Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟲/𝟭𝟲 (Valuable News - 2025/06/16) available.

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

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟲/𝟭𝟲 (Valuable News - 2025/06/16) available.

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

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

#BSDCan 2025 conference videos are posted to Youtube.

If you wanted to learn more about #FreeBSD, #OpenBSD, #NETBSD, #HardenedBSD or #DragonflyBSD this is collection of videos is a good place to browse and sample some of the features as they are explained.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeF8ZihVdpFe4u2cwVY8GgxjoFICIYyfY&feature=shared

#BSDCan 2025 Conference Videos are available on Youtube for the 3 tracks.
#BSD #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #NetBSD
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeF8ZihVdpFe4u2cwVY8GgxjoFICIYyfY

@jamesoff

I don't know whether you can get #TianoCore onto a 2. I have it on a #RaspberryPi 4.

It just drops straight in as an armstub in the Pi boot volume. Unlike OpenBSD, the NetBSD install image (for Pi 4, anyway) has enough free space for it.

@jmcwhatever is looking into the #NetBSD boot loader spinners, should you spot that.

Épisode 4 de la saga #NetBSD et #virtualisation avec #NVMM! À très vite sur https://twitch.tv/ahp_nils ! #sysadmin #devops #twitchfr #twitchstreamer #TwitchStreamers #BSD #qemu

Did not get #NetBSD onto my Odroid HC4 at #BSDCan, but thanks to @overeducatedredneck , I better understand some of what isn't working.

Time to try out #NetBSD on the Pi2! Getting some guidance from a little helper for it. #RunBSD #CatsOfMastodon

Alt...

NetBSD first boot kernel messages - with a ginger cat head partially obscuring them

Alt...

A Pi2 in a rainbow case and a mechanical keyboard - with a ginger paw about to tread on a key

It is interesting how the world has historically varied on this, and what the default out of the box settings are.

Visual bells were the rage because they worked well with GUI terminal emulators, and didn't bog a real terminal down with waiting until the sound had finished before it accepted the next bit of output. They were also friendly to one's neighbours sitting on the next desk. (-:

And indeed on #NetBSD for example there's the whole wsbell(4) thing and the idea that a machine doesn't necessarily *have* a tinny speaker to make beeps, because it isn't necessarily a descendant of an IBM PC/XT.

In contrast, Microsoft Windows wants to play sounds seemingly at the drop of a hat; and the ethos has been over the years that all personal computers since at least the PC98 times have sound cards (or mainboard equivalents) and speakers and users always want sounds on, out of the box.

#MicrosoftTerminal defaults to noises rather than flashes.

#ComputerHistory

There is additional scripting incompatibility with the groupmod command.

In the #FreeBSD flavour the -l command-line option renames the group. in the #NetBSD flavour it is the -n command-line option.

So even a more complex pw() shell function that hoists the account name out and puts it at the end, does not work.

The #FreeBSD pw useradd/usermod commands are not compatible in scripts with everyone else's useradd/usermod commands.

With the #NetBSD/#OpenBSD and indeed #Linux shadow-utils useradd/usermod commands, the account name goes last, and it is a syntax error to place it before the options.

With the #FreeBSD pw command, the account name goes first, and it is a syntax error to place it after the options.

So pw() { "$@" ; } doesn't work for making portable scripts.

https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow/blob/master/src/usermod.c#L1272

I wrote a simple gpioctl wrapper with Python in NetBSD RPi configurations. This wrapper cannot change the pin mode. Please configure manually in /etc/gpio.conf

the wrapper:
https://brew.bsd.cafe/maulanahirzan/Python-Useful-Scripts/src/branch/main/NetBSD-GPIO%20Example

config in gpio.conf:
https://github.com/catskillmarina/netbsd-gpio-doc

#NetBSD #arm #gpio #raspberrypi

#Introduction

Hello, my name is Christoff.

I live in Illinois, USA, outside the St. Louis area. Below I'll talk about my technology and creative interests, and a bit about me personally. I'm going to hashtag the heck out of this post.

the whole "deadbeef" thing is the magic number from #Solaris for freed memory. I simply chose .monster TLD because it seemed cool and I like "extended" TLDs.

#Technology

I have been using a OpenBSD, #NetBSD, or #GNU/#Linux since the late 1990s as a primary workstation. I used macOS from 2020 to 2025, switching to the #KDE neon distro (KDE plasma is amazing and KDE isn't bloated anymore, yay!).

My current career is as a #pentester where I break into web applications, IP networks, mobile applications (especially #Android), and people to their face or over the phone; code #malware; write documentation; and enjoy helping clients in a third party contractor/consultant role. I started that job change in 2020, when I earned the #OSCP certification at the height of "#infosec twitter" when I did well there.

Previously I worked for about 20 years as a senior-level programmer, and systems, infrastructure, and database administrator. Burnout was very real and I was extremely bored/unfulfilled.

Now that programming and sysadmin stuff isn't my career, I find I enjoy programming and tinkering again.

I am a big fan of NetBSD and always have been. I am not a huge fan of GNU/Linux but I do appreciate things "just working", even if it is full of closed-source binary blobs and other garbage. It was fun in the 1990s.

I know many programming languages but have been paid professionally to code in #C, #Perl, #Python, #PHP, #Java, and #Groovy for big commercial entities like eBay, small companies, and the US government.

I've maintained 99.99% uptime for a 60MM+ platform for years, including failover and backups (that were regularly tested... you test your failover and backups, right?!).

I always wanted to be a cool C and low-level programmer, which I thought for the longest time was being a kernel programmer, but now I know that isn't the life for me.

Emacs is something I've enjoyed since the beginning and I still can't code a #Lisp well. I'd love to be a cool #lisper with #CommonLisp, but haven't gotten there yet. I'm on the #c64 and #embedded #retrocomputing train now.

#Creative

For creative stuff, I aim to do a lot but tend to hop around as interests take me. I could use some discipline there (someday?).

For #music, I have an electric #bass (Fender Jazz) and electric #guitar. I love #jambands (#GratefulDead, #Phish, #Goose) and that's the type of music I like to play along to.

For #art, I like #acrylic and #watercolor painting. I rarely do it, but think about it a lot and love it when I do it. I don't have any skill or talent, but that's not the point. It's for me and no one else.

For #computing, I am venturing into #C64 #demoscene programming and exploration. Not only was I too poor to get one when I was little but I sorta forgot about it over time. The desire to do cool things in a restricted environment where folks are playing in the sandbox, too, is very exciting and attractive to me. I don't know how to code the #Commodore64 stuff yet, but will! Learning the assembly language (I have zero desire to code in BASIC again and I can just code assembly).

I like #chess, but gave up playing a long time ago. I enjoy following the sport and ChessNetwork (Jerry) is someone I'm a big fan of and got to meet once at a chess club!

#Personal

I live with my soulmate and our five amazing cats in a small town outside St. Louis living a quiet life. Just doing our jobs, taking care of daily life stuff, and enjoying each other and life as much as we can. Ups and downs of life chaos, like anyone else, but we're doing alright!

We enjoy exploring places within driving distance and there are a lot of places to go to.

Currently, we're really into playing two-player games together and just started collecting #boardgames. Right now, we're really digging #SkyTeam, #RoyalGameOfUr, #ForrestShuffle, #SentinelsOfTheMultiverse, and this magnet game I don't know the name of. We have #SpiritIsland and #ArcNova to unwrap and learn. We tried really really hard to get into #ArkhamHorrorTheCardGame but the rules are too complicated and confusing, where it felt like we were doing the wrong thing all the time.

I am 46. I grew up loving Star Wars, Star Trek, #SciFi, reading novels non-stop, horror, and watching movies. I collect classic SciFi books from 1960s and 1970s.

I had two IQ tests as a kid and scored in the genius level. I killed a lot of brain cells from a youth finding myself, grateful for it, but thankfully made it out well. Other than being overweight, my physicals are straight down the middle perfect line (yay, genetics!) and my brain is still in top condition!

I would perhaps describe myself as an extremely curious person, that loves #puzzles and #mysteries, #exploration, figuring out #HumanBehavior like I'm an alien studying humans (I'm good at it, it turns out), that has a keen eye for detail, remembering random little things, and a good listener. I'm fairly adaptable and fluid in most things, which works well for me. My brain works differently than a lot of people, and while frustrating a lot of the time for things I don't understand fully, it is me and serves me well in niches.

Making people laugh makes me happy. I am a #hacker and #tinkerer.

I follow NCAA football #Buckeyes, professional #tennis, and #NFL #ClevelandBrowns. I enjoy it with other people and my other half, but not a huge fan for it solo.

#pinned

The BSDCan streams can be found on Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/@BsdcanOrg along with recordings from earlier conferences.

Also see https://www.bsdcan.org/2025/ for livestream info

#bsdcan #bsd #conference #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #unix #development #devops #freesoftware #libresoftware

The #bsdcan 2025 registration desk is ready for the second day of talks

#conference #freebsd #netbsd #openbsd #freesoftware #libresoftware

Alt...

Two BSDCan organizers with one laptop each, sitting at the registration desk with the table covered in neat stacks of this year's BSDCan T-shirts

Want to speak at EuroBSDcon 2025? You have one week to submit via https://events.eurobsdcon.org/2025/ (until 2025-06-21)

Main conferfence site: https://2025.eurobsdcon.org/, Sponsoring: https://2025.eurobsdcon.org/sponsorship.html

See you in Zagreb!

#eurobsdcon #bsd #conference #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #unix #development #devops #freesoftware #libresoftware @eurobsdcon

Next up at #bsdcan plenary room, "Why (and how) we're migrating many of our servers from Linux to the BSDs" by Stefano Marinelli https://www.bsdcan.org/2025/timetable/timetable-Why-and-how.html #conference #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #freesoftware #libresoftware

Ready for the conference!

#BSDCan #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #RunBSD

Alt...

Photo of a BSDCan 2025 speaker badge for Stefano Marinelli placed on a black tote bag. The badge includes a small cartoon BSD daemon holding a Canadian flag. The tote bag features a larger version of the same BSD mascot holding a trident with the Canadian flag attached. The mascot is red, with green sneakers and a friendly expression. The event location is Ottawa, Canada.

I had a few minutes and tried to install a NetBSD 10.1 VM. I got the standard desktop, but did break it while trying to get LXQt installed.

#NetBSD

There are some things around the edges as yet not implemented or tested. I haven't tested the uhid or ugen realizers yet. But #NetBSD looks the same as #FreeBSD in this regard, and I'm expecting that to be fairly trivial to fix if it just doesn't in fact work straightaway.

And there is still that known gap in the ifconfig command.

Nonetheless, this is a large part done of the porting of #nosh, #djbwares, and #redo not only to NetBSD but to a non-amd64 processor architecture too.

It doesn't look quite right on a 16:9 HDMI display with a 16 by 16 font. It lacks the pixellation and CRT blurring. And the cursor is wrong. So @ColinHaynes still has the better. (-:

But it's not bad for a non-X11 framebuffer Unicode-capable terminal emulator on a #RaspberryPi running #NetBSD with the #CommodorePET and BBC character sets.

#nosh #uservt #unscii

Alt...

A black on white screen running the Z shell, about to run the combination of the setterm and printf that will produce the next screen.

Alt...

A green on black screen pretending to be the power-on display of a Commodore PET.

Alt...

A white on black screen showing Viznut's unscii test file, which has all sorts of graphics and unusual characters in it. The top half of the test is vanilla Unicode. The bottom half tests the earlier Private Use Area versions of the same characters that unscii originally had.

Alt...

A (mostly) white on black screen displaying the rendered Docbook XML version of the manual page for httpd.

(That was the BBC font. This is the #CommodorePET font.)

The various tools from #djbwares are operational and run happily as managed services, including local DNS service, some publicfile services, and synchronizing the #RaspberryPi's clock using Bernstein's sntpclock fed into clockadd.

#nosh #uservt #NetBSD

Alt...

A black on white screen showing a Z shell session running a sequence of commands: the output of svstat on various ttylogin@ services, a DNS lookup of the NS resource record set for the ee domain, a query of a clock using sntpclock and clockview, and system-control showing the status of the ftp4d service and the robots from the Internet attempting to crawl it. Various bits and pieces are in colour, or use italics and underlines.

Alt...

A black on white screen showing a Z shell session running the ps command through unvis to show the PID, PPID, UID, and COMMAND columns of the process table, along with an indented TREE column. The process table has a lot of processes, mostly running cyclog but also several servers and a login session, all below a service manager. The tree line drawing characters are being pulled from a combination of retrocomputing fonts, and do not quite align.

A #nosh user-space virtual terminal being realized onto the HDMI display of a #RaspberryPi running #NetBSD.

The realizer is console-kvt-realizer, and the framebuffer was dumped to PPM format with framebuffer-dump (to be converted to JFIF using netpbm tools). The login screen is a ttylogin@vc3-tty service, managed by service-manager, and using login-envuidgid.

Yes, it is being multiplexed with two others, and has an input method layered on top.

http://jdebp.info/Softwares/nosh/guide/services/head0.html

#uservt

Alt...

A black on white screen showing a login dialogue box titled "Orac's key (activator.kerravons-pocket.example)", with a status bar showing a digital clock, F1=help, netbsd6 as the terminal type, and vc3/tty as the terminal device name.

Do you want to be a #eurobsdcon speaker?

Submit by 2025-06-21 at https://events.eurobsdcon.org/2025/cfp

Do you want to sponsor #eurobsdcon? Go to https://2025.eurobsdcon.org/sponsorship.html

#conference #netbsd #freebsd #openbsd #unixlike #freesoftware #libresoftware

Today's top tip:

There are only 8 KVTs under E in #NetBSD, numbered from zero. No matter how hard one tries, no matter how much debugging there is, configuring things for /dev/ttyE8 simply is not going to work.

(-:

📢 Calling all BSD enthusiasts! 😈⛳️🐡

Have fun at at @bsdcan !!

The call for papers for EuroBSDCon 2025 in Zagreb is still open, and we're looking for your ideas! 🌟

Got a groundbreaking discovery in BSD applications, architecture, or implementation? Or maybe you've cracked the code on performance and security? We want to hear from you!

Don't miss this chance to share your insights on:
- Applications: Show us how BSD-based systems are solving real-world problems!
- Architecture: Dive deep into the inner workings of BSD.
- Implementation: Share your tips and tricks for making BSD systems purr like a kitten.
- Performance: Help us squeeze every last drop of speed out of BSD.
- Security: Show off your fortress-building skills in the world of BSD.
- Economic or organizational aspects: How BSD is making a difference in the real world.

https://events.eurobsdcon.org/2025/cfp

Let's make EuroBSDCon 2025 the best one yet! See you in Zagreb! 🌟

EuroBSDCon 2025 in Zagreb, Croatia 🇭🇷
September 25-28, 2025

#RUNBSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #EuroBSDCon #EuroBSDCon2025 #BSD #CFP #Conference

Today's top #NetBSD tip:

Don't try to use a tc capability in login.conf. It isn't just ignored. It breaks PAM and no-one will be able to log on.

Secondary tip: Use the -v option to cap_mkdb and check that the record count is as expected.

You're welcome. I cottoned on when there was a very brief flicker of a character at one point, and went looking.

#TianoCore doing that self-recursion for backspace and #NetBSD calling OutputString twice makes enough of a window that the character not being erased yet, can synchronize with the display refresh on rare occasion.

So I expect that some sort of putchar_twiddle() that calls OutputString then SetCursorPosition would likely also cut down twiddling overhead.

#FreeBSD #DragonFlyBSD

A destructive back space, to go alongside a destructive forward space, is an exceedingly unusual but valid choice. There are terminals in the termcap database that did this.

If you want actual madness, however, look to u-boot, where BS is non-destructive *unless* the user is using TrueType fonts, when this code kicks in.

https://github.com/u-boot/u-boot/blob/master/drivers/video/console_truetype.c#L480

Just say no to using the BS character for text effects effects in boot loaders, kids! (-:

#uboot #termcap #NetBSD #FreeBSD #EFI

Dear #NetBSD people:

The reason that the spinners do not work in your boot loader when booted on TianoCore firmware is that, very unusually, #TianoCore has made back space (BS) consistent with forward space (SPC). They are *both* destructive spaces.

https://github.com/tianocore/edk2/blob/master/MdeModulePkg/Universal/Console/GraphicsConsoleDxe/GraphicsConsole.c#L1013

You need to print the BS before printing the spinner character. And do an initial SPC and a final BS.

https://github.com/NetBSD/src/blob/trunk/sys/lib/libsa/twiddle.c#L58

Or drop BS and save and restore the cursor position.

https://uefi.org/specs/UEFI/2.10/12_Protocols_Console_Support.html#efi-simple-text-output-protocol

#EFI #UEFI

@Dendrobatus_Azureus @NebulaTide

I think there's a lot of decision fatigue when moving to a new system. Particularly if someone's used to a user-friendly system like Ubuntu and boots into a system that requires them to get a configuration just to get a GUI.

Not hating on #FreeBSD*, but one of the things I love about #OpenBSD and #NetBSD is that X11 (for better or for worse, hahaha) is included in the base install, so you get a usable, if adorably archaic-looking GUI upon first boot.

I really waffle back and forth on this kind of thing. There are days that I'm disgusted by the corporatism in the Linux world and feel like running BSD on everything, and there are days when I'm just tired of learning and want to use Kubuntu/Fedora, or at least Debian. XD

** Very serious when I'm saying I'm "not hating." FreeBSD has a TON going for it.

@NebulaTide

Avoidance of monoculture.

Whilst everyone else is being hit by the latest script kiddie fad, some malicious script writer is still scratching xyr head at the subset of target machines that reject the Bashisms, don't have lsof, put some stuff in /usr/local or /usr/pkg, have ftp or fetch rather than wget, and need this weird ifconfig command.

The malevolent have relied upon monoculture for efficient scaling for over 4 decades. Ironically, when BSD was mainstream, the shoe was on the other foot.

Example: In my HTTP servers's logs today, bad actors are assuming that a server accepts its own IP address as a virtual host, and has a /cgi-bin directory or a /.well-known directory. And they're sending HTTP/1.1 GET requests to GOPHER ports. Because they assume a monoculture of HTTP service, even on non-HTTP ports. There are some very obvious *other* attacks, outwith the monoculture, that they could try. But they don't.

#FreeBSD #NetBSD

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟲/𝟬𝟵 (Valuable News - 2025/06/09) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/06/09/valuable-news-2025-06-09/

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

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

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟲/𝟬𝟵 (Valuable News - 2025/06/09) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/06/09/valuable-news-2025-06-09/

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

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

What do people prefer to use for provisioning FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD systems? cloud-init? ansible?

I just need to automatically create a vanilla BSD system with a test user, sshd, and an authorized ssh key pre-installed.

#freebsd #openbsd #netbsd

@mccd #NetBSD is awesome NetBSD>>>>CentOS>>> Linux