dns/bind910 gained native chroot support in r382109. Those of us who used to store the BIND files in /var/named/etc/namedb and ran BIND with /var/named as the chroot environment, must do five things: Rename the /var/named directory to something else, like /var/Named. This is to avoid upsetting make -C /usr/src delete-old and still retain the meaning […]

Read More → Running dns/bind910 within a chroot after r382109

Over the last few days have I experimented with UEFI and GPT in VirtualBox 4.3.26. The goal was to multiboot various operating system, in this case Windows 10 Enterprise Technical Preview 9926 x64 and FreeBSD/amd64 stable/10. First, I thought of persuading the UEFI firmware to always present its boot menu. It sure beats remembering to […]

Read More → UEFI, GPT, Windows 10, FreeBSD 10, and rEFInd

VirtualBox 4.3.24 is out, so I wanted to try out the UEFI version of the latest FreeBSD/amd64 stable/10 snapshot. It didn’t go well until I realised something important, however strange it may be.

Read More → UEFI booting FreeBSD/amd64 stable/10 in VirtualBox 4.3.24

I had a FreeBSD setup I wanted to replicate to another, identical computer. The source system runs ZFS and so should the receiving system. A recursive snapshot in combination with the zfs send and zfs receive commands proved most fruitful.

Read More → Replicating an entire FreeBSD system using ZFS

… FreeBSD gives you the ability to make a choice how you want your boot prompt, splash screen, X login, desktop environment and applications. This, in my opinion, makes it very professional compared to systems that force a given set of settings upon the user, and there is no way to make a different choice. […]

Read More → FreeBSD – the ability to make a choice

Configuring X11 is more or less a dark art, and you must almost be a wizard of the Slytherine House to get modern X.org 1.14.7 working on a FreeBSD guest in VirtualBox. Nonetheless, through lots of experimentation this evening, have I finally arrived at this configuration file: Somehow, you need both the InputClass and the […]

Read More → Configuring X.org on FreeBSD guests running in VirtualBox

I have (successfully) attempted to migrate a running i386 stable/9 system into a running amd64 stable/9 system, and attempted to migrate a running i386 stable/10 system into a running amd64 stable/10 system, only to see if these tasks are in fact feasible. The results speaks for themselves, given the boundary conditions outlined below. If your […]

Read More → Migrating FreeBSD from i386 to amd64

Update 2015-01-23 Order has once again been restored. I have successfully upgraded 8.4-RELEASE (r251259) to stable/8 r277528, and further to stable/9 r277528, and finally to stable/10 r277559. Update 2015-01-14 Work is underway enabling latest stable/8 to go directly to latest stable/9. All my FreeBSD systems have run stable/something-something, compiled from source, for as long as […]

Read More → Upgrading FreeBSD from stable/8 to stable/9, and to stable/10

The removal of BIND from base in stable/10 left us with the option of running BIND from ports either in a jail, or as an ordinary service. The old BIND in base was able to run in a chroot environment, isolated from the rest of the system. Some of us believe a chroot is a […]

Read More → Missing chroot for dns/bind9{9,10}?