The Ultimate BSD Thread™ - The Devil Wears a Neckbeard

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Ultimate BSD Thread™ - The Devil Wears a Neckbeard

unknown: Nov 16, 2002; Ain't got no stinking title yet!

We recently acquired an HP c7000 blade system along with a matching EVA san box to go with it.

Finally after playing around with it a bit, I've been able to get FreeBSD 7.0 to boot off the san nicely and doing failovers using Geom Multipathing (via dual path FC). All I got to say is :drat:

Anyways, considering the possibility of doing multiple server configurations with this now - has anyone tried doing the equivalent of perfect copies of the OS drive for mass deployment?

Provided it's a very generic 'OS image' that I'm playing with, can anyone think of issues that might crop up with perfect copies of the OS disk? I'm thinking that the GEOM disk labeling might be the biggest issue, the rest of the server/network config is really just something to be fixed in the /etc/rc.conf file.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2008 03:45

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 21:16

unknown: Nov 16, 2002; Ain't got no stinking title yet!

EvilMoFo posted:

from the sound of it, you might want to look into how ezjail does its thing

No - I'm looking at imaging a disk, and installing that disk in another physical server. Think of it as doing raid1 across 2 disks, then breaking the raid set and installing 1 of the drives in a different server (and having now both raid sets rebuild back to safety)

I'm just curious if anyone else has done this and what kind of issues that have cropped up.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2008 16:30

unknown: Nov 16, 2002; Ain't got no stinking title yet!

JHVH-1 posted:

Never really broke up geom raid sets.

Actually, I'm not really breaking raid sets, it was just a similar example - I've got a set of blade servers attached to a FC switch which has a san box (eva) handing out LUNs and then the blade is booting off those (ie: no local drives on the blade machines).

Since the San box is handling all the disk stuff, I can actually duplicate the drive on there, and give box #2 the new disk/LUN to boot off.

One of the main issues I know I have to deal with is if a blade sees a different blade's hard drive on the SAN fabric by mistake, and GEOM scans for the label and it's the same as a current mounted drive, it'll add that as a redundant path. (I know FC zoning takes care of that, but if human error kicks in..)

Things could very easily go nasty as the underlying data would be different if gmultipath fails over to a different drive than what it's expecting.

What I'm looking for is other gotchas like that.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2008 17:44

unknown: Nov 16, 2002; Ain't got no stinking title yet!

Anyone got any drat documentation on freebsd's sysinstall and it's install.cfg file?

I'm trying to get it to redo whatever partitions/slices are on a disk automatically, but it's being a pain in the rear end and not overwriting any pre-existing slices, so it therefore won't get wiped and mounted properly. (Clean/Blank disks are okay though)

# ¿ Jun 17, 2008 03:34

unknown: Nov 16, 2002; Ain't got no stinking title yet!

EvilMoFo posted:

i just delete and redo the partition in fdisk and then disklabel is blank so its a clean slate

That's what I'm trying to do - delete the partition (if it exists), but I can't get it to do that.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2008 15:44

unknown: Nov 16, 2002; Ain't got no stinking title yet!

Just to update my previous comments/questions. I finally got the system to pxe boot and install Freebsd 7.0 automatically. It now takes me 4 minutes from initial turn on of the computer to a working login prompt with a fresh install.

Couple of notes about sysinstall for the record:

- it sucks balls for automation

- do not use the 'diskPartitionWrite' or 'diskLabelCommit' commands as they will stop the auto-creation of the filesystem (newfs). Just let 'installCommit' do all the work.

- If you're running your own commands/apps, note that after 'installCommit' is run, all apps are run out of a chroot, and you don't have access to the original mfsroot disk structure any more.

- mfsroot can't be bigger that ~75megs due to memory issues. All apps needs to be statically compiled.

- sysinstall will only install the generic kernel from the dist CD, you need make your own app to move a custom kernel in.

There's probably a bunch of other things that have caused me hair loss, but those are the big hurdles if you ever need to do it yourself.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2008 17:01

unknown: Nov 16, 2002; Ain't got no stinking title yet!

Q: Are you sure this is a iwi (Intel 2200/2225/2915) wireless device?

If yes - you need to compile the driver into the kernel so it can load it. (check out /boot/kernel/ and see if there's any iwi_* files.) It looks like iwi is not included in GENERIC kernel (or at least not in the kernel conf file).

If no - what's the wireless card/chipset you have?

code:

an(4)                    - Aironet Communications 4500/4800 wireless network adapter driver
arl(4)                   - Aironet Arlan 655 wireless network adapter driver
ath(4)                   - Atheros IEEE 802.11 wireless network driver
awi(4)                   - AMD PCnetMobile IEEE 802.11 PCMCIA wireless network driver
cnw(4)                   - Netwave AirSurfer wireless network driver
ipw(4)                   - Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 IEEE 802.11 driver
iwi(4)                   - Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG/2225BG/2915ABG IEEE 802.11 driver
ral(4)                   - Ralink Technology IEEE 802.11 wireless network driver
rum(4)                   - Ralink Technology USB IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
wpi(4)                   - Intel 3945ABG Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11 driver
zyd(4)                   - ZyDAS ZD1211/ZD1211B USB IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network device

# ¿ Jul 9, 2008 19:07

unknown: Nov 16, 2002; Ain't got no stinking title yet!

Ryouga Inverse posted:

So for anyone wondering, typing kldload ipfw over an ssh connection is not a good plan.

Even less so if you don't have the hosting account information.

That was a fun hour. "No guys, really, the SERVER IS DOWN. It is TWO AM. The owner is not awake and his phone is off! JUST REBOOT IT YOU CAN'T PING IT LOOK"

That said, I'd like suggestions as to what the easiest firewall is to set up on freebsd. I'm leaning toward ipfw because I'm an OSX guy and therefore learning it will be useful for both OSes.

Enable a fully open (ie: as if it wasn't turned on) firewall using ipfw:

add to rc.conf:
firewall_enable="YES"
firewall_type="open"

And the rc files will do everything else (load ipfw module, etc). Then just look at the rc.firewall[6] files and check out the example rules in there.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2008 20:39

unknown: Nov 16, 2002; Ain't got no stinking title yet!

Ninja Rope posted:

I think pf is a lot easier to configure. It also has several powerful options missing from ipfw, and pf is considered "the future". As far as I know, the only feature available in ipfw that is not in pf is divert sockets, where as pf adds built in bandwidth throttling, built in NAT, the "scrub" command, etc.

I don't know if anyone has called pf 'the future', since nat/bandwidth throttling is fully available in ipfw.

But basically it can be summed up as:

pf - built by openbsd group
ipfw - built by freebsd group
ipf - built as an OS independent system.

With pf and ipfw being the main two for Freebsd with basically the same feature set. IIRC, the main difference was licensing of the code.

Anyways, you can check out the details in the handbook: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/firewalls.html

# ¿ Aug 7, 2008 15:35

unknown: Nov 16, 2002; Ain't got no stinking title yet!

Their engineering wiki was more accurate (but still inaccurate) with the release schedule, and generally said what was left in terms of bugs.

unknown fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Nov 23, 2009

# ¿ Nov 23, 2009 17:56

unknown: Nov 16, 2002; Ain't got no stinking title yet!

Your network card (driver?) is crap. When you do the ifconfig, you can see on the options line that it only supports txcsum (transmit check sum offloading) and not receive offload.

So your cpu is going nuts doing all the work which entails a huge performance hit as you can see from your tests.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2014 02:18

unknown: Nov 16, 2002; Ain't got no stinking title yet!

https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/blog/freebsd-takes-open-source-to-11-with-latest-release/ posted:

FreeBSD Takes Open Source to 11 with Latest Release
10/10/2016
October 10, 2016, Boulder, CO. – The FreeBSD Project, in conjunction with the FreeBSD Foundation, is pleased to announce the release of the much anticipated FreeBSD 11.0. The latest release continues to pioneer the field of copyfree-licensed, open source operating systems by including new architecture support, performance improvements, toolchain enhancements and support for contemporary wireless chipsets. The new features and improvements bring about an even more robust operating system that both companies and end users alike benefit greatly from using.

“FreeBSD 11.0 represents years of hard work by volunteers in the FreeBSD community, developers employed by companies using FreeBSD, academics, and FreeBSD Foundation staff members and grant recipients,” said Ed Maste, Director of Project Development, FreeBSD Foundation. “I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished and am confident FreeBSD 11.0 will provide an excellent choice in the world of open source operating systems.”

The FreeBSD Project continues to expand and enhance the platforms which run FreeBSD. This versatility makes FreeBSD an excellent choice for researchers looking to work on new architectures and practitioners who need alternative platforms that best suit their needs.

Continuing FreeBSD’s commitment to working with ARM technologies, the FreeBSD/arm64 port is now available thanks to the FreeBSD Foundation’s collaboration with Cavium, ARM, Semihalf, and ABT Systems. Cavium’s ThunderX platform is the primary reference target for the FreeBSD/arm64 port.

“Cavium is pleased to have partnered with the FreeBSD Foundation, ARM, Semihalf, and ABT Systems to add support for the ARMv8 architecture in this release,” said Tasha Castañeda, Associate Director, Software Ecosystems and Solutions, Cavium. “Using the ThunderX server as the primary reference platform, FreeBSD 11 provides users with the best in class implementation of the ARMv8 architecture. Our high performance 48-core SoC incorporates features that are crucial for the most demanding server applications. Working with FreeBSD is part of Cavium’s commitment to delivering operating system diversity on our platforms and continuing to expand the ThunderX software ecosystem.”

RISC-V is another new target now supported in FreeBSD 11.0. RISC-V is an exciting new open source Instruction-Set Architecture (ISA) with a focus on computer architecture and instruction set research, developed at the University of California at Berkeley. The FreeBSD 11.0 RISC-V port allows FreeBSD to boot to multi-user mode on the Spike simulator and QEMU emulator. FreeBSD 11.0 is the first operating system release to include bootable, in-tree support for RISC-V.

Other new features include:
• An asynchronous implementation of the sendfile(2) syscall can yield up to 40% performance improvement for existing file serving applications, without modification.
• Support for NUMA memory allocation and scheduler policies.
• Expanded bhyve guest operating system support including Windows Vista, 7, 8, Server 2012, and 10.
• Network CPU scalability and affinity improvements through RSS (Receive Side Scaling).
• Tool chain enhancements, including an update to Clang 3.8.0 and a migration to BSD-licensed ELF binary tools.
• Out-of-the-box support for Raspberry Pi, Raspberry Pi 2 and Beaglebone Black peripherals

In addition, FreeBSD 11.0 lays the groundwork for a release stream that will see many significant features during its lifetime. A complete list of the features in this release is available at https://www.freebsd.org/releases/11.0R/relnotes.html

# ¿ Oct 11, 2016 17:53

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 21:16

unknown: Nov 16, 2002; Ain't got no stinking title yet!

To get rid of the (TM) graphic, how about a new thread title "The Ultimate BSD Thread - The Devil turned it up to 11"

# ¿ Oct 12, 2016 19:29

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