Category Archives: FreeBSD based systems

PC-BSD 8.0 – Last alpha version

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PC-BSD LogoLast weekend brought about the latest alpha release of the upcoming PC-BSD 8.0. This is the first build based on FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE, with KDE 4.3.4, NVIDIA driver 195.22 (32-bit and 64-bit drivers included), a re-written system installer, and new artwork.

Here are some of the notable changes:

  • FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE
  • NVIDIA 195.22 drivers
  • KDE 4.3.4
  • brand new SysInstaller with new look and feel, new backend, support for a wider variety of file system layouts, ability to change and try different keyboard layouts
  • install either PC-BSD or FreeBSD from the same disk
  • Using glabel on file systems to prevent issues with device renaming
  • improved splash graphics, theme data
  • fixed KDE printer tool in system settings
  • added new tool, ‘Life Preserver’, which allows backing up the system to a remote SSH + rsync system.

The current PC-BSD alpha is now considered feature complete, with the developers starting to focus on bug fixing rather than on adding new features.

According to the release announcement, a first public beta of PC-BSD 8.0 is expected within the next two weeks.

Please help us test. Feedback can be given on the testing mailing list

FreeNAS ready for the next step – Future of FreeNAS

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freenas logo 100x100Olivier Cochard-Labbé, the original founder of the FreeNAS Project, has indicated that FreeNAS is in need of some big modification to remove some of its current  limitations (one of the biggest is the non support of easly users add-ons).

This will probably require a full-rewrite of the FreeNAS base.

He also mentions that plans with regards to the future of FreeNAS are:

- Volker, the current FreeNAS project leader and main developer, will create a new project called “‘OpenMediaVault” based on a GNU/Linux using all its experience acquired with all its nights and week-ends spent to improve FreeNAS during the last 2 years. He still continue to work on FreeNAS (and try to share its time with this 2 projects).

ixsystems logo- And, a great surprise: iXsystems, a company specialized in professional FreeBSD  products and services, has offered to take FreeNAS under their wings as an open source community driven project. This  mean that they will involve their professionals FreeBSD developers to FreeNAS! Their manpower will permit to do a full-rewriting of FreeNAS.

Olivier will come back to actively work on FreeNAS and begin to upgrade it to FreeBSD 8.0 (that is “production ready” for ZFS).

FreeNAS is a free NAS (Network-Attached Storage) server, supporting: CIFS (samba), FTP, NFS, AFP, RSYNC, iSCSI protocols, S.M.A.R.T., local user authentication, Software RAID (0,1,5) with a Full WEB configuration interface. FreeNAS takes less than 32MB once installed on Compact Flash, hard drive or USB key.

Released: m0n0wall 1.3

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m0n0wall logo 100x100Manuel Kasper has announced m0n0wall 1.3.

“After almost three years in beta, I have decided that m0n0wall 1.3 is now good enough for production. It’s basically a re-release of 1.3b18, with two fixes thrown in. No major bugs have been reported anymore, but as always, upgrade on your own risk .

Major changes in this release (since 1.23):

  • switched base operating system to FreeBSD 6.4
  • consolidated net45xx, net48xx and wrap images into a single ”embedded” image
  • switched bridge implementation to if_bridge: bridge member  interfaces will now always be filtered (the filtering bridge option has been removed)
  • IPv6 support (enable on advanced setup page)
  • firewall support for IPsec traffic
  • IPsec NAT-T, DPD and dynamic tunnels
  • countless bugfixes and other improvements

If you’re upgrading a 1.2 generic-pc installation, you need to install 1.3b7 before you install 1.3 (because the image is too big to fit in the MFS that 1.2 allocates for the firmware upgrade).

If you’re upgrading a 1.2 net45xx/net48xx/wrap installation, you need to rename the embedded image to reflect your platform before you upload it (this is a one time thing only).”

Links:

GhostBSD – Gnome based FreeBSD liveCD

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PC-BSD is currently the best well-knows FreeBSD based OS for desktop use, but it’s  KDE  based. Though there’s a Gnome PBI available, those interested in Gnome as desktop interface may want to have a look at GhostBSD, the Gnome based FreeBSD system for desktop use.

GhostBSD 1.0 has the following new features: Procfs, kernel sound support. Exaile, more Gstreamer plugins, Swfdec plugin, Xchat, cpu run coller.

The website is not finished yet  (can do with some enhancing) and doesn’t have much of background info, but version 1.0 is available for download.

www.ghostbsd.org for details.

PC-BSD and pfSense books

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Authored by pfSense co-founder Chris Buechler and pfSense developer Jim Pingle, The Definitive Guide to pfSense covers installation and basic configuration through advanced networking and firewalling of the popular open source firewall and router distribution.

This book is designed to be a friendly step-by-step guide to common networking and security tasks, plus a thorough reference of pfSense’s capabilities. The Definitive Guide to pfSense covers the following topics:

  • An introduction to pfSense and its features.
  • Hardware and system planning.
  • Installing and upgrading pfSense.
  • Using the web-based configuration interface.
  • Backup and restoration.
  • Firewalling fundamentals and defining and troubleshooting rules.
  • Port forwarding and Network Address Translation.
  • General networking and routing configuration.
  • Bridging, Virtual LANs (VLANs), and Multi-WAN.
  • Virtual Private Networks using IPsec, PPTP, and OpenVPN.
  • Traffic shaping and load balancing.
  • Wireless networking and captive portal setups.
  • Redundant firewalls and High Availability.
  • Various network related services.
  • System monitoring, logging, traffic analysis, sniffing, packet capturing, and troubleshooting.
  • Software package and third-party software installations and upgrades.

The first review of the book is out now.

Congratulations to pfSense for their 5 year anniversary.

pc-bsd logo 100x100Dru Lavigne is currently working on a book on PC-BSD: Definitive Guide to PC-BSD

I’m about 2/3 of the way through book #3 on BSD, tentatively titled “The Definitive Guide to PC-BSD”. This book will be through Apress, and I’m excited that it will include a live DVD of PC-BSD 8.0 so you can follow along as you read it. The book is designed for users new to BSD up to existing PC-BSD/FreeBSD power users. Think of it as the type of book new users can grow into while existing users can still find nuggets of “I didn’t know that”. I’ve also concentrated on the importance of community–a concept new users aren’t used to and most tech books never mention.

Here is the Table of Contents:

Released: FreeNAS 0.7 (Khasadar)

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freenas logo 100x100FreeNAS 0.7  (Khasadar) has been released. Volker announced:

Today i’m proud to announce the release of FreeNAS 0.7. I want to say thanks to all contributors for their help. Please see below the changes done in this version.

You can download the ISO and image files here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/freenas/files/stable/0.7

Majors changes:

  • ability to configure the login shell for a user.
  • Upgrade Samba to 3.0.37.
  • Upgrade transmission to 1.72.
  • Local users must join the group ‘ftp’ to be able to login via FTP if ’Local users only’ in ‘Services|FTP’ is enabled.
  • Upgrade lighttpd to 1.4.23.
  • Add a user portal. This allows a local user to login and change it’s password. The user must have access permissions to login to the user portal. This can be configured in the user configuration WebGUI. Please note that the administrator needs to apply changes done by the local users because there have to be restarted several services (which is not allowed to be done by a user).
  • Upgrade ProFTPD to 1.3.2a.
  • Upgrade iSCSI initiator to 2.2.3.
  • Upgrade fusefs-ntfs/ntfs-3g to 2009.4.4.
  • Announce AFP shares using Bonjour/ZeroConf (FR 2839592).
  • Add AFP FP_SYNCFORK command support (FR 2836955).
  • Upgrade e2fsprogs to 1.41.8.
  • Add Adaptec AACRAID 32/64-bit driver to v5.2.0 Build 17517.
  • Upgrade inadyn-mt to 02.14.10.
  • Upgrade fuppes to SVN-0.640.

Changelog | Download | FreeNAS website