Well, well, well... What do we have here?

Hello #NetBSD 11!

Alt...

A qemu console showing the sysinst installation programme from NetBSD Blue background, white text

From:

https://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/netbsd-11/20260206082425Z/amd64/INSTALL.html#Features%20to%20be%20removed%20in%20a%20later%20release

The following features are to be removed from #NetBSD in the future:

- groff(1). Man pages are now handled with mandoc(1), and groff(1) can still be found in pkgsrc as textproc/groff.

- pf(4). This packet filter is obsolete and unmaintained in NetBSD. It will be eventually removed due to possible long-standing security issues and lack of multiprocessor support. New installations should use npf(7).

No 'npf mastery' book so I really need to read that man page...

$ /usr/local/bin/qemu-img create -f qcow2 /opt/qemu/netbsd11.img 20G

20GB should be enough for most installations I suppose... #netbsd

~/files/download/ISO/NetBSD$ curl -O https://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/netbsd-11/20260206082425Z/amd64/installation/cdrom/boot.iso

Yeah, going to test #NetBSD 11-RC1 like a savage as usual... 🤓

I had to use a breadboard to set up a serial console, but I got #NetBSD working on the VisionFive 2! 🥳

Ethernet works great, so I will mostly talk to it over SSH, I suppose.

Registration for BSDCan 2026 is now open https://www.bsdcan.org/2026/registration.html and tutorials schedule is published.

#bsdcan #openbsd #netbsd #freebsd #libresoftware #freesoftware #conference #development #networking #sysadmin #devops

Newsflash: we have a date for BSD-NL, for the Early 2026 day-conference. Go follow @bsd_nl to get the announcement straight into your timeline

#BSDNL #BSD #OpenBSD #HardenedBSD #FreeBSD #SecBSD #NetBSD #RUNBSD #MyMotherRunsBSD

Just a shout out to everyone directly or loosly involved in *BSD world here on fedi and elsewhere.
Thanks for having me here. It's now a couple of years now since I mograted from Linux and really enjoying it.

be safe and keep up the excellent work,

#appreciation #bsd #unix #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #dragonfly #runbsd #illumos

#NetBSD

https://youtu.be/Tv6Q4MZS5LI

Since this got a bit of a reach (from my humble point of view), never forget the story how FFS now known as UFS came to life and that it did/does the heavy lifting since ages.

https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/584-mckusick.pdf

#OpenBSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #BSD

We got #CentOS Mascot before #GTA6
https://blog.centos.org/2025/05/release-the-quokka/

Let's go #NetBSD we should get Mascot other than logo

@dgl @cks @lyda

In the majority of cases there actually is no separate inet_pton() manual page.

https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=inet_pton&sektion=3

https://man.netbsd.org/inet_pton.3

http://tribblix.org/man/man3c/inet_pton.html

https://man.omnios.org/man3c/inet.3c

http://uw714doc.xinuos.com/en/man/html.3N/inet.3N.html

Although most of those call out inet_pton(), SCO #UnixWare in fact documented the four human-readable IPv4 formats for inet_pton(), and did not even have an inet_aton().

In #NetBSD, the internal inet_pton4() function was indeed updated by Christos Zoulas from the old Paul Vixie code to support the four human-readable formats of inet_aton(), 22 years ago; although it's not clear where this additional IPv4 conversion functionality is actually used.

The old Paul Vixie code from 1996 is retained in GNU libc, #FreeBSD, & #OpenBSD; this being code from the BIND DNS client library.

It was superseded by a from-scratch reimplementation based around a str2inet_addr() function in #Solaris/ #Illumos/ #Tribblix/ #OmniOS. musl libc also has its own from-scratch version.

@ska

🚩 NetBSD's Kernel Supports Lua Scripting But Don't Look For Rust In There Anytime Soon - Phoronix

｢ Diminishing the prospects of Rust code within the NetBSD kernel is that there are many CPU architectures supported where Rust isn't even available. That would be the lead and immediate blocker to Rust programming language use by NetBSD that supports a diverse array of architectures in a meaningful manner ｣

https://www.phoronix.com/news/No-Rust-In-NetBSD-Kernel

#netbsd #lualang #opensource

@cks @lyda

Everything that can accept human-readable IPv4 addresses in place of hostnames, and that does so by using the conventional C library inet_aton() or inet_pton() functions.

A single (32-bit) number has been an accepted human-readable form from the start, back in the 4.3BSD days. It's a thing that gets regularly rediscovered.

(Bernstein's networking tools use a ip4_scan() function that only supports strict 4-decimal-numbers form. But several of them special case and re-map the string "0" before calling this function. libowfat's scan_ip4() is similar to ip4_scan(). As is ip4_scan() in @ska's libstddjb.)

This and three other accepted formats are explained in all of the #FreeBSD, #OpenBSD, #NetBSD, and Linux GNU libc manual pages. They also explain why 0x00000000 and 0x7F000001 and 0177.1 will work as IPv4 addresses with such programs.

#BerkeleySockets

Just added short 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝗣𝗙 (𝟰𝘁𝗵 𝗘𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻) [Book of PF] review/update to 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗕𝗦𝗗 [Books About FreeBSD] article.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2022/02/04/books-about-freebsd#book-pf-4th

#verblog #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #pf #firewall

Just added short 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝗣𝗙 (𝟰𝘁𝗵 𝗘𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻) [Book of PF] review/update to 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗕𝗦𝗗 [Books About FreeBSD] article.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2022/02/04/books-about-freebsd#book-pf-4th

#verblog #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #pf #firewall

netbsd.org down for everyone else or just me?

(ignore www, that's on fastly)

#netbsd #pkgsrc

@ptribble I've been quite impressed by @fastmail's spam filtering. It took a while to make it recognise that anything from #NetBSD's "Charlie Root" was legit, but other than that the only kosher emails it thinks are spam are invoices that do look hella spammy even when they're not.

Arguments against incorporating Rust into the NetBSD kernel - Post by Benny Siegert
@bentsukun #Rust #NetBSD https://bentsukun.ch/posts/netbsd-rust-kernel/

https://bentsukun.ch/posts/netbsd-rust-kernel/

#rust #netbsd

RT: https://bsd.network/users/jaypatelani/statuses/116004550797346180

RE: https://mstdn.social/@osnews/116008893698862289

Rust is everywhere

#NetBSD is everywherer

Rust in the NetBSD kernel seems unlikely

Rust is everywhere, and it's no surprise it's also made its way into the lowest levels of certain operating systems and kernels, so it shouldn't be surprising that various operating system developers have to field questions and inquiries about Rust. NetBSD developer Benny Siegert wrote a blog post about this very subject, and in it, details why it's unlike

https://www.osnews.com/story/144326/rust-in-the-netbsd-kernel-seems-unlikely/

#NetBSD

Damn!

Happily searching the #EpsteinFiles for bizarre inclusions of computer software stuff (e.g. Adobe Flash README, #NetBSD, Python), I tried looking up qmail.

I stumbled upon #PeterMandelson e-mails that the journalists won't find because one has to understand Received: headers to know whom they are from, and the base64 encoding of the body hides the text from the search engines.

https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00754474.pdf

#UKPolitics

Since my home server not intended for use by any people outside of my city (plus some VPN endpoints in other countries) — it is ok to ban some unwanted countries and cities from which I don't expect anything good, except attempts to hack my box to use my resources or set me up .

So I added some GeoIP blocking to the npf with script to update GeoIP list — I blocked China, Iran, North Korea, etc and Moscow (because there are a lot of government and commercial backed bots coming from here). Results are good — the bots don't disappeared completely but the speed of adding new IPs to the blacklist is decreased

Sadly, I was unable to add USA and UK to the list, because looks like there are some limits (not found how to increase them ), which disallows to load a lot of CIDRs for these countries to the blacklist.

#NetBSD #npf #bots #selfhosting

Alt...

Graph of the count of banned IPs per week. There are two red tangents on the two points — before and after the GeoIP bans were enabled. And the two red lines, parallel to the X axis. The resulting derivatives are 0.59 and 0.38, so the speed of raising the values (count of blocked bots) are decreased.

Alt...

Part of the script to update npf blacklists. Script contents: # List of blocked countries: # AE - United Arab Emirates # AF - Afganistan # BY - Belarus # CN - China # CU - Cuba # HK - Hong Kong # HU - Hungary # IR - Iran # KP - North Korea # KW - Kuwait # PK - Pakistan # PS - Palestine # TW - Taiwan # UA - Ukraine /usr/pkg/bin/curl --connect-timeout 30 --fail --interface re0 --ipv4 --silent \ --retry 3 --retry-connrefused --retry-delay 5 --retry-max-time 90 \ --show-error --proxy http://127.0.0.1:20172 \ -o - "$GEOIP_COUNTRIES_SOURCE" | \ /usr/bin/egrep '^[0-9.,]+((AE)|(AF)|(BY)|(CN)|(CU)|(HK)|(HU)|(IR)|(KP)|(KW)|(PK)|(PS)|(TW)|(UA))$' | \ /usr/bin/awk -F, '{ print $1, "-", $2 }' | \ /usr/pkg/bin/iprange > /usr/share/npf/blacklist.countries.new if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then echo "Failed to update countries blacklist" rm -f /usr/share/npf/blacklist.netset.new \ /usr/share/npf/blacklist.countries.new exit 3 fi # List of blocked cities: # Moscow /usr/pkg/bin/curl --connect-timeout 30 --fail --interface re0 --ipv4 --silent \ --retry 3 --retry-connrefused --retry-delay 5 --retry-max-time 90 \ --show-error --proxy http://127.0.0.1:20172 \ -o - "$GEOIP_CITIES_SOURCE" | \ gzip -d | \

Rust in the NetBSD Kernel, and other odd decisions https://lobste.rs/s/4wlhhv #netbsd
https://bentsukun.ch/posts/netbsd-rust-kernel/

Rust in the Kernel, and other odd decisions
#NetBSD

https://bentsukun.ch/posts/netbsd-rust-kernel/

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲/𝟬𝟮/𝟬𝟮 (Valuable News - 2026/02/02) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2026/02/02/valuable-news-2026-02-02/

Past releases: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/news/

#verblog #vernews #news #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #linux #unix #zfs #opnsense #ghostbsd #solaris #vermadenday

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲/𝟬𝟮/𝟬𝟮 (Valuable News - 2026/02/02) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2026/02/02/valuable-news-2026-02-02/

Past releases: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/news/

#verblog #vernews #news #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #linux #unix #zfs #opnsense #ghostbsd #solaris #vermadenday

My BSDCan submission has been approved!

It will be wonderful to be back in Ottawa, meet again all the "old" (and new) friends from the BSD world and, this time, present something that has saved me more than once... and it’s based on NetBSD!

#BSDCan #BSDCon #NetBSD #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #DragonFlyBSD #RunBSD #BSDCan2026 #Ottawa #Canada #BSD

RE: https://toot.ale.gd/@yvan/115991015382781717

#OpenBSD is definitley winning this popularity contest for my choice of new gateway/firewall BSD install. With #FreeBSD in a distant second. I guess I am not much surprised by the lack of love for #NetBSD — that was maybe a bit like putting Slackware in a Linux popularity contest I guess. 😅 (Not intended as a slight on either Slackware of NetBSD!)

I've dug into the depths of history and it was OpenBSD I was running in mid/early 2000s... I think it was pf that won that decision in the end (versus both Linux and other BSD, though we also specifically wanted a non-Linux in the pathway as well.) But I don't think that has too much bearing on the decision as it has been nearly 20 years since I last properly touched a BSD install (in such a context, I did also work with it as a build env for software until some 2010s time.)

EDIT: more here: https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@stefano/116000601385091531

I’ve just received a wonderful email. I’m so excited!

More about this in the coming days.

#RunBSD #NetBSD

It has been so long since I ran a #BSD that I don't even remember which BSD it was. (I could probably dig up that info...)

Circa 20 years ago I used to run BSD gateway/router machines.

I think I'd like to do this again, for a variety of reasons.

But which BSD should I run for this kind of network gateway. It won't host any applications, it won't be a NAS, it'll purely be network/gateway... it'll have the telco router on one side, internal network on another, and one or two DMZ/separate type networks (one for hosting external facing things like Mastodon, the other for untrusted IoT stuff.) It'll run dhcp, dns, and probably be a VPN endpoint.

I do not want to run some specialist gateway adapted customised thing with dashboards etc, just want a plain vanilla OS. (And no bullcrap like containers, docker, etc. Just an OS running on a physical box.)

So, what OS should I run on my network gateway: #OpenBSD, #FreeBSD, #NetBSD

#NetBSD peeps! There is a (mostly) working #Valgrind implementation for NetBSD at https://github.com/paulfloyd/valgrind-netbsd. It would be great if we could get a (binary) package for it!

I wrote a small article on how to backup Unix servers using tar and age. Nothing fancy, just the script and concept I use for all my servers.

https://xosc.org/backup-server.html

#openbsd #freebsd #netbsd #linux

#MAME 0.285 compiles on #HaikuOS after adding a small upstream patch (a missing #include).

If you're struggling to compile the latest version of MAME (I bet #FreeBSD and #NetBSD probably have the same issue), give this a go: https://github.com/mamedev/mame/commit/ffde4d3920ae99d2730db83982ffa9f8fbd8abd2

Anyway, there's a PR on HaikuPorts for the update, so it should be with you lovely people in the next few days.

Alt...

MAME 0.285 launcher, running on Haiku R1B5, viewed via a VNC connection on a Linux box. In the background is a tmux session, also running on the Haiku box, viewed via SSH on the Linux box.

Deadline this weekend - apply by Feb 1st, 2026!

Do you want to go to EuroBSDCon https://2026.eurobsdcon.org/ but need support to do so?

Or do you know someone in that situation? Apply for the Paul Schenkeveld Travel Grant before February 1st, 2026!

https://eurobsdconfoundation.org/travel-grant.html

#eurobsdcon #netbsd #openbsd #freebsd #conference #travelgrant

System Administration, Week 1: Warming up to EC2

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

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

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

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

#sysadmin #devops #sre

@pu

That's difficult to answer without a concrete idea of what a dependency is.

If it's who develops it, then #GhostBSD's major developers are in Canada, and #MirBSD's major developers are in the E.U./Switzerland.

If it's which BSDs would be unaffected if Microsoft-owned GitHub decided to pull the rug out from underneath them, then the answer is rather different.

Financial dependencies, and WWW/mail/other hosting dependencies, are different again.

#FreeBSD #OpenBSD #MidnightBSD #DragonFlyBSD #NetBSD

@nzbr @nixos_org Very cool! I’ve been wondering about how to do this for ages.

Right now, I can boot #NetBSD from a USB stick, then install NetBSD on to a completely zeroed disk with only binaries generated from source from that USB stick. I do this in part because compiling is a good stress test of a system.

Now if I could build everything on the USB stick from a small, hand-auditable (for certain values of hand) bootstrap, that’d be awesome.

Excellent work! Reading it now :)