Mastodawn

A new BSDCan Video has been posted:

porch(1): it's not what you expect(1) By Kyle Evans

In a world ruled by expect(1) and TCL, we discuss an alternative that was developed based on scripting with lua instead. porch(1) was developed with a language already available and used in FreeBSD base in mind, with the aim of TTY testing via pts(4).

The overall aim of this project is to provide a simple subset of expect(1) functionality specifically aimed at developer and sysadmin automation in another popular language with many niceties for scripted interaction.

In this talk, we'll specifically discuss:

The motivation for writing porch

The underlying design/philosophy (with diagrams to describe the model)

Bundled-in functionality beyond script execution

Practical samples used in FreeBSD today

The author has been a FreeBSD src committer since 2017, working on many parts of the tree and gradually introducing lua into the base system. His most recent exploits include improving base system boot environment management with bectl(8) and excursions into the tty layer.

#runbsd #freebsd #bsdcan

porch(1): it's not what you expect(1) By Kyle Evans

YouTube

Ed Maste 5d ago

TracketPacer 🚀5d ago

i wanna try something new, humor me?

would yall send me one photo of your favorite piece of kit in your home lab, along w your job title? for interesting science & sharing purposes 📝

Show thread

Ed Maste Aug 2

Nice to see lots of updates/fixes to the chroot system call, userland utility, and manpages as well.

https://reviews.freebsd.org/D51509
https://reviews.freebsd.org/D51687
https://reviews.freebsd.org/D51703
https://reviews.freebsd.org/D51708

⚙ D51509 chroot: slightly cleanup

Ed Maste Aug 2

I propose allowing unprivileged chroot by default in #FreeBSD https://reviews.freebsd.org/D51702

Most likely for consideration after stable/15 branches

⚙ D51702 kernel: Allow unprivileged chroot by default

Ed Maste Jul 30

Very exciting to see the plans for upstreaming #CHERI support in Clang/LLVM https://discourse.llvm.org/t/rfc-upstream-target-support-for-cheri-enabled-architectures/87623

[RFC] Upstream target support for CHERI-enabled architectures

Authors: Owen Anderson, Jessica Clarke, Alex Richardson, David Chisnall This RFC is a proposal to gain consensus on upstreaming target support for the CHERI-enabled architectures to the LLVM project. This is an “entire project” RFC, as CHERI support touches many parts of the toolchain: primarily LLVM, Clang, and LLD, with other components such as runtime libraries or LLDB potentially being touched as well. Upstreaming many of these sub-components of CHERI support will likely merit their own ar...

LLVM Discussion Forums

Ed Maste Jul 29

FreeBSD Foundation Jul 29

Java’s Not Gone, It’s Just Hiding in Plain Sight

From powering Minecraft on the PlayStation to driving high-performance financial systems, Java remains a quiet force behind technologies we use every day.
Our latest blog takes a thoughtful look at how this long-standing language continues to make an impact, sometimes where you’d least expect it.

#FreeBSD #Java #OpenSource #TechTrends #Programming #SoftwareDevelopment

Ed Maste Jul 24

Peter N. M. Hansteen Jul 22

EuroBSDCon 2025 will be held in Zagreb, Croatia; September 24-28, 2025.

See https://2025.eurobsdcon.org/
Program https://events.eurobsdcon.org/2025/schedule/
Registration https://2025.eurobsdcon.org/registration.html

Now with updated art!

#eurobsdcon #openbsd #freebsd #netbsd #conference #unixlike #development #freesofware #libresoftware #zagreb

EuroBSDCon 2025 — EuroBSDCon 2025

Ed Maste Jul 19

Harald Eilertsen Jun 27

Over the past seven months I've been working on improving the support for FreeBSD in OpenJDK, sponsored by the @FreeBSD Foundation.

==============================
Test summary
==============================
   TEST                                              TOTAL  PASS  FAIL ERROR  SKIP
>> jtreg:test/hotspot/jtreg:tier1                     3033  2720     9     0   304 <<
==============================

When I started on this project, we had about 100 failing Hotspot tests on FreeBSD, in addition to around 40 in the rest of the JDK. Getting below 10 in total (on x86_64) feels like a significant milestone, and worthy of a bit of celebration!

It's been an interesting, and very educational ride. Some of those tests were pretty easy wins, but some required delving deep into the internals of both OpenJDK and FreeBSD, as well as getting acquainted with the basics of the ARM architecture and instruction set. (Remembering how fascinated I was when the Acorn Archimedes was launched, I'd say this was long overdue!)

I finally feel that the OpenJDK BSD port is nearing a state where it makes sense to try to upstream it, and get it fully integrated into the OpenJDK infrastructure and build/test/CI frameworks. There's still a lot of work remaining to get there, it has to be done in portions and with the cooperation of the upstream project, but I hope to be able to spend the next six months or so to get there.

Thanks a lot to the welcoming and supportive OpenJDK developer community, as well as the @FreeBSD Foundation and the people there for sponsoring and supporting the project, and for providing help and insights about the FreeBSD internals when I got stuck.

#OpenJDK #java #FreeBSD #BSD #programming #mywork

Ed Maste Jul 18

FreeBSD Foundation Jul 18

We’ve been thinking — what if there was a structured course to help more people learn how to use and contribute to FreeBSD?

Whether you’re just getting started or looking to sharpen your sysadmin skills, we’d love your input:

Would a FreeBSD course be useful to you or your team?

Your feedback could help shape future resources for the community.

#FreeBSD #OpenSourceLearning #TechTraining #FreeBSDFoundation

Ed Maste Jul 1

FreeBSD Foundation Jul 1

🎉 Welcome John Baldwin to the FreeBSD Foundation Board!

Long-time contributor John Baldwin was elected to the Board during the June 10, 2025 Annual Meeting. With decades of experience in core, release engineering, and the FreeBSD Journal, John will help strengthen connections between the developer community and the Foundation.

👏 Join us in welcoming him!
📖 Learn more : https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/freebsd-foundation-welcomes-new-board-member-john-baldwin/

#FreeBSD #OpenSource #Leadership #FreeBSDFoundation