Headlines

FreeBSD ZFS vs. ZoL Performance, Ubuntu ZFS On Linux Reference

With iX Systems having released new images of FreeBSD reworked with their ZFS On Linux code that is in development to ultimately replace their existing FreeBSD ZFS support derived from the code originally found in the Illumos source tree, here are some fresh benchmarks looking at the FreeBSD 12 performance of ZFS vs. ZoL vs. UFS and compared to Ubuntu Linux on the same system with EXT4 and ZFS. Using an Intel Xeon E3-1275 v6 with ASUS P10S-M WS motherboard, 2 x 8GB DDR4-2400 ECC UDIMMs, and Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB NVMe solid-state drive was used for all of this round of testing. Just a single modern NVMe SSD was used for this round of ZFS testing while as the FreeBSD ZoL code matures I'll test on multiple systems using a more diverse range of storage devices. FreeBSD 12 ZoL was tested using the iX Systems image and then fresh installs done of FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE when defaulting to the existing ZFS root file-system support and again when using the aging UFS file-system. Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS with the Linux 4.18 kernel was used when testing its default EXT4 file-system and then again when using the Ubuntu-ZFS ZoL support. Via the Phoronix Test Suite various BSD/Linux I/O benchmarks were carried out. Overall, the FreeBSD ZFS On Linux port is looking good so far and we are looking forward to it hopefully maturing in time for FreeBSD 13.0. Nice job to iX Systems and all of those involved, especially the ZFS On Linux project. Those wanting to help in testing can try the FreeBSD ZoL spins. Stay tuned for more benchmarks and on more diverse hardware as time allows and the FreeBSD ZoL support further matures, but so far at least the performance numbers are in good shape.

DragonFlyBSD 5.4.2 is out

Upgrading guide

Here's the tag commit, for what has changed from 5.4.1 to 5.4.2 The normal ISO and IMG files are available for download and install, plus an uncompressed ISO image for those installing remotely. I uploaded them to mirror-master.dragonflybsd.org last night so they should be at your local mirror or will be soon. This version includes Matt's fix for the HAMMER2 corruption bug he identified recently. If you have an existing 5.4 system and are running a generic kernel, the normal upgrade process will work.

> cd /usr/src
> git pull
> make buildworld.
> make buildkernel.
> make installkernel.
> make installworld
> make upgrade

After your next reboot, you can optionally update your rescue system:

> cd /usr/src
> make initrd

As always, make sure your packages are up to date:

> pkg update
> pkg upgrade

News Roundup

Containing web services with iocell

I'm a huge fan of the FreeBSD jails feature. It is a great system for splitting services into logical units with all the performance of the bare metal system. In fact, this very site runs in its own jail! If this is starting to sound like LXC or Docker, it might surprise you to learn that OS-level virtualization has existed for quite some time. Kudos to the Linux folks for finally getting around to it. 😛 If you're interested in the history behind Jails, there is an excellent talk from Papers We Love on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgN8pCMLI2U

• Getting started

There are plenty of options when it comes to setting up the jail system. Ezjail and Iocage seem popular, or you could do things manually. Iocage was recently rewritten in python, but was originally a set of shell scripts. That version has since been forked under the name Iocell, and I think it's pretty neat, so this tutorial will be using Iocell.

• To start, you'll need the following:
  • A FreeBSD install (we'll be using 11.0)
  • The iocell package (available as a package, also in the ports tree)
  • A ZFS pool for hosting the jails

Once you have installed iocell and configured your ZFS pool, you'll need to run a few commands before creating your first jail. First, tell iocell which ZFS pool to use by issuing iocell activate $POOLNAME. Iocell will create a few datasets.

As you can imagine, your jails are contained within the /iocell/jails dataset. The /iocell/releases dataset is used for storing the next command we need to run, iocell fetch. Iocell will ask you which release you'd like to pull down. Since we're running 11.0 on the host, pick 11.0-RELEASE. Iocell will download the necessary txz files and unpack them in /iocell/releases.

• See Article for the rest of the walkthrough.

Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU8

Today we are releasing the SRU 8 for Oracle Solaris 11.4. It is available via 'pkg update' from the support repository or by downloading the SRU from My Oracle Support Doc ID 2433412.1.

• This SRU introduces the following enhancements:
  • Integration of 28060039 introduced an issue where any firmware update/query commands will log eereports and repeated execution of such commands led to faulty/degraded NIC. The issue has been addressed in this SRU.
  • UCB (libucb, librpcsoc, libdbm, libtermcap, and libcurses) libraries have been reinstated for Oracle Solaris 11.4
  • Re-introduction of the service fc-fabric.
  • ibus has been updated to 1.5.19

• The following components have also been updated to address security issues:
  • NTP has been updated to 4.2.8p12
  • Firefox has been updated to 60.6.0esr
  • BIND has been updated to 9.11.6
  • OpenSSL has been updated to 1.0.2r
  • MySQL has been updated to 5.6.43 & 5.7.25
  • libxml2 has been updated to 2.9.9
  • libxslt has been updated to 1.1.33
  • Wireshark has been updated to 2.6.7
  • ncurses has been updated to 6.1.0.20190105
  • Apache Web Server has been updated to 2.4.38
  • perl 5.22
  • pkg.depot

The Problem with SSH Agent Forwarding

After hacking the matrix.org website today, the attacker opened a series of GitHub issues mentioning the flaws he discovered. In one of those issues, he mentions that “complete compromise could have been avoided if developers were prohibited from using [SSH agent forwarding].” Here’s what man ssh_config has to say about ForwardAgent: "Agent forwarding should be enabled with caution. Users with the ability to bypass file permissions on the remote host (for the agent’s Unix-domain socket) can access the local agent through the forwarded connection. An attacker cannot obtain key material from the agent, however they can perform operations on the keys that enable them to authenticate using the identities loaded into the agent."" Simply put: if your jump box is compromised and you use SSH agent forwarding to connect to another machine through it, then you risk also compromising the target machine! Instead, you should use either ProxyCommand or ProxyJump (added in OpenSSH 7.3). That way, ssh will forward the TCP connection to the target host via the jump box and the actual connection will be made on your workstation. If someone on the jump box tries to MITM your connection, then you will be warned by ssh.

[OpenBSD Upgrade Guide: 6.4 to 6.5

Start by performing the pre-upgrade steps. Next, boot from the install kernel, bsd.rd: use bootable install media, or place the 6.5 version of bsd.rd in the root of your filesystem and instruct the boot loader to boot this kernel. Once this kernel is booted, choose the (U)pgrade option and follow the prompts. Apply the configuration changes and remove the old files. Finish up by upgrading the packages: pkg_add -u. Alternatively, you can use the manual upgrade process. You may wish to check the errata page or upgrade to the stable branch to get any post-release fixes.

• Before rebooting into the install kernel
• Configuration and syntax changes
• Files to remove
• Special packages
• Upgrade without the install kernel

Beastie Bits

• 2019 FreeBSD Community Survey
• Seagate runs Mach.2 demo on FreeBSD
• FreeBSD: Resizing and Growing Disks
• Loading 4.9 on an old Tandy 4025LX - 386, 16MB, 1GB HD. Good old external SCSI CD
• OS108 MATE 20190422 released

Feedback/Questions

• Casey - Oklahoma City & James
• Michael - Question on SAS backplane (camcontrol?)
• Ales - OpenBSD, FreeNAS, OpenZFS questions

• Send questions, comments, show ideas/topics, or stories you want mentioned on the show to feedback@bsdnow.tv

This episode was brought to you by

Headlines

Preorders for cool BSD stuff

• The 2nd edition of The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System is up for preorder
• We talked to GNN briefly about it, but he and Kirk have apparently finally finished the book
• "For many years, The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System has been recognized as the most complete, up-to-date, and authoritative technical guide to FreeBSD's internal structure. Now, this definitive guide has been extensively updated to reflect all major FreeBSD improvements between Versions 5 and Versions 11"
• OpenBSD 5.5 preorders are also up, so you can buy a CD set now
• You can help support the project, and even get the -release of the OS before it's available publicly
• 5.5 is a huge release with lots of big changes, so now is the right time to purchase one of these - tell Austin we sent you! ***

pkgsrcCon 2014 CFP

• This year's pkgsrcCon is in London, on June 21st and 22nd
• There's a Call For Papers out now, so you can submit your talks
• Anything related to pkgsrc is fine, it's pretty informal
• Does anyone in the audience know if the talks will be recorded? This con is relatively unknown ***

BSDMag issue for March 2014

• The monthly BSD magazine releases its newest issue
• Topics this time include: deploying NetBSD using AWS EC2, creating a multi-purpose file server with NetBSD, DragonflyBSD as a backup server, more GIMP lessons, network analysis with wireshark and a general security article
• The Linux article trend seems to continue... hmm ***

Non-ECC RAM in FreeNAS

• We've gotten a few questions about ECC RAM with ZFS
• Here we've got a surprising blog post about why someone did not go with ECC RAM for his NAS build
• The article mentions the benefits of ECC and admits it is a better choice in nearly all instances, but unfortunately it's not very widespread in consumer hardware motherboards and it's more expensive
• Regular RAM also has "special" issues with ZFS and pool corruption
• Long post, so check out the whole thing if you've been considering your memory options and weighing the benefits ***

Interview - Pierre Pronchery - khorben@edgebsd.org / @khorben

EdgeBSD (slides)

Tutorial

Building an OpenBSD desktop

News Roundup

Getting to know your portmgr-lurkers

• This week we get to hear from Frederic Culot, colut@
• Originally an OpenBSD user from France, Frederic joined as a ports committer in 2010 and recently joined the portmgr lurkers team
• "FreeBSD is also one of my sources of inspiration when it comes to how organizations behave and innovate, and I find it very interesting to compare FreeBSD with the for-profit companies I work for"
• We get to find out a little bit about him, why he loves FreeBSD and what he does for the project ***

NetBSD on the Playstation 2

• Who doesn't want to run NetBSD on their old PS2?
• The PS2 port of NetBSD was sadly removed in 2009, but it has been revived
• It's using a slightly unusual MIPS CPU that didn't have much GCC support
• Hopefully a bootable kernel will be available soon ***

The FreeBSD Challenge update

• Our friend from the Linux Foundation continues his FreeBSD switching journey
• This time he starts off by discovering virtual machines suck at keeping accurate time, and some ports weren't working because of his clock being way off
• After polling the IRC for help, he finally learns the difference between ntpdate and ntpd and both of their use cases
• Maybe he should've just read our NTP tutorial! ***

PCBSD weekly digest

• The mount tray icon got lots of updates and fixes
• The faulty distribution server has finally been tracked down and... destroyed
• New language localization project is in progress
• Many many updates to ports and PBIs, new -STABLE builds ***

Feedback/Questions

• Antonio writes in
• Patrick writes in
• Chris writes in
• Ron writes in
• Tyler writes in ***

This episode was brought to you by

Headlines

FreeBSD foundation's 2013 fundraising results

• The FreeBSD foundation finally counted all the money they made in 2013
• $768,562 from 1659 donors
• Nice little blog post from the team with a giant beastie picture
• "We have already started our 2014 fundraising efforts. As of the end of January we are just under $40,000. Our goal is to raise $1,000,000. We are currently finalizing our 2014 budget. We plan to publish both our 2013 financial report and our 2014 budget soon."
• A special thanks to all the BSD Now listeners that contributed, the foundation was really glad that we sent some people their way (and they mentioned us on Facebook) ***

OpenSSH 6.5 released

• We mentioned the CFT last week, and it's finally here!
• New key exchange using elliptic-curve Diffie Hellman in Daniel Bernstein's Curve25519 (now the default when both clients support it)
• Ed25519 public keys are now available for host keys and user keys, considered more secure than DSA and ECDSA
• Funny side effect: if you ONLY enable ed25519 host keys, all the compromised Linux boxes can't even attempt to login lol~
• New bcrypt private key type, 500,000,000 times harder to brute force
• Chacha20-poly1305 transport cipher that builds an encrypted and authenticated stream in one
• Portable version already in FreeBSD -CURRENT, and ports
• Lots more bugfixes and features, see the full release note or our interview with Damien
• Work has already started on 6.6, which can be used without OpenSSL! ***

Crazed Ferrets in a Berkeley Shower

• In 2000, MWL wrote an essay for linux.com about why he uses the BSD license: "It’s actually stood up fairly well to the test of time, but it’s fourteen years old now."
• This is basically an updated version about why he uses the BSD license, in response to recent comments from Richard Stallman
• Very nice post that gives some history about Berkeley, the basics of the BSD-style licenses and their contrast to the GNU GPL
• Check out the full post if you're one of those people that gets into license arguments
• The takeaway is "BSD is about making the world a better place. For everyone." ***

OpenBSD on BeagleBone Black

• Beaglebone Blacks are cheap little ARM devices similar to a Raspberry Pi
• A blog post about installing OpenBSD on a BBB from.. our guest for today!
• He describes it as "everything I wish I knew before installing the newly renamed armv7 port on a BeagleBone Black"
• It goes through the whole process, details different storage options and some workarounds
• Could be a really fun weekend project if you're interested in small or embedded devices ***

Interview - Ted Unangst - tedu@openbsd.org / @tedunangst

OpenBSD's signify infrastructure, ZFS on OpenBSD

Tutorial

Running an NTP server

News Roundup

Getting started with FreeBSD

• A new video and blog series about starting out with FreeBSD
• The author has been a fan since the 90s and has installed it on every server he's worked with
• He mentioned some of the advantages of BSD over Linux and how to approach explaining them to new users
• The first video is the installation, then he goes on to packages and other topics - 4 videos so far ***

More OpenBSD hackathon reports

• As a followup to last week, this time Kenneth Westerback writes about his NZ hackathon experience
• He arrived with two goals: disklabel fixes for drives with 4k sectors and some dhclient work
• This summary goes into detail about all the stuff he got done there ***

X11 in a jail

• We've gotten at least one feedback email about running X in a jail Well.. with this commit, looks like now you can!
• A new tunable option will let jails access /dev/kmem and similar device nodes
• Along with a change to DRM, this allows full X11 in a jail
• Be sure to check out our jail tutorial and jailed VNC tutorial for ideas ***

PCBSD weekly digest

• 10.0 "Joule Edition" finally released!
• AMD graphics are now officially supported
• GNOME3, MATE and Cinnamon desktops are available
• Grub updates and fixes
• PCBSD also got a mention in eweek ***

Feedback/Questions

• Justin writes in
• Daniel writes in
• Martin writes in
• Alex writes in - unofficial FreeBSD RPI Images
• James writes in
• John writes in ***

Headlines

pkgng 1.2 released

• bapt and bdrewery from the portmgr team released pkgng 1.2 final
• New features include an improved build system, plugin improvements, new bootstrapping command, SRV mirror improvements, a new "pkg config" command, repo improvements, vuXML is now default, new fingerprint features and much more
• Really simple to upgrade, check our pkgng tutorial if you want some easy instructions
• It's also made its way into Dragonfly
• See the show notes for the full list of new features and fixes ***

ChaCha20 and Poly1305 in OpenSSH

• Damien Miller recently committed support for a new authenticated encryption cipher for OpenSSH, chacha20-poly1305
• Long blog post explaining what these are and why we need them
• This cipher combines two primitives: the ChaCha20 cipher and the Poly1305 MAC
• RC4 is broken, we needed an authenticated encryption mode to complement AES-GCM that doesn't show the packet length in cleartext
• Great explanation of the differences between EtM, MtE and EaM and their advantages
• "Both AES-GCM and the EtM MAC modes have a small downside though: because we no longer desire to decrypt the packet as we go, the packet length must be transmitted in plaintext. This unfortunately makes some forms of traffic analysis easier as the attacker can just read the packet lengths directly." ***

Is it time to dump Linux and move to BSD

• ITworld did an article about switching from Linux to BSD
• The author's interest was sparked from a review he was reading that said "I feel the BSD communities, especially the FreeBSD-based projects, are where the interesting developments are happening these days. Over in FreeBSD land we have efficient PBI bundles, a mature advanced file system in the form of ZFS, new friendly and powerful system installers, a new package manager (pkgng), a powerful jail manager and there will soon be new virtualization technology coming with the release of FreeBSD 10.0"
• The whole article can be summed up with "yes" - ok, next story! ***

OpenZFS devsummit videos

• The OpenZFS developer summit discussion and presentation videos are up
• People from various operating systems (FreeBSD, Mac OS X, illumos, etc.) were there to discuss ZFS on their platforms and the challenges they faced
• Question and answer session from representatives of every OS - had a couple FreeBSD guys there including one from the foundation
• Presentations both about ZFS itself and some hardware-based solutions for implementing ZFS in production
• TONS of video, about 6 hours' worth
• This leads us into our interview, which is... ***

Interview - George Wilson - wilzun@gmail.com / @zfsdude

OpenZFS

Tutorial

A crash course on ZFS

News Roundup

ruBSD 2013 information

• The ruBSD 2013 conference will take place on Saturday December 14, 2013 at 10:30 AM in Moscow, Russia
• Speakers include three OpenBSD developers, Theo de Raadt, Henning Brauer and Mike Belopuhov
• Their talks are titled "The bane of backwards compatibility," "OpenBSD's pf: Design, Implementation and Future" and "OpenBSD: Where crypto is going?"
• No word on if there will be video recordings, but we'll let you know if that changes ***

DragonFly roadmap, post 3.6

• John Marino posted a possible roadmap for DragonFly, now that they're past the 3.6 release
• He wants some third party vendor software updated from very old versions (WPA supplicant, bmake, binutils)
• Plans to replace GCC44 with Clang, but GCC47 will probably be the primary compiler still
• Bring in fixes and new stuff from FreeBSD 10 ***

BSDCan 2014 CFP

• BSDCan 2014 will be held on May 16-17 in Ottawa, Canada
• They're now accepting proposals for talks
• If you are doing something interesting with a BSD operating system, please submit a proposal
• We'll be getting lots of interviews there ***

casperd added to -CURRENT

• "It (and its services) will be responsible forgiving access to functionality that is not available in capability modes and box. The functionality can be precisely restricted."
• Lists some sysctls that can be controlled ***

ZFS corruption bug fixed in -CURRENT

• Just a quick follow-up from last week, the ZFS corruption bug in FreeBSD -CURRENT was very quickly fixed, before that episode was even uploaded ***

Feedback/Questions

• Chris writes in
• SW writes in
• Jason writes in
• Clint writes in
• Chris writes in ***