Michael Dexter @dexter@bsd.network
Dexter's Law: Only proprietary software vendors want proprietary software and only fascists want fascism. Toots are my own. Self-employed. Father of three.
I aim to keep this to technical topics relating to bhyve and OpenZFS, and the occasional humor and Latvia.
Joined Apr 2018
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Dexter’s second law: The pendulum that swings twice as high lasts half as long.
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Having spent days making PkgBase easy on #FreeBSD…
The (highly opinionated) Sum Total of computer history:
0. BSD Unix
1. Macintosh
2. Packaged Base in Red Hat 5.2
3. Squiggly underline spell check
4. FreeBSD Jail to manage the fustercluck that are RPMs on Red Hat
5. Two-finger scrolling
6. Hardware-assisted virtualization
7. ZFS v28
8. NVMe
TCP/IP is taken for granted, as it is not vendor/platform-specific.
Flat screen displays are a TV crossover technology, as are WiFi, GPS, and fancy batteries.
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Call For Testing: Major #OccamBSD updates
occambsd.sh - More-consistent syntax
propagate.sh - Propagate PkgBase installs
imagine.sh - Image boot images from the others and upstream
sideload.sh - Push (much of) a #FreeBSD configuration to a new installation
rc.local.sh - Semi-idempotently configure basic aspects of a system
They’re never done, never perfect, but they do exactly what I have envisioned in various ways and given talks about for 20+ years.
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Emerging observations on how lockdown was great for #opensource:
Work from home was blessed as a valid thing
Sci-fi-like casual video conferencing without hesitation around the world is now the norm for some of us, only limited by time zones and languages.
Group video chat is equally familiar and commonplace, with excellent self-policing of audio quality and behavior.
Events are focusing on quality over quantity, complimenting the above.
Basically, the “open source seems to be where drunk guys pinch your butt while mansplaining you” factors were globally nipped in the bud.
Good work everyone!
These are delightful times!
❤️❤️❤️
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Repost: It took time, but #bhyve #hypervisor development is back to a robust pace on both #FreeBSD and #illumos with a good balance of new features and subtle refinement.
I have begun posting recordings of the weekly Jails/Zones, #OpenZFS, and bhyve Production Users calls:
https://youtube.com/@callfortesting
The running minutes documents are linked from https://callfortesting.org
Heads-up: There are many ways to participate and lots to do!
Michael Dexter
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Do you want to come to Brussels, mingle with BSD people, perhaps do a talk, a tutorial or a BOF session?
The Call for papers https://2026.eurobsdcon.org/cfp/ is open until June 20th, for the conference in Brussels September 9-13, 2026.
We also offer pre-submission guidance/mentoring, see within.
Wonder what BSD and the conferences are about? See https://nxdomain.no/~peter/what_is_bsd_come_to_a_conference_to_find_out.html
@EuroBSDCon #freebsd #netbsd #openbsd #freesoftware #libresoftware #brussels #bruxelles
@david_chisnall From today’s bhyve call, @9vlc is looking into making an EDK2 port for the Morello board. Is EDK2 known to be working?
Is this the source of truth?
However, air travel is good for testing the offline behavior of your code…
Michael Dexter
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@hayzam @haddock I ran it with more than 1 CPU.
swtpm socket --tpmstate dir=/var/run/vtpm/win11 --tpm2 --ctrl type=unixio,path=/var/run/vtpm/win11/swtpm-sock
bhyve \
-D \
-S \
-H \
-w \
-c 32 \
-m 64G \
-s 0,hostbridge \
-s 3,nvme,/dev/zvol/zroot/windows \
-s 10,e1000,tap0 \
-s 29,fbuf,tcp=0.0.0.0:5900,w=1024,h=768 \
-s 30,xhci,tablet \
-s 31,lpc,tpm,path=/var/run/vtpm/win11/swtpm-sock \
-l bootrom,/usr/local/share/uefi-firmware/BHYVE_UEFI.fd \
windows
Michael Dexter
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Holly Ukulele! I had Python run some CUDA/Torch stuff on #FreeBSD using the #Nvidia eGPU and the #Linuxulator system 😱 Not in a Jail yet though. Also, the thing runs in a mixed mess of FreeBSD rl9 packages and Container-Base content; because I don't understand how you're supposed to use dnf to install things in /compat/linux. Maybe you're not supposed to... :D
Gotta sort my notes now and try to have it done properly...
Still, kind of happy now.
Michael Dexter
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“I told you so.” https://youtu.be/nB415dkRsYI
Michael Dexter
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Testing as an alternative to base jails and BastilleBSD this weekend ✌️
https://sylve.io/guides/advanced-topics/jailing-sylve/
Michael Dexter
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Could contain bugs but I have added “SBC-IMAGE” support to imagine.sh, proving that the #FreeBSD release engineering infrastructure could easily make root-on-ZFS RockPro64 and friends ARM64 boards. In this case:
doas sh imagine.sh -a arm64 -B quartz64-a -u -p "doas tmux got openrsync" -v
To create an image for a Quartz64 A board with root on ZFS, primarycache=metadata, root/root and freebsd/freebsd users, SSHd and NTPd enabled, four packages, and a VM boot script for use under qemu and bhyve/ARM64.
What if the single board computing experience didn’t suck?
Michael Dexter
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At the risk of losing context, here is the context:
https://bsd.network/@dexter/116208902768648657
Basically, a path forward to joyous, rather a than frustrating single board computer experience with #FreeBSD.
Ignoring the whole fiddling with serial interfaces or buying a 3D printer given that cases might not be available for your board…
Though enabling a user and SSHd per the upstream model helps. Plus NTPd as to make pkg(8) happy and not live in 1970 or 1980.
Michael Dexter
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The OVHcloud fire still smolders
Three years after an OVHcloud data center burned to the ground, more questions than answers about the incident remain
Michael Dexter
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@Althaser/115674242119863157
call for testing
Sylve - FreeBSD management plane
At <https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1rpzri3/call_for_testing_sylve_freebsd_management_plane/>, @hayzam wrote:
＂We just pushed a big update to Sylve and are doing our first call for testing.
Sylve is an open-source control panel for FreeBSD virtualization and storage, designed to manage bhyve VMs, FreeBSD jails, and ZFS from a modern web UI. Development is currently funded by the FreeBSD Foundation. …＂
Docs: https://sylve.io/
Michael Dexter
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#OpenZFS now has much more detailed information about which varieties of Linux are supported.
tl;dr: all kernel.org "longterm" series, all RHEL active & maintenance series (including clones), and Ubuntu LTS.
(No actual change in practice, just trying to write it down a bit more clearly).
https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/?tab=readme-ov-file#supported-kernels-and-distributions
Toots from 05:30. Off to L.A. for the day. 😐
The “BOY HOWDY!” heard around the room:
A #FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT boot environment on a 15.0-RELEASE made with OccamBSD imagine.sh and propagate.sh, which use makefs(8) and mkimg(1) internally, and packaged base…
We can have nice things!
I’m sure there are remaining rough edges but IT CAN BE DONE.
You’re welcome.
Have any ideas why serial output on a Quartz64 A board under #FreeBSD might be a problem some of the time?
Could contain bugs but I have added “SBC-IMAGE” support to imagine.sh, proving that the #FreeBSD release engineering infrastructure could easily make root-on-ZFS RockPro64 and friends ARM64 boards. In this case:
doas sh imagine.sh -a arm64 -B quartz64-a -u -p "doas tmux got openrsync" -v
To create an image for a Quartz64 A board with root on ZFS, primarycache=metadata, root/root and freebsd/freebsd users, SSHd and NTPd enabled, four packages, and a VM boot script for use under qemu and bhyve/ARM64.
What if the single board computing experience didn’t suck?
Dexter's Law: Only proprietary software vendors want proprietary software and only fascists want fascism. Toots are my own. Self-employed. Father of three.
I aim to keep this to technical topics relating to bhyve and OpenZFS, and the occasional humor and Latvia.
Joined Apr 2018
