Larvitz

https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@Larvitz

Linux pays the bills, FreeBSD feeds the soul.
FreeBSD on servers, Linux on workstations, terminals everywhere. Networking, IPv6, firewalls, jails, and all things cleanly engineered.

BLOG: https://blog.hofstede.it
ASN: 201379
LC_LANG: DE,EN
$HOME: https://burningboard.net/@Larvitz

Public Key

npub1ueuurfmw4jgtz5uf3sxwcxdxvz8yx8a7yldnu5cyfwmlt55qz5tslqjlwv

NIP-05 Address

larvitz_at_mastodon.bsd.cafe@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqswv7wp5ah2ey932wyccr8vrxnxprjrr7lz0ke72vzyhdl462qp29cpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dspvwlej

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1ueuurfmw4jgtz5uf3sxwcxdxvz8yx8a7yldnu5cyfwmlt55qz5tslqjlwv

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Last Notes

2026-05-25 21:04:02 UTC

Successfully updated my ThinkPad T480 to FreeBSD 15.1-RC1 :freebsd_logo:
First impression: Solid release!
- WiFi (Intel AX210) stable on 5 GHz (802.11AC) with expected WAN speed.
- Graphics, Audio, USB-C Dock all working fine.
- Factorio Space-Age running perfectly smooth.
All running super well and without unexpected issues :-) Yay!
#freebsd #thinkpad #runbsd #wifi #freebsd15 #t480
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/116/637/198/781/224/920/original/f981f63eb56bbdc4.png

2026-05-25 20:56:19 UTC

Updated my ThinkPad T480 to FreeBSD 15.1-RC1 :freebsd_logo:
First impression: Solid release!
- WiFi (Intel AX210) stable on 5GHZ with expected speed.
- Graphics, Audio USB Dock all working fine.
- Factorio Space-Age running perfectly smooth.
All running super well and without unexpected issues :-) Yay!
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/116/637/198/781/224/920/original/f981f63eb56bbdc4.png

2026-05-25 08:45:08 UTC

Hello there 7.9 :openbsd: 🙂
Updated my OpenBSD based bastion/jump-host to 7.9 without issues. Everything running absolutely fine!
Nice 🥳
#unix #openbsd #runbsd
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/116/634/328/939/654/167/original/66c5f81ea651b5e7.png

2026-05-23 17:07:10 UTC

Hello 15.1-RC1 :freebsd_logo: 🙂 :freebsd_logo:
Everything super stable so far!
#freebsd #runbsd #rc1 #unix
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/116/624/981/337/076/711/original/099b31af6f1b002e.png

2026-05-17 12:48:51 UTC

Giving 15.1-BETA3 a test-run today 🙂 Looking all very good so far! Even on an underpowerd troubleshooting node with just 512MB of memory!
#freebsd #beta #testing #runbsd
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/116/589/989/325/242/890/original/6e2a9591b1afb6e3.png

2026-05-16 20:49:03 UTC

RE: https://burningboard.net/@Larvitz/116584334811849567
Post-mortem from today’s FreeBSD/arm64 outage of my prod web-server:
After reboot, the box appeared to hang around ZFS root/init. Pools imported fine from live media, /sbin/init was valid, old kernel/BE made no difference. There was also a stale GPT signature on a whole-disk ZFS vdev, which made the trail extra noisy.
Actual RCA: a stray " in /etc/rc.conf in my static_routes line. rc.conf is shell, so that broke early boot badly enough that networking never came up and it looked like kernel/ZFS/init trouble.
Fixed syntax, restored ZFS canmount values, jails back online.
Lesson: always run sh -n /etc/rc.conf before rebooting. 🫠
#freebsd #outage #runbsd #oopsie
#note1kw0…ycvr

2026-05-16 19:58:57 UTC

My upgrade process for several full jails on a host:
for jail in $(jls name); do
echo "=== Updating jail: $jail ==="
jexec $jail freebsd-update fetch install
jexec $jail pkg upgrade -y
done
service jail restart
Works, gets the job done and is "good enough".
#freebsd #jails #automation #shell

2026-04-18 08:21:34 UTC

It’s bigger on the inside.
Successfully trapped a Bhyve hypervisor :bhyve: inside a VNET Jail on FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE :freebsd_logo:
Host -> Jail (named 'tardis') -> Hypervisor -> Virtual Machine.
Complete with working dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 routed via pf on the host. Why? Because I needed to isolate the VMs from the host's network, and I apparently enjoy fighting deep-nested devfs rulesets on a Friday night.
#FreeBSD #bhyve #jails #networking #devops #sysadmin
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/116/424/732/297/475/409/original/52c6a988f231d3cf.png

2026-04-16 13:29:20 UTC

Successfully virtualized a MikroTik Router ("Cloud Hosted Router") on FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE with BHYVE :bhyve:
Works absolutely great (920 Gbps throughput on a 1Gbps license!)
#freebsd #mikrotik #routeros #networking
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/116/414/609/802/377/835/original/6d53b99c844e87f5.png

2026-04-14 10:36:45 UTC

Latest quarterly FreeBSD package upgrade broke my Nextcloud 😮‍💨
Post mortem: The new version of php85-pdo_pgsql is now compiled against PostgreSQL 18, not 17. So pkg upgrade removed postgresql17-server, leaving Nextcloud dysfunctional without a database.
Solution:
- Reinstalled postgresql17-server
- Dumped the db with pg_dump
- Installed postgresql18-server & php85-pdo_pgsql
- Copied over pg_hba.conf & postgresql.conf
- Created empty db/user in PG18
- Imported the db dump
- Ran occ maintenance:data-fingerprint
Restarted php-fpm & nginx
All fine again. But that was unpleasant 🙂
#SysAdmin #SelfHosted #FreeBSD #Nextcloud #Postgresql

2026-03-20 20:57:46 UTC

Exciting news. I've just pushed a collection of ports for the #OpenPGP Card ecosystem to Codeberg.
Includes:
- openpgp-card-tools (oct)
- openpgp-card-tools-git (oct-git)
- openpgp-card-ssh-agent
I'm currently polishing them for official submission to the freebsd ports tree this April!
A huge thank you to @npub1ugf…hya8 for these excellent #Rust tools!
https://codeberg.org/Larvitz/freebsd-openpgp-card-ports
#freebsd #Security #Smartcard #Yubikey #Nitrokey #Infosec #RustLang

2026-03-08 13:06:26 UTC

Nice! NAT64 in action, My IPv6-only jail can successfully talk with Github. No tayga, just the new "af-to" feature, that the "pf" firewall got in 15.0-RELEASE:
pass in quick on bastille0 inet6 from $jail_net to 64:ff9b::/96 \
af-to inet from ($ext_if) keep state
This is genuinly nice! 🙂
#freebsd #networking #pf #nat64 #ipv6
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/116/193/697/558/791/499/original/0a1bb6a860ac3152.png

2026-02-09 09:08:44 UTC

Another work week starting :freebsd_logo:
Short one (just 3 days) and the last before I’ll move to another city next week.
#freebsd #workfromhome #SysAdmin
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/116/039/866/959/073/472/original/ee430f231e5b4b41.jpeg

2026-02-06 21:58:15 UTC

New blog post: PF Firewall on FreeBSD - A Practical Guide
After years of running PF across multiple FreeBSD servers, I've written up the patterns that work: macros, tables, brute-force protection, NAT for jails, and dual-stack filtering.
Covers everything from basic concepts to production configs, plus a sidebar on authpf for bastion hosts.
If you're running FreeBSD and want a firewall that's elegant, powerful, and actually understandable, PF is worth your time.
https://blog.hofstede.it/pf-firewall-on-freebsd-a-practical-guide/
#FreeBSD #PF #Firewall #Security #Jails #SysAdmin #IPv6

2026-01-31 17:03:14 UTC

Nice, my parcel from the FreeBSD foundation with some swag did just arrive :freebsd_logo:
#freebsd #swag #bsd @npub1kkf…6dgf
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/990/783/637/306/915/original/3798ab17c3a5203a.jpeg

2026-01-25 19:52:29 UTC

I’ve documented a clean, native way to integrate FreeBSD 15 into a FreeIPA realm. No heavy dependencies, no Python shims, just pure Kerberos (GSSAPI) and nslcd.
We get full SSH SSO, automated home directories, and centralized sudo rules using standard BSD tools. Pure, stateless, and sane.
https://blog.hofstede.it/integrating-freebsd-15-with-freeipa-native-kerberos-and-ldap-authentication/
#FreeBSD #FreeIPA #SysAdmin #Unix #Kerberos #LDAP

2026-01-24 11:24:49 UTC

Just published a deep dive on self-hosting CryptPad on FreeBSD using VNET jails, PF NAT, and Caddy.
End-to-end encrypted collaboration, fully isolated networking, no direct internet exposure for the app jail, and a few real-world gotchas (including the infamous “Loading…” issue).
If you like FreeBSD, jails, and privacy-first self-hosting, this one’s for you.
https://blog.hofstede.it/self-hosted-cryptpad-on-freebsd-with-vnet-jails-and-caddy/
#FreeBSD #SelfHosting #Privacy #Jails #CryptPad

2026-01-19 19:34:38 UTC

My FreeBSD :freebsd_logo: ThinkPad T480 now runs on XLibre.
Migrating over from xorg was simple and painless. Everything running just perfectly. XLibre is available in ports and packages 🙂
#freebsd #xlibre #x11 @npub1wj9…gx3h
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/923/432/229/735/013/original/d8df64c3b1153911.png
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/923/432/599/383/475/original/dd23a908ff12e868.png

2026-01-19 11:33:34 UTC

The Linux version of the game Factorio runs perfectly fine (with solid 60 FPS/UPS) on FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE. Using linux64.ko and the rl9 user-land implementations. Performance is great, even on an 8 year old ThinkPad T480.
$ file factorio
factorio: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, BuildID[sha1]=3e1ef3fc882aecbbebb1c9d2fc5ca064842310fc, for GNU/Linux 3.2.0
On 14.3-RELEASE, I did still run the Windows64 version via wine (the Linux version was flickering), but now the Linux version is running perfectly on FreeBSD.
I'm very happy with how perfectly it works. Love to play that when traveling on in the hotels at business trips.
THE FACTORY MUST GROW!! 🙂 🏭
🎮 :freebsd_logo:
#bsdgaming #gaming #linuxlator #freebsd #runbsd #tinkpad #factorio
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/921/493/120/631/246/original/47fe18fc1b77f989.png
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/921/499/123/909/618/original/8b9feb4bba578904.png
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/921/499/683/311/764/original/551236155393d079.png

2026-01-18 15:49:16 UTC

The best way to reclaim your privacy is to own the infrastructure.
I migrated my email to a hardened FreeBSD setup. Encrypted at rest via ZFS, isolated via Jails, and owned by me. Not a data-mining giant.
If you want to build your own communication hub, here is the blueprint:
https://blog.hofstede.it/self-hosting-email-on-freebsd-a-secure-jailed-setup-with-postfix-and-dovecot/
#DigitalSovereignty #DeGoogle #Privacy #SelfHosted #BSD #Mailserver

2026-01-18 12:37:20 UTC

I self-host my own e-mail servers for ~25 years now. Just finished he migration to a new system today.
- OS: FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE
- MTA: Postfix 3.10
- IMAP: Dovecot 2.3
- Filter: Rspamd 3.14
I used Imapsync to migrate the content of my Mailboxes from the old to the new system. Worked absolutely fine.
Having the E-Mail Jail and the mailbox data on an encrypted ZFS dataset (AES256) that's manually unlocked with my passphrase after rebooting the system. Backups are done via ZFS send/recv to by backup server (-w for raw send to ensure, data is encrypted at rest)
- SPF: ✅
- DKIM Signing: ✅
- DMARC Reporting: ✅
- E-Mail delivery to major providers: ✅
- IPv6 working and actually being used: ✅
All working perfectly well. In about a week, I'll decomission the old Debian based system, that I used since 2017!
#linux #freebsd #sysadmin #selfhosting #email #postfix
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/916/126/379/685/716/original/b6c0a43a7c0ced9c.png

2026-01-15 18:21:00 UTC

Running Mastodon on FreeBSD? Stop using wrapper scripts that break service status.
I've refactored the init scripts for Sidekiq, Puma, and Streaming to be fully production-grade:
- Clean privilege dropping (no su wrappers)
- Native signal handling for log rotation
- Correct PID tracking & status reporting.
I published the scripts and the reasoning behind them in my Codeberg gists:
https://codeberg.org/Larvitz/gists/src/branch/main/2026/20250115-FreeBSD_Mastodon_rc.d.md
I use those to run a Mastodon instance and they're working great so far!
:freebsd_logo: ❤️ 🦣
#FreeBSD #Mastodon #SelfHosting #mastoadmin #runbsd #OpenSource
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/900/494/237/520/243/original/545f50faf516bd58.png

2026-01-13 17:34:53 UTC

New blog post: GeoIP-Aware Firewalling with PF on FreeBSD
Running a mail server means constant brute-force attempts. My solution: geographic filtering. SMTP stays open for global mail delivery, but client ports (IMAP, Submission, webmail) are restricted to Central European IP ranges only.
Result: ~90% reduction in attack logs, cleaner signal-to-noise ratio, smaller attack surface.
Using MaxMind GeoLite2 + PF tables with ~273k CIDR blocks.
https://blog.hofstede.it/geoip-aware-firewalling-with-pf-on-freebsd/
#FreeBSD #InfoSec #SysAdmin #pf #DevOps

2025-12-31 11:09:36 UTC

New blog post: Managing FreeBSD Jails with Ansible.
I wrote jailexec - an Ansible connection plugin that lets you manage FreeBSD jails without running SSH inside each one. It connects to the jail host via SSH and uses jexec to run commands, just like you would manually.
Features:
• Single Python file, easy install
• Supports doas and sudo
• Secure two-stage file transfers
• Works with any jail manager
Blog: https://blog.hofstede.it/managing-freebsd-jails-with-ansible-the-jailexec-connection-plugin/
Code: https://github.com/chofstede/ansible_jailexec
#FreeBSD #Ansible #DevOps #SysAdmin #Jails #Automation

2025-12-28 21:08:28 UTC

Running FreeBSD 15 VM-Image on Proxmox? You might have noticed your cloud-init static IPs are being ignored. 😓
The issue: Proxmox generates legacy cloud-init "v1" configs, but FreeBSD's new nuageinit tool only understands the modern "v2" format. The result is a silent fallback to DHCP (or no IP at all..).
I wrote a shell script to bridge the gap. It runs on the host and generates a custom ISO with the v2 syntax FreeBSD actually expects.
Read the full breakdown and grab the script:
https://blog.hofstede.it/freebsd-15-cloud-init-on-proxmox-working-around-nuageinits-network-config-gap/
#FreeBSD #Proxmox #SysAdmin #CloudInit #Virtualization

2025-12-28 10:28:24 UTC

FreeBSD shorts:
Did you know "ps" can natively display Jail information?
Use the -o flag to customize your columns.
Example (shows Jail ID, Name, PID, User, and resources):
# ps -aux -o jid,jail,pid,%cpu,%mem,command
#freebsd #sysadmin #devops #jails
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/796/715/398/879/928/original/5adca3bbb8043eb6.png

2025-12-25 21:32:26 UTC

Mastodon 4.5 running on FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE with all major services seperated into different VNET Jails, different networks (different bridges, different l2-domains, firewalled by pf).
Did a little writeup about the infrastructure over at https://blog.hofstede.it/migrating-burningboardnet-mastodon-instance-to-a-multi-jail-freebsd-setup/
It's running extremely stable for 30 hours now, migration from the old (Linux) host was a full success!
And of course, everything implemented IPv6 first (It's 2025!) with IPv4+NAT only bolted on where neccesary for legacy-compatibility.
#mastoadmin #freebsd #jails #bastillebsd #runbsd #ipv6
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/782/324/408/623/143/original/3c31a7942db84e2e.png
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/782/341/771/169/460/original/dd235d8f5a449c76.png

2025-12-22 20:09:22 UTC

Migrated the database of my Mastodon instance burningboard.net from Linux to PostgreSQL+Valkey on FreeBSD (+zfs)
All looking perfectly fine :) Although there's quite a lot of activity, the AMD EPYC Rome system is pretty much idling with the load being at 0.28 🙂 :freebsd_logo:
#mastodon #freebsd #postgresql #valkey
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/765/028/135/836/435/original/b98e650785ed0be4.png

2025-12-20 13:22:55 UTC

New blog post: Running a Factorio dedicated server on FreeBSD 🏭
No native port? No problem. The Linuxulator runs Linux binaries seamlessly - Factorio doesn't even know it's not on Linux.
Covered: Bastille jails, rc.d service script, PF firewall rules for IPv4/IPv6.
The factory must grow. Even on FreeBSD.
https://blog.hofstede.it/running-a-factorio-headless-server-on-freebsd-with-the-linuxulator/
#FreeBSD #Factorio #Linuxulator #Gaming #SelfHosted #BastilleBSD

2025-12-14 21:44:52 UTC

I feel dirty :freebsd_logo: 🪟 :bhyve: 😂
I needed some Windows for a (German) tax related application, so just ran it in BHYVE. (Bit slow on the ThinkPad T480, but got the job done!)
#freebsd #bhyve #windows #windows11 #runbsd #unix
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/720/096/091/649/835/original/286a98cc33fb4b7e.png

2025-12-14 13:25:56 UTC

RE: https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@Larvitz/115718085687749256
My latest blog-article is (of course) also available via the Gemini protocol on my personal Gemini capsule:
gemini://gemini.hofstede.it/freebsd_blog_infrastructure.gmi
#freebsd #gemini #geminispace #smallweb
#note12hs…kr63

2025-12-14 13:11:00 UTC

New blog post: Hosting a Static Blog on FreeBSD with Bastille Jails
A deep dive into my self-hosting setup:
- FreeBSD 15.0 with securelevel 2
- Bastille jails for isolation (Caddy, Nginx, deployment gateway)
- PF firewall with strict NAT/RDR rules
- CI/CD via Forgejo Actions with rrsync-restricted deployments
- nullfs mounts for zero-copy file sharing between jails
The "transporter pattern" keeps the blog jail unexposed while enabling automated deploys. Jails remain the most elegant isolation mechanism around.
https://blog.hofstede.it/hosting-a-static-blog-on-freebsd-with-bastille-jails-and-automated-deployment/
#freebsd #bastillebsd #jails #blog #devops #cicd #forgejo

2025-12-13 12:59:09 UTC

Goodbye Linux & Podman, hello FreeBSD & Jails! :freebsd_logo:
Just migrated my blog (https://blog.hofstede.it) to a fully native BSD stack (where my Gemini Capsule was already living).
Stack (using Bastille VNET Jails)
- Caddy (Ingress, TLS, Reverse-Proxy)
- Nginx Jail (Internal. Static file serving)
- PF
The Cool Part: A Zero-Trust CI/CD pipeline.
My Forgejo runner deploys via restricted rrsync into an air-gapped "transporter" jail, which nullfs mounts the web root.
Security: Source-IP restricted, no interactive shells, no PTY.
The simplicity of files-on-disk beats container abstraction every time.
#BastilleBSD #SelfHosted #SysAdmin #IPv6 #ZFS #FreeBSD #RunBSD
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/712/356/440/032/086/original/3d675d83b9fea191.png
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/712/358/195/557/539/original/24db4aee6deb8d34.png

2025-11-30 15:55:54 UTC

Mastodon running on FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE in a Bastille jail. Running really smooth! Less problems than I had anticipated.
Next steps:
- Seperating into multiple jails (Postgres+Valkey, Sidekiq, Puma and Streaming)
Then testing and planning the actual migration of my instance ofer to the new server 🙂
#freebsd #runbsd #mastodon #selfhosted #socialmedia
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/639/461/437/707/637/original/9099deff46e24ba5.png

2025-11-23 12:21:35 UTC

Factorio: Space Age working PERFECTLY under FreeBSD 15.0-RC3 with proper 60fps and really REALLY smooth performance on my Intel iGPU (UHD 620 via drm-66-kmod).
Oh my productivity will be suffer so much from that !!! 🙂
THE FACTORY MUST GROW !!!
#factorio #freebsd #runbsd #freebsd15 #bsdgaming #gaming
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/598/974/410/690/620/original/57176117a136d873.png

2025-11-19 17:42:09 UTC

The headless Factorio game server runs absolute fine on FreeBSD 14.3 via Linuxlator (Linux API compatibility layer) and the linux-base-rl9 userland package :)
The factory must grow !! :-)
#factorio #freebsd #linuxlator #gaming #runbsd @npub1zyt…u6da @npub1gjr…9nul
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/577/591/752/010/481/original/b10e7f463a5b66d8.png

2025-11-12 20:07:15 UTC

New blog post: FreeBSD Dual-Stack with Jails on Hetzner Cloud !
How to run VNET jails with proper IPv6 (no NAT66!) by splitting a /64 into two /65 subnets.
- Complete working configs
- IPv6-first philosophy
- Production-tested
https://blog.hofstede.it/freebsd-dual-stack-jails-on-hetzner-cloud/
#FreeBSD #IPv6 #Jails #Bastille #Hetzner #sysadmin

2025-11-09 14:09:18 UTC

I did finally put my Blog website back online.
Currently featuring three FreeBSD related articles from the past year:
- FreeBSD 15.0 on the ThinkPad T480 - Efficient, Stable, and 8 Hours on Battery
- Simple Temperature Monitoring on FreeBSD
- FreeBSD Cheat Sheet for Linux Admins
I will keep publishing my FreeBSD / Linux / Sysadmin articles there.
Web: https://blog.hofstede.it
Gemini: gemini://gemini.hofstede.it
#blog #freebsd #bsd #unix #website

2025-11-09 11:15:06 UTC

Just published a detailed write-up on tuning a ThinkPad T480 for power efficiency under FreeBSD 15.0-BETA5.
Achieving 6–8 hours of battery life with full suspend/resume, ZFS, Wi‑Fi, and XFCE.
Read here → https://codeberg.org/Larvitz/gists/src/branch/main/2025/20251109-T480_FreeBSD_Laptop_Efficiency.md
#FreeBSD #BSD #ThinkPad #XFCE #ZFS #Unix

2025-11-02 12:13:47 UTC

Earlier this year, I developed "ansible_jailexec", a modern Ansible connection plugin that can manage FreeBSD Jails via jexec from the host (incl. transparent file copy into the jails filesystem). All released under a BSD license.
That way, you can automate FreeBSD Jails via Ansible, even when they have no ssh or network connectivity.
On Codeberg: https://codeberg.org/Larvitz/ansible_jailexec
On GitHub: https://github.com/chofstede/ansible_jailexec/
The connection-plugin comes as a single python file (jailexec.py) and comes with Unit tests and internal safety checks.
Maybe someone finds it useful Happy automating :freebsd_logo: 🙂
#freebsd #ansible #automation #bsd #automation #opensource #foss #jails

2025-11-01 22:37:42 UTC

Little bit experimenting with OpenBSD 7.8 🙂
Working nice, but I'll stay with FreeBSD on my systems (too many commands in muscle-memory)
:openbsd:
#openbsd #bsd #unix #foss #opensource #xfce
https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/media_attachments/files/115/476/829/237/989/217/original/e86f9b6becaf92f9.png

2025-10-28 19:00:38 UTC

Upgraded my Laptop (ThinkPad T480) from 14.3-STABLE to 15.0-BETA3. Did only take ~2.5 hours (makeworld, makekernel ..)
Everything reasonably stable, iwlwifi with 802.11ac performing like a beast (300-500 Mbps on 80Mhz channel)
Only issue: GPU firmware isn't loading. Neither from -quarterly, from -stable or from the current ports tree :(
GPU itself works fine with the DRM driver, just missing some power-management capabilities.
KLD i915_kbl_dmc_ver1_04_bin.ko: depends on kernel - not available or version mismatch
i915_kbl_dmc_ver1_04_bin: could not load binary firmware /boot/firmware/i915_kbl_dmc_ver1_04_bin either
drmn0: could not load firmware image 'i915/kbl_dmc_ver1_04.bin'
drmn0: [drm] Failed to load DMC firmware i915/kbl_dmc_ver1_04.bin. Disabling runtime power management.
#freebsd #freebsd15 #beta #opensource #foss #thinkpad
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2025-10-20 21:55:46 UTC

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And a fully functioning "zone" (like a isolated Jail) runnong on Openindiana/illumios (Solaris)
Yay, i still know how do ti that :)
#bsd #solaris #illumos #openindiana
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2025-10-20 21:28:24 UTC

Today somethin different than FreeBSD for a change (but still Unix!). Brings back so many memories from 2001-2005 when I was administering Solaris machines during my first job.
Even some commands still were in my head like zones (OS virtualization. somewhat like Jails but different isolation :)
# Install zone
zoneadm -z myzone install
# Boot zone
zoneadm -z myzone boot
# Check if zone is running
sudo zoneadm list -cv
# Llogin to zone
sudo zlogin myzone
So much nostangia :-) ☕
#freebsd #solaris #opensolaris #illumos #sunos #sunmicrosystems #unix #openindiana
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2025-10-20 19:08:36 UTC

Seeing FreeBSD base updates like that in pkg still feels foreign (and I did of course type "freebsd-update fetch" before, which doesn't work anymore 😅)
But so far, it works flawlessly on my 15-STABLE system :freebsd:
#freebsd #pkgbase #desktop #update
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2025-10-18 15:49:26 UTC

Hello 15-STABLE BETA2 :freebsd_logo: 😀
All working great, but PKGBASE is something, I need to get used to haha.
#freebsd #freebsd15 #testing #unix
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2025-10-18 09:42:35 UTC

Made my FreeBSD server at Netcup ready to host multiple isolated applications with automatic https via Let's Encrypt.
Internet → Server → PF firewall → Caddy jail (reverse proxy) → Individual application jails
Each app gets its own isolated jail for security, while Caddy handles all the routing and https. PF keeps the front door locked.
All of course with IPv6 first, where every Jail has it's own public IP address and using NAT for legacy IPv4.
Love how FreeBSD jails make this kind of segmentation so elegant.
#FreeBSD #Jails #SelfHosting #Caddy #ipv4
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2025-10-10 22:58:53 UTC

For 10 years now, people from the Linux side, tell me systemd is so much easier and "Unit-Files" are so much cleaner and better than init-scripts ...
Well, I still don't get it. A well implemented init-system like that of FreeBSD is:
- Clean
- Flexible
- Way more lightweight
- Works with just shell code
I have written a rc.d init-script for zigbee2mqtt today and honestly? It's not going to be shorter than that. Would chose that instead of systemd! ANY TIME! K.I.S.S.
10 years in and I still don't see a real advantage of monolithic-binary init-systems with static configuration files.
#freebsd #init #systemd #kiss #simplicity #scripting #linux
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2025-10-10 19:24:48 UTC

Migrated my ZigBee2MQTT to BSD, of course running inside a Jail (and with IPv6!) 🙂
All running perfectly fine and as stable as you'd expect from FreeBSD :freebsd_logo:
Plus the rc.d script is so minimalistic and simple, that I don't get it, why anyone would prefer intransparent systemd to that!
Another part of my home-infrastructure migrated over!
#freebsd #jais #zigbee #mqtt #smarthome #unix #homelab
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2025-10-09 20:54:59 UTC

Keep your FreeBSD system cool with built-in temperature monitoring!
No ports needed, just sysctl and a simple shell script. Perfect for FreeBSD 14.x users who want lightweight, dependency-free thermal monitoring.
Quick, practical, and very Unix.
https://codeberg.org/Larvitz/gists/src/branch/main/2025/20251009-FreeBSD_Temp-Monitoring.md
#FreeBSD #BSD #SysAdmin #Unix

2025-09-28 19:03:55 UTC

Yay, got bhyve :bhyve: running on my Laptop.
With Virtual Machines behind a local bridge and NAT via pf :-)
Just installed a test VM with Debian Linux and it's working flawlessly.
My FreeBSD :freebsd_logo: based workstation gets more feature complete every day :-)
#freebsd #bhyve #workstation #linux
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2025-09-28 10:38:57 UTC

FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE-p3 on Lenovo ThinkPad T480 with XFCE.
- 5 Ghz WiFi working like a charm with iwlwifi and really good speeds
- System runs stable, reliably and snappy.
Very very well usable, even without wifibox yay 🙂
#freebsd #runbsd #wifi #networking #thinkpad #ipv6
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