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[Blog] FreeBSD Committer Allan Jude Discusses the Advantages of FreeBSD and His Role in Keeping Millions of Servers Running

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In this blog by Alexandra Leslie, she writes of Allan Jude’s many contributions to the FreeBSD operating system. They discuss his work as a sysdmin, how it has helped to shape the documentation, the maintenance of the large amount of ports & packages, boot environment contributions, and how ZFS helped his video streaming service (ScaleEngine), and more. See the full article at the link below.

FreeBSD-2

TL; DR: Powering platforms like Netflix or your favorite gaming system, FreeBSD is a robust, open-source operating system relied on by millions of sites to serve web pages. Even Mac OSX is based, in part, on FreeBSD. With over 400 volunteer devs at its helm, the FreeBSD Project is a dynamic force that puts the control in administrators’ hands. Project Committer Allan Jude has been a fan of the project since 2002. He discusses the system’s internal structure and the feature functionality that drew him in — contributing to its documentation and then to its development — and what he’s working on now, more than a decade later.

Original post: http://www.hostingadvice.com/blog/freebsd-project-under-the-hood/

RootBSD introduces BSD Developers hosting option

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RootBSD_LogoRootBSD, a host provider for various BSD solutions, has introduced new options for BSD Developers. Check out their website for a full catalog of hosting options, with the Lambda being the most popular: https://www.rootbsd.net/

While other hosting providers offer limited *BSD options, usually Linux and with limited scalability, RootBSD goes online, offering rock-solid *BSD-based hosting services that’s reliable that’s designed to meet the needs of professional and business clients.

OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD are supported by RootBSD. The company offers the global presence in 25 datacenters located in North America, South America, Europe and Asia that boost customers’ global presence and that’s usually offered by hosting providers who are not as *BSD-friendly. Bare metal FreeBSD servers are deployed, instantly, to any of RootBSD’s data centers, no matter where they are.

Full announcement: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/02/prweb13228842.htm

How To Set Up the Unbound Caching DNS Resolver on FreeBSD 10.1

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This tutorial by user Chad Milios (DigitalOcean) shows us how to get Unbound (caching DNS resolver) set up on FreeBSD 10.1. DigitalOcean is a cloud infrastructure that offers many open source platforms, including FreeBSD.

unbound-250

Original: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-the-unbound-caching-dns-resolver-on-freebsd-10-1

Introduction

The system of domain name servers (DNS) is a global hierarchy of databases dedicated to the simple but essential task of looking up host names like www.digitalocean.com and turning them into one or more IP addresses. Whenever an email is sent or a connection to a host is initiated by its name, the DNS system is used. You can read this introduction to the DNS system for more information.

Such an essential and fundamental component of Internet infrastructure gets a lot of use. It is not uncommon for a busy system to make hundreds of name lookups per second or more. If services running on your server perform much work at all behind the scenes then it is likely that security and performance will benefit from verifying and caching within your own systems the name lookups that your service performs to conduct its operations.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to set up a FreeBSD server to remember all DNS lookups in a system-wide cache. Information will automatically expire from this cache, honoring each looked-up domain’s individual policy for rechecking.

Prerequisites

In order to follow this tutorial, you will need:

  • One FreeBSD 10.1 Droplet

Step 1 — Enabling Unbound

FreeBSD 10.1 includes the verifying caching resolver Unbound (version 1.4.22) as part of the base system.

Once you are logged into your server via SSH, enabling FreeBSD’s included resolver is as simple as issuing the following command:

  • sudo sysrc local_unbound_enable=YES

Your Droplet is now configured to start Unbound at the next system reboot.

Step 2 — Starting Unbound

[Read more…]

Atlantic net introduces FreeBSD for cloud vps hosting plans

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atlantic-net-logoORLANDO, FL – September  03, 2014 — Atlantic.Net, a SSD cloud VPS hosting solutions provider, today announced the availability of FreeBSD, a complete operating system used to power modern servers, desktops and embedded platforms to its Orlando, Dallas and Toronto data centers. The new operating system will be made available system wide as part of Atlantic.Net’s full line of operating systems, including Windows Server 2012R, and various flavors of Linux. With FreeBSD, users receive an OS that is committed to delivering the best stability, performance, and functionality.

Atlantic.net is among the first of a new generation of hosting solutions providers to offer a reliable, yet regularly requested substitute for Linux. With this, startups and indie developers alike can now launch their idea for a fraction of the price typically charged – $0.005 per hour – with usage calculated on a per second basis. FreeBSD is a win-win situation that will promote entrepreneurial innovation and the wellbeing of the digital ecosystem.

Check out the full announcement here: https://www.atlantic.net/about-us/press-releases/atlantic-net-introduces-freebsd-for-cloud-vps-hosting-plans/

Related article:

Why Use FreeBSD for Your SSD Cloud VPS Hosting? 10 Reasons https://www.atlantic.net/blog/2014/04/08/freebsd-ssd-cloud-vps-hosting-10-reasons/

FreeBSD OpenStack, FOSDEM, NetApp, EdgeRouter, Google Cloud Engine and more

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Freebsd newsWelcome to the latest (Free)BSD news round-up in which we have a mix of news snippets and links. Just a round-up of those miscellaneous (Free)BSD related links that are newsworthy and which you may find interesting, but are yet too small to package as individual posts.

Some of the links below have already appeared in our Google Plus +FreeBSD Central and Twitter feeds.

FreeBSD on OpenStack
There has not been a complete solution to run FreeBSD instances on OpenStack, until now.
github – 3 Feb 2014

OpenSSH 6.5 has been released
openssh.ort – 30 Jan 2014

Crazed Ferrets in a Berkeley Shower – 2014 edition
Michael Lucas Blog – 29 jan 2014

FOSDEM 2014 Photos
Pictures from the first conference of the year, FOSDEM. Photo credits go to John Hixson from iXsystems.
iXsystems Google+ page – 8 Feb 2014

NetApp and Microsoft: We’re ‘close’ to virtual ONTAP on Azure
The seed for this approach was sown in May 2012, when Microsoft, Citrix and +NetApp announced they would work together to make FreeBSD run as a guest OS under Hyper-V.
The Register – 05 Feb 2014

Time to bid farewell to the old pkg_ tools
Bye bye PKG
freebsdish.org – 3 Feb 2014

Strength of FreeNAS Project Sets iXsystems Apart
Interview with iXsystems CTO Jordan Hubbard
dcig.com – 04 Feb 2014

FreeBSD support in Google Cloud Engine (GCE)
FreeBSD kind of runs on the +Google Cloud Platform,  but there are still a couple of issues, and the process isn’t that straight forward at the moment.

FreeBSD Foundation and iXsystems Collaborate to Further the Cause of High Performance Computing on FreeBSD
Remember MEGACORE, the 1TB of RAM beast? Check out how the FreeBSD Foundation plans to use the powerful machine!

FreeBSD Guides
Screencast tutorials about how to get things done with FreeBSD

FreeBSD 10.0 on Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite
The Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite is a neat little device that costs less than US$100, has three Ethernet ports, and can run FreeBSD/mips.

Clang Is Now Self-Hosting On Linux/FreeBSD SPARC64
Thanks to Jakob’s work on Sparcv9 ABI in Clang and recent changes to Sparc code generator
LLVMDev – 02 Feb 2014

FreeBSD Open-Source OS Comes to the PC-BSD Desktop
While FreeBSD itself could potentially be used as a desktop system, the PC-BSD open-source project is the home base for FreeBSD as a desktop operating system. PC-BSD 10, based on FreeBSD 10 at its core, was officially released on Jan. 29.
Eweek.com – 31 Jan 2014

FreeBSD to support secure boot by mid-year
Support for secure boot will be available in the FreeBSD 10.1 release which is due to be made later this year, according to Marshall Kirk McKusick.
itwire.com – 20 Jan 2014

PC-BSD Weekly Feature Digest 16
Big news this week for the PBI format. Kris has confirmed that a patch has been implemented for the way PBI’s are being built that will shrink the size of PBI’s by approximately 50%.
PC-BSD Blog – 7 Feb 2014

Reliable and Customer Friendly FreeBSD Hosting

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A few months ago there was a discussion on the FreeBSD Central Google+ page about the most reliable and customer friendly hosting company for FreeBSD webhosting.

The following companies were recommended:

If you’re happy with your FreeBSD hosting company, please share with fellow readers and leave a comment below.

 

Setting up your first VPS FAMP Stack

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Diego from RootBSD has put together a handy blog post (Setting Up Your First VPS FAMP Stack) showing how to set up a FAMP stock (FreeBSD, Apache, MySQL, PHP) on a (RootBSD) VPS.

Just 5 easy steps and a bit of configuration and it’s all done.

  • Upgrading Ports Tree Using Portsnap
  • Installing Apache 2.2.x
  • Installing PHP 5.3.x
  • Installing MySQL
  • Additional Modules
  • Finished

RootBSD is a provider of FreeBSD and OpenBSD hosting and VPS Solutions. Having your hosting account with RootBSD gives you ease of mind and full control with all of the advantages from a dedicated server: full root access, customizable environment, and guaranteed hardware resources. Find out more.

Disclosure: freebsdnews.com it affiliated with RootBSD.

CAM Target Layer committed to HEAD

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Ken Merry committed CTL to HEAD for testing earlier this week.

From the commit message:

CTL is a disk and processor device emulation subsystem originally written for Copan Systems under Linux starting in 2003. It has been shipping in Copan (now SGI) products since 2005. It was ported to FreeBSD in 2008, and thanks to an agreement between SGI (who acquired Copan’s assets in 2010) and Spectra Logic in 2010, CTL is available under a BSD-style license. The intent behind the agreement was that Spectra would work to get CTL into the FreeBSD tree.

The FreeBSD Foundation spoke to Ken about the benefits of CTL and this is what he had to say.

Exclusive RootBSD Hosting offer – extended

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Due to popular demand, RootBSD has extended the VPS hosting offer until 5 August.

If you’re interested in running a FreeBSD based website or web services, you will be interested to know that freebsdnews.net has teamed up with RootBSD, giving regular readers a $10 discount when signing up before 6 Aug 2011.

For an affordable and robust virtual server solution you can’t go wrong with RootBSD: There’s no minimum contract and no multiple months upfront payments are required.

RootBSD’s packages start at $19/month, and if you sign up through this link before 1 July and add FBSDNEWS as coupon code, you’ll get $10 off your first month’s payment.

We don’t know if and when RootBSD makes this offer available again.

 

Exclusive RootBSD Hosting offer

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RootBSD is a provider of stable FreeBSD / OpenBSD hosting services and VPS Solutions. The BSD hosting experts can solve your hosting problems from small to large with their bullet-proof VPS and dedicated packages backed by friendly technical support.

RootBSD offers:

If you’re interested in running a FreeBSD based website or web services, you will be interested to know that freebsdnews.net has teamed up with RootBSD, giving regular readers a $10 discount when signing up before 1 Aug 2011.

For an affordable and robust virtual server solution you can’t go wrong with RootBSD: There’s no minimum contract and no multiple months upfront payments are required.

RootBSD’s packages start at $19/month, and if you sign up through this link before 1 July and add FBSDNEWS as coupon code, you’ll get $10 off your first month’s payment.

Ease of mind and full control with all of the advantages from a dedicated server: full root access, customizable environment, and guaranteed hardware resources.