14 ms·

DigitalOcean now supports FreeBSD

552 points by barium 12y ago

ohnoesmyscv 12y ago
You guys are awesome! Been waiting.
eklavya 12y ago
Time for a benchmark.
mrbigidea 12y ago
One small step for man, one giant leap toward a PFSense VM in the DigitalOcean cloud.
- pyvpx 12y ago
  what will you do with a pfSense VM on DO?
  - hueving 12y ago
    You could connect all of your VMs to it via ipsec or openvpn and have your own little private network.
    - kchoudhu 12y ago
      Unfortunately, you can't. IPSEC isn't enabled by default in the FreeBSD kernel.
      - floatboth 12y ago
        You can build a customized kernel.
      - bitcrusher 12y ago
        Yes, but you can use custom kernels with FreeBSD on DO. In the comments: "FreeBSD droplets do allow you to customize your kernel. Unlike other droplets these boot from the kernel within their filesystem. This is the reason that FreeBSD is not available in NYC1, NYC2, and AMS1 as these regions do not yet support this option."
JeremyMorgan 12y ago
Smart move. I will definitely be spinning up some FreeBSD droplets. This will attract people like me who enjoy building lean and mean BSD servers, and give people an alternative to Linux if they choose. Nice work Digital Ocean, love the way you folks keep pushing forward. Need some tutorials written?
- andrewsomething 12y ago
  We've already put together a lot of basic documentation in-house, [0] but we'd love to expand on what we have in the library. Checkout our "get paid to write" program. [1] [0] https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tags/freebsd?primary_filter=tutorials https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tags/freebsd?primary_... [1] https://www.digitalocean.com/community/get-paid-to-write https://www.digitalocean.com/community/get-paid-to-write
- Teichopsia 12y ago
  If you take requests? After reading the tut on HN the day before on how to be your own vpn provider with openbsd [1] I started to search for a tutorial that was either openbsd or freebsd with softether without much luck. I was about to do an instance of debian & softether. Perhaps my comment would be better served in another way. I'm new at this and have no idea what I'm doing. :) How can I go about from setting a vpn server with a webpage for paying customers? I'm looking at it more like a learning experience than to make it into a business, but if it works great. Could you or someone point me into the right direction into what needs to be read for each step of the way? I have very little linux experience, non in bsd and a little in python. Thanks in advance. [1] http://networkfilter.blogspot.com/ http://networkfilter.blogspot.com/
phillc73 12y ago
While this is great news, BSD support is currently the second most widely requested enhancement to the Digital Ocean service.[1] I wonder if we'll now see additional storage addressed soon? [1] https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocean/filters/top https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocea... Edit: I've had this theme bookmarked for ages, now might be the time to build it! http://daemon-notes.com/articles/desktop/example http://daemon-notes.com/articles/desktop/example
- icelancer 12y ago
  They have a bunch of stuff that was "planned" for Q1 2014 (separate hardware for master/slave setups) that aren't even close to shipping. Pretty frustrating. I like Digital Ocean and I use them in production for some apps but it's very hard to take their techops team seriously when they are missing deadlines by 12-18 months or more without regular updates. It's pretty unprofessional.
  - anonova 12y ago
    Yep. I was running Arch Linux on a personal droplet, and they decided to deprecate support for it. I don't even think there was an official announcement about it. There's even quite a bit of backing to bring it back [1], and oddly, they use an old video on their front page with when Arch was still listed [2]. "Built for developers" => can't use developer's favorite OS. :( [1]: https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocean/suggestions/5812390-keep-arch-linux-on-digitalocean https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocea... [2]: https://www.digitalocean.com/assets/video/create-e68d7b3c.webm https://www.digitalocean.com/assets/video/create-e68d7b3c.we...
    - nullrouted 12y ago
      Because Arch is what % of the userbase and how much does it cost to support that userbase? It gets kind of old hearing people whine about this. If you really want Arch there are providers that support it.
filmgirlcw 12y ago
This is great news, thanks DO!
edwinnathaniel 12y ago
EXCELLENT! Thank you very very much for supporting FreeBSD!
- swills 12y ago
  Agreed, this is really great news, I'm trying it out now.
wtbob 12y ago
Great news! I'm personally looking forward to OpenBSD, but now that this is done I bet that will be a cinch.
- subliminalpanda 12y ago
  You might want to check out vultr.com. They don't directly support OpenBSD, but allow you to install an OS an a VM instance with an ISO image, either by you supplying it or they'll pull it for you through an ftp or http link. Their pricing is similar to DO. I managed to get an instance running without too much trouble. (I do not work for vultr, or affiliated in any way).
  - easytiger 12y ago
    I use vultr too and find them pretty good if very slightly pricey
    - ochoseis 12y ago
      Is there anything like http://serverbear.com/compare/vps http://serverbear.com/compare/vps that lets you browse OS's offered by various providers? Also wondering how reliable Vultr's been for you guys.
pyvpx 12y ago
I'm wondering what the chances of any other BSD being supported are...? Dragonfly? Open? ...Net? :) edit: after actually reading TFA, it seems unlikely. Well, it seems like Dragonfly is most likely, if any others.
- andrewsomething 12y ago
  Depending on demand, adding other BSD variants is certainly a possibility. We had to start somewhere, and the FreeBSD community has been very vocal about wanting to see this happen. This is the first non-Linux OS we've decided to support, so we're excited to get feedback on it.
  - barkingcat 12y ago
    Thanks! I'm a long time FreeBSD vps user. It'd be great to check if DO droplets can support CARP failover within the same datacentre, and then expand to be able to do this across datacentres. https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/carp.html https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/carp.html My use cases so far haven't involved CARP but I'd like to start experimenting with that!
    - wcfields 12y ago
      Any recommendations of other BSD VPS providers?
      - floatboth 12y ago
        I run FreeBSD on Greenqloud.
      - kiike 12y ago
        RootBSD [1] has been around for quite a while. I personally use fileMEDIA [2] and LunaNode. fileMEDIA provides a set of isos, among which you can find FreeBSD, OpenBSD and DragonflyBSD (i personally requested them the DFBSD one). On LunaNode you can upload any ISO image or qcow2 file you'd like. 1: http://www.rootbsd.net http://www.rootbsd.net 2: http://www.filemedia.de http://www.filemedia.de 3: http://www.lunanode.com http://www.lunanode.com
zzzcpan 12y ago
Just created a droplet and sadly, it is 10.1 amd64 only. Won't be very useful on low-memory VMs. I hope they add i386 too. EDIT: Anyone cares to explain downvotes?
- xenophonf 12y ago
  What's your idea of a low-memory virtual machine? For test purposes I'm running FreeBSD/amd64 under Hyper-V in 128-MB RAM without any problems, although it is using around 32-MB of encrypted swap. That includes the Salt minion, Postfix, and an untuned static Apache 2.4 installation. Of course, it's much more comfortable in 256-MB RAM with around 44-MB RAM free according to top, and of course that's workload-dependent (e.g., my mail relay running amavisd-new and ClamAV wants 1.5-GB RAM after loading all of the spam and virus signatures). I could definitely see wanting to run FreeBSD in 128-MB or less RAM, but I'm very curious about your specific workloads. (It's the gearhead equivalent of wanting to look under the other guy's hood. If you're doing something cool, I want to hear about it!) P.S. Hyper-V will let me go as low as 32-MB RAM, so thanks to you I'm keen to try out different operating system installs (and workloads) in low-memory environments. P.P.S. Upvoted parent - I think the parent comment contributes to the discussion, even though I would personally love to see commenter go into more detail.
  - zzzcpan 12y ago
    I used to run a typical apache/mysql/php/perl stack on amd64 image on 512 MB VM. Actually, I run many things in very tight memory environments on FreeBSD, there is always significantly more room on i386 (in comparison to amd64).
neumino 12y ago
Nice, but I wish they didn't deprecate Archlinux though :/
- wcchandler 12y ago
  Couldn't you do a bootstrapped install if you really wanted it? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Install_from_existing_Linux https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Install_from_existing_L...
  - sciencerobot 12y ago
    Someone wrote a script to do just that: https://github.com/gh2o/digitalocean-debian-to-arch https://github.com/gh2o/digitalocean-debian-to-arch
    - nly 12y ago
      Tried it, works really well.
  - neumino 12y ago
    Well, it's more of a pain to setup right. It doesn't take 10 seconds anymore. Then like all cloud services, things get bad when you can't properly boot or start the network services. I used to run Arch with a more recent kernel and that kind of happened after an upgrade. To be fair, I can understand why they don't want to support Arch as it's probably a bit of work, but they are also a cheap service, so some people (like me) like to have a little server running there just for personal stuff (IRC bouncer, ssh tunnel etc.). And in this case, you want something closer to your own system. They still provide a good service in my opinion as I still use them :)
jbverschoor 12y ago
Migrating away from DO. because if the host dies, your vm dies. Same as ec2 yes, but aws provides ebs.
- Scottymeuk 12y ago
  Why not just build your infrastructure correctly? Then it doesn't matter if the host dies.
barkingcat 12y ago
BOOM - time for me to spin up more of these!
deleted 12y ago
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_nickwhite 12y ago
In case someone missed it: The header graphic in this article is a great homage to Beastie, the (original?) FreeBSD mascot, analogous to the Tux Linux penguin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - pavanky 12y ago
    Hmm. I still see it on their website: https://www.freebsd.org/art.html https://www.freebsd.org/art.html Or am I missing something else ?
xhrpost 12y ago
As a web developer who knows enough Linux to do minimum dev-ops, could anyone recommend some things worth playing around with in FreeBSD? Like "do this and see how easy it is vs Ubuntu!". Or are the gains more long term like better stability?
- joshbaptiste 12y ago
  Dtrace alone will turn you from a developer to a Developer + Systems admin + practical OS engineer, you will understand how your stack is performing within various lower levels of the operating system and be able to tune the hell out of your stack from bottom up.
  - Thaxll 12y ago
    Come on, 0.1% of the people need Dtrace...
    - 4ad 12y ago
      If you do any kind of programming or system administration, you need DTrace (or some lame Linux equivalent). It really pains me to see that people reject it because it's "too advanced" for them, or such nonsense. Dynamic tracing is the one technique that will enrich your life as an IT professional more than absolutely anything else ever did. And DTrace in particular is really, really easy to use (the Linux alternatives, not so much).
      - atmosx 12y ago
        Yeah that said, Dtrace on FreeBSD sucks. The DSL is hard and many ready-to-run scripts don't run at all. Other than Dtrace... Tools like dtruss & co are not as clean as strace, that's the feeling I've got when I had to trace some calls.
    - juliangoldsmith 12y ago
      But that doesn't mean it's only useful to 0.1% of people.
hiphopyo 12y ago
Should have gone with OpenBSD instead to be honest. Half the requests on your UserVoice are for OpenBSD. All the coolest stuff in FreeBSD comes from OpenBSD. OpenBSD -- the world's simplest and most secure Unix-like OS. Creator of the world's most used SSH implementation OpenSSH, the world's most elegant firewall PF, the world's most elegant mail server OpenSMTPD, the OpenSSL rewrite LibreSSL, and the NTP rewrite OpenNTPD. OpenBSD -- the cleanest kernel, the cleanest userland, the cleanest configuration syntax and some of the world's best documentation. FreeBSD, on the other hand, is becoming more of a testbed for experimental, some would even say unnecessary technologies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8546756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8546756. It's also having a hard time catching up to OpenBSD: http://itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/62641-crypto-freebsd-playing-catch-up-says-de-raadt http://itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/62641-crypto-....
- bch 12y ago
  I was going to downvote your comment, but instead: > All the coolest stuff in FreeBSD comes from OpenBSD This is juvenile "I'd rather push a Ford than drive a Dodge" level commentary. It's not true, and isn't even interesting. That any BSD is getting support is a good thing -- it opens the door to others following, and is good news.
- wglb 12y ago
  Note that the package system used by OpenBSD is explicitly borrowed from FreeBSD.
  - brynet 12y ago
    That's not true. OpenBSD's package system was rewritten by Marc Espie many years ago in perl, the utility names are inherited from FreeBSD, but are now otherwise unrelated.
    - wglb 12y ago
      Ah, I misquoted. On the page http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html, they point out that the ports tree concept was borrowed from FreeBSD.
ketralnis 12y ago
I've been using Vultr.com for this for a while and they're pretty nice. Slightly cheaper, promises that they don't oversell their servers, and they've had FreeBSD for long enough to have got the kinks out. They also let you just upload an ISO and install any OS you like from there, which is handy for non-default FreeBSD configurations like ZFS-on-root
cnst 12y ago
Do they support IPv6? The IPv6 link from their list of features page just links to their blog entry about Singapore. What kind of IPv6 allocation do they provide?
- gergles 12y ago
  Yes, in most regions. The allocation is an incredibly stingy 16 addresses.
cnst 12y ago
It's kind of ironic that they list FreeBSD's excellent documentation as one of the reasons for consideration, especially considering that their own documentation is so bad! I mean, what kind of company links directly to blog entries, with incomplete and outdated information, all across their web-site? Ain't nobody got time to read the blog comments and figure out what's the current status of stuff is.
- cnst 12y ago
  And the above post is downvoted to -2 for which precise reasons?! Does anyone really disagree that documentation at DO is total crap?! If it wasn't total crap, why would their employees link (on social media) to the upstream www.freebsd.org instead of any kind of FAQ on their own website? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8890383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8890383 Oh, right, because DigitalOcean's documentation (about their own features (and disabling of features from FreeBSD)) is absent and non-existent!
nine_k 12y ago
I wonder how much does DO's offer differ from other vendors that allow you to basically boot from your own virtual CD, like AWS or Ramnode. I'd love if someone explained it.
ghc 12y ago
Finally, finally, finally! I've been waiting for either DO or Linode to offer this since forever. Now the only thing left on my wishlist is OpenBSD support.
- keidian 12y ago
  Linode doesn't (last i checked anyway) officially support FreeBSD but people were doing it years ago in the irc channel when I used to hang out there
- vince_refiti 12y ago
  Last time I looked, Rackspace (at least the Sydney, Australia centre), supports FreeBSD.
czk 12y ago
Just deployed a FreeBSD droplet and I'm not sure if it's just because the host network is busier than my other droplets, but I seem to be getting about half the network performance that I can in a default linux droplet. They are using Virtio, which is good since it doesn't require hardware emulation like the E1XXX devices on KVM. I should probably use a better test than cachefly but just wondering if theres any known tweaks/tips that should be done for FBSD on KVM with virtio devices. Disk performance is also lacking in comparison to the ubuntu droplet as shown in the pastebin. Could just be because everyone's spinning up fbsd boxes on this host? :) http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=E8Q06XgM http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=E8Q06XgM
- sullrich 12y ago
  I am also seeing really poor write speeds when comparing to my Linux droplets. 11MB/sec vs. 216MB/sec on Linux
  - nine_k 12y ago
    Are these the same datacenter? The same rack? I suspect that degraded instances and overly-busy disks are not endemic to AWS.
    - czk 12y ago
      Mine are both in NYC3, so same datacenter. No clue regarding rack/host. I can't comment on AWS...
  - andrewthetechie 12y ago
    With FreeBSD, in order to be able to have automatic backups work, we were required to disable journaling on the disk. This will cause the disk speed to be much slower than our Linux distributions. If you wish to have higher disk speeds, but not use backups, we recommend for you to remount your disk with journaling. https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/gjournal-desktop/configure-journal.html https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/gjournal-desktop/con...
deleted 12y ago
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swills 12y ago
There does seem to be one part of their announcement that's a bit off: While similar to other open source unix-like operating systems, it’s unique in that the development of both its kernel and user space utilities are managed by the same core team, ensuring consistent development standards across the project. Wouldn't it be Linux that would be unique in that they don't do this? Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, all the BSDs, Mac OS X (which is certified Unix) does this as well. Correct me if I'm wrong here.
- k__ 12y ago
  Maybe they talk about Linux, Hurd, OpenBSD and NetBSD?
- tw04 12y ago
  So two things: None of the OS's you listed are open source. The second part of the statement, the way I read it, is comparing FreeBSD to DigitalOcean's current offerings - Linux. Keep in mind the post is for someone that's already using DO's services, which is a person who has only ever used Linux on their platform.
  - swills 12y ago
    Good point, I glossed over that detail, but they are comparing to only open source OS's, so my examples are bad. Still, looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open-source_operating_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open-source_opera... I think Linux is the odd man out here. Anyway, I suppose most of them aren't popular enough to be considered by Digital Ocean or their customers, so you're right there.
- isaacdl 12y ago
  AFAIK, AIX, HP-UX, and Mac OS X are not open source (I'm only positive about OS X)
  - Alupis 12y ago
    OSX is largely based on DarwinOS + some lipstick and customization... so it's close-ish to being Open Source... but I see the point.
IgorPartola 12y ago
And yet, still no universal support for IPv6, and the droplets that do get it only get 16 addresses. Yes, I am going to complain every time DO comes up in the news until this is fixed.
- zachberger 12y ago
  Pardon my naivety, but why do you need more than 16 addresses per droplet?
  - IgorPartola 12y ago
    Here is a good explanation: http://etherealmind.com/allocating-64-wasteful-ipv6-not/ http://etherealmind.com/allocating-64-wasteful-ipv6-not/.
    - m-app 12y ago
      You still get a /64 at DO, though. So this doesn't hold true. EDIT: Should add that you do not get a complete /64, but 16 addresses from a /64. Probably in a private VLAN or something.
      - IgorPartola 12y ago
        That is an artificial limitation. I got an allocation as a ::c001/64 and can use up to 15 more addresses, but I strongly suspect that I share that /64 with many others. I continue paying DO, but I believe they just plain don't get IPv6 and DNS want to spend the time learning. It's a shame as they are likely to be affected by the IPv6 shortage much more than the larger/more expensive providers and it would be in their interest to have more of te Internet upgrade.
    - quasse 12y ago
      Whoever wrote this doesn't seem to quite understand how bit math works. "IPv6 addresses are 128 bits long, compared to 32 bits long for IPv4. In other words, IPv6 addresses are 296 times more numerous than IPv4 addresses." IPv6 addresses are actually 2^128/2^32 or 7.9e+28 times more numerous than IPv4, which would strengthen the argument that it's hard to be "wasteful" with them in the way described.
weavie 12y ago
I am very intrigued by BSD as it comes highly recommended here. I just need an excuse to dip my toes. I need to set up a nginx -> nodejs server for a project soon. Given I have set up a number of linux servers without trouble, how much of a struggle would it be to just use BSD for this new project? Would it be worth holding off and just messing about in a VM, or would my linux experience just transfer directly to setting up on FreeBSD?
- thisismitch 12y ago
  If you haven't had trouble with Linux, I'd say you could manage in FreeBSD. We've prepared tutorials that can help you get started with the basics: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tags/freebsd https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tags/freebsd
- icantthinkofone 12y ago
  I just started running the same thing a couple of months ago without issue. Go for it. It works great.
- olssy 12y ago
  It shouldn't be a struggle at all just be conscious that freeBSD does not try and protect the user from him/her self. Case in point, "kill 1" won't do anything on linux but in freeBSD it will kill the init process.
- sneak 12y ago
  You're still using the 2005 sysadminning model of instances/hosts running services. Use elastic beanstalk or similar to pop up a layer of abstraction to "app". Your time is finite.
  - woodman 12y ago
    > or similar Is this alternative method another SaaS with a different API and performance characteristics? That takes time as well, in addition to the vendor lock-in. BTW, stacking abstraction x infinity is what causes systems to be bloated, unreliable security risks. Time spent gaining a greater understand of components on layers below the level of the stack you're operating on is time well spent, you'll be a better developer for it.
schmichael 12y ago
Really wish they'd support IPv6 in all of their datacenters. Comcast and T-Mobile universally support it, why don't datacenters?
TheDong 12y ago
The fact that DO had to make this announcement at all is a sign that things have gotten worse for VPSs. Before, when a company provided Xen or Kvm, you generally would get to have low-level access such as the ability to virtually connect to a serial port or vnc session of your box as it booted. You also, typically, could provide your own ISO images. Even if you couldn't provide your own iso, being able to interact with the VPS in the above way would allow you to use one of the provided disks and then bootstrap the install of another (this is how I installed gentoo on many providers that didn't "support" it) DO's stance that you must use one of their images, you can't upload your own, and you can't even use your own kernel (I'm not kidding! If you "sudo apt-get update" to get a new kernel security update and reboot, DO will IGNORE your shiny new kernel because they hardcode the kernel as one they control. See [0]). This is terrible. We shouldn't be happy that they're adding FreeBSD to the list of images they allow you to use, we should be showing, with our wallets, that their restrictive setup that doesn't allow you to touch anything outside of their tiny garden and exposes you to security issues is unacceptable. We should be using other providers, like Linode, AWS, and GCE, all of which allow bringing your own image in some form. [0]: https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digital-ocean/suggestions/2814988-give-option-to-use-the-droplet-s-own-bootloader https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digital-oce...
- dhaivatpandya 12y ago
  If DO users don't need the ability to upload their own images, why is this a problem?
  - newaccountfool 12y ago
    Some DO users will want this, others who aren't DO customers will also want this. As a growing company DO want to attract as many new customers as possible. They're still in early stages though, I'm sure this is in the pipeline.
    - icelancer 12y ago
      >They're still in early stages though, I'm sure this is in the pipeline. I would not call Digital Ocean all that early. This has been an issue for years.
aurelien 12y ago
A service that is a bit ugly, here is what I feel about, you register, you give your credit card, and you just don't know how it will cost. That point is just bad and make me feel that will cost an eye.
- lcmatt 12y ago
  Don't know how much it will cost? The price you see in the huge font is the price you'll pay at the end of the month...
ltofbss 12y ago
I have so much experience with Linux I feel like FreeBSD I would have so much to re-learn. What makes it worthwhile and how transferable is my knowledge?
pellaeon 12y ago
As one of the authors of bsd-cloudinit, it's super cool to see the project being used by other people. http://pellaeon.github.io/bsd-cloudinit/ http://pellaeon.github.io/bsd-cloudinit/

552 points by barium 12y ago

ohnoesmyscv 12y ago

You guys are awesome! Been waiting.

eklavya 12y ago

Time for a benchmark.

mrbigidea 12y ago

One small step for man, one giant leap toward a PFSense VM in the DigitalOcean cloud.

pyvpx 12y ago
what will you do with a pfSense VM on DO?
- hueving 12y ago
  You could connect all of your VMs to it via ipsec or openvpn and have your own little private network.
  - kchoudhu 12y ago
    Unfortunately, you can't. IPSEC isn't enabled by default in the FreeBSD kernel.
    - floatboth 12y ago
      You can build a customized kernel.
    - bitcrusher 12y ago
      Yes, but you can use custom kernels with FreeBSD on DO. In the comments: "FreeBSD droplets do allow you to customize your kernel. Unlike other droplets these boot from the kernel within their filesystem. This is the reason that FreeBSD is not available in NYC1, NYC2, and AMS1 as these regions do not yet support this option."

JeremyMorgan 12y ago

Smart move. I will definitely be spinning up some FreeBSD droplets. This will attract people like me who enjoy building lean and mean BSD servers, and give people an alternative to Linux if they choose. Nice work Digital Ocean, love the way you folks keep pushing forward. Need some tutorials written?

andrewsomething 12y ago
We've already put together a lot of basic documentation in-house, [0] but we'd love to expand on what we have in the library. Checkout our "get paid to write" program. [1] [0] https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tags/freebsd?primary_filter=tutorials https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tags/freebsd?primary_... [1] https://www.digitalocean.com/community/get-paid-to-write https://www.digitalocean.com/community/get-paid-to-write
Teichopsia 12y ago
If you take requests? After reading the tut on HN the day before on how to be your own vpn provider with openbsd [1] I started to search for a tutorial that was either openbsd or freebsd with softether without much luck. I was about to do an instance of debian & softether. Perhaps my comment would be better served in another way. I'm new at this and have no idea what I'm doing. :) How can I go about from setting a vpn server with a webpage for paying customers? I'm looking at it more like a learning experience than to make it into a business, but if it works great. Could you or someone point me into the right direction into what needs to be read for each step of the way? I have very little linux experience, non in bsd and a little in python. Thanks in advance. [1] http://networkfilter.blogspot.com/ http://networkfilter.blogspot.com/

phillc73 12y ago

While this is great news, BSD support is currently the second most widely requested enhancement to the Digital Ocean service.[1] I wonder if we'll now see additional storage addressed soon? [1] https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocean/filters/top https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocea... Edit: I've had this theme bookmarked for ages, now might be the time to build it! http://daemon-notes.com/articles/desktop/example http://daemon-notes.com/articles/desktop/example

icelancer 12y ago
They have a bunch of stuff that was "planned" for Q1 2014 (separate hardware for master/slave setups) that aren't even close to shipping. Pretty frustrating. I like Digital Ocean and I use them in production for some apps but it's very hard to take their techops team seriously when they are missing deadlines by 12-18 months or more without regular updates. It's pretty unprofessional.
- anonova 12y ago
  Yep. I was running Arch Linux on a personal droplet, and they decided to deprecate support for it. I don't even think there was an official announcement about it. There's even quite a bit of backing to bring it back [1], and oddly, they use an old video on their front page with when Arch was still listed [2]. "Built for developers" => can't use developer's favorite OS. :( [1]: https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocean/suggestions/5812390-keep-arch-linux-on-digitalocean https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocea... [2]: https://www.digitalocean.com/assets/video/create-e68d7b3c.webm https://www.digitalocean.com/assets/video/create-e68d7b3c.we...
  - nullrouted 12y ago
    Because Arch is what % of the userbase and how much does it cost to support that userbase? It gets kind of old hearing people whine about this. If you really want Arch there are providers that support it.

filmgirlcw 12y ago

This is great news, thanks DO!

edwinnathaniel 12y ago

EXCELLENT! Thank you very very much for supporting FreeBSD!

swills 12y ago
Agreed, this is really great news, I'm trying it out now.

wtbob 12y ago

Great news! I'm personally looking forward to OpenBSD, but now that this is done I bet that will be a cinch.

subliminalpanda 12y ago
You might want to check out vultr.com. They don't directly support OpenBSD, but allow you to install an OS an a VM instance with an ISO image, either by you supplying it or they'll pull it for you through an ftp or http link. Their pricing is similar to DO. I managed to get an instance running without too much trouble. (I do not work for vultr, or affiliated in any way).
- easytiger 12y ago
  I use vultr too and find them pretty good if very slightly pricey
  - ochoseis 12y ago
    Is there anything like http://serverbear.com/compare/vps http://serverbear.com/compare/vps that lets you browse OS's offered by various providers? Also wondering how reliable Vultr's been for you guys.

pyvpx 12y ago

I'm wondering what the chances of any other BSD being supported are...? Dragonfly? Open? ...Net? :) edit: after actually reading TFA, it seems unlikely. Well, it seems like Dragonfly is most likely, if any others.

andrewsomething 12y ago
Depending on demand, adding other BSD variants is certainly a possibility. We had to start somewhere, and the FreeBSD community has been very vocal about wanting to see this happen. This is the first non-Linux OS we've decided to support, so we're excited to get feedback on it.
- barkingcat 12y ago
  Thanks! I'm a long time FreeBSD vps user. It'd be great to check if DO droplets can support CARP failover within the same datacentre, and then expand to be able to do this across datacentres. https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/carp.html https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/carp.html My use cases so far haven't involved CARP but I'd like to start experimenting with that!
  - wcfields 12y ago
    Any recommendations of other BSD VPS providers?
    - floatboth 12y ago
      I run FreeBSD on Greenqloud.
    - kiike 12y ago
      RootBSD [1] has been around for quite a while. I personally use fileMEDIA [2] and LunaNode. fileMEDIA provides a set of isos, among which you can find FreeBSD, OpenBSD and DragonflyBSD (i personally requested them the DFBSD one). On LunaNode you can upload any ISO image or qcow2 file you'd like. 1: http://www.rootbsd.net http://www.rootbsd.net 2: http://www.filemedia.de http://www.filemedia.de 3: http://www.lunanode.com http://www.lunanode.com

zzzcpan 12y ago

Just created a droplet and sadly, it is 10.1 amd64 only. Won't be very useful on low-memory VMs. I hope they add i386 too. EDIT: Anyone cares to explain downvotes?

xenophonf 12y ago
What's your idea of a low-memory virtual machine? For test purposes I'm running FreeBSD/amd64 under Hyper-V in 128-MB RAM without any problems, although it is using around 32-MB of encrypted swap. That includes the Salt minion, Postfix, and an untuned static Apache 2.4 installation. Of course, it's much more comfortable in 256-MB RAM with around 44-MB RAM free according to top, and of course that's workload-dependent (e.g., my mail relay running amavisd-new and ClamAV wants 1.5-GB RAM after loading all of the spam and virus signatures). I could definitely see wanting to run FreeBSD in 128-MB or less RAM, but I'm very curious about your specific workloads. (It's the gearhead equivalent of wanting to look under the other guy's hood. If you're doing something cool, I want to hear about it!) P.S. Hyper-V will let me go as low as 32-MB RAM, so thanks to you I'm keen to try out different operating system installs (and workloads) in low-memory environments. P.P.S. Upvoted parent - I think the parent comment contributes to the discussion, even though I would personally love to see commenter go into more detail.
- zzzcpan 12y ago
  I used to run a typical apache/mysql/php/perl stack on amd64 image on 512 MB VM. Actually, I run many things in very tight memory environments on FreeBSD, there is always significantly more room on i386 (in comparison to amd64).

neumino 12y ago

Nice, but I wish they didn't deprecate Archlinux though :/

wcchandler 12y ago
Couldn't you do a bootstrapped install if you really wanted it? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Install_from_existing_Linux https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Install_from_existing_L...
- sciencerobot 12y ago
  Someone wrote a script to do just that: https://github.com/gh2o/digitalocean-debian-to-arch https://github.com/gh2o/digitalocean-debian-to-arch
  - nly 12y ago
    Tried it, works really well.
- neumino 12y ago
  Well, it's more of a pain to setup right. It doesn't take 10 seconds anymore. Then like all cloud services, things get bad when you can't properly boot or start the network services. I used to run Arch with a more recent kernel and that kind of happened after an upgrade. To be fair, I can understand why they don't want to support Arch as it's probably a bit of work, but they are also a cheap service, so some people (like me) like to have a little server running there just for personal stuff (IRC bouncer, ssh tunnel etc.). And in this case, you want something closer to your own system. They still provide a good service in my opinion as I still use them :)

jbverschoor 12y ago

Migrating away from DO. because if the host dies, your vm dies. Same as ec2 yes, but aws provides ebs.

Scottymeuk 12y ago
Why not just build your infrastructure correctly? Then it doesn't matter if the host dies.

barkingcat 12y ago

BOOM - time for me to spin up more of these!

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_nickwhite 12y ago

In case someone missed it: The header graphic in this article is a great homage to Beastie, the (original?) FreeBSD mascot, analogous to the Tux Linux penguin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon

deleted 12y ago
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- pavanky 12y ago
  Hmm. I still see it on their website: https://www.freebsd.org/art.html https://www.freebsd.org/art.html Or am I missing something else ?

xhrpost 12y ago

As a web developer who knows enough Linux to do minimum dev-ops, could anyone recommend some things worth playing around with in FreeBSD? Like "do this and see how easy it is vs Ubuntu!". Or are the gains more long term like better stability?

joshbaptiste 12y ago
Dtrace alone will turn you from a developer to a Developer + Systems admin + practical OS engineer, you will understand how your stack is performing within various lower levels of the operating system and be able to tune the hell out of your stack from bottom up.
- Thaxll 12y ago
  Come on, 0.1% of the people need Dtrace...
  - 4ad 12y ago
    If you do any kind of programming or system administration, you need DTrace (or some lame Linux equivalent). It really pains me to see that people reject it because it's "too advanced" for them, or such nonsense. Dynamic tracing is the one technique that will enrich your life as an IT professional more than absolutely anything else ever did. And DTrace in particular is really, really easy to use (the Linux alternatives, not so much).
    - atmosx 12y ago
      Yeah that said, Dtrace on FreeBSD sucks. The DSL is hard and many ready-to-run scripts don't run at all. Other than Dtrace... Tools like dtruss & co are not as clean as strace, that's the feeling I've got when I had to trace some calls.
  - juliangoldsmith 12y ago
    But that doesn't mean it's only useful to 0.1% of people.

hiphopyo 12y ago

Should have gone with OpenBSD instead to be honest. Half the requests on your UserVoice are for OpenBSD. All the coolest stuff in FreeBSD comes from OpenBSD. OpenBSD -- the world's simplest and most secure Unix-like OS. Creator of the world's most used SSH implementation OpenSSH, the world's most elegant firewall PF, the world's most elegant mail server OpenSMTPD, the OpenSSL rewrite LibreSSL, and the NTP rewrite OpenNTPD. OpenBSD -- the cleanest kernel, the cleanest userland, the cleanest configuration syntax and some of the world's best documentation. FreeBSD, on the other hand, is becoming more of a testbed for experimental, some would even say unnecessary technologies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8546756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8546756. It's also having a hard time catching up to OpenBSD: http://itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/62641-crypto-freebsd-playing-catch-up-says-de-raadt http://itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/62641-crypto-....

bch 12y ago
I was going to downvote your comment, but instead: > All the coolest stuff in FreeBSD comes from OpenBSD This is juvenile "I'd rather push a Ford than drive a Dodge" level commentary. It's not true, and isn't even interesting. That any BSD is getting support is a good thing -- it opens the door to others following, and is good news.
wglb 12y ago
Note that the package system used by OpenBSD is explicitly borrowed from FreeBSD.
- brynet 12y ago
  That's not true. OpenBSD's package system was rewritten by Marc Espie many years ago in perl, the utility names are inherited from FreeBSD, but are now otherwise unrelated.
  - wglb 12y ago
    Ah, I misquoted. On the page http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html, they point out that the ports tree concept was borrowed from FreeBSD.

ketralnis 12y ago

I've been using Vultr.com for this for a while and they're pretty nice. Slightly cheaper, promises that they don't oversell their servers, and they've had FreeBSD for long enough to have got the kinks out. They also let you just upload an ISO and install any OS you like from there, which is handy for non-default FreeBSD configurations like ZFS-on-root

cnst 12y ago

Do they support IPv6? The IPv6 link from their list of features page just links to their blog entry about Singapore. What kind of IPv6 allocation do they provide?

gergles 12y ago
Yes, in most regions. The allocation is an incredibly stingy 16 addresses.

cnst 12y ago

It's kind of ironic that they list FreeBSD's excellent documentation as one of the reasons for consideration, especially considering that their own documentation is so bad! I mean, what kind of company links directly to blog entries, with incomplete and outdated information, all across their web-site? Ain't nobody got time to read the blog comments and figure out what's the current status of stuff is.

cnst 12y ago
And the above post is downvoted to -2 for which precise reasons?! Does anyone really disagree that documentation at DO is total crap?! If it wasn't total crap, why would their employees link (on social media) to the upstream www.freebsd.org instead of any kind of FAQ on their own website? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8890383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8890383 Oh, right, because DigitalOcean's documentation (about their own features (and disabling of features from FreeBSD)) is absent and non-existent!

nine_k 12y ago

I wonder how much does DO's offer differ from other vendors that allow you to basically boot from your own virtual CD, like AWS or Ramnode. I'd love if someone explained it.

ghc 12y ago

Finally, finally, finally! I've been waiting for either DO or Linode to offer this since forever. Now the only thing left on my wishlist is OpenBSD support.

keidian 12y ago
Linode doesn't (last i checked anyway) officially support FreeBSD but people were doing it years ago in the irc channel when I used to hang out there
vince_refiti 12y ago
Last time I looked, Rackspace (at least the Sydney, Australia centre), supports FreeBSD.

czk 12y ago

Just deployed a FreeBSD droplet and I'm not sure if it's just because the host network is busier than my other droplets, but I seem to be getting about half the network performance that I can in a default linux droplet. They are using Virtio, which is good since it doesn't require hardware emulation like the E1XXX devices on KVM. I should probably use a better test than cachefly but just wondering if theres any known tweaks/tips that should be done for FBSD on KVM with virtio devices. Disk performance is also lacking in comparison to the ubuntu droplet as shown in the pastebin. Could just be because everyone's spinning up fbsd boxes on this host? :) http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=E8Q06XgM http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=E8Q06XgM

sullrich 12y ago
I am also seeing really poor write speeds when comparing to my Linux droplets. 11MB/sec vs. 216MB/sec on Linux
- nine_k 12y ago
  Are these the same datacenter? The same rack? I suspect that degraded instances and overly-busy disks are not endemic to AWS.
  - czk 12y ago
    Mine are both in NYC3, so same datacenter. No clue regarding rack/host. I can't comment on AWS...
- andrewthetechie 12y ago
  With FreeBSD, in order to be able to have automatic backups work, we were required to disable journaling on the disk. This will cause the disk speed to be much slower than our Linux distributions. If you wish to have higher disk speeds, but not use backups, we recommend for you to remount your disk with journaling. https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/gjournal-desktop/configure-journal.html https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/gjournal-desktop/con...

deleted 12y ago

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swills 12y ago

There does seem to be one part of their announcement that's a bit off: While similar to other open source unix-like operating systems, it’s unique in that the development of both its kernel and user space utilities are managed by the same core team, ensuring consistent development standards across the project. Wouldn't it be Linux that would be unique in that they don't do this? Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, all the BSDs, Mac OS X (which is certified Unix) does this as well. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

k__ 12y ago
Maybe they talk about Linux, Hurd, OpenBSD and NetBSD?
tw04 12y ago
So two things: None of the OS's you listed are open source. The second part of the statement, the way I read it, is comparing FreeBSD to DigitalOcean's current offerings - Linux. Keep in mind the post is for someone that's already using DO's services, which is a person who has only ever used Linux on their platform.
- swills 12y ago
  Good point, I glossed over that detail, but they are comparing to only open source OS's, so my examples are bad. Still, looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open-source_operating_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open-source_opera... I think Linux is the odd man out here. Anyway, I suppose most of them aren't popular enough to be considered by Digital Ocean or their customers, so you're right there.
isaacdl 12y ago
AFAIK, AIX, HP-UX, and Mac OS X are not open source (I'm only positive about OS X)
- Alupis 12y ago
  OSX is largely based on DarwinOS + some lipstick and customization... so it's close-ish to being Open Source... but I see the point.

IgorPartola 12y ago

And yet, still no universal support for IPv6, and the droplets that do get it only get 16 addresses. Yes, I am going to complain every time DO comes up in the news until this is fixed.

zachberger 12y ago
Pardon my naivety, but why do you need more than 16 addresses per droplet?
- IgorPartola 12y ago
  Here is a good explanation: http://etherealmind.com/allocating-64-wasteful-ipv6-not/ http://etherealmind.com/allocating-64-wasteful-ipv6-not/.
  - m-app 12y ago
    You still get a /64 at DO, though. So this doesn't hold true. EDIT: Should add that you do not get a complete /64, but 16 addresses from a /64. Probably in a private VLAN or something.
    - IgorPartola 12y ago
      That is an artificial limitation. I got an allocation as a ::c001/64 and can use up to 15 more addresses, but I strongly suspect that I share that /64 with many others. I continue paying DO, but I believe they just plain don't get IPv6 and DNS want to spend the time learning. It's a shame as they are likely to be affected by the IPv6 shortage much more than the larger/more expensive providers and it would be in their interest to have more of te Internet upgrade.
  - quasse 12y ago
    Whoever wrote this doesn't seem to quite understand how bit math works. "IPv6 addresses are 128 bits long, compared to 32 bits long for IPv4. In other words, IPv6 addresses are 296 times more numerous than IPv4 addresses." IPv6 addresses are actually 2^128/2^32 or 7.9e+28 times more numerous than IPv4, which would strengthen the argument that it's hard to be "wasteful" with them in the way described.

weavie 12y ago

I am very intrigued by BSD as it comes highly recommended here. I just need an excuse to dip my toes. I need to set up a nginx -> nodejs server for a project soon. Given I have set up a number of linux servers without trouble, how much of a struggle would it be to just use BSD for this new project? Would it be worth holding off and just messing about in a VM, or would my linux experience just transfer directly to setting up on FreeBSD?

thisismitch 12y ago
If you haven't had trouble with Linux, I'd say you could manage in FreeBSD. We've prepared tutorials that can help you get started with the basics: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tags/freebsd https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tags/freebsd
icantthinkofone 12y ago
I just started running the same thing a couple of months ago without issue. Go for it. It works great.
olssy 12y ago
It shouldn't be a struggle at all just be conscious that freeBSD does not try and protect the user from him/her self. Case in point, "kill 1" won't do anything on linux but in freeBSD it will kill the init process.
sneak 12y ago
You're still using the 2005 sysadminning model of instances/hosts running services. Use elastic beanstalk or similar to pop up a layer of abstraction to "app". Your time is finite.
- woodman 12y ago
  > or similar Is this alternative method another SaaS with a different API and performance characteristics? That takes time as well, in addition to the vendor lock-in. BTW, stacking abstraction x infinity is what causes systems to be bloated, unreliable security risks. Time spent gaining a greater understand of components on layers below the level of the stack you're operating on is time well spent, you'll be a better developer for it.

schmichael 12y ago

Really wish they'd support IPv6 in all of their datacenters. Comcast and T-Mobile universally support it, why don't datacenters?

TheDong 12y ago

The fact that DO had to make this announcement at all is a sign that things have gotten worse for VPSs. Before, when a company provided Xen or Kvm, you generally would get to have low-level access such as the ability to virtually connect to a serial port or vnc session of your box as it booted. You also, typically, could provide your own ISO images. Even if you couldn't provide your own iso, being able to interact with the VPS in the above way would allow you to use one of the provided disks and then bootstrap the install of another (this is how I installed gentoo on many providers that didn't "support" it) DO's stance that you must use one of their images, you can't upload your own, and you can't even use your own kernel (I'm not kidding! If you "sudo apt-get update" to get a new kernel security update and reboot, DO will IGNORE your shiny new kernel because they hardcode the kernel as one they control. See [0]). This is terrible. We shouldn't be happy that they're adding FreeBSD to the list of images they allow you to use, we should be showing, with our wallets, that their restrictive setup that doesn't allow you to touch anything outside of their tiny garden and exposes you to security issues is unacceptable. We should be using other providers, like Linode, AWS, and GCE, all of which allow bringing your own image in some form. [0]: https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digital-ocean/suggestions/2814988-give-option-to-use-the-droplet-s-own-bootloader https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digital-oce...

dhaivatpandya 12y ago
If DO users don't need the ability to upload their own images, why is this a problem?
- newaccountfool 12y ago
  Some DO users will want this, others who aren't DO customers will also want this. As a growing company DO want to attract as many new customers as possible. They're still in early stages though, I'm sure this is in the pipeline.
  - icelancer 12y ago
    >They're still in early stages though, I'm sure this is in the pipeline. I would not call Digital Ocean all that early. This has been an issue for years.

aurelien 12y ago

A service that is a bit ugly, here is what I feel about, you register, you give your credit card, and you just don't know how it will cost. That point is just bad and make me feel that will cost an eye.

lcmatt 12y ago
Don't know how much it will cost? The price you see in the huge font is the price you'll pay at the end of the month...

ltofbss 12y ago

I have so much experience with Linux I feel like FreeBSD I would have so much to re-learn. What makes it worthwhile and how transferable is my knowledge?

pellaeon 12y ago

As one of the authors of bsd-cloudinit, it's super cool to see the project being used by other people. http://pellaeon.github.io/bsd-cloudinit/ http://pellaeon.github.io/bsd-cloudinit/