We tested WD Red SMR v CMR drives to see if there was indeed a significant impact with the change. We found SMR can put data at risk 13-16x longer than CMR

The really, really short answer is that you should not. The somewhat longer answer is that just because you are capable of building a bikeshed does not mean you should stop others from building one just because you do not like the color they plan to paint it. This is a metaphor indicating that you need not argue about every little feature just because you know enough to do so. Some people have commented that the amount of noise generated by a change is inversely proportional to the complexity of the change."

From: Poul-Henning Kamp phk@freebsd.org

My last pamphlet was sufficiently well received that I was not scared away from sending another one, and today I have the time and inclination to do so. //

The sleep(1) saga is the most blatant example of a bike shed discussion we have had ever in FreeBSD. The proposal was well thought out, we would gain compatibility with OpenBSD and NetBSD, and still be fully compatible with any code anyone ever wrote.

Yet so many objections, proposals and changes were raised and launched that one would think the change would have plugged all the holes in swiss cheese or changed the taste of Coca Cola or something similar serious.

"What is it about this bike shed ?" Some of you have asked me.

It's a long story, or rather it's an old story, but it is quite short actually. C. Northcote Parkinson wrote a book in the early 1960'ies, called "Parkinson's Law", which contains a lot of insight into the dynamics of management.

You can find it on Amazon, and maybe also in your dads book-shelf, it is well worth its price and the time to read it either way, if you like Dilbert, you'll like Parkinson.

Somebody recently told me that he had read it and found that only about 50% of it applied these days. That is pretty darn good I would say, many of the modern management books have hit-rates a lot lower than that, and this one is 35+ years old.

In the specific example involving the bike shed, the other vital component is an atomic power-plant, I guess that illustrates the age of the book.

Parkinson shows how you can go in to the board of directors and get approval for building a multi-million or even billion dollar atomic power plant, but if you want to build a bike shed you will be tangled up in endless discussions.

Parkinson explains that this is because an atomic plant is so vast, so expensive and so complicated that people cannot grasp it, and rather than try, they fall back on the assumption that somebody else checked all the details before it got this far. Richard P. Feynmann gives a couple of interesting, and very much to the point, examples relating to Los Alamos in his books.

A bike shed on the other hand. Anyone can build one of those over a weekend, and still have time to watch the game on TV. So no matter how well prepared, no matter how reasonable you are with your proposal, somebody will seize the chance to show that he is doing his job, that he is paying attention, that he is here.

In Denmark we call it "setting your fingerprint". It is about personal pride and prestige, it is about being able to point somewhere and say "There! I did that." It is a strong trait in politicians, but present in most people given the chance. Just think about footsteps in wet cement.

upgrading freebsd -- process

freebsd-version disagrees with uname -a --
custom kernel, kernel not updated...

freebsd-update uses uname-a to get version, not freebsd-version

Try editing ServerName in /etc/freebsd-update.conf to contain update.freebsd.org (all lower case) instead of update.FREEBSD.org.

This is a wiki project devoted primarily to common issues faced by new and veteran FreeBSD administrators. The goal is to create a common knowledge store which could also be referred to as "FreeBSD for the Impatient" - in other words, a place where it is easy to delve straight into simple answers about common needs and problems relating to both FreeBSD servers and their integration into other types of networks.

The freebsd-update(8) utility supports binary upgrades of i386 and amd64 systems running earlier FreeBSD releases. Systems running 10.4-RELEASE or 11.1-RELEASE can upgrade as follows:

# freebsd-update fetch
# freebsd-update install

Now the freebsd-update(8) utility can fetch bits belonging to 11.2-RELEASE. During this process freebsd-update(8) will ask for help in merging configuration files.

# freebsd-update upgrade -r 11.2-RELEASE

# freebsd-update install

The system must now be rebooted with the newly installed kernel before the non-kernel components are updated.

# shutdown -r now

After rebooting, freebsd-update(8) needs to be run again to install the new userland components:

# freebsd-update install

At this point, users of systems being upgraded from earlier FreeBSD releases will be prompted by freebsd-update(8) to rebuild all third-party applications (e.g., ports installed from the ports tree) due to updates in system libraries.

After updating installed third-party applications (and again, only if freebsd-update(8) printed a message indicating that this was necessary), run freebsd-update(8) again so that it can delete the old (no longer used) system libraries:

# freebsd-update install

Finally, reboot into 11.2-RELEASE

# shutdown -r now

How to upgrade FreeBSD 11 to 12

First note down the FreeBSD version by running the following commands:
freebsd-version
uname -mrs

Make sure both FreeBSD base and packages are updates:
freebsd-update fetch install
pkg update && pkg upgrade

Upgrading from previous releases of FreeBSD 11.2 to 12.0 using binary method

Type the following freebsd-update command:
freebsd-update -r 12.0-RELEASE upgrade

Once everything downloaded, merged in a directory, it is time to commit changes to the disk, run:
freebsd-update install
reboot
freebsd-update install

Now base system has been updated. It is time to update all binary packages too. Simply run the following pkg command:
pkg-static install -f pkg
pkg update
pkg upgrade

FreeBSD utility to manage, backup, and restore Boot Environments on ZFS filesystems from an easy to use Text User Interface(TUI), bemanager is actually a wrapper around the well known FreeBSD beadm utility.

The utility also uses the default zfs send/receive commands for BE/Snap backup and restoration to/from either local or remote storage with XZ compression but is not limited to.

Please note that this utility is not intended to be a replacement for the command line, but rather for the ease of some common task on demand.

• 10 GB SSD
• 1 CPU
• 512 MB
• 0.50 TB IPv6
• $2.50/mo
• (no public IPv4 address)

Same specs, $3.50/mo for public IPv4 address

This tutorial will show you how to get a simple mail server on FreeBSD 10, with Postfix as MTA, Dovecot as MDA and Sieve for sorting mail - all over an encrypted connection for improved security.

In order to configure everything properly, first install these packages:

  pkg
  pkg update -f
  pkg install dovecot dovecot-managesieve postfix

When pkg asks you:

  Would you like to activate Postfix in /etc/mail/mailer.conf [n]?

Answer with y.

The first configuration step is done in /usr/local/etc/dovecot.conf. In the protocol lda section, we will add a postmaster address so that people can contact you in case of a failure. Next, we will allow auto-creation of folders and auto-subscription of said folders to avoid an inconsistent state between your mail client and the server:

  postmaster_address = yourname@yourdomain.tld
  lda_mailbox_autocreate = yes
  lda_mailbox_autosubscribe = yes

The next step is to assign the correct path for your users' mailboxes in the same file, under the mail_location directive:

  mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir

If the line already exists, comment it out and replace it with the one above. Now to configure encryption for IMAP. I assume that you already have a certificate in place:

  ssl = yes
  ssl_cert = </path/to/your/certificate
  ssl_key = </path/to/your/key

The last step is to tell Postfix to deliver the mails via Dovecot, and also tell it to use SASL via Dovecot for authentication. Add the following lines to /usr/local/etc/postfix/main.cf:

  mailbox_command = /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/deliver
  smtpd_use_tls = no
  smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes
  smtpd_sasl_path        = private/auth
  smtpd_sasl_type        = dovecot
  smtpd_recipient_restrictions =
  permit_mynetworks,
  permit_sasl_authenticated,
  reject_unauth_destination

Next, add both services to /etc/rc.conf and start them:

  echo "postfix_enable=YES" >> /etc/rc.conf
  echo "dovecot_enable=YES" >> /etc/rc.conf
  /usr/local/etc/rc.d/postfix start
  /usr/local/etc/rc.d/dovecot start

Since it is considered rude to use the root-account for mailing, you should create a separate user for your mailing needs:

   pw user add youruser -m
   passwd youruser

Inform postfix about the new user:

  newaliases

Now you can test the mail functionality with the following command:

  echo "TEST" | mail -s "testmail" youruser@localhost && tail -f /var/log/maillog

If your log files contain a line similar to the following one (The last part is the important) ..

  postfix/local[27114]: 3F63C5B71: to=<youruser@localhost>, orig_to=<youruser@localhost>, relay=local, delay=0.01,    delays=0/0/0/0.01, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (delivered to command: /usr/libexec/dovecot/deliver)

.. then everything is working properly.

Sieve is automatically installed and configured by the dovecot-managesieve package itself.

And that's it. You can now log in via IMAP or POP3 in a secure fashion, send transport encrypted mails, and write filters with Sieve.

Happy mailing!

from Allan Jude and Michael W Lucas

ZFS improves everything about systems administration. Once you peek under the hood, though, ZFS’ bewildering array of knobs and tunables can overwhelm anyone. ZFS experts can make their servers zing—and now you can, too, with

the first of two ZFS books, by critically acclaimed author Michael W Lucas and FreeBSD developer Allan Jude

ZFS, the fast, flexible, self-healing filesystem, revolutionized data storage. Leveraging ZFS changes everything about managing FreeBSD systems.