Re: new to os
Aloha Lars, You mentioned WP5 in this thread. I have some docs on disks that were created in WP5. You know any FreeBSD based app like abiword that can read them for transfer to a contemporary program? Do you mean Word Perfect ? Wordperfect-8.0 used to run on FreeBSD 3.4-RELEASE was free, while Corel charged for the MS based version ! I have distfile MD5 (GUILG00.GZ) = 386d2c4c1422992e8f8242bd74f3f705 -r--r--r-- 1 jhs staff 23730473 Mar 12 2002 GUILG00.GZ It got taken out of FreeBSD ports/ some years back. http://berklix.com/~jhs/src/bsd/fixes/FreeBSD/ports/jhs/editors/wordperfect/pkg/README.JHS You might need to either: upgrade port to run it on a new BSD run it on an old machine or emulator of an old FreeBSD Cheers, Julian -- Julian Stacey, BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultants Munich http://berklix.com Reply below, not above; Indent with ; Cumulative like a play script. Format: Plain text. Not HTML, multipart/alternative, base64, quoted-printable. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: new to os
On Fri, 19 Aug 2011, Julian H. Stacey wrote: Aloha Lars, You mentioned WP5 in this thread. I have some docs on disks that were created in WP5. You know any FreeBSD based app like abiword that can read them for transfer to a contemporary program? Do you mean Word Perfect ? Wordperfect-8.0 used to run on FreeBSD 3.4-RELEASE was free, while Corel charged for the MS based version ! If I recall correctly, this was a Linux version which ran with Linux compatibility as it was then. Also it only ran with a GUI - the command line version was available for $$$. I have no idea whether it could be persuaded (easily) to run with recent Linux compatibility. I have distfile MD5 (GUILG00.GZ) = 386d2c4c1422992e8f8242bd74f3f705 -r--r--r-- 1 jhs staff 23730473 Mar 12 2002 GUILG00.GZ It got taken out of FreeBSD ports/ some years back. http://berklix.com/~jhs/src/bsd/fixes/FreeBSD/ports/jhs/editors/wordperfect/pkg/README.JHS You might need to either: upgrade port to run it on a new BSD run it on an old machine or emulator of an old FreeBSD Cheers, Julian -- Lars Eighner http://www.larseighner.com/index.html 8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: new to os
Lars Eighner wrote: On Fri, 19 Aug 2011, Julian H. Stacey wrote: Aloha Lars, You mentioned WP5 in this thread. I have some docs on disks that were created in WP5. You know any FreeBSD based app like abiword that can read them for transfer to a contemporary program? Do you mean Word Perfect ? Wordperfect-8.0 used to run on FreeBSD 3.4-RELEASE was free, while Corel charged for the MS based version ! If I recall correctly, this was a Linux version which ran with Linux compatibility as it was then. Yes that sounds plausible, exepecially as reading my URL below I got it from a CDROM on a linux magazine Also it only ran with a GUI .. No idea, only ever tried it with X Windows. - the command line version was available for $$$. It never occured to me a command line version of WordPerfect might exist. The graphical version to run on Microsoft cost money. The Linux version was free, that ran on FreeBSD. I used to tell Microsoft users that with pleasure, as an incentive for them to consider escaping the Microsoft monopoly go to free source OSes (what Corel wanted :-). I have no idea whether it could be persuaded (easily) to run with recent Linux compatibility. Me either, no interest to try. Those who have old WP data can try if they want. Of course, if it was a company who had WordPerfect data to rescue, I'd be willing. I have distfile MD5 (GUILG00.GZ) = 386d2c4c1422992e8f8242bd74f3f705 -r--r--r-- 1 jhs staff 23730473 Mar 12 2002 GUILG00.GZ It got taken out of FreeBSD ports/ some years back. http://berklix.com/~jhs/src/bsd/fixes/FreeBSD/ports/jhs/editors/wordperfect/pkg/README.JHS You might need to either: upgrade port to run it on a new BSD run it on an old machine or emulator of an old FreeBSD Cheers, Julian -- Lars Eighner http://www.larseighner.com/index.html 8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266 Cheers, Julian -- Julian Stacey, BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultants Munich http://berklix.com Reply below, not above; Indent with ; Cumulative like a play script. Format: Plain text. Not HTML, multipart/alternative, base64, quoted-printable. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: TIOCGSERIAL?
Hi again Thanks for a load of replies. At least I know now, why this group is called freebsd-questions and not freebsd-answers. Regards PM W dniu 5 sierpnia 2011 22:01 użytkownik Paweł Michalicki perq...@gmail.comnapisał: Hi First, apologies if this is the wrong group to ask my question. I looked through all the group titles and this one looked suitable. The question is related to programming under FreeBSD. I have a certain device which can be hooked to a PC via RS232 connection. Since my PC does not have a true COM port, I am using an USB-COM converter, which contains the FTDI chip. I wrote a program to handle the communications via the /dev/cuaU0, and all this works very well. The device at the other end has an UART which is capable of wild variety of baudrates, including standard rates of 19200, 38400 and 57600 bits per second. In my program on FreeBSD I am using that last baudrate. However, the wild variety of baudrates which can be used includes also such baudrates as 88, 98, 110 kbps and the highest possible one is 126 kbps (note: no 115,2 kbps). I'd like to use 126 kbps instead of 57,6 kbps. Now, it is possible on Linux using ioctl(TIOCGSERIAL) and ioctl(TIOCSSERIAL). As I understand, using these you can very precisely control the serial baudrate on COM ports (or at least on USB ports with an USB-COM converter hooked up). Sadly, these do not seem available on FreeBSD. My question is: is there any equivalent of TIOCGSERIAL/TIOCSSERIAL available on FreeBSD, or maybe there is some special driver I could load and use? As I've written above, the USB- COM converter I use is the FTDI chip, but the uftdi module does not seem to provide such functionality. I do not want to write my own kernel module or FTDI device driver just for that purpose. The system is FreeBSD 6.4 but (judging from grep -r TIOCGSERIAL on /usr/include) this applies to 8.0 as well. Thanks! ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
wpa_cli issues
Is there any way to undefine a variable once it has been set? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: wpa_cli issues
From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org Fri Aug 19 07:41:44 2011 Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 07:22:34 -0500 From: Zane C. B-H. v.ve...@vvelox.net To: FreeBSD Questions freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: wpa_cli issues Is there any way to undefine a variable once it has been set? *As(stated*, the answer involves the offspring of the mating of a rhinoceros and an elephand. =GUESSING= that you mean a shell 'envionment variable', the answer is 'yes'. _How_ one can do it depends on the shell (*unspecified*!) being used. 'unsetenv' _may_ do the trick. Alternatively a variable assignment with no value (.e.g VARIABLE=) may work. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: wpa_cli issues
On Fri, 19 Aug 2011 09:14:54 -0500 (CDT) Robert Bonomi bon...@mail.r-bonomi.com wrote: From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org Fri Aug 19 07:41:44 2011 Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 07:22:34 -0500 From: Zane C. B-H. v.ve...@vvelox.net To: FreeBSD Questions freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: wpa_cli issues Is there any way to undefine a variable once it has been set? *As(stated*, the answer involves the offspring of the mating of a rhinoceros and an elephand. =GUESSING= that you mean a shell 'envionment variable', the answer is 'yes'. _How_ one can do it depends on the shell (*unspecified*!) being used. 'unsetenv' _may_ do the trick. Alternatively a variable assignment with no value (.e.g VARIABLE=) may work. Blarg? None of these is even vaguely related to my question about wpa_cli, as stated in the subject. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
freebsd-update, fetch once upgrade many machines
Hi, Is it possible to fetch files needed for freebsd-update once and put them on a local fileserver to update many machines? The reason for asking is that all these machines are on secure networks and are not allowed to have Internet access but can all access a common fileserver (using FTP, HTTP, SSH but not NFS). I can safely assume that all these machines run the same version of FreeBSD, installed from binary distributions, GENERIC kernel and only upgraded using freebsd-update. Thanks, Paul Schenkeveld ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
My server is under attack (I think)
I keep seeing a flood of messages when I run dmesg -a that look like this: mail sshd[1831]: warning: /etc/hosts.allow, line 2: can't verify hostname: getaddrinfo(ip223.hichina.com, AF_INET) failed Is there anything I should be doing to make sure the server isn't compromised? It is a mail server running postfix / dovecot I have pf set up and am also running a program called sshguard. I am kind of at a loss. It looks like I am under attack but I don't know what to do about it. Any help is greatly appreciated Thanks in advance Mark Moellering m...@msen.com ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: freebsd-update, fetch once upgrade many machines
2011/8/19 Paul Schenkeveld free...@psconsult.nl: Hi, Is it possible to fetch files needed for freebsd-update once and put them on a local fileserver to update many machines? You can use http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/projects/freebsd-update-server/ The reason for asking is that all these machines are on secure networks and are not allowed to have Internet access but can all access a common fileserver (using FTP, HTTP, SSH but not NFS). I can safely assume that all these machines run the same version of FreeBSD, installed from binary distributions, GENERIC kernel and only upgraded using freebsd-update. Thanks, Paul Schenkeveld ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org -- -- AP ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: My server is under attack (I think)
On 8/19/2011 11:01 AM, Mark Moellering wrote: I keep seeing a flood of messages when I run dmesg -a that look like this: mail sshd[1831]: warning: /etc/hosts.allow, line 2: can't verify hostname: getaddrinfo(ip223.hichina.com, AF_INET) failed Is there anything I should be doing to make sure the server isn't First, look at line 2 of /etc/hosts.allow. Its probably an issue of the scanning IP having a PTR record mismatch. ie. some IP has a PTR record of ip223.hichina.com, but no corresponding A record. When the attacker/scanner hits port 22 of your box, tcpwrappers (as set in /etc/hosts.allow) tries to confirm the PTR record matches the A record, but there is a mismatch, and hence the log message. Take a look at /var/log/auth.log for more info. Its generally a good idea to block all network access as a first rule, and then add specific rules to let people in to just what is needed. So if you only manage the box via ssh from a range of hosts, block all access to ssh and allow it just from those trusted locations. ---Mike -- --- Mike Tancsa, tel +1 519 651 3400 Sentex Communications, m...@sentex.net Providing Internet services since 1994 www.sentex.net Cambridge, Ontario Canada http://www.tancsa.com/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: new to os
On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 03:18:09PM -0700, scott mcclellan wrote: I'm looking to try something different with my machine (or maybe I'm going through a midlife crisis). Currently run Wimdows (point and click), and would like to gravitate back to DOS (this is a thing of the ancient past for me 30 years - on a TRS-80). I know remember extremely little of OS vernacular. Am I biting off more than I can chew, or is there a OS commands for dummies out there, or does FreeBSD have such a critter that one can go through. I am not sure what you are trying to do here. If it is to learn a modern command line oriented system to replace all of the GUI, only can do what the author already thought up stuff like MS, then FreeBSD is a very good choice, probably the best. If it is to really get a DOS or CPM system, then, I think there some DOS emulators that used to work under FreeBSD, but I have never tried them. Some people also promote FreeDOS for this. I'll pour through the FAQ and got hrough the online manuals for now. But it all seems greek. Can someone point me in a diresction to degreek this stuff for me. There are some other tutorials and attempts at documentation out on the net in various places. Google is your friend for these. They can help fill in some of the initial empty spaces. Otherwise, the best thing for learning FreeBSD is to take the FreeBSD Handbook in one hand, an install CD/DVD in another and the keyboard in your remaining hand and do a couple of installs on an otherwise unused machine. Once you get a base system in and running, try some stuff. When you destroy it, install it again. You won't kill it very many times before you have a good handle on it and then find out it is extremely stable and survives pretty harsh mistreatment. Start with the latest RELEASE which is 8.2 and go from there. Just follow the Handbook instructions and it works. jerry Thanks, Scott McClellan ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
BHyve
Hi Does anyone know if there is any progress on this project or how can I track/test it? Thanks you- Regards ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
RE: freebsd-update, fetch once upgrade many machines
Hi, Is it possible to fetch files needed for freebsd-update once and put them on a local fileserver to update many machines? The reason for asking is that all these machines are on secure networks and are not allowed to have Internet access but can all access a common fileserver (using FTP, HTTP, SSH but not NFS). I can safely assume that all these machines run the same version of FreeBSD, installed from binary distributions, GENERIC kernel and only upgraded using freebsd-update. Thanks, Paul Schenkeveld I think the following forum thread could help you out. http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=6672 Gr Johan Hendriks Double L Automatisering ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: My server is under attack (I think)
From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org Fri Aug 19 10:02:30 2011
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 11:01:21 -0400
From: Mark Moellering m...@msen.com
To: FreeBSD freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: My server is under attack (I think)
I keep seeing a flood of messages when I run dmesg -a that look like this:
mail sshd[1831]: warning: /etc/hosts.allow, line 2: can't verify
hostname: getaddrinfo(ip223.hichina.com, AF_INET) failed
This hostname has no IP address in the DNS.
Is there anything I should be doing to make sure the server isn't
compromised? It is a mail server running postfix / dovecot
I have pf set up and am also running a program called sshguard.
I am kind of at a loss. It looks like I am under attack but I don't
know what to do about it. Any help is greatly appreciated
Given that the look-up fails, the connection is automatically denied.
This is routine 'doorknob rattling' by bad guys. if you're getting
a lot of this from a particular netblock, a 'deny all' rule for that
netblock may be indicated. If it's coming from a locale that you expect
no legit traffic from (the Republic of China in this case), you aren't
likely to lose anything 'valuable' by agressive router-level blocking.
I get these kinds of messages all the time for various services -- notably
socks5 and SMTP. I USed to get a lot for SSH, but they dropped to
virtually _zero_ when I move SSH to a 'non-standard' port. This does _NOT_
materially increase the _actual_ security of the system, but it does wonders
for reducing the 'noise' in the logs.
I simply don't worry about the socks5 and/or SMTP 'rattling'.
Socks5 is configured to accept connections only from 'localhost', which is
used to support http tunneling in an SSH session -- *all* external connection
attempts are denied. Unless an attacker can fake 127.0.0.1 packets -- *over*
the 'lo0' interface -- socks won't talk to them. grin
My SMTP daemon is sendmail, w,hich, in conjuction with some custom 'milters'
is fully capable of protecting itself. People that 'doorknob rattle' it
too heavily get manually added to the /etc/hosts.{allow/deny} file.
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Re: new to os
Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com writes: On Fri, 19 Aug 2011, Julian H. Stacey wrote: Aloha Lars, You mentioned WP5 in this thread. I have some docs on disks that were created in WP5. You know any FreeBSD based app like abiword that can read them for transfer to a contemporary program? Do you mean Word Perfect ? Wordperfect-8.0 used to run on FreeBSD 3.4-RELEASE was free, while Corel charged for the MS based version ! If I recall correctly, this was a Linux version which ran with Linux compatibility as it was then. Also it only ran with a GUI - the command line version was available for $$$. I have no idea whether it could be persuaded (easily) to run with recent Linux compatibility. I was checking with google and found http://tldp.org/FAQ/WordPerfect-Linux-FAQ/downloadwp8.html. Most of the links are dead or changed, but a couple of them do have files to download. -- Carl Johnsonca...@peak.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: new to os
On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 10:21:57PM -0500, Lars Eighner wrote: They all have true multiprocessing so you can switch from one command line environment (virtual terminal) to another with a keystroke. Do you mean multitasking here, rather than multiprocessing? -- Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] pgpoABwhzRTgv.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: wpa_cli issues
On 8/19/2011 10:26 AM, Zane C. B-H. wrote: Blarg? None of these is even vaguely related to my question about wpa_cli, as stated in the subject. WTF is 'Blarg'? How about you give us a little more context and offer to converse with us instead of treating us like machines who blindly spit out answers (right or wrong, doesn't matter, you've equated us to machines!) Robert did the best he could with the little bit of information you gave us. Even after reading your e-mail, I was left wondering what variables (with in or without wpa_cli) you were talking about and also jumped to the conclusion of shell environment variables. A rather blunt note for you (and I've learned this first hand). If you are rude on an Open Source mailing-list, the chances of you getting help drop, dramatically. The chances of you getting flamed for your rudeness become guaranteed. -- Chris Brennan -- A: Yes. Q: Are you sure? A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation. Q: Why is top posting frowned upon? http://xkcd.com/84/ | http://xkcd.com/149/ | http://xkcd.com/549/ GPG: D5B20C0C (6741 8EE4 6C7D 11FB 8DA8 9E4A EECD 9A84 D5B2 0C0C) signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Enabling gjournal without destroying a filesystem?
Le Thu, 18 Aug 2011 17:43:41 -0500, Conrad J. Sabatier conr...@cox.net a écrit : Hello, I'm assuming there are definite advantages to using gjournal over softupdates? If the file system is large, it avoids a very long fsck. I use gjournal since 7.2 and never had any problem (and I always shutdown my small soekris box by removing the power plug...) Regards. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: BHyve
On Aug 19, 2011 10:29 AM, Net Warrior netwarrior...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Does anyone know if there is any progress on this project or how can I track/test it? Thanks you- Regards I'm interested in this as well, and I'm hoping that after 9.0 is out the door that we might see a concerted effort (or at least some interest) from developers to push forward with this. -Brandon ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: wpa_cli issues
In the last episode (Aug 19), Zane C. B-H. said: On Fri, 19 Aug 2011 09:14:54 -0500 (CDT) Robert Bonomi bon...@mail.r-bonomi.com wrote: From: Zane C. B-H. v.ve...@vvelox.net Is there any way to undefine a variable once it has been set? *As(stated*, the answer involves the offspring of the mating of a rhinoceros and an elephand. =GUESSING= that you mean a shell 'envionment variable', the answer is 'yes'. _How_ one can do it depends on the shell (*unspecified*!) being used. 'unsetenv' _may_ do the trick. Alternatively a variable assignment with no value (.e.g VARIABLE=) may work. Blarg? None of these is even vaguely related to my question about wpa_cli, as stated in the subject. wpa_cli only understands a fixed list of variables to set, and it doesn't make sense to undefine them. You can set them back to their default values, but they must have a value. Defaults from looking at the source: EAPOL::heldPeriod = 60 EAPOL::startPeriod = 30 EAPOL::maxStart = 3 EAPOL::authPeriod = 30 dot11RSNAConfigPMKLifetime = 43200 dot11RSNAConfigPMKReauthThreshold = 70 dot11RSNAConfigSATimeout = 60 Running set from within wpa_cli should print these values, too, according to the manpage. -- Dan Nelson dnel...@allantgroup.com ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Can *you* UFS snapshot a filesystem with 9.0-BETA1?
Le Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:22:31 +0100, Hugo Silva h...@barafranca.com a écrit : Hello, I'm wondering. On a virtual machine (amd64 HVM+PV), it's crashing every time. Not sure if this is SNAFU, as I had never used ufs snapshots on freebsd before. After running mksnap_ffs, ssh stops working (a telnet session doesn't show the sshd banner). The ssh session where the command was run from stops responding, the webserver dies and xm console'ing from the dom0 works, but the VM is unresponsive (ie no login prompt on ENTER). Anyone else seeing the same? I've tried in a FreeBSD guest (9.0-beta1/i386) into VirtualBox and I see a LOR (or looks like a LOR), then the system is freezed. This is 100% reproductible. Unfortunatly, I'm not able to dump a panic or to break into the debugger, so a screenshot : http://user.lamaiziere.net/patrick/public/lormksnap.png You should ask on freebsd-current@ Regards. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Enabling gjournal without destroying a filesystem?
On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 1:30 PM, Patrick Lamaiziere patf...@davenulle.org wrote: Le Thu, 18 Aug 2011 17:43:41 -0500, Conrad J. Sabatier conr...@cox.net a écrit : Hello, I'm assuming there are definite advantages to using gjournal over softupdates? http://www.usenix.org/event/usenix2000/general/seltzer.html If the file system is large, it avoids a very long fsck. I use gjournal since 7.2 and never had any problem (and I always shutdown my small soekris box by removing the power plug...) Regards. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Enabling gjournal without destroying a filesystem?
Le Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:18:26 -0400, Alejandro Imass a...@p2ee.org a écrit : hello, I'm assuming there are definite advantages to using gjournal over softupdates? http://www.usenix.org/event/usenix2000/general/seltzer.html gjournal can improve the performances in some cases (small files) : http://osdir.com/ml/freebsd-geom/2006-06/msg00013.html Anyway there was no other way to avoid a long fsck (until SU+Journal in 9.0). Regards. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: wpa_cli issues
On Fri, 19 Aug 2011 13:05:01 -0400 Chris Brennan xa...@xaerolimit.net wrote: On 8/19/2011 10:26 AM, Zane C. B-H. wrote: Blarg? None of these is even vaguely related to my question about wpa_cli, as stated in the subject. WTF is 'Blarg'? How about you give us a little more context and offer to converse with us instead of treating us like machines who blindly spit out answers (right or wrong, doesn't matter, you've equated us to machines!) Robert did the best he could with the little bit of information you gave us. Even after reading your e-mail, I was left wondering what variables (with in or without wpa_cli) you were talking about and also jumped to the conclusion of shell environment variables. A rather blunt note for you (and I've learned this first hand). If you are rude on an Open Source mailing-list, the chances of you getting help drop, dramatically. The chances of you getting flamed for your rudeness become guaranteed. Nothing I said was intended as rude and was phrased in a neutral manner. Personally this knee jerk reaction to assume I was being hostile etc is a lot more annoying and insulting than any thing. As to any confusion as to what I was talking about I am still lost as to how some one would come any thing shell related given wpa_cli was very specifically stated in the subject. I actually though there was a a Robert was trying to be an ass with his reply about shell related stuff given that. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: new to os
per...@pluto.rain.com wrote: Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com wrote: You might, for example, still have your copy of WP 5 -- I do. But printers that work with the printer drivers are now museum pieces ... With the notable exception of PostScript printers. WP5 probably had a driver for the Apple LaserWriter, and -- while actual LaserWriters from that era are in the museum category -- the output from a LaserWriter driver will usually work on newer PostScript printers. ___ Aloha all: Thanks for the many helpful suggestions for WP5 (was ancestor of WP 7 - 8 I think). I'll have plenty ideas to try. ~Al Plant - Honolulu, Hawaii - Phone: 808-284-2740 + http://hawaiidakine.com + http://freebsdinfo.org + + http://aloha50.net - Supporting - FreeBSD 7.2 - 8.0 - 9* + email: n...@hdk5.net All that's really worth doing is what we do for others.- Lewis Carrol ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: wpa_cli issues
On Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:51:16 -0500 Dan Nelson dnel...@allantgroup.com wrote: In the last episode (Aug 19), Zane C. B-H. said: On Fri, 19 Aug 2011 09:14:54 -0500 (CDT) Robert Bonomi bon...@mail.r-bonomi.com wrote: From: Zane C. B-H. v.ve...@vvelox.net Is there any way to undefine a variable once it has been set? *As(stated*, the answer involves the offspring of the mating of a rhinoceros and an elephand. =GUESSING= that you mean a shell 'envionment variable', the answer is 'yes'. _How_ one can do it depends on the shell (*unspecified*!) being used. 'unsetenv' _may_ do the trick. Alternatively a variable assignment with no value (.e.g VARIABLE=) may work. Blarg? None of these is even vaguely related to my question about wpa_cli, as stated in the subject. wpa_cli only understands a fixed list of variables to set, and it doesn't make sense to undefine them. You can set them back to their default values, but they must have a value. Defaults from looking at the source: EAPOL::heldPeriod = 60 EAPOL::startPeriod = 30 EAPOL::maxStart = 3 EAPOL::authPeriod = 30 dot11RSNAConfigPMKLifetime = 43200 dot11RSNAConfigPMKReauthThreshold = 70 dot11RSNAConfigSATimeout = 60 Running set from within wpa_cli should print these values, too, according to the manpage. That is for stuff set via set, but when it comes to the individual network variables, not all of these have a default value other than not defined, AFAIK, and setting them back to the defaults as far as I can tell is impossible for some. A example of this is the bssid variable. Once this has been set, I've been unable to find any way to remove it via wpa_cli. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks. :) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: new to os
On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 3:03 PM, Al Plant n...@hdk5.net wrote: per...@pluto.rain.com wrote: [...] Aloha all: Thanks for the many helpful suggestions for WP5 (was ancestor of WP 7 - 8 I think). I'll have plenty ideas to try. Funny thing is that the OP never replied! -- Alejandro Imass ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: My server is under attack (I think)
--On August 19, 2011 11:01:21 AM -0400 Mark Moellering m...@msen.com wrote: I keep seeing a flood of messages when I run dmesg -a that look like this: mail sshd[1831]: warning: /etc/hosts.allow, line 2: can't verify hostname: getaddrinfo(ip223.hichina.com, AF_INET) failed Is there anything I should be doing to make sure the server isn't compromised? It is a mail server running postfix / dovecot I have pf set up and am also running a program called sshguard. I am kind of at a loss. It looks like I am under attack but I don't know what to do about it. Any help is greatly appreciated Thanks in advance As others have pointed out, this is routine probing by internet jerks. You have several choices. You can restrict access to ssh to specific IPs or netblocks. You can ignore it and chalk it up to being on the internet. Or, if the people that have access to your server are sophisticated enough that's it's not too much hassle explaining it, you can run ssh on some other port. I chose options 1 2 for a server I maintain. I'd prefer option 3, but I don't want to have to explain it to the owners. They're not very tech savvy. -- Paul Schmehl, Senior Infosec Analyst As if it wasn't already obvious, my opinions are my own and not those of my employer. *** It is as useless to argue with those who have renounced the use of reason as to administer medication to the dead. Thomas Jefferson There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them. George Orwell ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: ZFS and NFS or CIFS
Hi Chris, If you are transferring data from a Windows machine, your best bet would be to use SAMBA. Windows communicates with samba pretty easily. You essentially just mount a network drive, and transfer the files you want. Here are a few links to get you started: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/network-samba.html http://www.freebsddiary.org/samba.php The samba configs are pretty straight forward, you just need to make permissions are correct. Good luck! Regards, Henry On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 1:43 AM, Chris Brennan xa...@xaerolimit.net wrote: Greetings! I have several ZFS volumes set up on my FreeBSD 8.2 (32-bit) server at home and I am trying to figure out how to set up a NFS and/or CIFS share of the various volumes I have created and for the life of me, I can't figure it out. I don't really care which one or both right now (I should learn both). I just have tons and tons of data to move from my Windows desktop to this server and I'd like to use something other then SFTP, even over my LAN, it's very slow. Many thanks to anyone who can point me in the right direction... -- Chris Brennan -- A: Yes. Q: Are you sure? A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation. Q: Why is top posting frowned upon? http://xkcd.com/84/ | http://xkcd.com/149/ | http://xkcd.com/549/ GPG: D5B20C0C (6741 8EE4 6C7D 11FB 8DA8 9E4A EECD 9A84 D5B2 0C0C) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
OpenOSPFd replacing network routes
There's a fundamental difference between OpenBSD and FreeBSD's respective
networking. Specifically, the kernel routing table. In OpenBSD, it is possible
to have multiple routes to the same destination, and are differentiated by
priority. This capability does not exist in FreeBSD.
Let me just get right into the details by outlining a functioning OpenBSD
system, and where FreeBSD's issues are.
This is my example ospfd.conf,
01| router-id 0.0.0.1
02| redistribute connected
03| redistribute static
04| area 0.0.0.0 {
05| interface vlan1
06| }
Below is output from `netstat -rn' taken form an OpenBSD machine before the
OpenOSPFd process was started. The 192.168.11.0/24 network is used to exchange
OSPF information with its neighbours. 192.168.12.0/24 is a connected network to
this host. 192.168.13.0/24 is one hop away (via 192.168.11.2, its only
neighbour).
07| Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Mtu Prio
Iface
08| 127/8 127.0.0.1 UGRS 0 0 33160 8 lo0
09| 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 UH 1 0 33160 4 lo0
10| 192.168.11/24 link#5 UC 0 0 - 4
vlan1
11| 192.168.12/24 link#6 UC 0 0 - 4
vlan2
12| 224/4 127.0.0.1 URS 0 0 33160 8 lo0
And this is `netstat -rn' taken after OpenOSPFd finished negotiating with its
neighbour,
13| Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Mtu Prio
Iface
14| 127/8 127.0.0.1 UGRS 0 0 33160 8 lo0
15| 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 UH 1 0 33160 4 lo0
16| 192.168.11/24 link#5 UC 2 0 - 4
vlan1
17| 192.168.11/24 192.168.11.1 UG 0 0 - 32
vlan1
18| 192.168.11.1 00:50:56:96:00:89 UHLc 1 0 - 4 lo0
19| 192.168.11.2 00:50:56:96:00:90 UHLc 2 7 - 4
vlan1
20| 192.168.12/24 link#6 UC 0 0 - 4
vlan2
21| 192.168.13/24 192.168.11.2 UG 0 0 - 32
vlan1
22| 224/4 127.0.0.1 URS 0 0 33160 8 lo0
Notice there are multiple entries for 192.168.11.0/24 (line #16-17). Line #17
was added by ospfd.
Before continuing, I'm going to paste the equivalent information on FreeBSD's
side, so that we can better compare. Below is `netstat -rn' taken before ospfd
is started,
23| Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Netif Expire
24| 127.0.0.1 link#3 UH 0 139 lo0
25| 192.168.11.0/24 link#1 U 0 0 em0
26| 192.168.11.1 link#1 UHS 0 0 lo0
27| 192.168.12.0/24 link#9 U 0 0 em0_vl
28| 192.168.12.1 link#9 UHS 0 0 lo0
And this is `netstat -rn' taken after OpenOSPFd finished negotiating with its
neighbour,
29| Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Netif Expire
30| 127.0.0.1 link#3 UH 0 147 lo0
31| 192.168.11.0/24 192.168.1.1 U 1 6 em0
32| 192.168.11.1 link#1 UHS 0 0 lo0
33| 192.168.12.0/24 link#9 U 0 0 em0_vl
34| 192.168.12.1 link#9 UHS 0 0 lo0
35| 192.168.13.0/24 192.168.1.2 UG 0 0 em0
36| 192.168.13.1/32 192.168.1.2 UG 0 0 em0
Notice there's only one entry for 192.168.11.0/24 (line #25 got replaced with
line #31).
And that's really the cruft of the issue: in FreeBSD you can only have the one
network route, whereas in OpenBSD, you can have multiple. When a neighbour goes
away in FreeBSD, the 192.168.11.0/24 route gets deleted. In OpenBSD, there's no
negative impact, since there are multiple routes to the same network. Using our
example, line #10 still exists as line #16 in OpenBSD, line #25 gets deleted
and line #31 gets created in FreeBSD.
This isn't really a bug, it's more a difference in capabilities between
FreeBSD's and OpenBSD's respective networking. OpenOSPFd doesn't seem to have
any special considerations for FreeBSD.
The Fix / Workaround
The concept is simple: create an IP alias where the network overlaps the
existing IP/network.
In our example, 192.168.11.0/24 is used to exchange OSPF information. Create an
alias of 192.168.10.1/23. That way when the 192.168.11.0/24 route gets deleted,
the systems will be accessible to each other over the 192.168.10.0/23 route. In
order for this to work as expected, you'll need to make a couple changes to
your ospfd.conf file.
This is the original ospfd.conf file taken from the FreeBSD system,
37| router-id 0.0.0.1
38| redistribute connected
39|
Re: OpenOSPFd replacing network routes
I don't have any experience with *BSD and OSPF, only on Cisco. But I can't
help but wonder if there are not knobs to tune this? Equal costs routes are
pretty common, and although I have not read the RFC on OSPF, I'd be surprised
if ECR are not mandatory.
- Original Message -
From: Danny Srepel [mailto:dsre...@qhrtechnologies.com]
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 06:13 PM
To: 'freebsd-questions@freebsd.org' freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: OpenOSPFd replacing network routes
There's a fundamental difference between OpenBSD and FreeBSD's respective
networking. Specifically, the kernel routing table. In OpenBSD, it is possible
to have multiple routes to the same destination, and are differentiated by
priority. This capability does not exist in FreeBSD.
Let me just get right into the details by outlining a functioning OpenBSD
system, and where FreeBSD's issues are.
This is my example ospfd.conf,
01| router-id 0.0.0.1
02| redistribute connected
03| redistribute static
04| area 0.0.0.0 {
05| interface vlan1
06| }
Below is output from `netstat -rn' taken form an OpenBSD machine before the
OpenOSPFd process was started. The 192.168.11.0/24 network is used to exchange
OSPF information with its neighbours. 192.168.12.0/24 is a connected network to
this host. 192.168.13.0/24 is one hop away (via 192.168.11.2, its only
neighbour).
07| Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Mtu Prio
Iface
08| 127/8 127.0.0.1 UGRS 0 0 33160 8 lo0
09| 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 UH 1 0 33160 4 lo0
10| 192.168.11/24 link#5 UC 0 0 - 4
vlan1
11| 192.168.12/24 link#6 UC 0 0 - 4
vlan2
12| 224/4 127.0.0.1 URS 0 0 33160 8 lo0
And this is `netstat -rn' taken after OpenOSPFd finished negotiating with its
neighbour,
13| Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Mtu Prio
Iface
14| 127/8 127.0.0.1 UGRS 0 0 33160 8 lo0
15| 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 UH 1 0 33160 4 lo0
16| 192.168.11/24 link#5 UC 2 0 - 4
vlan1
17| 192.168.11/24 192.168.11.1 UG 0 0 - 32
vlan1
18| 192.168.11.1 00:50:56:96:00:89 UHLc 1 0 - 4 lo0
19| 192.168.11.2 00:50:56:96:00:90 UHLc 2 7 - 4
vlan1
20| 192.168.12/24 link#6 UC 0 0 - 4
vlan2
21| 192.168.13/24 192.168.11.2 UG 0 0 - 32
vlan1
22| 224/4 127.0.0.1 URS 0 0 33160 8 lo0
Notice there are multiple entries for 192.168.11.0/24 (line #16-17). Line #17
was added by ospfd.
Before continuing, I'm going to paste the equivalent information on FreeBSD's
side, so that we can better compare. Below is `netstat -rn' taken before ospfd
is started,
23| Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Netif Expire
24| 127.0.0.1 link#3 UH 0 139 lo0
25| 192.168.11.0/24 link#1 U 0 0 em0
26| 192.168.11.1 link#1 UHS 0 0 lo0
27| 192.168.12.0/24 link#9 U 0 0 em0_vl
28| 192.168.12.1 link#9 UHS 0 0 lo0
And this is `netstat -rn' taken after OpenOSPFd finished negotiating with its
neighbour,
29| Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Netif Expire
30| 127.0.0.1 link#3 UH 0 147 lo0
31| 192.168.11.0/24 192.168.1.1 U 1 6 em0
32| 192.168.11.1 link#1 UHS 0 0 lo0
33| 192.168.12.0/24 link#9 U 0 0 em0_vl
34| 192.168.12.1 link#9 UHS 0 0 lo0
35| 192.168.13.0/24 192.168.1.2 UG 0 0 em0
36| 192.168.13.1/32 192.168.1.2 UG 0 0 em0
Notice there's only one entry for 192.168.11.0/24 (line #25 got replaced with
line #31).
And that's really the cruft of the issue: in FreeBSD you can only have the one
network route, whereas in OpenBSD, you can have multiple. When a neighbour goes
away in FreeBSD, the 192.168.11.0/24 route gets deleted. In OpenBSD, there's no
negative impact, since there are multiple routes to the same network. Using our
example, line #10 still exists as line #16 in OpenBSD, line #25 gets deleted
and line #31 gets created in FreeBSD.
This isn't really a bug, it's more a difference in capabilities between
FreeBSD's and OpenBSD's respective networking. OpenOSPFd doesn't seem to have
any special considerations for FreeBSD.
The Fix / Workaround
The concept is simple: create an IP alias where the network
Anyway to mount ext4fs?
Is there any port or other means of mount ext4fs? -- Lars Eighner http://www.larseighner.com/index.html 8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: TIOCGSERIAL?
On Fri, 19 Aug 2011, Paweł Michalicki wrote: Thanks for a load of replies. At least I know now, why this group is called freebsd-questions and not freebsd-answers. Don't give up hope. I'm interested but don't have the hardware. Probably the same situation with other people. Might find something useful in this thread: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers/2007-October/022055.html___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
A quality operating system
Hi, I make decisions about hardware and software for those who work with me. Talking with my second in command this morning, we reached a quandary. Ron is completely pro-Linux and pro-Windows, and against FreeBSD. What is odd about this is that he's the biggest UNIX fanatic I know, not only all types of UNIX (dating back quite some time) but also all Unix-like OSen. I told him I was considering FreeBSD because of greater stability and security. He asked me a question that stopped me dead: What is a quality operating system? In his view, and now mine, a quality operating system is reliable, streamlined and clearly organized. Over the past few years, FreeBSD has drifted off-course in this department, in his view. Let me share the points he made that I consider valid (I have deleted two as trivial, and added one of my own): (1) Lack of direction. FreeBSD is still not sure whether it is a desktop OS, or a server OS. It is easy for the developers to say well, it's whatever you want, but this makes the configuration process more involved. This works against people who have to use these operating systems to get anything done. In his view, a crucial metric here is the ability to estimate time required for any task. It may be a wide window, but it should not be as wide as anywhere from 30 minutes to 96 hours. In his experience, FreeBSD varies widely on this front because in the name of keeping options open, standardization of interface and process has been deprecated. (2) Geek culture. Geek culture is the oldest clique on the internet. Their goal is to make friends with no one who is not like them. As a result, they specialize in the arcane, disorganized and ambiguous. This forces people to go through the same hoops they went through. This makes them happy, and drives away people who need to use operating systems to achieve real-world results. They reduce a community to hobbyists only. (3) Horrible documentation. This is my specialty and has been since the early 1980s. The FreeBSD documentation is wordy, disorganized, inconsistent and highly selective in what it mentions. It is not the product of professionals but it also not the product of volunteers with a focus on communication. It seems pro-forma, as in, it's in the documentation, so don't bother me. The web site compounds this error by pointing us in multiple directions instead of to a singular resource. It is bad enough that man pages are separate from your main documentation tree, but now you have doubled or trebled the workload required of you without any benefit to the end user. (4) Elitism. To a developer, looking at some inconsistent or buggy interface and thinking, If they can't do this, they don't belong using FreeBSD anyway is too easy of a thought. Yet it looks to me like this happens quite a bit, and this is for the elite has become the default orientation. This is problematic in that there are people out there who are every bit as smart as you, or smarter, but are not specialized in computers. They want to use computers to achieve results; you may want to play around with your computer as an activity, but that is not so for everyone. (5) Hostile community. For the last several weeks, I have been observing the FreeBSD community. Two things stand out: many legitimate questions go ignored, and for others, response is hostile resulting in either incorrect answers, haughty snubs, and in many cases, a refusal to admit when the problem is FreeBSD and not the user. In particular, the community is oblivious to interfaces and chunks of code that have illogical or inconsistent interfaces, are buggy, or whose function does not correspond to what is documented (even in the manpages). (6) Selective fixes. I am guilty of this too, sometimes, but when you hope to build an operating system, it is a poor idea. Programmers work on what they want to work on. This leaves much of the unexciting stuff in a literal non-working state, and the entire community oblivious to it or uncaring. As Ron detailed, huge parts of FreeBSD are like buried land mines just waiting to detonate. They are details that can invoke that 30 minute to 96 hour time period instantly, usually right before you need to get something done. (7) Disorganized website. The part of the FreeBSD project that should set the tone for the community, the FreeBSD website, reflects every one of these criticisms. It is inconsistent and often disorganized; there is no clear path; resources are duplicated and squirreled away instead of organized and made into a process for others to follow. It is arcane, nuanced and cryptic for the purpose of keeping the community elitist, hobbyist and hostile to outsiders. In addition, huge portions of it break on a regular basis and seem to go unnoticed. The attitude of that's for beginners, so we don't need it persists even there. With the graphic design of the website I have no problem, but the arrangement of resources on it reflects a lack of presence
Re: TIOCGSERIAL?
On Fri, 2011-08-05 at 22:01 +0200, Paweł Michalicki wrote: I have a certain device which can be hooked to a PC via RS232 connection. Since my PC does not have a true COM port, I am using an USB-COM converter, which contains the FTDI chip. I wrote a program to handle the communications via the /dev/cuaU0, and all this works very well. The device at the other end has an UART which is capable of wild variety of baudrates, including standard rates of 19200, 38400 and 57600 bits per second. In my program on FreeBSD I am using that last baudrate. What USB--serial adapter are you using? I use the pl2303. The baud rate for devices like the pl2303 is controlled in sys/dev/usb/serial/uplcom.c, I think. Look at uplcom.c, the comments at the top and lines 608..620. -or- grep uplcom_rates sys/dev/usb/serial/* -A10 You can insert your baud rate in that data structure and rebuild the kernel or module. Maybe. tomdean ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: A quality operating system
Well This should spawn some interesting responses. I shall sit back and enjoy - Original Message - From: Evan Busch [mailto:antiequal...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 11:47 PM To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: A quality operating system Hi, I make decisions about hardware and software for those who work with me. Talking with my second in command this morning, we reached a quandary. Ron is completely pro-Linux and pro-Windows, and against FreeBSD. What is odd about this is that he's the biggest UNIX fanatic I know, not only all types of UNIX (dating back quite some time) but also all Unix-like OSen. I told him I was considering FreeBSD because of greater stability and security. He asked me a question that stopped me dead: What is a quality operating system? In his view, and now mine, a quality operating system is reliable, streamlined and clearly organized. Over the past few years, FreeBSD has drifted off-course in this department, in his view. Let me share the points he made that I consider valid (I have deleted two as trivial, and added one of my own): (1) Lack of direction. FreeBSD is still not sure whether it is a desktop OS, or a server OS. It is easy for the developers to say well, it's whatever you want, but this makes the configuration process more involved. This works against people who have to use these operating systems to get anything done. In his view, a crucial metric here is the ability to estimate time required for any task. It may be a wide window, but it should not be as wide as anywhere from 30 minutes to 96 hours. In his experience, FreeBSD varies widely on this front because in the name of keeping options open, standardization of interface and process has been deprecated. (2) Geek culture. Geek culture is the oldest clique on the internet. Their goal is to make friends with no one who is not like them. As a result, they specialize in the arcane, disorganized and ambiguous. This forces people to go through the same hoops they went through. This makes them happy, and drives away people who need to use operating systems to achieve real-world results. They reduce a community to hobbyists only. (3) Horrible documentation. This is my specialty and has been since the early 1980s. The FreeBSD documentation is wordy, disorganized, inconsistent and highly selective in what it mentions. It is not the product of professionals but it also not the product of volunteers with a focus on communication. It seems pro-forma, as in, it's in the documentation, so don't bother me. The web site compounds this error by pointing us in multiple directions instead of to a singular resource. It is bad enough that man pages are separate from your main documentation tree, but now you have doubled or trebled the workload required of you without any benefit to the end user. (4) Elitism. To a developer, looking at some inconsistent or buggy interface and thinking, If they can't do this, they don't belong using FreeBSD anyway is too easy of a thought. Yet it looks to me like this happens quite a bit, and this is for the elite has become the default orientation. This is problematic in that there are people out there who are every bit as smart as you, or smarter, but are not specialized in computers. They want to use computers to achieve results; you may want to play around with your computer as an activity, but that is not so for everyone. (5) Hostile community. For the last several weeks, I have been observing the FreeBSD community. Two things stand out: many legitimate questions go ignored, and for others, response is hostile resulting in either incorrect answers, haughty snubs, and in many cases, a refusal to admit when the problem is FreeBSD and not the user. In particular, the community is oblivious to interfaces and chunks of code that have illogical or inconsistent interfaces, are buggy, or whose function does not correspond to what is documented (even in the manpages). (6) Selective fixes. I am guilty of this too, sometimes, but when you hope to build an operating system, it is a poor idea. Programmers work on what they want to work on. This leaves much of the unexciting stuff in a literal non-working state, and the entire community oblivious to it or uncaring. As Ron detailed, huge parts of FreeBSD are like buried land mines just waiting to detonate. They are details that can invoke that 30 minute to 96 hour time period instantly, usually right before you need to get something done. (7) Disorganized website. The part of the FreeBSD project that should set the tone for the community, the FreeBSD website, reflects every one of these criticisms. It is inconsistent and often disorganized; there is no clear path; resources are duplicated and squirreled away instead of organized and made into a process for others to follow. It is arcane, nuanced and cryptic for the purpose of keeping the community elitist, hobbyist and
