Monthly Archive for June, 2009

BSD Magazine – support it

Published on June 30, 2009 in BSD Magazine. 0 Comments

The BSD Magazine has been round for over a year now and has produced some very interesting issues. The editors have now provided a brochure suitable to give away at BSD/Linux events.

Those who’d like to have a look at the magazine without having to commit to a subscription, can now download some articles from the NetBSD issue and the whole OpenBSD-focused issue.

The latest issue is devoted to FreeBSD: A Guide to FreeBSD

Table of Contents:

  • Installing FreeBSD 7.1 with Enhanced Security Jails…
  • OpenSMTPD…
  • Getting a GNOME Desktop on FreeBSD…
  • Packaging Software for OpenBSD – part 2…
  • A Jabber Data Transfer Component…
  • Building a FreeBSD Wireless Router…
  • CPU Scaling on FreeBSD Unix…
  • LDAP Authentication on OpenBSD Boxes…
  • FreeBSD and Snort Intrusion Detection System…
  • Building an Embedded Video Web Server with NetBSD…
  • FreeBSD Tips…
  • Maintaining System Configuration Files Using Subsversion…
  • Q&A about Dtrace…

Already a happy BSD Mag reader? Help us spread the word.

BSDTalk 175 – Michael Dexter and BSDFund

Published on June 30, 2009 in BSD Talk. 1 Comment

Will Backman has uploaded BSDTalk 175 , a 23 minute interview with Michael Dexter of BSD Fund.

This is an interview with Michael Dexter about BSD Fund. They talk about the release of the BSD Fund Visa Credit Card, PCC, and various other projects.

Download as OGG | MP3

Michel Dexter has now announced the Beastie Visa Card. Every time the BSD Fund Visa is used, a small donation is made to BSD Fund to support its programs. Note, that currently the card is only available to US residents.

Sun VirtualBox available as PC-BSD PBI

Published on June 30, 2009 in PC-BSD. 0 Comments

Virtualbox can now be easily installed as PBI on PC-BSD

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Virtualbox PBI

Bordeaux 1.8 for FreeBSD Released

Published on June 30, 2009 in Wine / Bordeaux. 0 Comments

bordeaux group logoBordeaux 1.8 has had many changes on the back end, our build process has been totally rewritten, packaging has been totally rewritten. This release adds Microsoft Office 97, Adobe Photoshop 6 & 7 and Image Ready 3.0 and 7.0 support. The winetricks script has been synced to the latest official release, Steam should now install and run once again, There has also been many small bug fixes and tweaks.

This complete rewrite gives Bordeaux a much more clean and portable codebase, making new improvements much easier to provide. We already have some exciting things in the works for the next release.

Bordeaux 1.8 has been tested against Wine 1.1.22, 1.1.23 and 1.1.24 thus far.

The cost of Bordeaux 1.8 is $20.00. Anyone who has purchased Bordeaux in the past six months is entitled to a free upgrade. Bordeaux comes with six months of upgrades and support and of course a 30-day money back guarantee.

Supported Applications/Games:

  • Microsoft Office 2007
  • Microsoft Office 2003
  • Microsoft Office 2000
  • Microsoft Office 97
  • Microsoft Office Visio 2003
  • Microsoft Office Project 2003
  • Adobe Photoshop 6
  • Adobe Image Ready 3
  • Adobe Photoshop 7
  • Adobe Image Ready 7
  • Adobe Photoshop CS
  • Adobe Photoshop CS2
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 6
  • Steam and Steam based Games

Version 1.8 New Features:

  • Fixed Steam install
  • Removed pygtk, pango requirement
  • Added Microsoft Office 97 support
  • Added Adobe Photoshop 6 support
  • Added Adobe Photoshop 7 support
  • Added Adobe Image Ready 3 support
  • Added Adobe Image Ready 7 support
  • Updated Winetricks scripts

Source: bordeauxgroup.com

iXsystems releases iX-Apollo Extreme Series Workstation

Published on June 24, 2009 in PC-BSD and iXsystems. 2 Comments

iXsystems has unveiled the iX-Apollo Extreme Series, the first fully qualified PC-BSD workstation. The iX-Apollo Extreme Series ships with PC-BSD 7.x Pre-Installed and Pre-Configured. PC-BSD is a complete desktop operating system with a robust feature set including KDE 4.2.2. PC-BSD is inherently virus-resistant thereby offering stability, security and at the same time provides a comfortable user experience.

The iX-Apollo Extreme Series features the latest Intel Core i7 technology with support for up to eight logical cores. It utilizes up to 16GB of DDR3 memory, GigE LAN, 3D capable NVIDIA graphics. Additionally the iX-Apollo Extreme Series is powered by an ultra quiet 500 Watt power supply unit, which is equipped with universal input and active PFC. The power supply is also 80PLUS certified, making it efficient, eco-friendly, and less expensive to operate.

“The workstation gets more than 15,000 frames per second with effects turned off, and sees around 300 fps in Half-Life 2 with video settings maxed out. This Intel® Core™ i7 configuration is the best desktop experience I’ve had so far.  I downloaded Vavle’s Steam client and played Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike Source, and Left 4 Dead using PC-BSD.  I bought Half-Life 2 in 2004, but the Windows PC I had at the time could barely handle it. The load times alone made the game unplayable. Thanks to PC-BSD and some really nice hardware, I was finally able to enjoy the game the way it was intended,”

says James T. Nixon III, Webmaster, iXsystems.

“Aside from the amazing gaming performance, the workstation deploys desktop effects beautifully.  It sits quietly next to my television serving as a PC-BSD ‘Media Center’, making couch-computing the ‘only’ way to go!  Whether you’re writing a white paper in OpenOffice, watching movies with VLC, or enjoying the HD Flash videos on Hulu.com, PC-BSD continues to prove that anything is possible with the right hardware,”

says Ryan Hall, PC-BSD/iX-Apollo User.

FreeNAS 0.7RC1 (Sardaukar) released

Published on June 20, 2009 in FreeNAS. 0 Comments

Volker Theile has announced the availability of FreeNAS 0.7 RC1. This release candidate can be downloaded from here.

Majors changes:

  • Upgrade to FreeBSD 7.2.
  • Include ZFS support.
  • Upgrade iSCSI initiator to 2.1.1.
  • Replace iSCSI target by istgt. Thanks to Daisuke Aoyama for the WebGUI adaption. Please note, if you have used devices with the previous iSCSI target software you have to recreate your target.
  • Add WOL patch for nVidia(nfe(4)) and 3Com(xl(4)).
  • Upgrade mt-daapd/firefly to svn-1696.
  • Refactor ‘Diagnostics|Log’ WebGUI.
  • Add kernel patches to get ARTiGO A2000 hardware working.
  • Respect the modified log file location (via rc.conf for syslog, fuppes, mt-daapd, …) in the WebGUI
  • Upgrade transmission to 1.61. Add ‘Watch directory’ and ‘Extra options’ fields to ‘Services|BitTorrent’ WebGUI.
  • Add entry ‘FTP – Ban module’ to the list of log files in ‘Diagnostics|Log’ if the module is enabled
  • Add ‘iperf’, a tool to measure maximum TCP and UDP bandwidth
  • Add ‘bsnmp-ucd’ module that implements parts of UCD-SNMP-MIB.
  • Add SNMP client tools: bsnmpget, bsnmpset and bsnmpwalk
  • Add ‘Auxiliary parameters’ to ‘Services|SNMP’ that will be added to the end of the snmpd.config file.
  • Upgrade e2fsprogs to 1.41.5.
  • Upgrade rsync to 3.0.6.
  • Upgrade tftp-hpa to 0.49.

Visit the FreeNAS website for the latest info

Source: networkattacheddatastorage.com

Announcement: Two new projects funded by the FreeBSD Foundation

Published on June 19, 2009 in FreeBSD Foundation. 0 Comments

The FreeBSD Foundation has announced they have accepted two project proposals!

AVR32 – 32-bit MIPS Architecture

Arnar Mar Sig has been awarded a grant to develop AVR32 support for FreeBSD. AVR32 is a 32-bit MIPS architecture targeted for low power high throughput embedded applications. The target platform is the NGW100 reference design board from Atmel.

“This work will advance the MIPS support in FreeBSD and our capabilities in building embedded applications,”

said Sam Leffler, The FreeBSD Foundation, Director.

“I’m excited to be able to work on bringing FreeBSD to another architecture and pushing it farther into the embedded market,”

said Arnar Mar Sig, FreeBSD developer.

The project will be completed by August 2009.

FreeBSD Problem Reporting System

Mark Linimon has been awarded a grant to prototype a new problem reporting system for the FreeBSD project.  This project will allow Mark to define the features, look-and-feel, and architecture of a future replacement of the project’s current GNATs based system.  Once the prototype is complete, it will be used to garner input from the FreeBSD community before a production system is implemented.

Mark holds two positions within FreeBSD: one on the Ports Management team (portmgr) and one on the Problem Report Database administration team (bugmeister). He has also written the Ports Monitoring System to correlate data from the package building cluster, the Problem Report Database, the source control repository check-ins, and other sources.

“One of the most frequently requested improvements from the FreeBSD developer community is an improved bug tracking system,”

said Mark Linimon. He also added,

“The design goals of this prototype are to incorporate such features as markedly improved workflow, better categorization, customizable email notifications, and redesigned web pages to make searching and browsing easier. Once the prototype is completed,” Mark added, “it will be circulated amongst the developer community for feedback. I am happy to have the Foundation’s support to work on this project.”

“Problem reporting software is a critical tool for getting feedback from the FreeBSD user community, recording information about defects and missing features in the system, and making our volunteer developers productive,”

said Justin Gibbs, Founder of the FreeBSD Foundation.

“Mark has used manpower and sheer will to overcome the deficiencies in the current problem reporting system, and to make it work for the project.  But our GNATs isn’t fully utilized because of missing features and a clumsy user interface. We’re very excited to help address these problems in a core piece of the FreeBSD project’s infrastructure.”

This project will be completed by the end of June.

I’m sure everybody will join me to congratulate Mark and Arnar on their successful applications. We’re looking forward to AVR32 support for FreeBSD and a new FreeBSD bug reporting system.

Monitis adds support for FreeBSD

Published on June 17, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Monitis Inc., a leading provider of affordable easy-to-use enterprise-class systems management software as a service, today announces release of monitoring agent for FreeBSD.
Monitis monitoring agent is downloadable software, which runs on clients’ machines and collect performance and configuration metrics both for the machine on which they were installed as well as for the whole network. Monitis main application takes measures towards detecting and preventing agent failure. By regularly sending messages from the agents Monitis can determine whether or not there is a problem. If a problem exists, measures will be taken to correct it. Agents don’t ever use local storage, so any data that is collected is filed in a separate database on the main server.

Monitis Linux and Windows agents are widely used by large Monitis community (up to 50,000 users) and now with FreeBSD addition, users may monitor truly heterogeneous and distributed infrastructure. By combining the robustness of agent-based technology with the simplicity of agentless technology Monitis enables effortless systems management for its customers.

About Monitis Performance Monitor

Monitis Performance Monitor is industry leading comprehensive, affordable, scalable, fault and performance management platform. Monitis Performance Monitor monitors, collects and analyzes information from websites, servers, routers, switches, VoIP devices, DNS, databases, processes and any other IP devices providing users with a comprehensive view of their system health. Open sourced Monitis plug-in with powerful API’s allow users to extend Monitis powerful monitoring and management capabilities. Users can be assured of always on reliable service as Monitis Performance Monitor is deployed across the world providing resilient service.

About Monitis

Monitis is a leading provider of affordable performance monitoring and management solution. More than 50,000 customers spanning small businesses, Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and education institutions have chosen Monitis to reduce system downtime, improve IT administrator productivity, and reduce operational expenditure. Monitis is radically changing system monitoring and management landscape by providing easy to use, affordable, flexible (deployment configurations include: shared, internal cloud and external cloud), and simple to manage SaaS performance monitoring and management solution. For more information, visit http://www.monitis.com

Source (information-online.com)

FreeBSD News on Floss.pro

Published on June 16, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

My friend Karl has added the FreeBSD News feed to his site Floss.pro.

Floss.pro is a blogging platform, based on the open-source engine Laconica. There are many micro blogging sites available such as Twitter, Jaiku etc, but Floss.pro is different in that’s set up to promote and blog about open-source software.

If you’re on Twitter you can find me and my feeds @gvanessen

Creating a Network Attached Storage VMware using FreeNAS

Published on June 15, 2009 in FreeBSD and FreeNAS. 0 Comments

This Tutorial will give you a run down on how to create a VMware using FreeNAS. The tutorial comes with screenshots and covers installation of FreeNAS, setting up an iSCSI target and connecting to it from Windows.