Saturday, 18. February 2012
FreeBSD network configuration on Hetzner servers
My current dedicated server provider in Europe is the german company Hetzner. They support FreeBSD but use a non-standard network configuration. It is not very well documented how to properly configure network settings on FreeBSD to have a fully functional IPv4 and IPv6 network. In this article I am giving an example how to configure it properly just with the /etc/rc.conf file.
Continue reading "FreeBSD network configuration on Hetzner servers" »
Monday, 10. October 2011
BSD_day 2011 in Bratislava
This year's Central European BSD_day will be on November 5th, 2011 in my home city Bratislava, Slovakia.
The one-day event is intended for everyone interested in BSD operating systems and is organized by me (Martin Matuška, mm@), Gábor Páli (pgj@) and YNET. Several BSD developers will give a talk, including myself. Entry is free.
More information at the event homepage: http://bsdday.eu/2011
Social network links: Facebook, LinkedIn
The BSDA certification exam will be offered at the event.
More information at the event homepage: http://bsdday.eu/2011
Social network links: Facebook, LinkedIn
The BSDA certification exam will be offered at the event.
Tuesday, 2. August 2011
Article in BSD Magazine: mfsBSD
A new article of mine with the title "mfsBSD – The Swiss Army Knife for FreeBSD system administrators" was published in the August issue of the free online publication BSD Magazine. The target group of this magazine are users and friends of BSD operating systems.
The article contains an introduction to mfsBSD and two tutorials:
1. Installing ZFS-on-root FreeBSD with mfsBSD
2. Setting up network boot with mfsBSD (pxeboot or PXELINUX)
Link to the free issue: BSD Magazine 08/2011
Sunday, 19. June 2011
ZFS v28 for FreeBSD 8.2
The version 28 of the ZFS filesystem has been merged to FreeBSD 8-STABLE as of revision 222741 (June 6th, 2011).
There are many FreeBSD users of 8.2-RELEASE (RELENG_8_2) which may want to take advantage of the new ZFS version (v28) before 8.3-RELEASE.
For these users I am providing a patch against the RELENG_8_2 source tree, updated kernel module and binaries and mfsBSD ISO images for testing and rescue. Continue reading "ZFS v28 for FreeBSD 8.2" »
For these users I am providing a patch against the RELENG_8_2 source tree, updated kernel module and binaries and mfsBSD ISO images for testing and rescue. Continue reading "ZFS v28 for FreeBSD 8.2" »
Thursday, 9. June 2011
Tutorial: FreeBSD network boot with mfsBSD (and pxelinux)
In this tutorial I am going to show how mfsBSD can be booted over the network. This tutorial expects the DHCP server (ISC) and TFTP server to be on a i386/amd64 FreeBSD machine using the same IP adress. If this is not the case, configuration may be different.
What do you need:
What do you need:
- a boot server (DHCP, TFTP) with FreeBSD sources
- mfsBSD (ISO from webpage or self-built)
- some files from a installed sysutils/syslinux port (if you want pxelinux)
- a network bootable (virtual) machine
Thursday, 10. March 2011
FreeBSD Compiler Benchmark: gcc-base vs. gcc-ports vs. clang
Many FreeBSD users (e.g. server admins) are interested in having their binaries run as fast as possible. There many options of improving the speed of the binaries - we can use different compilers and for each compiler different optimizations. But what combination is best for which processor?
We have benchmarked the perl binary compiled with gcc from the FreeBSD base system against gcc from ports and the new clang compiler. We have tested different optimizations on 8 different processors, all on the amd64 platform. The benchmark software we used is the perlbench benchmark running on Perl 5.12.3 on top of FreeBSD 8.2. This benchmark can also be used as a reference for users using other scripting languages (e.g. PHP, Python or Ruby) as these use similiar structures and methods.
We are benchmarking speed of the generated binaries, not the speed of compiling, as this is most important for us. "Compile once, run many." Continue reading "FreeBSD Compiler Benchmark: gcc-base vs...." »
Thursday, 3. March 2011
Backported patches for FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE
FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE was announced on February 24, 2011.
As we have been experiencing some problems we had to install several patches that didn't make it into the release but I consider them important or useful. Most annoying was the swap panic problem, followed by two ZFS problems (page activation if using sendfile(2) and clock_t overflow), so we had to backport these patches to 8.2-RELEASE. Continue reading "Backported patches for FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE" »
Saturday, 26. February 2011
Updated Tutorial: Debian GNU/kFreeBSD in a FreeBSD jail
In my last article about FOSDEM 2011 I wrote about visiting the Debian GNU/kFreeBSD presentation. What I was interested in - if it is possible to run this inside a FreeBSD jail or at least in a chroot. My results have been positive, so in this article I am providing a tutorial how to easily set up a Debian GNU/kFreeBSD jail on FreeBSD. Remember that the functionality may be limited.
Requirements: FreeBSD 8.1+ i386 or amd64, experience with FreeBSD and jail(8) Continue reading "Updated Tutorial: Debian GNU/kFreeBSD in a..." »
Friday, 18. February 2011
Article in BSD Magazine: ZFS and FreeBSD
An article of mine with the title "ZFS and FreeBSD" was published in the February issue of the free online publication BSD Magazine. The target group of this magazine are users and friends of BSD operating systems.
The article summarizes the ZFS features, gives an overview of supported operating systems, provides links to useful resources and gives some FreeBSD tips.
Link to the free PDF issue: BSD Magazine 02/2011
Tuesday, 8. February 2011
FOSDEM 2011 - ZFS talk in BSD devroom
Last weekend (February 5th-6th) I visited the FOSDEM 2011 conference in Bruxelles, Belgium. The conference was crowded and many open source projects have been presenting their latest work. The FreeBSD project (where I am developer at) was present with a stand and I met several co-developers there. There have been lots of interesting talks, I was mainly interested in the Debian GNU/kFreeBSD presentation and the various MySQL and PostgreSQL talks - topics I deal with every day.
On Saturday, February 5th, I held a ZFS talk in the BSD devroom called "ZFS in Open Source Operating Systems" that was based on my previous talks. Download PDF with presentation slides Continue reading "FOSDEM 2011 - ZFS talk in BSD devroom" »
