ultimately a sign of aging; I don't really have the attention span or energy to LARP as a sysadmin anymore, especially since I never really enjoyed that aspect of computers anyway. I think my monthly cost of storage would get untenable if I tried to move all my raw media rips to the cloud (about 45TB [1]), so I don't think I'll be able to migrate my Jellyfin for the foreseeable future, but I would like to some day. [1] Looking it up, storing 45TB would end up costing anywhere between $250-$1500 a month pretty easily, which I currently cannot justify.
- mk12 1y ago
  I installed Jellyfin on my home server a few months ago but it’s already broken by upgrading to 10.11, and unusable until I restore 10.10 from backup or start over: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/15027 https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/15027. There seem to be lots of other database migration bugs for this release and other ones.
  - tombert 1y ago
    Yeah, I've been afraid to upgrade because I've been following these updates. I'm going to wait until the dust settles a bit before upgrading because, as stated, I don't really enjoy larping as a sysadmin anymore.
  - drnick1 1y ago
    I use Docker on Linux for this kind of thing (Jellyfin, Nextcloud and a few others) and updates are completely trouble free. I would never deploy complex "black box" apps like Jellyfin bare metal. That being said, I do run my email stack bare metal as I want fine control. Everything is hosted at home on my own hardware and I would never consider moving my computing to the "cloud."
blablabla123 1y ago
Somewhat related OpenBSD is the fundament of my self-hosted homelab since it runs DNS, DHCP, a firewall router and a small local web server. Configuration is a dream compared to Linux and probably even compared to FreeBSD. You just need to go through the FAQ and copy&paste the relevant examples and modify them as needed. I don't know why it's so complicated on Linux where you need to appease a handful of daemons and find your way through a labyrinth of config files. I run a separate Linux based KVM host though.
- noosphr 1y ago
  OpenBSD is a very well kept secret that very few people are aware of. As close to nirvana as I can manage. The fact I miss pretty much all the drama around the latest corporate take over attempts on Linux is just icing on the cake. The toxic slug strategy is an amazing one that more open source projects should use.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    Openbsd split from netbsd back in the day as the original toxic slug, so it is amusing to call it a releif today
    - fud101 1y ago
      sorry which one was toxic, netbsd or openbsd?
  - 201984 1y ago
    What do you mean by "toxic slug strategy"?
    - noosphr 1y ago
      I can't find the article where I read it, many years ago now, but it was about strategies that small communities can adopt to keep their culture from being subsumed by the mainstream. One was to pick a set of norms repugnant to the mainstream that everyone currently in the community can tolerate and enforce them rigorously on all new members. This will limit the appeal of the community to people like the ones currently there and will make sure that it never grows too big. Thus your community is as appetising to activists attempting a hostile takeover as a toxic slug is to a bird. As an example from six years ago, when the code of conduct madness had just reached its peak: >I believe OpenBSD's code of conduct can be summed up as "if you are the type of person who needs a code of conduct to teach to you how to human then you are not welcome here".
echo7394 1y ago
Why choose Free/OpenBSD instead of Debian, CentOS, or any other distro?
- efortis 1y ago
  What do you use Linux for?
- laxd 1y ago
  For FreeBSD, given that it fulfills the tasks required: * Ease of management - more holistically designed. * Rock solid parts that fits together - more holistically designed. * ZFS, jails, bhyve, dtrace, ports. * If it works today, it works tomorrow. * A more approachable community (which AMD says is the reason why they are developing for FreeBSD before Linux now). * Transparency and simplicity of how it works - if you can understand it, you can manage it and fix it. * Documentation. * Fun! Linux is not fun.
  - 5d41402abc4b 1y ago
    Whats the difference between FreeBSD ports and Debian packages?
    - skydhash 1y ago
      FreeBSD is a complete OS, while debian is a distro, i.e the Linux kernel + a lot of programs including the utilities from GNU. So almost everything in debian comes from a package while in the BSD world, there's a split between the system utilities (called base) and the third-party projects (called ports). The port system itself is a collection of recipes to build those projects. But the nicest thing about the software in the base is that they are developed in sync with the OS, so their code can be simpler.
    - bluGill 1y ago
      FreeBSD ports are more up to date. Debian packages are famously out of date - their claim to fame is stability not staying up to date. Arch is a better comparison here if you care about this you would be asking about Arch not Debian: that you are asking about Debian implies you want this out of date. The other major difference is FreeBSD ports lets you chose the build options - the defaults are normally good, but if you don't like how Debian (Arch...) choose to build your packages you are not stuck. Ports even mixes with binary packages so you can choose the defaults for some things and build others yourself and the system will track everything and when things need to be updated. This is something you rarely need, but when you do FreeBSD soundly beats everyone else just because the effort is so much less (again though, most people never need this in the first place - and Debian has pushed less need of this on applications which is a good thing)
jrmg 1y ago
I recently set up an OpenBSD based router in our home and, man, it felt like a breath of fresh air. I wrote about it here: https://www.blog.montgomerie.net/posts/2025-10-11-setting-up-a-very-simple-but-ipv6-capable-home-router-with-openbsd-7.7/ https://www.blog.montgomerie.net/posts/2025-10-11-setting-up...
- ninjin 1y ago
  Thank you for sharing the write up! Not an OpenBSD expert by any means, but two small pieces of minor feedback as everything else you wrote mirrors my own setup and experience. Firstly, unless you are really strapped for space on say a 90s machine, it is generally recommended to install all the file sets as there can be interactions with ports even if one does not expect it (say ffmpeg needing X11 libraries). The general OpenBSD mindset is after all "Use the defaults" and the default is to install all the file sets. Secondly, the OpenBSD Handbook has a bit of a mixed reputation in the community from what I can tell. Unlike the FreeBSD Handbook, it is not an official document and I tend to rely on man pages, openbsd.org, misc@, and a few blogs I consider to be trustworthy instead. As a final note, glad to see you have IPv6 up and running. I really should get around to it now that dhcp6leased has been in base for more than two releases.
  - jrmg 1y ago
    I was fooled by the handbook! It sounded so official. I will add a footnote to the post.
itchingsphynx 1y ago
I know the feeling, having recently migrated a solid TrueNAS 13.3 to a hand-built FreeBSD 13.5. The main reason was to get OpenZFS 2.3 RAIDZ expansion as storage was getting tight. It turns out to be quite similar using Webmin for GUI and BastilleBSD for jails. There were a few hiccups, such as learning about bootloader versions, but after a few Saturdays tinkering it has been running solid and I’m very pleased.
- AndrewDavis 1y ago
  That's similar to me, I started using FreeNAS back in the 9.x days. At the time the FreeNAS documentation recommend installing to a usb drive. This proved unreliable, but dedicating a drive to it was silly given it couldn't be used for anything else. I had all the things I needed but I wanted to peel back the layers and this seemed like a good excuse So I threw in a drive and installed freebsd 10 and spent a few days familiarising myself with everything, learned how to configure samba myself, learned how to setup jails with iocage (the old shell version), and finally imported my pool. Years later very little has changed.
- lproven 1y ago
  Have you looked at zVault at all? https://zvault.io/ https://zvault.io/
  - itchingsphynx 1y ago
    Yes, I had been following vault.io for a few months, but I don't think it is ready. My understanding is that vault.io faces similar limitations as TrueNAS and ZFS. So, I hand-built FreeBSD, OpenZFS, Bastille, and Samba how I want it and learnt a lot along the way, and I am very happy that I did. It didn't take too long to transfer from iocage to Bastille.
ne38 1y ago
Don't forget to set up toor user password! /thin foil hat on It's deliberate! /thin foil hat off
avhception 1y ago
I run FreeBSD in my homelab, too! One reason is the stellar ZFS support, but the simple fun of doing stuff differently is definitely a thing, too. And I like FreeBSD jails. For me, the balance between all the overhead of the "cattle, not pets" approach and the manual way is the a README.md file for basic setup, and then having Ansible stand up the rest of the configuration. The host is configured as a Jail host, then individual services live inside the jails. Creating and configuring the jails is also done through Ansible. Overall, I really like the setup. I can individually SSH into each jail to allow easy debugging, I can snapshot the jails, and data lives on a special ZFS subvolume that I mount into each jail at "/bucket". This way, I can throw away the jail at any time, fire up Ansible, and have everything up and running again in no time.
- donw 1y ago
  If I didn't need CUDA support, I'd be on FreeBSD all the way. No systemd, built-in "containers" before they were cool, basically just good 'ole UNIX.
  - seg_lol 1y ago
    You can pass a CUDA device through to a bhyve vm.
    - agapon 1y ago
      In practice, it's not as easy as it may sound.
- throw0101a 1y ago
  > And I like FreeBSD jails. If you don't know about them already, you may be interested in service jails (forthcoming[1] in 15): > A service jail shares the complete filesystem tree directly with the host (the jail root path is /) and as such can access and modify any file on the host, and shares the same user accounts with the host. By default it has no access to the network or other resources which are restricted in jails, but they can be configured to re-use the network of the host and to remove some of the jail-restrictions. * https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/jails/#service-jails https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/jails/#service-ja... * https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/jails/#service-jails-config https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/jails/#service-ja... * https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=rc.conf&manpath=FreeBSD+15.0-STABLE#SERVICE%09JAILS https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=rc.conf&manpath=Fr... [1] https://www.freebsd.org/releases/15.0R/schedule/ https://www.freebsd.org/releases/15.0R/schedule/
tiltowait 1y ago
Just two weeks ago, I spun up a FreeBSD server on OVH and migrated a service to it from Railway. Playing with jails, pf, ZFS, and some other goodies has been a lot of fun. Since I (massively) over-provisioned, I also spun up Gitea, Woodpecker CI (and agent; blazing fast CICD is so nice), and a personal blog. Been a great learning project. [] It's not my first time with FreeBSD. I first ran it in ~2004. But it's been over 10 years since I last ran it, and I'd forgotten a decent bit. The last time I ran it, I just set up a couple of jails for NAS and Plex and proceeded to not touch it until I moved.
- dorian-graph 1y ago
  How's the UX for jails these days? I remember trying to use it barebones and also some of the wrappers.
  - dddddaviddddd 1y ago
    I've started using Bastille recently, it allows using Dockerfile-like 'templates' to provision jails. I like this because I can destroy and recreate the jails easily, particularly to move to a new release (without having to do in-place upgrades synced to the host version, which is how I used to do it).
  - tiltowait 1y ago
    Bastille is very nice to use. You can spin up a jail with a simple `doas bastille create myjail 10.0.0.1` or whatever. Bastillefiles stand in as Dockerfile analogs, if you want to go that route (you have to create the jail, then apply the template, rather than doing it in a single command). One nice thing is cloning a jail (which can be done live if using ZFS) to spin up a dev/test environment on a different IP. Or setting up a jail to try some different configurations and not having to worry about resetting things on your main host. I've set up a storage jail with no network access, then a couple of service jails that dip into it at various mount points/permissions. It's total overkill for what I'm doing, but the point is to learn, tinker, and have fun.
    - 1y ago
fennec-posix 1y ago
I find myself using BSDs at home too, I got a bunch of very old systems that only NetBSD supports these days. Very old SPARC, HP 9000s and the likes. Everything else is Linux, but maybe I'll try one of the BSDs on something more modern...
kapone 1y ago
Make self hosting fun - true. Using FreeBSD... - Seriously?
ireflect 1y ago
> it deviates a bit from what might be the most common setup, but it's undoubtedly me This is delightful. Personal projects are a great place to buck the technical monoculture and try something unique. I really enjoyed reading this.
bzmrgonz 1y ago
Can we leverage AI for thr man pages and how to get things done? Anyone know if the llms are relatively trustworthy with their how to?. The assumption is because rhe man pages are well curated and the bsd's don't change much, source of truth is a bit more universal than other OS's.
emersonrsantos 1y ago
I have used FreeBSD back in 1999 to provide hosting services for a company that I have worked. Web server, DNS, POP/SMTP, FTP and squid cache proxy .it was used also internally for DHCP and NAT routing (since we had only one public IP). Just configured it like an appliance and never had a problem, even uptime was counted in months (exception was package and kernel upgrades).
glimps 1y ago
Web rings on HN content. That was a 20 min nostalgia trip. Thank you
righthand 1y ago
I feel like these "self-host and free yourself" articles would be better served giving us an estimate on the amount of time they spent on the process. That might help sell people more if I know it will take me 3 hours to setup a Bastille VPS w/jails for Caddy website, syncthing, Cal/Card/WebDAV, etc. Then I can put 1.5 hours of effort into it one day setting up and getting used to Bastille and another 1.5 hours another day installing my software. Maybe my request is silly but most people say "I don't have the time or patience to self host" but what does "dont have the time" mean? Sure it's variable from person to person. It might increase interest in self hosting if people have a better idea of what they would be getting into. This would pair well with encouraging a system like Bastille that just wants to get out of your way (two contextual views of time-savings).
nebularHaven90 1y ago
Love seeing BSD still getting real use, old school tech with true hacker vibes!
sohrob 1y ago
I run OPNsense (based on FreeBSD) for my home router/firewall and it's amazing what it can do compared to the typical home router.
drnick1 1y ago
Is *BSD routing performance still lagging behind Linux? On Debian 12, I can saturate my 25Gbps link between PCs (the router has a 9600X), and can push north of 4Gbps through Wireguard.
- Melatonic 1y ago
  I was under the impression this was one of the main use of *BSD (lot of networking hardware is based on it). Where did you see it was lagging behind ?
  - drnick1 1y ago
    I haven't personally tested, but have seen reports that BSD-based opnSense struggles to push 2.5G on modern low-end hardware (mini-PCs). I find that surprising considering I can fully saturate my 25G link on a Ryzen 5 running Linux. The Ryzen is considerably faster than an N100, but not 10x faster.
aborsy 1y ago
How is the situation with applications in BSD? I never see an app released for FreeBSD. There are usually Deb and rpm files. I suppose FreeBSD adapts and releases some them in their ports. But how is the coverage? Another issue is the hardware support. Does it have drivers for things like recent WiFi chips?
- righthand 1y ago
  Which type of applications? What I have found to be finicky is the desktop environments, however BSDs are pretty much tuned for web servers/applications. Bastille is designed for deploying web applications in jails securely and built on top of FreeBSD which is a pretty good default OS that gets out of your way already. Normally you don't release an app for BSD specifically unless you want to offer a port. In which case software is usually built and if you need containerization you can put it in a jail. It seems you would do well to install a FreeBSD vm/usb and give it a run. Their documentation is pretty good and their forums are helpful.
  - aborsy 1y ago
    Desktop apps: PDF viewer, office applications, playing video and audio, IDEs or editors at least, … If they support flatpaks, it might be good enough.
    - Gud 1y ago
      https://www.freshports.org/ https://www.freshports.org/
    - righthand 1y ago
      They have all of that. Flatpack is not a thing in Unix and you wouldn’t want it. If you want the terribleness of Flatpack stay on Linux. This post is about self-hosting not Desktop software.
      - aborsy 1y ago
        Flatpaks, from the source if available, are excellent: you get the latest versions of the app from the official source, with permissions set for a pretty locked-down sandbox. What’s not to like, I’m curious? The storage is cheap these days, if you consider downloads are large. Core apps are robust.
poobrains 1y ago
The lack of full rust support has kept me from developing on FreeBSD. I prefer it as a file server.
- rwaksmunski 1y ago
  I prefer developing Rust on FreeBSD, memory allocator, scheduler, network stack, kqueue, dtrace and other instrumentation are all superior than the Linux counterparts. What's missing for you?
darshanime 1y ago
Having never used anything beyond Linux, Windows and Mac, what would be a good starting point? Can I expect gnu/coreutils to work as is (ls, cd, pwd, et al.). Can I expect to not get bitten by arbitrary issues? What if one of the emacs packages that I am accustomed to using doesn't work there due to a dependency on something that is Linux only? How likely/possible is that?
- assimpleaspossi 1y ago
  Without looking or knowing all your requirements, it's likely everything you need works the same. (I don't know anything about gnu/coreutils.)
- f1shy 1y ago
  All the utilities are not GNU, but BSD, so there are differences. But typically not a problem, as long as you move inside POSIX. Most GNU utilities (all?) can be installed if you prefer them. For example, make is typically gmake, and you really need it. I haven't used BSD for the last 10 years but used it from 1999 to 2015. I had never major issues.
- lproven 1y ago
  > Having never used anything beyond Linux, Windows and Mac, what would be a good starting point? GhostBSD. https://ghostbsd.org/ https://ghostbsd.org/
superkuh 1y ago
All of this person's problems seem to stem from a practice of implementing business style setups at home. The truth is you don't need any containerization/VMs for a home server setup. You don't need all the nines for uptime either, it's perfectly okay to be offline for a week or whatever. It's your stuff! No one else has a say. The idea that everything has to be running on a separate OS from the one you use is a killer. You don't need to start over in a new OS for this. Just don't cargo cult. Linux can do all this fine natively without containers and without risk in very straightforward ways if you ignore all the "deployal" memes or ideas of fallbacks. Just install nginx from your repos on your desktop, throw in some .html files to a directory and play.
- bluGill 1y ago
  My wife has opinions on my servers going down. She likes all our private music to be up 100% when she is listening. (think recordings from friends - the type of things that spotify would never have)
- udev4096 1y ago
  keepalived is just a blessing for almost effortless HA
SuperSandro2000 1y ago
NIXOS! NIXOS!! NIXOS!!!
blacklion 1y ago
I'm using FreeBSD for self-hosting, home NAS and router from version 2.2.0. As it is my hobby projects, I don't want to migrate to Linux which is, IMHO, over-represented. But it become harder and harder in recent years. Reason? Docker. Many current «server-side» products doesn't have good instructions how to install them «by hands» and is not very suitable for system-side packaging (creating port), as they have build systems designed to be used in CI with online access in build time (especially node.js-based and go-based ones, but rust goes same way). Installation instructions, well-defined dependencies, good versioning, immutable source distribution files? Nah. «Take this Docker file and run it». It is pity.
- lproven 1y ago
  This may help you. « An introduction to OCI Containers on FreeBSD October 31, 2025 » https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/oci-containers-on-freebsd/ https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/oci-containers-on-freebsd...
  - blacklion 1y ago
    Thank you, I've missed this one. Problem is, these prepared images contain Linux binaries. Using Linux emulation in FreeBSD for OSS project doesn't feel ... right?
    - lproven 1y ago
      I am absolutely not pressuring anyone to do anything that doesn't feel right. But FreeBSD can run Linux binaries without needing a VM or anything, using the built-in "linuxulator", and in recent releases this means it can directly execute Linux OCI containers. Which is pretty close to running those same containers on top of a Linux kernel, when you're still bypassing much of the OS.
- fractalf 1y ago
  You can pretty much study the Dockerfile of each docker image and you'll see how it's installed. It's all there, no magic
fabioyy 1y ago
what about docker/containerd compatibility? is now possible to run on freebsd?
novoreorx 1y ago
No body mention that the footer of this website has many retro badge buttons? Let's take a minute to appreciate nostalgia of web 1.0.

399 points by todsacerdoti 1y ago

This really resonates. Sometimes the best reason to switch tech is just to feel that spark of learning again. I build self-hosting platforms and have spent years trying to make it “easy”, even getting it to work on Windows/macOS. But honestly, the magic isn’t in convenience. It’s in that figuring it out phase imho...

awesomecomment 1y ago
When we don't have convenience and rather jump into the sea directly, we would actually learn how the stack works and not how the convenience wrapper worked. We would feel more confident in our ability to do more things without requiring somebody else's help and more. It is this reason why figuring out this phase feels really important and lovely even, yet most people feel its hardness and leave it aside since they just want something which just works Fortunately, for them, I think with technologies like docker/podman, flatpak, appimage etc. I feel like its already easy-ish enough. Side nit pick but I hate when apps create docker/podman containers when they can also have flatpak, I would love to see some self hosting apps which have a gui or maybe even some cli hosted via flatpak but I rarely saw cli apps in flatpak etc.

fluffypony 1y ago

I spent a lot of time 25 years ago learning to love BSD in general, but FreeBSD in particular. I tried to make DragonflyBSD my desktop OS for a time. It’s sad how little love BSD gets nowadays…especially given how much of modern iOS / macOS owes BSD (for BSD subsystem that’s on top of the Mach kernel).

wkat4242 1y ago
I use it every day as my desktop OS. Vanilla FreeBSD even, not dragonfly. I like it because it's so stable. They don't have this Linux thing where they have to change everything around to incorporate the latest fad, and there's also not so many big tech companies constantly messing with the code. Linux has too much corporate influence for me. I don't want Huawei or Amazon to be messing with the code I run all the time. The grassroots nature of Linux is kinda gone and the suits have taken over, just like with the internet itself. I also love how the OS is stable but the apps are rolling. This really helps to be on the latest KDE etc. And the documentation is excellent. ZFS on root as a first class citizen too. There's a small team of maintainers working hard to keep everything going in this age of increasing linuxisms. But so far they've been doing a great job.
- elcritch 1y ago
  I really wish I could run FreeBSD on Apple silicon. The shared *BSD base seems fitting.
  - doublerabbit 1y ago
    I bought my iPhone out right in cash and we should have outright full access to the hardware. Not just the screen.
    - vpShane 1y ago
      Agreed. Our hardware, our software, our choice.
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    Apple isn't really BSD. The mach kernel is very different. There's some shared heritage dating back to nextstep but it's very deep. And some userland. But that's really all.
    - elcritch 1y ago
      Sure it's very distinct but the vibe still feels more *BSD due to that early userland. That shared heritage runs deep. I'd also say it also feels more like Solaris/Illumos. Linux has just always had a very different vibe to it.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
      > There's some shared heritage dating back to nextstep but it's very deep. And some userland. The userland is pretty important. To most Debian users, Debian GNU/FreeBSD would feel more familiar than Alpine/Linux (with busybox and no GNU coreutils).
- inatreecrown2 1y ago
  I just started using FreeBSD as my desktop OS on an old x230. I was surprised to find that for my use case, wine works faster and is more stable than on linux or Mac. Now I will install it on my desktop pc next.
clanky 1y ago
Is this the fluffypony of Monero fame? If so, I got into FreeBSD a bit after hearing you praise it on crypto podcasts back in 2017/18. Surprised your handle was still available on HN!

irusensei 1y ago

Nice website design. I don't like to use the same stuff I use for work at home because home is supposed to be fun. So I used to have everything FreeBSD but I've stopped using around 2020 when I've started buying computers that have different core configurations like ARM RockChip and Intel Alder Lake. I believe the term is called big.LITTLE when you have efficient and performance cores. As of now the FreeBSD scheduler is not making full use of big.LITTLE. TBF It works and your mileage might vary and you might also pin stuff to cores but not ideal. Meanwhile I went back to Linux and fell into the Nix rabbit hole. I might go back once they get ULE to be able to use my Alder Lake efficiently.

sehugg 1y ago

I used FreeBSD as my daily desktop for a while in the 2000s. IIRC, the package manager had to compile each package from source, but that wasn't a huge deal. Things just worked in a non-overly-clever fashion.

elcritch 1y ago
They added binary packages.
- Gud 1y ago
  Binary packages were there in the 2000s also.

adamddev1 1y ago

I really wanted to love FreeBSD. Growing up in grade school my friend's older brother was a contributor and I thought he was the coolest guy ever. I loved the ethos and I agreed with this post. But practically, I just ran I into too much pain. - firewall? Lots of pain and hard to find friendly, best practice starter templates. Wherever I looked, people said "it's complicated." After a lot of tinkering and learning I finally got a setup that was pretty safe. (I think.) - pm2 was buggy on FreeBSD because of some issue with process IDs getting lost. That was pm2's fault, not FreeBSD's. But I still wanted to simply run different processes and keep my logs somewhere. Well, I guess I could write rc.d scripts for that. But keeping logs from the processes started by rc.d scripts? That also appeared to be a world of pain, and wherever I looked for answers people said "it's complicated." In the end, it was just too much having to re-invent the wheel for common server tasks and I had to say goodbye. It's not you FreeBSD, it's me. I'm just not an OS dev.

laxd 1y ago
- firewall? PF seems to me like pretty much the most well regarded firewall there is - with a nice, sensible DSL for config. If you don't like like it, you can use use IPFW or IPFILTER, which are alternative, built-in, firewall front-ends. - In the end, it was just too much having to re-invent the wheel for common server tasks Maybe you have built your routine around a system that have reinvented the wheel? I think FreeBSD knowledge degrades more slowly than that of Linux distros. - I'm just not an OS dev. That's how I feel when I enter the chaotic Linux world. Do you think my life revolve around keeping up with this shit? :)
- hecifato 1y ago
  > That's how I feel when I enter the chaotic Linux world. I feel that as a Linux user. I really like Linux, I use it on my desktop and it runs all my servers. Delving into forum posts to find some solution to a specific problem can be exhausting. Sometimes you get a top result from like 2011 and it is out of date so you then need to spend X minutes trying to look up something more recent.
  - 1y ago

opentokix 1y ago

Its fine to have fun with self-hosting. The problem is when self-hosting amateur stuff leaks into professional life. And then you have a expert beginner pushing their homelab/Self-hosting

TheRealPomax 1y ago
If a single expert beginner can call the shots in your org, your org is the kind where that is absolutely fine.
- opentokix 1y ago
  It's more common than you think. Talking from 30 years of experience 20+ of them in very senior roles.

tombert 1y ago

I still run a server for hosting my Jellyfin and n8n, but I've honestly been moving a lot of my stuff to cloud hosting stuff. I found that trying to maintain uptime for all my services started to become a pretty huge time sink and I realized that I really didn't gain anything by hosting my blog on my own server with Nginx instead of just using a free Cloudflare Pages with Quartz. I think it's ultimately a sign of aging; I don't really have the attention span or energy to LARP as a sysadmin anymore, especially since I never really enjoyed that aspect of computers anyway. I think my monthly cost of storage would get untenable if I tried to move all my raw media rips to the cloud (about 45TB [1]), so I don't think I'll be able to migrate my Jellyfin for the foreseeable future, but I would like to some day. [1] Looking it up, storing 45TB would end up costing anywhere between $250-$1500 a month pretty easily, which I currently cannot justify.

mk12 1y ago
I installed Jellyfin on my home server a few months ago but it’s already broken by upgrading to 10.11, and unusable until I restore 10.10 from backup or start over: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/15027 https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/15027. There seem to be lots of other database migration bugs for this release and other ones.
- tombert 1y ago
  Yeah, I've been afraid to upgrade because I've been following these updates. I'm going to wait until the dust settles a bit before upgrading because, as stated, I don't really enjoy larping as a sysadmin anymore.
- drnick1 1y ago
  I use Docker on Linux for this kind of thing (Jellyfin, Nextcloud and a few others) and updates are completely trouble free. I would never deploy complex "black box" apps like Jellyfin bare metal. That being said, I do run my email stack bare metal as I want fine control. Everything is hosted at home on my own hardware and I would never consider moving my computing to the "cloud."

blablabla123 1y ago

Somewhat related OpenBSD is the fundament of my self-hosted homelab since it runs DNS, DHCP, a firewall router and a small local web server. Configuration is a dream compared to Linux and probably even compared to FreeBSD. You just need to go through the FAQ and copy&paste the relevant examples and modify them as needed. I don't know why it's so complicated on Linux where you need to appease a handful of daemons and find your way through a labyrinth of config files. I run a separate Linux based KVM host though.

noosphr 1y ago
OpenBSD is a very well kept secret that very few people are aware of. As close to nirvana as I can manage. The fact I miss pretty much all the drama around the latest corporate take over attempts on Linux is just icing on the cake. The toxic slug strategy is an amazing one that more open source projects should use.
- bluGill 1y ago
  Openbsd split from netbsd back in the day as the original toxic slug, so it is amusing to call it a releif today
  - fud101 1y ago
    sorry which one was toxic, netbsd or openbsd?
- 201984 1y ago
  What do you mean by "toxic slug strategy"?
  - noosphr 1y ago
    I can't find the article where I read it, many years ago now, but it was about strategies that small communities can adopt to keep their culture from being subsumed by the mainstream. One was to pick a set of norms repugnant to the mainstream that everyone currently in the community can tolerate and enforce them rigorously on all new members. This will limit the appeal of the community to people like the ones currently there and will make sure that it never grows too big. Thus your community is as appetising to activists attempting a hostile takeover as a toxic slug is to a bird. As an example from six years ago, when the code of conduct madness had just reached its peak: >I believe OpenBSD's code of conduct can be summed up as "if you are the type of person who needs a code of conduct to teach to you how to human then you are not welcome here".

echo7394 1y ago

Why choose Free/OpenBSD instead of Debian, CentOS, or any other distro?

efortis 1y ago
What do you use Linux for?
laxd 1y ago
For FreeBSD, given that it fulfills the tasks required: * Ease of management - more holistically designed. * Rock solid parts that fits together - more holistically designed. * ZFS, jails, bhyve, dtrace, ports. * If it works today, it works tomorrow. * A more approachable community (which AMD says is the reason why they are developing for FreeBSD before Linux now). * Transparency and simplicity of how it works - if you can understand it, you can manage it and fix it. * Documentation. * Fun! Linux is not fun.
- 5d41402abc4b 1y ago
  Whats the difference between FreeBSD ports and Debian packages?
  - skydhash 1y ago
    FreeBSD is a complete OS, while debian is a distro, i.e the Linux kernel + a lot of programs including the utilities from GNU. So almost everything in debian comes from a package while in the BSD world, there's a split between the system utilities (called base) and the third-party projects (called ports). The port system itself is a collection of recipes to build those projects. But the nicest thing about the software in the base is that they are developed in sync with the OS, so their code can be simpler.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    FreeBSD ports are more up to date. Debian packages are famously out of date - their claim to fame is stability not staying up to date. Arch is a better comparison here if you care about this you would be asking about Arch not Debian: that you are asking about Debian implies you want this out of date. The other major difference is FreeBSD ports lets you chose the build options - the defaults are normally good, but if you don't like how Debian (Arch...) choose to build your packages you are not stuck. Ports even mixes with binary packages so you can choose the defaults for some things and build others yourself and the system will track everything and when things need to be updated. This is something you rarely need, but when you do FreeBSD soundly beats everyone else just because the effort is so much less (again though, most people never need this in the first place - and Debian has pushed less need of this on applications which is a good thing)

jrmg 1y ago

I recently set up an OpenBSD based router in our home and, man, it felt like a breath of fresh air. I wrote about it here: https://www.blog.montgomerie.net/posts/2025-10-11-setting-up-a-very-simple-but-ipv6-capable-home-router-with-openbsd-7.7/ https://www.blog.montgomerie.net/posts/2025-10-11-setting-up...

ninjin 1y ago
Thank you for sharing the write up! Not an OpenBSD expert by any means, but two small pieces of minor feedback as everything else you wrote mirrors my own setup and experience. Firstly, unless you are really strapped for space on say a 90s machine, it is generally recommended to install all the file sets as there can be interactions with ports even if one does not expect it (say ffmpeg needing X11 libraries). The general OpenBSD mindset is after all "Use the defaults" and the default is to install all the file sets. Secondly, the OpenBSD Handbook has a bit of a mixed reputation in the community from what I can tell. Unlike the FreeBSD Handbook, it is not an official document and I tend to rely on man pages, openbsd.org, misc@, and a few blogs I consider to be trustworthy instead. As a final note, glad to see you have IPv6 up and running. I really should get around to it now that dhcp6leased has been in base for more than two releases.
- jrmg 1y ago
  I was fooled by the handbook! It sounded so official. I will add a footnote to the post.

itchingsphynx 1y ago

I know the feeling, having recently migrated a solid TrueNAS 13.3 to a hand-built FreeBSD 13.5. The main reason was to get OpenZFS 2.3 RAIDZ expansion as storage was getting tight. It turns out to be quite similar using Webmin for GUI and BastilleBSD for jails. There were a few hiccups, such as learning about bootloader versions, but after a few Saturdays tinkering it has been running solid and I’m very pleased.

AndrewDavis 1y ago
That's similar to me, I started using FreeNAS back in the 9.x days. At the time the FreeNAS documentation recommend installing to a usb drive. This proved unreliable, but dedicating a drive to it was silly given it couldn't be used for anything else. I had all the things I needed but I wanted to peel back the layers and this seemed like a good excuse So I threw in a drive and installed freebsd 10 and spent a few days familiarising myself with everything, learned how to configure samba myself, learned how to setup jails with iocage (the old shell version), and finally imported my pool. Years later very little has changed.
lproven 1y ago
Have you looked at zVault at all? https://zvault.io/ https://zvault.io/
- itchingsphynx 1y ago
  Yes, I had been following vault.io for a few months, but I don't think it is ready. My understanding is that vault.io faces similar limitations as TrueNAS and ZFS. So, I hand-built FreeBSD, OpenZFS, Bastille, and Samba how I want it and learnt a lot along the way, and I am very happy that I did. It didn't take too long to transfer from iocage to Bastille.

ne38 1y ago

Don't forget to set up toor user password! /thin foil hat on It's deliberate! /thin foil hat off

avhception 1y ago

I run FreeBSD in my homelab, too! One reason is the stellar ZFS support, but the simple fun of doing stuff differently is definitely a thing, too. And I like FreeBSD jails. For me, the balance between all the overhead of the "cattle, not pets" approach and the manual way is the a README.md file for basic setup, and then having Ansible stand up the rest of the configuration. The host is configured as a Jail host, then individual services live inside the jails. Creating and configuring the jails is also done through Ansible. Overall, I really like the setup. I can individually SSH into each jail to allow easy debugging, I can snapshot the jails, and data lives on a special ZFS subvolume that I mount into each jail at "/bucket". This way, I can throw away the jail at any time, fire up Ansible, and have everything up and running again in no time.

donw 1y ago
If I didn't need CUDA support, I'd be on FreeBSD all the way. No systemd, built-in "containers" before they were cool, basically just good 'ole UNIX.
- seg_lol 1y ago
  You can pass a CUDA device through to a bhyve vm.
  - agapon 1y ago
    In practice, it's not as easy as it may sound.
throw0101a 1y ago
> And I like FreeBSD jails. If you don't know about them already, you may be interested in service jails (forthcoming[1] in 15): > A service jail shares the complete filesystem tree directly with the host (the jail root path is /) and as such can access and modify any file on the host, and shares the same user accounts with the host. By default it has no access to the network or other resources which are restricted in jails, but they can be configured to re-use the network of the host and to remove some of the jail-restrictions. * https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/jails/#service-jails https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/jails/#service-ja... * https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/jails/#service-jails-config https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/jails/#service-ja... * https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=rc.conf&manpath=FreeBSD+15.0-STABLE#SERVICE%09JAILS https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=rc.conf&manpath=Fr... [1] https://www.freebsd.org/releases/15.0R/schedule/ https://www.freebsd.org/releases/15.0R/schedule/

tiltowait 1y ago

Just two weeks ago, I spun up a FreeBSD server on OVH and migrated a service to it from Railway. Playing with jails, pf, ZFS, and some other goodies has been a lot of fun. Since I (massively) over-provisioned, I also spun up Gitea, Woodpecker CI (and agent; blazing fast CICD is so nice), and a personal blog. Been a great learning project. [] It's not my first time with FreeBSD. I first ran it in ~2004. But it's been over 10 years since I last ran it, and I'd forgotten a decent bit. The last time I ran it, I just set up a couple of jails for NAS and Plex and proceeded to not touch it until I moved.

dorian-graph 1y ago
How's the UX for jails these days? I remember trying to use it barebones and also some of the wrappers.
- dddddaviddddd 1y ago
  I've started using Bastille recently, it allows using Dockerfile-like 'templates' to provision jails. I like this because I can destroy and recreate the jails easily, particularly to move to a new release (without having to do in-place upgrades synced to the host version, which is how I used to do it).
- tiltowait 1y ago
  Bastille is very nice to use. You can spin up a jail with a simple `doas bastille create myjail 10.0.0.1` or whatever. Bastillefiles stand in as Dockerfile analogs, if you want to go that route (you have to create the jail, then apply the template, rather than doing it in a single command). One nice thing is cloning a jail (which can be done live if using ZFS) to spin up a dev/test environment on a different IP. Or setting up a jail to try some different configurations and not having to worry about resetting things on your main host. I've set up a storage jail with no network access, then a couple of service jails that dip into it at various mount points/permissions. It's total overkill for what I'm doing, but the point is to learn, tinker, and have fun.
  - 1y ago

fennec-posix 1y ago

I find myself using BSDs at home too, I got a bunch of very old systems that only NetBSD supports these days. Very old SPARC, HP 9000s and the likes. Everything else is Linux, but maybe I'll try one of the BSDs on something more modern...

kapone 1y ago

Make self hosting fun - true. Using FreeBSD... - Seriously?

ireflect 1y ago

> it deviates a bit from what might be the most common setup, but it's undoubtedly me This is delightful. Personal projects are a great place to buck the technical monoculture and try something unique. I really enjoyed reading this.

bzmrgonz 1y ago

Can we leverage AI for thr man pages and how to get things done? Anyone know if the llms are relatively trustworthy with their how to?. The assumption is because rhe man pages are well curated and the bsd's don't change much, source of truth is a bit more universal than other OS's.

emersonrsantos 1y ago

I have used FreeBSD back in 1999 to provide hosting services for a company that I have worked. Web server, DNS, POP/SMTP, FTP and squid cache proxy .it was used also internally for DHCP and NAT routing (since we had only one public IP). Just configured it like an appliance and never had a problem, even uptime was counted in months (exception was package and kernel upgrades).

glimps 1y ago

Web rings on HN content. That was a 20 min nostalgia trip. Thank you

righthand 1y ago

I feel like these "self-host and free yourself" articles would be better served giving us an estimate on the amount of time they spent on the process. That might help sell people more if I know it will take me 3 hours to setup a Bastille VPS w/jails for Caddy website, syncthing, Cal/Card/WebDAV, etc. Then I can put 1.5 hours of effort into it one day setting up and getting used to Bastille and another 1.5 hours another day installing my software. Maybe my request is silly but most people say "I don't have the time or patience to self host" but what does "dont have the time" mean? Sure it's variable from person to person. It might increase interest in self hosting if people have a better idea of what they would be getting into. This would pair well with encouraging a system like Bastille that just wants to get out of your way (two contextual views of time-savings).

nebularHaven90 1y ago

Love seeing BSD still getting real use, old school tech with true hacker vibes!

sohrob 1y ago

I run OPNsense (based on FreeBSD) for my home router/firewall and it's amazing what it can do compared to the typical home router.

drnick1 1y ago

Is *BSD routing performance still lagging behind Linux? On Debian 12, I can saturate my 25Gbps link between PCs (the router has a 9600X), and can push north of 4Gbps through Wireguard.

Melatonic 1y ago
I was under the impression this was one of the main use of *BSD (lot of networking hardware is based on it). Where did you see it was lagging behind ?
- drnick1 1y ago
  I haven't personally tested, but have seen reports that BSD-based opnSense struggles to push 2.5G on modern low-end hardware (mini-PCs). I find that surprising considering I can fully saturate my 25G link on a Ryzen 5 running Linux. The Ryzen is considerably faster than an N100, but not 10x faster.

aborsy 1y ago

How is the situation with applications in BSD? I never see an app released for FreeBSD. There are usually Deb and rpm files. I suppose FreeBSD adapts and releases some them in their ports. But how is the coverage? Another issue is the hardware support. Does it have drivers for things like recent WiFi chips?

righthand 1y ago
Which type of applications? What I have found to be finicky is the desktop environments, however BSDs are pretty much tuned for web servers/applications. Bastille is designed for deploying web applications in jails securely and built on top of FreeBSD which is a pretty good default OS that gets out of your way already. Normally you don't release an app for BSD specifically unless you want to offer a port. In which case software is usually built and if you need containerization you can put it in a jail. It seems you would do well to install a FreeBSD vm/usb and give it a run. Their documentation is pretty good and their forums are helpful.
- aborsy 1y ago
  Desktop apps: PDF viewer, office applications, playing video and audio, IDEs or editors at least, … If they support flatpaks, it might be good enough.
  - Gud 1y ago
    https://www.freshports.org/ https://www.freshports.org/
  - righthand 1y ago
    They have all of that. Flatpack is not a thing in Unix and you wouldn’t want it. If you want the terribleness of Flatpack stay on Linux. This post is about self-hosting not Desktop software.
    - aborsy 1y ago
      Flatpaks, from the source if available, are excellent: you get the latest versions of the app from the official source, with permissions set for a pretty locked-down sandbox. What’s not to like, I’m curious? The storage is cheap these days, if you consider downloads are large. Core apps are robust.

poobrains 1y ago

The lack of full rust support has kept me from developing on FreeBSD. I prefer it as a file server.

rwaksmunski 1y ago
I prefer developing Rust on FreeBSD, memory allocator, scheduler, network stack, kqueue, dtrace and other instrumentation are all superior than the Linux counterparts. What's missing for you?

darshanime 1y ago

Having never used anything beyond Linux, Windows and Mac, what would be a good starting point? Can I expect gnu/coreutils to work as is (ls, cd, pwd, et al.). Can I expect to not get bitten by arbitrary issues? What if one of the emacs packages that I am accustomed to using doesn't work there due to a dependency on something that is Linux only? How likely/possible is that?

assimpleaspossi 1y ago
Without looking or knowing all your requirements, it's likely everything you need works the same. (I don't know anything about gnu/coreutils.)
f1shy 1y ago
All the utilities are not GNU, but BSD, so there are differences. But typically not a problem, as long as you move inside POSIX. Most GNU utilities (all?) can be installed if you prefer them. For example, make is typically gmake, and you really need it. I haven't used BSD for the last 10 years but used it from 1999 to 2015. I had never major issues.
lproven 1y ago
> Having never used anything beyond Linux, Windows and Mac, what would be a good starting point? GhostBSD. https://ghostbsd.org/ https://ghostbsd.org/

superkuh 1y ago

All of this person's problems seem to stem from a practice of implementing business style setups at home. The truth is you don't need any containerization/VMs for a home server setup. You don't need all the nines for uptime either, it's perfectly okay to be offline for a week or whatever. It's your stuff! No one else has a say. The idea that everything has to be running on a separate OS from the one you use is a killer. You don't need to start over in a new OS for this. Just don't cargo cult. Linux can do all this fine natively without containers and without risk in very straightforward ways if you ignore all the "deployal" memes or ideas of fallbacks. Just install nginx from your repos on your desktop, throw in some .html files to a directory and play.

bluGill 1y ago
My wife has opinions on my servers going down. She likes all our private music to be up 100% when she is listening. (think recordings from friends - the type of things that spotify would never have)
udev4096 1y ago
keepalived is just a blessing for almost effortless HA

SuperSandro2000 1y ago

NIXOS! NIXOS!! NIXOS!!!

blacklion 1y ago

I'm using FreeBSD for self-hosting, home NAS and router from version 2.2.0. As it is my hobby projects, I don't want to migrate to Linux which is, IMHO, over-represented. But it become harder and harder in recent years. Reason? Docker. Many current «server-side» products doesn't have good instructions how to install them «by hands» and is not very suitable for system-side packaging (creating port), as they have build systems designed to be used in CI with online access in build time (especially node.js-based and go-based ones, but rust goes same way). Installation instructions, well-defined dependencies, good versioning, immutable source distribution files? Nah. «Take this Docker file and run it». It is pity.

lproven 1y ago
This may help you. « An introduction to OCI Containers on FreeBSD October 31, 2025 » https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/oci-containers-on-freebsd/ https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/oci-containers-on-freebsd...
- blacklion 1y ago
  Thank you, I've missed this one. Problem is, these prepared images contain Linux binaries. Using Linux emulation in FreeBSD for OSS project doesn't feel ... right?
  - lproven 1y ago
    I am absolutely not pressuring anyone to do anything that doesn't feel right. But FreeBSD can run Linux binaries without needing a VM or anything, using the built-in "linuxulator", and in recent releases this means it can directly execute Linux OCI containers. Which is pretty close to running those same containers on top of a Linux kernel, when you're still bypassing much of the OS.
fractalf 1y ago
You can pretty much study the Dockerfile of each docker image and you'll see how it's installed. It's all there, no magic

fabioyy 1y ago

what about docker/containerd compatibility? is now possible to run on freebsd?

novoreorx 1y ago

No body mention that the footer of this website has many retro badge buttons? Let's take a minute to appreciate nostalgia of web 1.0.