FreeBSD 14.3-RC1 and pfSense 2.8.0 released and more.
Releases
FreeBSD 14.3-RC1 Available: The first release candidate build for the FreeBSD 14.3 release cycle is now available. ISO images for the amd64, i386, powerpc, powerpc64, powerpc64le, powerpcspe, armv6, armv7, aarch64, and riscv64 architectures are FreeBSD mirror sites.
pfSense Community Edition Version 2.8.0: Netgate has released pfSense Community Edition (CE) software version 2.8.0, which includes new features such as Automatic Configuration Backup, a new PPPoE driver, and Kea DHCP feature integration. This update also introduces NAT64 support, gateway fail-back, and system aliases. The release addresses several security issues and includes updates to the operating system and base system components.
BSDSec
No security announcements. As always, it’s worth following BSDSec. RSS feed available.
News
Valuable News Weekly Summary: UNIX/BSD/Linux Updates and More: The ‘Valuable News’ weekly series provides a concise summary of news and articles primarily related to UNIX/BSD/Linux systems. This edition includes updates on various UNIX systems like ClonOS, Oracle Solaris, and FreeBSD, along with insights into their security hardening and use cases.
Three Weeks in Japan: Ultramarathon, Hackathon, and Sightseeing: The author details a three-week trip to Japan that combined an ultramarathon, an OpenBSD hackathon, and sightseeing. The journey began with a week in Tokyo, exploring the city and preparing for the Yatsugatake Nobeyama Highland 68K Ultramarathon. The author and their wife then traveled to Nara for the j2k25 OpenBSD Hackathon, where they worked on various projects including KDE development, system tuning, and port updates. The final week was spent relaxing and sightseeing in Kyoto, Nagoya, and back in Tokyo. Highlights included visiting the Senbon Torii (Thousand Torii Gates) and the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest. The author expressed gratitude to the OpenBSD Foundation and supporters for making the trip possible.
BSD Now 613: DragonflyBSD 6.4.2 Release and Features: This episode of BSD Now covers the release of DragonFly BSD 6.4.2 and various other topics. Key points include isolating containers using ZFS and Linux namespaces, and the community’s support for the zVault upstart. Additionally, the episode discusses upcoming PF tutorials, using SSH authorized keys for connection management, and a PDF brute-force tool for recovering locked files. The episode also delves into the high pricing of SaaS for university departments and invites listener feedback and questions.
Improving openat(2) Functionality in OpenBSD: Theo de Raadt proposes enhancements to the openat(2) family of system calls in OpenBSD to improve their practical utility. The current implementation often falls short due to inefficiencies and lack of security considerations. The proposed changes include introducing flags like O_BELOW and F_BELOW to prevent upward directory traversal, enhancing security and performance. This modification aims to make these system calls more effective and secure, potentially offering a user-level chroot-like functionality. Developers are encouraged to test and provide feedback on these proposed changes.
SysctlTUI is Out: The FreeBSD operating system provides the sysctl system call to get or set the state of the system. The kernel exposes the parameters for sysctl as objects of a Management information Base (MIB). sysctltui is a new Text User Interface sysctl MIB explorer. It allow to view a parameter’s properties and get or set its value.
NetBSD Foundation 2025 AGM Summary: The NetBSD Foundation held its 2025 Annual General Meeting on May 17, featuring presentations from various teams including board, secteam, releng, core, and more. The event took place on the netbsd-agm IRC channel on Libera.Chat. A Q&A session followed the presentations, allowing for open discussion. For those who missed it, the IRC logs are available online. The meeting highlights the ongoing development and community engagement within the NetBSD project.
Tutorials
How to Install IPFS Peer to Peer Networking on FreeBSD: If you are running an IPFS node that serves many requests, such as a public HTTP gateway, IPFS can speed up queries by maintaining long-term connections to IPFS nodes that serve many CIDs. Using IPFS, you can prioritize connections to specific peers called Peering. The Peering process will tell IPFS which peers to prioritize by editing the Peering configuration in your IPFS configuration file.
IPFS offers several advantages including faster data transfer, reduced fault tolerance, and reduced server load. Not only that, IPFS also has the ability to access data even when disconnected from the Internet or when the data server is unavailable.
Automatic ZFS Snapshots with Sanoid on FreeBSD: OpenZFS is a key feature on FreeBSD, allowing users to install a complete root-on-ZFS system. This article focuses on using Sanoid, a tool by Jim Salter, to manage automatic ZFS snapshots on FreeBSD. Sanoid enables users to define custom policies for snapshot frequency and retention, ensuring critical datasets are protected while optimizing storage usage. The article provides an example policy configuration and mentions an Ansible playbook for easy setup. Additionally, it introduces syncoid for transferring snapshots to a separate system for backup purposes.
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