Make Your Own CDN with NetBSD

NetBSD is a lightweight, stable, and secure operating system that supports a wide range of hardware, making it an excellent choice for a caching reverse proxy.

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2024/09/03/make-your-own-cdn-netbsd/

#NetBSD #RunBSD #ITNotes #CDN #Caching #IT #SysAdmin

Celebrating #WorldRadioDay with the most portable OS on the planet. 🌍

Whether it's the embedded controller inside a vintage radio or the legendary NetBSD Toaster 🍞, the ham/ 📻category in #pkgsrc has you covered.

Why just make toast when you can transmit packets over the airwaves at the same time?
#NetBSD #SDR #PacketRadio #HamRadio #VintageComputing #Linux #unix

Make your own Read-Only Device with NetBSD

One detail that is often overlooked when dealing with embedded (or remote) devices is a key point of vulnerability: the file system.

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2024/09/10/make-your-own-readonly-device-with-netbsd/

#NetBSD #RunBSD #EmbeddedDevices #OwnYourData #ITNotes

As the @bsdcan lists of talks and tutorials have been posted, I can officially announce my presentation:

Don't Freeze in the Cloud: Reclaiming Home Control with NetBSD

In 2010, I was taking more flights than cups of coffee. After a two-week trip, I returned home to a nasty, albeit expected, surprise: an indoor temperature of 7.8°C (46 F). Possessing more time than money, I decided to solve the problem my own way. I built a custom Python-based control system, accessible only via VPN, to manage my heating.

In 2015, after moving houses, this system was demoted to a secondary role, replaced by a shiny, commercial "smart" thermostat. However, I continued to maintain and update my custom solution for fun.

Fast forward to October 2025: major cloud providers faced significant outages. My commercial thermostat became dumber than a mechanical switch. I was reduced to manual two-hour overrides, with no visibility into settings or usage. It was a wake-up call: keeping my home warm should not depend on someone else's server.

I dusted off my solution and adapted it to modern needs - powered, of course, by NetBSD, running on the very same hardware that served my previous home for years.

In this talk, I will share the journey, the technical challenges, and the architectural decisions behind the project. I will demonstrate how NetBSD’s stability and low footprint make it the ideal operating system for long-term, "set-and-forget" home automation, allowing us to reclaim control from the cloud.

#NetBSD #BSDCan #BSDCan2026 #RunBSD #OwnYourData #Presentation #Talk

Registration for BSDCan 2026 is open at https://www.bsdcan.org/2026/registration.html + tutorial schedule published.

#bsdcan #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #development #networking #devops #sysadmin #conferences

For more on BSD and the BSD conferences, see https://nxdomain.no/~peter/what_is_bsd_come_to_a_conference_to_find_out.html (or tracked https://bsdly.blogspot.com/2025/11/what-is-bsd-come-to-conference-to-find.html +
https://medium.com/@peter.hansteen/what-is-bsd-come-to-a-conference-to-find-out-06acd7d77fd8 )

Victory is mine! #NetBSD 11 RC1 is working!

Overall, pretty uneventful...

Now, I will let it rest for a little while, until qemu 9.2.4 has finished compiling.

Alt...

A white on black console whowing, in bold ASCII letters "NetBSD 11.0_RC1 amd64"

Just a shout out to everyone directly or loosly involved in *BSD world here on fedi and elsewhere.
Thanks for having me here. It's been a couple of years now since I migrated from Linux and really enjoying it.

be safe and keep up the excellent work,

#appreciation #bsd #kiss #unix #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #dragonfly #runbsd #illumos

#NetBSD 11, you are doing the packages in alphabetical order, right?

RIGHT? 😂

Alt...

A qemu console showing the NetBSD sysinst trying to download the 'xbase' package. As with the previous screenshots, the sysinst is trying an IPv6 address first.

[3348/9317] Compiling C object libqemu-mipsn32el-linux-user.a.p/linux-user_signal.c.o

So, roughly 30% done. I think the #NetBSD VM will be done first!

The good side of this, is that I can keep an eye on both the #NetBSD 11 VM and the compilation of qemu on my #Slackware server! 😋

It works, but it is going to be painful: since the qemu network emulation provides the VM with an IPv6 address through DHCP, #NetBSD sysinst tries IPv6 first, times out, then tries IPv4... all of this to be redirected by the web server and go through IPv6 - timeout - IPv4 again.

In other words: it downloads, but really really slowly. ☹️

Any help getting out of that painful loop is greatly appreciated (I know how to do it on an installed machine, just not in sysinst)

Alt...

A white-on-blue NetBSD installation console showing error messages, such as: /sets/modules.tar.xz ftp: Can't connect to [2ad4:ded2:1d::262]:80: No route to host

It seems #NetBSD 'sysinst' still has issues with the 'curses' qemu console, but it remains readable, so onward!

Alt...

A qemu console showing a NetBSD installation disk selection menus. Little display bugs (strange glyphs and added blank spaces) can be seen here and there...

Well, well, well... What do we have here?

Hello #NetBSD 11!

Alt...

A qemu console showing the sysinst installation programme from NetBSD Blue background, white text

From:

https://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/netbsd-11/20260206082425Z/amd64/INSTALL.html#Features%20to%20be%20removed%20in%20a%20later%20release

The following features are to be removed from #NetBSD in the future:

- groff(1). Man pages are now handled with mandoc(1), and groff(1) can still be found in pkgsrc as textproc/groff.

- pf(4). This packet filter is obsolete and unmaintained in NetBSD. It will be eventually removed due to possible long-standing security issues and lack of multiprocessor support. New installations should use npf(7).

No 'npf mastery' book so I really need to read that man page...

$ /usr/local/bin/qemu-img create -f qcow2 /opt/qemu/netbsd11.img 20G

20GB should be enough for most installations I suppose... #netbsd

~/files/download/ISO/NetBSD$ curl -O https://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/netbsd-11/20260206082425Z/amd64/installation/cdrom/boot.iso

Yeah, going to test #NetBSD 11-RC1 like a savage as usual... 🤓

#NetBSD

https://youtu.be/Tv6Q4MZS5LI

We got #CentOS Mascot before #GTA6
https://blog.centos.org/2025/05/release-the-quokka/

Let's go #NetBSD we should get Mascot other than logo

Rust in the Kernel, and other odd decisions
#NetBSD

https://bentsukun.ch/posts/netbsd-rust-kernel/

My BSDCan submission has been approved!

It will be wonderful to be back in Ottawa, meet again all the "old" (and new) friends from the BSD world and, this time, present something that has saved me more than once... and it’s based on NetBSD!

#BSDCan #BSDCon #NetBSD #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #DragonFlyBSD #RunBSD #BSDCan2026 #Ottawa #Canada #BSD

I’ve just received a wonderful email. I’m so excited!

More about this in the coming days.

#RunBSD #NetBSD

This morning I was thinking about something: one of the reasons why every enthusiast should consider going to a BSDCon is simple.

I eat a lot and I still come back slimmer 😄

2024 - EuroBSDCon: ate twice as much as usual, came back from Dublin 1 kg lighter.
2025 - BSDCan: breakfasts that could cover a whole day’s calories, huge delicious meals... came back from Ottawa 0.5 kg lighter.
2025 - EuroBSDCon: double breakfast (sweet + savory), massive lunches, delicious dinners (including a huge pizza, as @outofcreativity, @angie and @mwl can confirm) and still came back 0.5 kg lighter.

Positive emotions burn calories.

So come to BSDCons: you’ll come back happy and slimmer!

#RunBSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #DragonFlyBSD #BSDCon #AsiaBSDCon #BSDCan #EuroBSDCon