FreeBSD 13.5-BETA3 release, OpenSSH vulnerabilities in FreeBSD, and OpenZFS RAID-Z expansion and more.
Releases
FreeBSD 13.5-BETA3 Available: The third BETA build for the FreeBSD 13.5 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.
BSDSec
FreeBSD Security Advisory: OpenSSH Vulnerabilities (FreeBSD-SA-25:05): The FreeBSD Project has released a security advisory addressing multiple vulnerabilities in OpenSSH. The advisory, FreeBSD-SA-25:05.openssh, details two critical issues: a client host verification error (CVE-2025-26465) and a server denial-of-service vulnerability (CVE-2025-26466). The host verification error allows an attacker to impersonate servers under specific conditions, while the denial-of-service issue can cause resource exhaustion on servers. Affected systems include all supported FreeBSD versions. Users are advised to update to patched versions and restart the SSH daemon to mitigate these risks.
As always, it’s worth following BSDSec. RSS feed and Twitter account available.
News
Valuable News: BSD Updates and UNIX Insights (2025/02/24): The Valuable News series offers a weekly summary of news, articles, and insights primarily focused on UNIX/BSD/Linux systems. This edition highlights key updates such as moving Bhyve VMs and Jail Containers in FreeBSD, FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE schedule, and OpenZFS compression and encryption. It also covers hardware innovations like fanless Intel N150/N355 motherboards and discussions on hardware like RISC-V computers.
143 advertisements of UNIX and its technologies from 1984-1998: The advertisements were published in magazines such as: Sun Expert and Unix World.
GhostBSD 2024 Year-End Finance Report: Community Support and Future Goals: The GhostBSD 2024 Year-End Finance Report highlights the project’s financial status, thanking donors, patrons, and sponsors for their support. Funds were used to maintain infrastructure and support development.
FuguIta: OpenBSD-Based Live System Celebrates 20th Anniversary: FuguIta, an OpenBSD-based live system, marks its 20th anniversary. Initially an experimental project to boot OpenBSD from a CD, it now supports i386, amd64, and arm64 architectures and can be used on various media like DVDs, USB sticks, and SD cards. FuguIta has expanded its use cases from trying OpenBSD to serving as a daily PC environment, server, router, and IoT device. It offers unique features like easy updates, flexible boot modes, and remastering options. The project continues to thrive with community support and regular releases.
BSD Now 599: Core Infrastructure Control: This episode of BSD Now covers essential topics for managing core infrastructure, including DNS setup, laptop support updates, and FreeBSD’s presence at FOSDEM 2025. It also delves into practical guides like uploading messages to an IMAP server using curl, the decline of email forwarding, and insights into VPS management with OpenBSD Amsterdam.
FreeBSD for Embedded Devices: Why It’s the Right Choice: FreeBSD is highlighted as the ideal operating system for embedded devices due to its permissive license, flexibility, and high performance. Unlike Linux, FreeBSD avoids GPL restrictions, allowing developers to modify, integrate, and commercialize solutions without licensing constraints. Its robust community and upstreaming model ensure consistent, high-quality contributions, making it a reliable choice for performance-critical applications. FreeBSD powers major platforms like Netflix and Sony’s PlayStation, demonstrating its versatility and reliability in real-world, high-stakes environments. For embedded systems, FreeBSD offers flexibility, reliability, and a streamlined development experience, making it a superior alternative to Linux for many developers.
1972 UNIX V2 “Beta” Resurrected: Early Kernel Restoration: The article discusses the resurrection of the 1972 UNIX V2 “Beta,” an early UNIX kernel restored from historical tapes. The author details the process of extracting and booting the kernel using emulators, highlighting its unique characteristics, such as supporting both V1 and V2 binaries and having an increased core size. The article also provides download links for the restored RF disk image and explains the challenges faced during the restoration process.
Tutorials
Lazy UEFI Multiboot for Slackware Linux and OpenBSD: This guide explains how to set up a UEFI multiboot system for Slackware Linux and OpenBSD on a single laptop. It covers partitioning the storage, formatting the EFI partition, and installing both operating systems with their respective bootloaders (LILO/ELILO for Slackware and the OpenBSD bootloader). The article also details manual steps to register the OpenBSD bootloader in the UEFI Boot Menu and switch between operating systems.
OpenZFS RAID-Z Expansion: A New Era in Storage Flexibility: The OpenZFS RAID-Z expansion feature now allows users to add disks to a RAID-Z array, addressing a long-standing limitation. This enables incremental storage growth, reducing costs and complexity for users of FreeBSD-based systems. The feature supports all RAID-Z levels (RAID-Z1, RAID-Z2, RAID-Z3) and ensures data redundancy during the expansion process. This development is significant for enterprise environments and NAS systems, providing a flexible and reliable storage solution. The FreeBSD Foundation funded this project, led by ZFS co-creator Matt Ahrens, with rigorous testing and integration efforts.
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