MidnightBSD Developer Journal
Sun, 26 Mar 2006
2:25 PM

Midnight BSD
I thought I'd create a new journal to track progress on Midnight BSD.  It might be interesting and supplemental to information on the site someday. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 22 Apr 2006
12:20 AM

CVS corrections
I finally got time to work on the source repository.  ?
/usr/src/share/doc/usd/13.viref didn't get imported properly which caused the world to fail.  I've imported the makefile which didn't get added initially.  The kernel config files for various architectures didn't get imported either.  I'm adding those now.  ?
?
Checking out the source is working now?
?
To setup your environment use:?
CVSROOT=:ext:user@mail.foolishgames.com:/home/cvs?
CVS_RSH=ssh?
?
Of course you need an account for this to work.  I do not have anonymous cvs working at this time.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 18 May 2006
2:48 PM

Status
I was able to get some snapshot isos built.  I'm throw a link in to them soon.  The sticking point with me right now is what to do about a window manager.  There are quite a few choices and many are GPL licensed.  I'd prefer to use BSD or MIT licensed code when possible.  I don't see much choice though.  Here's my short list: (not that short)WindowMakerSawfishXFCEsomething custom...OpenBSD's modified twm?I also considered enlightenment 1.6 and 1.7.  I liked 1.7, but its not stable enough yet.  Afterstep is too weird in recent versions.  The problem with window managers is that for some they are religion.  Of course ports will contain others anyway, but I want a solid default.  It refects the usability and spin put on my project.I'm leaning toward WindowMaker.  I prefer it personally and I showed a few users WindowMaker vs Gnome and KDE desktops.  Most described WIndowMaker as simple.  I didn't have them use it though.  Usibility is very important to me.  I don't want KDE because two other BSD projects are exploring that and I'm not sure how receptive Gnome developers would be to including patches I might need.  If I go the gnome route, I might as well call it ubuntubsd or something.  I don't want that.I'm just going to do WindowMaker in the first few releases and work on something custom long term.  That seems the best.  Still don't know what toolkit to use though. :)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 4 Jul 2006
10:51 AM

CVS
The cvs server was recently moved to stargazer.midnightbsd.org.  I've also moved the website to the new server as well.  xorg is not currently building.  I haven't had time to look at it yet, but you can simply use the FreeBSD 6 stable packages safely.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 8 Aug 2006
9:42 AM

Snapshot
Over the weekend, I created a new snapshot iso of MidnightBSD.  It includes 7 security patches and a new version of Sendmail.  It has has some minor fixes with the rc scripts. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 14 Aug 2006
11:06 AM

Sysinstall work
Today I made some changes to sysinstall.  I'm hoping to get ftp install working with the next snapshot.  I also imported the latest sendmail release over the weekend.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 17 Aug 2006
9:16 AM

ksh import
MidnightBSD now includes OpenBSD 3.9's ksh which is based on pdksh.  ksh is not included in /rescue and is not static. /bin/sh has not be changed to ksh either.  I want to import a few more changes and release a new snapshot in the next few days.  I'll attempt a sparc64 build soon. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 18 Aug 2006
11:00 AM

Download speeds, iso image, install tips
A few people have inquired about the download speed problem from the ftp/webserver.  I am running the server on a business cable modem package which does not have a lot of upstream.  I did a recent speed test using speakeasy.net's server.  8314kbps down 823kbps up to chicago. I need a mirror quite badly.  I sent an application to ibiblio but have not heard anything.  ?
?
As for the iso image, the md5 for disk 1 does look wrong.  I'm going to switch out the network cable and post a new snapshot for x86 and sparc64.  ?
?
I did download the iso last onto a desktop and did a virtual pc test install.  It worked ok.  ?
?
Note on installtion:  Do not use "all" or "xorg" options when it asks you to select relevant packages.  The current snapshots do not include ports or documentation (aside from man pages) so those options will cause you to get errors during the install.  ?
?
pkg_add intentionally points to FreeBSD's server and will fetch 6-stable packages.  They still work for now and until I get ports up its a convenient way to get xorg and other items installed.  I have not altered the sup files yet either.  ?
?
The recommended way to get source is to check it out using the new anonymous cvs.  (as of yesterday)  Information is in the develop section of the website. ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

8:07 PM

Sun sparc64, i386 Torrent
I've just posted the first snapshot build for sparc64 on the ftp server.  It was built on a sun ultra 10 3d creator.   It took me about 11 hours to complete the snapshot build.  I was also working on a new i386 snap, but my build system experienced some problems today as my air conditioning was on the fritz.  I'll attempt a build again in a few days.  i386 is available via bittorrent, but sparc64 is ftp only for now.There will also be some changes commited to ksh soon. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 20 Aug 2006
10:25 AM

ISC mirror, OpenSSH, OpenNTPD, etc
The ISC has setup a mirror of MidnightBSD on http://mirrors.isc.org.  Special thanks to them.  Their mirror contains the entire FTP archive including the recent sparc64 snapshot.?
?
Adam upgraded OpenSSH in the tree yesterday.  I'll attemp a new i386 build when I get a chance.  ?
?
I'm working on migrating to OpenNTPD.  I've got about half the work completed.  Anyone having problems with configure scripts should simply copy the FreeBSD releated entries in the config.guess/config.sub and replace FreeBSD with MidnightBSD and freebsd with midnightbsd.  Also remove any additional entries for GNU "distros" of freebsd.  I asked the GNU to patch their scripts.  We'll see what happens.  ?
?
I've had to disable ftp and http a few times.  The traffic has been so bad nothing would come in or out.  I'm hoping the mirror will help.  I appologize to anyone downloading when that occured.  ?
?
I'll write another entry when the source tree is "safe" to build.  If you don't need ntp, you should be able to just delete those directories src/contrib/ntp and src/usr.sbin/ntp and it should work alright.  ?
?
Finally, we've been looking at countless window managers.  Several people have expressed interest in xfce.  We haven't made a final determination but xfce, fvwm-crystal, WindowMaker, something custom, or some offshoot work for the etoile project are all in the running.  Two of these choices don't exactly fit into my usability requirements.  If they were chosen, it certainly would not be perminent.  xfce has some nice points, but its also quite mainstream.   was hoping to be a bit unique.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 22 Aug 2006
1:39 PM

rdate
rdate is in the tree but i'm not quite happy with it yet.  I'm going to go back to the code when I get a chance.  I also imported updated timezone files last night.  That's not too bad to do.  Today while looking at df cvs, i noticed they also imported OpenBSD rdate.  That means eveyrone but FreeBSD is using it provided netbsd still is.  I see a convention.  Of course its in freebsd ports anyway...I'm toying with adding vesa in the kernel by default.  It doesn't make a lot of sense on servers, but it does on desktops.  There are some cases it would be nice on a server too.  I may need to create a desktop and server kernel config soon or do it by architecture.  I'm not sure what happens on sparc64 with vesa for example.  I need to look into that.  I played with fvwm-crystal last night.  Now that i've tried it, my opinion has changed some.  Using the dock or start menu (nebula?) style it wouldn't be too foreign to others.  I did have a few crashes and certain mouse gentures could really cause some chaos with my mom.  Her app windows would disappear out of nowhere on her.  That might be fixable with customization, but the crashes are not so easily.  It is a devel version of fvwm 2 as a base after all.  Maybe when it goes stable... Aside from that, I think we've exausted window manager choices.  WindowMaker is still my favorite for personal use however it also crashed when playing with some gnustep apps.  There could be something strange with my system as well.  I'm also using packages from stable for some of it so that could be the problem.  (fvwm is NOT a package) I'll look at the core files later.Finally, portability is an issue.  We need to make sure the window manager will actually compile on sparc64, etc.  Firefox will not compile on freebsd last i checked.  I think gtk is broken.  I'm seriously thinking about making my own wm now.  I have an interface in mind already, its just picking the libraries to use with it.  We may just do a release with fvwm and see what people do.  I strongly favor using either gtkmm or gnustep for our graphical apps.  The pc bsd installer code is very clean but uses qt.  Its still a model for a good installer.  I did a test install today and was quite impressed.  We need to get there at least.  I'm thinking these issues must be resolved for .1 release:zoneinfo Etc/UTC and rdate fixrc script cleanups (formatting and any necessary changes)man page clean up (for additions/changes we've done)All urls pointing to midnightbsd servers.  Decide what to do about pkg_add and portsnap along with ports.Some ports ready.  At least xorg, a browser, and some common libraries. Some update to the em driver.Look at other contrib software to determine version status.Changes to the installer to remove freebsd specific features, etc..2 release will need this:security patch procedure including binary patches (roadmap for it at least)more ports, port utilitiesimprovements to installerany bugfixes and some driver updatesmore work on the gui environmentBy .3 i want to have the window manager determined and hopefully working.  If i write my own, it would be started and useable to some degree.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 24 Aug 2006
12:26 AM

PPP Buffer overflow, rdate
Adam patched the ppp(4) buffer overflow also found in FreeBSD today.  Its recommended to update to the latest sources to receive the patch.  If you are using the last x86 iso, please remember that the password format has changed to blowfish and we've switched to OpenNTPD/rdate.  OpenSSH was also updated to the latest version recently.  Another words its a bit of a jump.  I've found some problems with soft updates today as well.  Large amounts of disk io on raid volumes can cause soft updates to consume all available memory and crash in some cases.  Its not always consistant, but does happen.  If you experience this problem, disable soft updates on the volume.   I'm experimenting with several kernel patches right now that may help a bit with this and other problems.  I do not think these patches will completely fix soft updates.  There have also been some problems found in ufs recently where deadlock can occur with snapshots.  If these recent kernel patches work out, i'll do a new iso release soon.  This might be the beginning of some serious kernel changes.  When I started this project, I was mostly concerned with userland changes up front.  I was hoping that I could avoid major kernel changes until after a 1.0 release.  It appears that is no longer the case.  For anyone tracking FreeBSD, the PPP patch coinsides with FreeBSD-SA-06:18ppp.  I'm now building leapseconds files in /usr/share/zoneinfo/right to work with rdate's -c flag.  This was commited yesterday.  The new website project is coming along.  I didn't get much opportunity to work on it today with all the other issues popping up.  We have someone working on a new logo for us and I've made a new temporary logo that will go with the new theme.  I've decided to drop the current color scheme even though its somewhat unique among the other BSDs.  For those of you who don't know, MidnightBSD was named after my cat.  He loves to sit on computers.  The butterfly never made sense with the name and was just something I could throw together in illustrator.  On the desktop environment front, fvwm-crystal looks like its going to be our temporary window manager for sure.  WindowMaker.info appears to be down and the freshmeat page is also disabled.  I don't want to track a dead WM.  Regardless of our final choice, I have every intention of including GNUstep with our distro.  There isn't much US interest, but there is a great deal of interest in europe.  On a final note, my kernel just built so its testing time.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Nerdy
Music: 

1:03 AM

Hardware upgrade
The site was down earlier today for a hardware upgrade.  Additional ram was added to the cvs/web server.  This should solve some of the problem we've been having lately.  Its still recommened you download midnightbsd from the isc server.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:42 PM

em driver patch
I've been running on the em driver code since about 3am.  So far so good.  I'm still not happy with the network performance though.  Further investigation is needed.I am in the process of setting up a second server to help distribute the load.  There has been some stability problems with my current amd box.   I'm debating about moving cvs over to it.  If so, i'll setup a new third level domain cvs.midnightbsd.org to simplify things.  That system has a via vge gigabit NIC.  I'd like to test the driver and compare its performance to the em's. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 25 Aug 2006
1:05 PM

Last night's patches
Again, I had a focus on the kernel.  I fixed a bug with usb keyboards where they'd start repeating keys, especially arrow keys!  It started after my kbdmux update.  So far so good.  It mostly only occured in x11.  ?
?
Some of the network card code was updated including vge and mii which it depends on.  I also added the ifmedia_baudrate function from freebsd and netbsd.  ?
?
hwpmc was updated but I don't know how well its working yet.  In the process, I patched the vm's zeroidle and it seems peppy.  I should start doing formal benchmarks with these changes.  I can say the interactivlty imporved greatly.  ?
?
I have one more kernel patch i'd like to apply before .1 release. The remaining work is all in userland.  Mostly we need to get some ports working and get x11 installed.  x11 will be installed as port to ease in upgrading and dependancy checking.  I may ship an old version just to get something working out of the box soon.  ?
?
userland should be fairly safe from a security perspective now.  We are current on patches that have been added to freebsd up to this point.  Our ports tree is very dated and some of that software is not safe I would imagine. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

8:53 PM

New snapshot posted for x86
A new snapshot was posted on the ftp and http server today.  It should be mirrored by isc soon.  The torrent still links to the old one and will be fixed in a few days.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 28 Aug 2006
8:20 PM

(no subject)
mergemaster was patched over the weekend.  It now correctly handles /etc changes.  Archite created a list of security areas where we can improve in the default install.  Most of my weekend was spent researching ports.  I posted a perl port update that allows perl 5.8.8 to build with default options.  Threaded perl is not guaranteed to work, etc.  Quite a few things depend on perl building including the x11 port.  Archite is working on adding sudo to the default install.We've received a lot of attention from GNUstep fans.  I think my choice to include GNUstep is the right one.  I think I must clarifiy my position on licensing.   Anything going into the kernel must be BSD licensed.  Userland consists of software falling under several licenses.  Creating a GUI environment on all BSD licensed software does not seem possible.  I feel it is ok to use BSD or GPL software in an os environment, but do prefer BSD licensed software.  I do not have a problem with binary blobs in drivers, but wish to avoid them when possible.  I think OpenBSD has done some amazing work with their OSS drivers for WIFI, but as a desktop BSD I can not be so strict.  I do hope code sharing between MidnightBSD and the other BSDs will remain possible in the future. Here is an informal list of software I am considering for MidnightBSD:GNUstep (almost in the bag)Etoile (including their window manager)FirefoxThunderbirdatermThe gimpgaimA selection of GNUstep basded software.I have not decided on an office application.  OpenOffice isn't exactly my favorite and its rather large.  It also requires java for some functionality.  I've also received a lot of questions about the installation of MidnightBSD.  The installer is hard to use and its a stumbling block.  It will be replaced, but most likely not for .1 release.  I'm 50/50 between a graphical installer using x11 and a command line installer like bsdinstaller.  (DF, etc)Ports are another hot topic.  I'm at a crossroads with ports.  FreeBSD style ports are tough to maintain.  I would have to fork ports and improve them as I go.  I don't personally have much interest in the ports infrastructure beyond a graphical management utility for end users similar to Fink on OSX or Ubuntu's add/remove features.  pkgsrc from NetBSD is a possibility down the road.  Right now it does not build.  The GNU config project who maintains the config.sub and config.guess files has not patched for MidnightBSD yet.  Any software using configure fails.  The patch is simple enough.  If you need to do this yourself for now, I suggest you look at FreeBSD or DragonFly's (especially DF) if its a recent copy of the files.  You'll see the changes you need to make.  Hopefully that project will patch soon. I've sent a patch to perl maintainers to add a midnightbsd.sh hints file to solve problems with that.  FreeBSD's hints file will allow it to build provided you hack out the old entries and adjust version number checks.  We are .1 and yet similar to 6.1 FreeBSD.  If someone wants to join the project and work on ports infrastructure I'll fork it.  If someone wants to manage package builds and work with pkgsrc, I'll go that way.  Frankly I don't want to work on ports.  I have many other issues like the kernel, userland, and the gui environment to worry about.  In the short term, I'll simply maintain a freebsd ports fork which will have dated and often non-building software. :( You can check out our ports from cvs using "ports".   portsnap will continue to point to freebsd ports for now and pkg_add -r will fetch from thier stable tree for now.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 31 Aug 2006
12:54 AM

Ports
The xorg port joins the small list of ports that we've tested and patched to work with MidnightBSD.  It is an old version, but it works. (6.8.2)  Working: (note i have libtool15 installed)perl 5.8.8, imake6, xorg 6.8.2, aterm, windowmaker, zsh, libtool15,  bash2, atk, glib 2.6.x, gtk+-2.6.10, pango 1.8.2Failing:libtool13, firefox (configure script failure)I posted a snapshot of the ports on the ftp server.  It will be mirrored by ISC eventually.  I also started putting distfiles up.  The ports tree doesn't use it yet, but you can manually fetch the source if needed.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 5 Sep 2006
6:18 PM

Perl
I'm in the process of making changes to the perl port after feedback from users.  I'll post when its clear.  ?
?
I've also had reports the time zone is not set properly in the installer.  I have a feeling I will be working on the installer quite a bit soon. ?
?
On a side note, I noticed a post about localhost performance recently.  FreeBSD is working on the low performance and determined its related to preemption.  If you compile a new kernel without it, performance will improve in some cases.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 6 Sep 2006
6:11 PM

ATA driver
I commited a patch to the ATA driver which corrects a few possible deadlock cases.  Its not quite as good as it could be, but it should at least prevent some problems.  It needs further testing as my development machine only has IDE optical drives.  This may correct some of the problems noticed when deleting a large directory (rm -rf) or other highly intensive disk operations.  I'll test upgrade another system when I get more time.  Archite will also be testing the patch tonight.  ?
?
This is the first real src commit in awhile.  I've been busy with ports lately.  Once the patch is tested, its strongly recommened you build a new kernel from it.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 7 Sep 2006
3:05 PM

Security Patches
I patched MidnightBSD for the recent OpenSSL and BIND security vulnerabilities.  This should keep us in sync with FreeBSD on security for the year to date.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 8 Sep 2006
8:13 AM

Ports: Added wpop3d
I just added a new port, wpop3d, to the cvs repository.   The port is a pop3 daemon.  (obviously)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

6:04 PM

(no subject)
I'm in the process of testing the recent kernel and userland changes.  The system seems rather stable so far.  It might be a good time to update your systems.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

6:06 PM

Change to cat
Cat has a new feature.  The -p flag allows you to specify a date format and prepends the date to the beginning of each line of output.  This is an easy way to log information through scripts, etc. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Accepted
Music: 

Sat, 9 Sep 2006
9:01 PM

Perl
Archite is working on a few reported problems with perl 5.8.  I just added a patch to the perl5 port which allows it to build as well.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:49 PM

gcc 3.4 port
The gcc 3.4.6 port now works.  I'm attempting to get gcc 3.3.6 to work as well.  ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 10 Sep 2006
11:39 AM

More ports work
Serveral ports have been updated.  gcc 3.3, 3.4, 4.0 and 4.1 should build in i386 now.  dri was fixed to correct problems for some with the xorg port. ?
?
The Mozilla suite and Firefox still do not build.  We are working on that problem.  Several other browsers do work including links, lynx, dillo, etc.  ?
?
There are still issues with the GNUstep port we are actively working on.  Getting gcc ports to build was the first step.  ?
?
There are a few cases where the plist files are not just right yet.  We still need to resolve those problems so ports uninstall properly and packages can be made.  A few test packages were placed on our ftp server and some distfiles were mirrored there as well.  ?
?
The GNUstep and Etoile developers have been very helpful so far.  Thanks! ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 17 Sep 2006
2:43 PM

em and bce
em, the Intel gigabit ethernet driver, has been updated from 6.0.5 to 6.1.4.  There were reports of problems with connections at 100baseTX on the Dell gx260.  We hope this may resolve the problem.  ?
?
The bce driver supports two Broadcom gigabit cards.  It has been included in GENERIC for i386 and amd64.  The module and manpage require further work.  This driver has not been tested.  We need feedback on this.  ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

2:49 PM

mports
We made the decision to start over with ports a bit.  mports are a fork off a newer set of freebsd ports.  Aside from newer software, we will not be importing broken ports.  Anything you see should compile and build unless we are working on it specifically.  It drastically lowers the number of ports, but should make it easier to know what will and will not work.  ?
?
There is still discussion if we will keep it as mports or replace the existing ports module in cvs. ?
?
For now, we've included some packages on our ftp server for people who need xorg or a few other ports.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Energetic
Music: 

3:03 PM

zip, unzip, unrar added to new archivers category
zip, unzip and unrar added to new archivers category.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Accomplished
Music: 

8:04 PM

Using mports
In order to use mports, you must do the following:?
?
checkout the mports from cvs.  The CVSROOT is anoncvs@stargazer.midnightbsd.org:/home/cvs?
password is anoncvs.  Updated checkout information is always available on the midnightbsd website. ?
?
Next, you must edit /usr/share/mk/bsd.port.mk and change the PORTSDIR variable to /usr/mports?
?
Finally, go into the directory and build whichever ports you need.  ?
?
Progress is not as fast as I'd like, but we've had more commits in the last 24 hours than the whole week prior.  ?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 19 Sep 2006
10:58 AM

Security Vulnerability
There are some programming errors with gzip.  We hope to have a patch by the end of the day in src.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:00 AM

mports status
Yesterday, several ports were added to our new mports.  I added a number of shells.  I started working on adding gcc ports with gcc 4.0 already building.  Another commiter started working on firefox.?
?
gcc is the first step toward GNUstep support.  ?
?
We still have a problem with ld's behavior that needs sorting.  We are also investigating problems with the em driver after the recent updates.  ?
?
Also, please send any issues related to tput to luke@midnightbsd.org.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Accepted
Music: 

Wed, 20 Sep 2006
12:39 AM

Progress
Our security officer patched the gzip vulnerability.  mports work continues.  New ports are added all the time.  gcc 3.2, 4.1, 4.2 were added today.  WindowMaker and various other ports have been added.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 22 Sep 2006
9:38 AM

GNUstep, others
Some progress was made on GNUstep yesterdeay.  gnustep-make, gnustep-base and gnustep-objc are working.  I've got gnustep-back compiling but there are a few optional dependancies i'd like to get fixed and more testing needs to be done.   Its possible that we may have a working GNUstep environment by Monday.  I've done my testing on a system with a wiped /usr/local and /usr/X11R6.  I'd like to do a fresh install and test the ports soon to verify they are 100% ok. ?
?
I looked at apache 2.2 and determined we need to get Python working for the port.  There are more serious issues with python so it may be awhile.  While we are a desktop project, many people do test web apps on their own machines, etc.  I also want to be able to run on MidnightBSD.?
?
Several window managers are available now.  I added windowmaker yesterday.  ?
?
Finally, we hope to test etoile after the GNUstep issues are sorted out.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

9:44 AM

Website
I've received mixed feedback on the new site design.  It may change again.  I've had someone approach me with 3 logo designs that I am curently considering.  If I chose the, the existing site would not fit entirely.  ?
?
As for the 404 issues, I'm aware of them.  A problem with em was found the same night I was working on the website.  I decided em and GNUstep are more important right now.  I will try to fix the site when I get more free time.  ?
?
If someone would like to volunteer to work on the website I'd be quite interested.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Accepted
Music: 

8:02 PM

More on GNUstep
I know there is great anticipation for a GNUstep package or at least a working port.  I've been working on dependancies tonight.?
?
textproc/aspell, german/aspell, audio/libaudiofile, security/gnutls, print/cups-base, x11-tookits/gnustep-art, and x11-toolkits/cairo have been added.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

8:59 PM

gnustep-xdps, ghostscript-gnu
well ghostscript-gnu is a dependency that is not compiling properly on my box.  After fiddling with the makefile I got it to a point its having trouble finding the jpeg libarry which is installed.  I'll look at this later.  Archite or wintellect could always commit a working version :)?
?
Either way, we are much closer to gnustep support.  I technically commited the gnustep port but its not guaranteed to work yet.  Certainly, it will not work with gnustep-xdps right now.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:50 PM

Opera port, src
Broken Ports:  opera (needs install.sh fix, compat4x port added/depends)  I did manage to get it running locally.?
?
I've commited a few src patches today.  df and the nfsclient need testing.  syscons had a patch that may effect usb keyboard attachment.  It may also fix a problem on newer Sun machines with usb keyboards.  I'm going to test the syscons patch locally and then commit it tomorrow if its ok.  ?
?
On my local system, I've managed to install xorg + windowmaker tonight.  With the above hacks, opera is running.  ?
?
I'm too tired to test GNUstep right now.  I'll do it tomorrow.  I'll also try to fix the opera port as we need a gui browser until firefox is working well.  Besides, some people prefer opera.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 23 Sep 2006
2:35 PM

Status
Today we've got most of gnustep working.  Terminal.app was added and is working.  linux_base-fc4 was added a few minutes ago.  Linux compatiblity seems to be working.  We added linux compatibility in an attempt to get linux-mozilla working.  We've had a few problems with the mozilla and firefox ports (native).  I'll work on this more later.  ?
?
The opera port was fixed.  You can now install opera along with compat4x and compat5x (freebsd).   ?
?
Our ports are starting to get useful.  A few categories only have one port in them, but the total number of ports is growing by 5-10 a day right now.  ?
?
In order to use mports, remember you still need to edit one mk file after you checkout mports from cvs.  Any time you installworld that fille could be overwritten.  We will commit that change soon.  ?
?
pkg_add -r was changed to our server.  Anyone building a new world from this point forward will hit our ftp and our packages. We have not setup the latest symlinks yet so it will fail as of today.  Almost every port can be built as a package.  ?
?
There have been a few kernel and userland changes in the last 24 hours.  df had some POSIX conformance corrections.  Our nfs client and syscons have been patched for various issues.  ?
?
The em issues have not been resolved yet.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

6:53 PM

linux-mozilla
I've added linux-mozilla to mports tonight.  Like always, it needs testing.  I've commited so many ports today.  Its possible I forgot one.mports/www/linux-mozilla and mports/www/linux-seamonkey were added in addition to opera, links and lynx.  We now have four web browsers to choose from.  Native firefox and thunderbird are still a must. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

9:01 PM

(no subject)
It just occured to me there are no email or text editor programs in ports.  I'm in the process of commiting some.  vim, pico and emacs are in ports.  Xaw3d is having a bit of trouble which is required for X11 emacs support. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 27 Sep 2006
5:14 PM

New mports
Archite has been working on pkg_add and building packages for our ftp server.  Soon you'll be able to add mbsd packages instead of compiling all ports by hand.analog, links1, html tidy, imlib,  x11/slim, x11/wdm, gtkmm (in various versions), gnustep based easydiff, timemon, renaissance, grouch, net/netclasses,  gnustep-examples and stepulator have been added recently to ports. linux-thunderbird and linux-firefox-devel were updated.  This should resolve some security concerns.  We've been mostly focusing on adding ports requested by users and ports needed for our upcomming beta release.  We are hoping to have a beta release built this weekend.  0.1-beta1 or something along those lines will be used for the release.  We hope to ship a 0.1 release this year and possible a .2 release around Christmas.  This first release has had quite a few changes in some areas.  We had hoped to do more with userland and the kernel but getting ports going has been quite time consuming.  We need a reasonable snapshot of our development to continue.  Creating a release will also allow users to do ftp installs and make it easier for developers to try out the system on a known stable version.  While we still don't have a clear roadmap posted yet, here's a rough idea of what we hope to include in 0.2-release.1. additional changes to ports based on feedback from 0.1 release2. documentation.  Installation directions and directions for common tasks like grabbing ports, etc. 3. imports of newer binutils and gcc  (3.4.6 most likely)  4. Consider updating software from the OpenBSD project after their 4.0 release including OpenSSH, OpenNTPD and so forth.  5. Better integration with GNUstep.  6 ... TBDPeding issues for 0.1 beta include 1. installer fixes2. adjusting make release procedure to handle mports and doc builds.  3. snapshot builds.  We'd like to do one more snapshot and test installation before doing the first beta build.known bugs:The em driver issue has not yet been resolved.  Further testing is required to diagnose the problem, although its possibly access to certain datastructures outside a lock when trying to create a link. The installer only works using the "minimal" install option.  We hope to fix this before the beta is released.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

5:37 PM

Number of ports
A few people have been curious as to the number of ports we have in mports.  We currently have over 260 ports in mports known to work on x86. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Blah
Music: 

Fri, 29 Sep 2006
8:11 PM

Sparc64
It appears my Ultra 10 3d creator died.  I am no longer able to test Sparc64 versions of MidnightBSD.  I'm still attempting to fix this, but it doesn't look good.  

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Irritated
Music: 

Sat, 30 Sep 2006
12:09 AM

em issue
I've been unable to recreate the problem with the em driver on the dell gx260.  Using a managed switch, I was able to set the port speed at various settings up to gigabit without causing a panic at startup. The next step will be to get the user to compile a kernel with debug options.  There could be a specific issue with certain intel NIC revisions or just with that card.  Since the user said it works in other operating systems and with freebsd 6.0, it is most likely an issue with certain revisions and this driver. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 1 Oct 2006
7:04 PM

Status
A goal was set to release a beta version this weekend of 0.1 release.  We do not feel that we are ready for this beta release.  There are a few issues with the new ports sytem that we'd like to resolve. ?
?
The OpenSSL and OpenSSH security updates have not been applied to the base.  Beware of this issue.  Archite is working on the patches.  ?
?
rsync and netcat were added to mports this weekend.  ?
?
Changes have been made to GENERIC.  486 support has been removed.  The current installer requires a large amount of RAM for 486 machines and the decision was made to remove support.  We hope to improve the memory footprint on lowend hardware, but considering we are moving on with GNUstep and xorg will be running it doesn't make sense to continue supporting 486 processors.  We hope to shrink the size of our default kernel by removing some options that can be handled with modules or are not needed by most users.  Support for RIO mp3 players has been commented out in the configuration as well.  ?
?
mports index building has been fixed.  The make fetchindex target was pointed at the MidnightBSD website and we will start building indexes soon for inclusion there.  ?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

8:31 PM

zlib 1.2.3 import
zlib 1.2.3 was imported and patched tonight. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:17 PM

New Snapshot posted for x86
A new snapshot was posted.  This version includes the recent zlib update, changes to ports including mports compatibility, and src changes up through this evening.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 2 Oct 2006
12:54 AM

OpenSSL Security
A number of security issues were found in OpenSSL. The patch was added to MidnightBSD tonight to fix these issues.  It is not included in the recent snapshot.  Users are encouraged to update their source and rebuild the world.  OpenSSH has not been patched yet.?
?
?
Here is the advisory as posted on the OpenSSL website:?
?
OpenSSL Security Advisory [28th September 2006]?
?
New OpenSSL releases are now available to correct four security?
issues.?
?
?
ASN.1 Denial of Service Attacks (CVE-2006-2937, CVE-2006-2940)?
==============================================================?
?
Vulnerability?
-------------?
?
Dr. S. N. Henson recently developed an ASN.1 test suite for NISCC?
(www.niscc.gov.uk).  When the test suite was run against OpenSSL two?
denial of service vulnerabilities were discovered:?
?
1. During the parsing of certain invalid ASN.1 structures an error?
condition is mishandled.  This can result in an infinite loop which?
consumes system memory (CVE-2006-2937).  (This issue did not affect?
OpenSSL versions prior to 0.9.7)?
?
2. Certain types of public key can take disproportionate amounts of?
time to process. This could be used by an attacker in a denial of?
service attack (CVE-2006-2940).?
?
Any code which uses OpenSSL to parse ASN.1 data from untrusted sources?
is affected. This includes SSL servers which enable client?
authentication and S/MIME applications.?
?
Acknowledgements?
----------------?
?
The OpenSSL team thank Dr S. N. Henson of Open Network Security and NISCC?
for funding the ASN.1 test suite project.?
?
?
SSL_get_shared_ciphers() buffer overflow (CVE-2006-3738)?
========================================================?
?
Vulnerability?
-------------?
?
A buffer overflow was discovered in the SSL_get_shared_ciphers()?
utility function.  An attacker could send a list of ciphers to an?
application that uses this function and overrun a buffer?
(CVE-2006-3738).?
?
Acknowledgements?
----------------?
?
The OpenSSL team thank Tavis Ormandy and Will Drewry of the Google?
Security Team for reporting this issue.?
?
?
SSLv2 Client Crash (CVE-2006-4343)?
==================================?
?
Vulnerability?
-------------?
?
A flaw in the SSLv2 client code was discovered. When a client?
application used OpenSSL to create an SSLv2 connection to a malicious?
server, that server could cause the client to crash (CVE-2006-4343).?
?
Acknowledgements?
----------------?
?
The OpenSSL team thank Tavis Ormandy and Will Drewry of the Google?
Security Team for reporting this issue.?
?
?
Recommendations?
===============?
?
These vulnerabilities are resolved in the following versions of OpenSSL:?
?
   - in the 0.9.7 branch, version 0.9.7l (or later);?
   - in the 0.9.8 branch, version 0.9.8d (or later).?
?
OpenSSL 0.9.8d and OpenSSL 0.9.7l are available for download via?
HTTP and FTP from the following master locations (you can find the?
various FTP mirrors under http://www.openssl.org/source/mirror.html):?
?
    o http://www.openssl.org/source/?
    o ftp://ftp.openssl.org/source/?
?
The distribution file names are:?
?
    o openssl-0.9.8d.tar.gz?
      MD5 checksum: 8ed1853538e1d05a1f5ada61ebf8bffa?
      SHA1 checksum: 4136fba00303a3d319d2052bfa8e1f09a2e12fc2?
?
    o openssl-0.9.7l.tar.gz?
      MD5 checksum: b21d6e10817ddeccf5fbe1379987333e?
      SHA1 checksum: f0e4136639b10cbd1227c4f7350ff7ad406e575d?
    ?
The checksums were calculated using the following commands:?
?
    openssl md5 openssl-0.9*.tar.gz?
    openssl sha1 openssl-0.9*.tar.gz?
?
After upgrading make sure to recompile any applications statically?
linked to OpenSSL libraries and restart all applications that use?
OpenSSL.?
?
?
References?
==========?
?
URL for this Security Advisory:?
http://www.openssl.org/news/secadv_20060928.txt

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 3 Oct 2006
9:43 AM

src is broken in HEAD
The OpenSSH 4.4p1 update is in progress and as such head is most likely not compiling safely.  I'll post a new entry when its safe.?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 4 Oct 2006
10:10 AM

mports and openssh
Yesterday, a number of useful ports were added.  MySQL 5.0, qemu, wine, sdl 1.2, bind 9, and bochs were added to mports.  ?
?
The OpenSSH port is still in progress.  A large number of changes need to be manually merged with this release.  Raven is working on the problem.  ?
?
This week, we've gained a commiter and two more have asked to join the project.  Presuming the OpenSSH problem is resolved soon, we should be able to build a beta this weekend.  I'm testing the last snapshot today.  Others have reported successful installs with disk1 iso.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

5:18 PM

More ports
A great number of ports were added today.  java ports are now abundant including freebsd jdk (binary) and linux-sun-jdk* as well as jedit, bluej, and various libraries.  ?
?
We are getting closer to an openoffice build.  There is one remaining dependancy that must be commited before we can do a test build.  (version 1.1)  I'm hoping it works as planned.  With java in ports, we have a good chance now of getting it to work.  ?
?
ORBit was added today and I'm working on GCC 3.3 (needed for openoffice).  linux-realplayer was added to multimedia and although that category is a bit lacking, we should have basics covered.  We'll look at getting mplayer and xine to work later.  ?
?
I'm hoping I can add tomcat soon as that would give us a java development environment for writing web applications which I would personally find quite useful.  ?
?
If there are ports that you think are needed for a desktop system, please e-mail me or post on the MidnightBSD forum (http://forums.midnightbsd.org/)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 6 Oct 2006
11:34 AM

FTP installation
To install MidnightBSD using ftp, download the bootonly.iso (~22MB) and use that to boot your system.  You can burn it or if using a virtualization technology simply mount the iso.Proceed with a standard install.  Partition your disk and select a boot loader on the next screen.  When asked for media, specify ftp and then pick a custom ftp server.  Use this as the ftp server:ftp://ftp.midnightbsd.org/pub/MidnightBSD/snapshots/0.1-061001-SNAP/ftpThis will allow you to do a minimal install.   It maybe possible to use the mirror as well.  Downloading the full install iso from the mirror will most likely be faster.  Do not try to install ports or x11 from an ftp install.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 7 Oct 2006
1:51 PM

Timezone installer issue
The problem with the installer is related to an error reading /usr/share/zoneinfo/zone.tab with the tzsetup command.  The installer actually calls that program to setup timezones during install.  It is the source of the reported problem.?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 8 Oct 2006
2:30 AM

Subtle changes
I've made a few minor changes to the boot/loader code this morning.  The changes should fix problems with some HP/Compaq computers and the general size of the boot2 code should be a bit smaller.  ?
?
I also looked at the report about the boot menu specifying FreeBSD.  I could easily change the code to simply print BSD as it does for all other BSD systems.  I'll hold off on that change until the other boot changes are verified.  ?
?
On the topic of OpenSSH, raven has been delayed finishing the work.  ?
?
I've also researched the dri/drm reports a bit.  Our dri code matches the code in FBSD 6.1 Release.  There have been recent commits to fix a few things, notably the intel 945 chipset.  I may look at importing those later.  Until we get a newer xorg version in ports, it won't make much difference.  ?
?
The timezone issue should be resolved with the installer and while running tzsetup.  ?
?
TODO: remove some of the alpha code in boot, etc.  Consider importing bzip2 changes for boot when they are finished.  Look into upgrading xorg to 7.x.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 9 Oct 2006
2:19 AM

Downtime
The website was down due to a hardware swap out.  I replaced the existing "server" with my workstation.  The old system was an amd sempron 2300+ with 768mb ram, 80gb ide, 2x 80gb sata raid 1.  The new setup is a Dell Precision 650 workstation with 2 intel xeon 2.0Ghz processors, the above mentioned IDE disk and a 76GB seagate U160 scsi disk.  The sata raid was very unstable on the msi board.  I suspect the nforce2 sata raid controller was a bit flaky.  Regardless, the precision has been used to build releases up to this point so its fairly stable.  ?
The upside is that my new system is a Pentium D 805 so I will be able to support AMD64/EMT64 releases in the future.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 11 Oct 2006
12:56 AM

OpenSSH
The 4.4p1 import is complete, however the tree is still not compiling.  Over the weekend, we switched server hardware and the old system was very flaky.  It appears a few files were damaged on the cvs server.  We are gradually fixing or replacing the files, but it appears a few makefiles were damaged and they are fun to hunt down. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 12 Oct 2006
3:05 PM

Progress
Today i've continued work on restoring the source tree.  I just did some minor changes to the website including removing the bit torrent link and sending people to the ftp server.  I'll fix the www and torrent links when we do a release.  Its just easier for snaps to leave it like this for now.  I also placed a link to the forum on the first page.  Some people have had trouble finding it.?
?
Not to sound like an MSDN newsletter, but its snowing here!  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:42 PM

Light at the end of the tunnel
The kernel is compiling again in src.   I'm testing it so i don't know how stable it is yet.?
?
dmesg?
Copyright (c) 2006 The MidnightBSD Project.?
Copyright (c) 1992-2006 The FreeBSD Project.?
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994?
        The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.?
MidnightBSD 0.1-PRERELEASE #2: Thu Oct 12 14:55:44 EDT 2006?
    laffer1@enterprise.midnightbsd.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC?
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0?
CPU: Pentium III/Pentium III Xeon/Celeron (546.33-MHz 686-class CPU)?
  Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0x673  Stepping = 3?
  Features=0x383fbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,MMX,FXSR,SSE>?
real memory  = 536862720 (511 MB)?
avail memory = 515997696 (492 MB)?
ACPI APIC Table: <DELL   PE2300  >?
ioapic0: Changing APIC ID to 1?
ioapic0 <Version 1.1> irqs 0-23 on motherboard?
kbd1 at kbdmux0?
npx0: [FAST]?
npx0: <math processor> on motherboard?
npx0: INT 16 interface?
acpi0: <DELL PE2300> on motherboard?
acpi0: Power Button (fixed)?
Timecounter "ACPI-safe" frequency 3579545 Hz quality 1000?
acpi_timer0: <24-bit timer at 3.579545MHz> port 0x808-0x80b on acpi0?
cpu0: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0?
pcib0: <ACPI Host-PCI bridge> port 0xcf8-0xcff on acpi0?
pci0: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib0?
agp0: <Intel 82443GX host to PCI bridge> mem 0xf0000000-0xf3ffffff at device 0.0 on pci0?
pcib1: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 1.0 on pci0?
pci1: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib1?
pci1: <display, VGA> at device 0.0 (no driver attached)?
pcib2: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 2.0 on pci0?
pci2: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib2?
ahc0: <Adaptec aic7860 Ultra SCSI adapter> port 0xec00-0xecff mem 0xf9fff000-0xf9ffffff irq 16 at device 6.0 on pci2?
ahc0: [GIANT-LOCKED]?
aic7860: Ultra Single Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 3/253 SCBs?
isab0: <PCI-ISA bridge> at device 7.0 on pci0?
isa0: <ISA bus> on isab0?
atapci0: <Intel PIIX4 UDMA33 controller> port 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6,0x170-0x177,0x376,0xffa0-0xffaf at device 7.1 on pci0?
ata0: <ATA channel 0> on atapci0?
ata1: <ATA channel 1> on atapci0?
uhci0: <Intel 82371AB/EB (PIIX4) USB controller> at device 7.2 on pci0?
uhci0: [GIANT-LOCKED]?
usb0: <Intel 82371AB/EB (PIIX4) USB controller> on uhci0?
usb0: USB revision 1.0?
uhub0: Intel UHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1?
uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered?
pci0: <bridge> at device 7.3 (no driver attached)?
ahc1: <Adaptec 2940 Ultra2 SCSI adapter> port 0xdc00-0xdcff mem 0xfe000000-0xfe000fff irq 20 at device 8.0 on pci0?
ahc1: [GIANT-LOCKED]?
aic7890/91: Ultra2 Wide Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 32/253 SCBs?
vge0: <VIA Networking Gigabit Ethernet> port 0xd800-0xd8ff mem 0xfe001000-0xfe0010ff irq 21 at device 10.0 on pci0?
miibus0: <MII bus> on vge0?
ciphy0: <Cicada CS8201 10/100/1000TX PHY> on miibus0?
ciphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 1000baseT, 1000baseT-FDX, auto?
vge0: Ethernet address: 10:00:60:50:01:1a?
fdc0: <floppy drive controller> port 0x3f0-0x3f5,0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2 on acpi0?
fdc0: [FAST]?
fd0: <1440-KB 3.5" drive> on fdc0 drive 0?
atkbdc0: <Keyboard controller (i8042)> port 0x60,0x64 irq 1 on acpi0?
atkbd0: <AT Keyboard> irq 1 on atkbdc0?
kbd0 at atkbd0?
atkbd0: [GIANT-LOCKED]?
psm0: <PS/2 Mouse> irq 12 on atkbdc0?
psm0: [GIANT-LOCKED]?
psm0: model IntelliMouse, device ID 3?
sio0: configured irq 4 not in bitmap of probed irqs 0?
sio0: port may not be enabled?
sio0: <16550A-compatible COM port> port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on acpi0?
sio0: type 8250 or not responding?
sio1: configured irq 3 not in bitmap of probed irqs 0?
sio1: port may not be enabled?
sio1: configured irq 3 not in bitmap of probed irqs 0?
sio1: port may not be enabled?
pmtimer0 on isa0?
orm0: <ISA Option ROMs> at iomem 0xc0000-0xc7fff,0xc8000-0xcd7ff,0xcd800-0xcdfff on isa0?
ppc0: parallel port not found.?
sc0: <System console> at flags 0x100 on isa0?
sc0: VGA <16 virtual consoles, flags=0x300>?
sio1: configured irq 3 not in bitmap of probed irqs 0?
sio1: port may not be enabled?
vga0: <Generic ISA VGA> at port 0x3c0-0x3df iomem 0xa0000-0xbffff on isa0?
Timecounter "TSC" frequency 546330083 Hz quality 800?
Timecounters tick every 1.000 msec?
Waiting 5 seconds for SCSI devices to settle?
ses0 at ahc1 bus 0 target 6 lun 0?
ses0: <DELL 1x6 U2W SCSI BP 5.23> Fixed Processor SCSI-2 device ?
ses0: 3.300MB/s transfers?
ses0: SAF-TE Compliant Device?
da0 at ahc1 bus 0 target 0 lun 0?
da0: <QUANTUM ATLAS IV 18 SCA 0707> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-3 device ?
da0: 40.000MB/s transfers (20.000MHz, offset 31, 16bit), Tagged Queueing Enabled?
da0: 17366MB (35566499 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 2213C)?
da1 at ahc1 bus 0 target 2 lun 0?
da1: <QUANTUM ATLAS IV 18 SCA 0707> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-3 device ?
da1: 40.000MB/s transfers (20.000MHz, offset 31, 16bit), Tagged Queueing Enabled?
da1: 17366MB (35566499 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 2213C)?
cd0 at ahc0 bus 0 target 5 lun 0?
cd0: <NEC CD-ROM DRIVE:466 1.06> Removable CD-ROM SCSI-2 device ?
cd0: 20.000MB/s transfers (20.000MHz, offset 15)?
cd0: Attempt to query device size failed: NOT READY, Medium not present?
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/da0s1a?
vge0: link state changed to UP

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:51 PM

A request for the server dmesg :)
dmesg?
Copyright (c) 2006 The MidnightBSD Project.?
Copyright (c) 1992-2006 The FreeBSD Project.?
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994?
        The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.?
MidnightBSD 0.1-PRERELEASE #0: Mon Oct  9 01:27:25 EDT 2006?
    laffer1@stargazer.midnightbsd.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/SMP?
ACPI APIC Table: <DELL   WS 650 >?
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0?
CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.00GHz (1993.58-MHz 686-class CPU)?
  Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0xf27  Stepping = 7?
  Features=0xbfebfbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CLFLUSH,DTS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,PBE>?
  Features2=0x4400<CNTX-ID,<b14>>?
  Hyperthreading: 2 logical CPUs?
real memory  = 1073172480 (1023 MB)?
avail memory = 1041076224 (992 MB)?
ioapic0: Changing APIC ID to 8?
ioapic1: Changing APIC ID to 9?
ioapic2: Changing APIC ID to 10?
ioapic0 <Version 2.0> irqs 0-23 on motherboard?
ioapic1 <Version 2.0> irqs 24-47 on motherboard?
ioapic2 <Version 2.0> irqs 48-71 on motherboard?
kbd1 at kbdmux0?
npx0: [FAST]?
npx0: <math processor> on motherboard?
npx0: INT 16 interface?
acpi0: <DELL WS 650 > on motherboard?
acpi0: Power Button (fixed)?
Timecounter "ACPI-fast" frequency 3579545 Hz quality 1000?
acpi_timer0: <24-bit timer at 3.579545MHz> port 0x808-0x80b on acpi0?
cpu0: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0?
acpi_button0: <Power Button> on acpi0?
pcib0: <ACPI Host-PCI bridge> port 0xcf8-0xcff on acpi0?
pci0: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib0?
pcib1: <PCI-PCI bridge> mem 0xc0000000-0xcfffffff at device 1.0 on pci0?
pci1: <PCI bus> on pcib1?
pci1: <display, VGA> at device 0.0 (no driver attached)?
pci1: <display> at device 0.1 (no driver attached)?
pcib2: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 2.0 on pci0?
pci2: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib2?
pci2: <base peripheral, interrupt controller> at device 28.0 (no driver attached)?
pcib3: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 29.0 on pci2?
pci3: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib3?
em0: <Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection Version - 6.1.4> port 0xdcc0-0xdcff mem 0xff6e0000-0xff6fffff irq 24 at device 14.0 on pci3?
em0: Ethernet address: 00:0d:56:f1:ab:2e?
em0: [FAST]?
pci2: <base peripheral, interrupt controller> at device 30.0 (no driver attached)?
pcib4: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 31.0 on pci2?
pci4: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib4?
mpt0: <LSILogic 1030 Ultra4 Adapter> port 0xcc00-0xccff mem 0xff4e0000-0xff4fffff,0xff4c0000-0xff4dffff irq 50 at device 14.0 on pci4?
mpt0: [GIANT-LOCKED]?
mpt0: MPI Version=1.2.9.0?
mpt0: Unhandled Event Notify Frame. Event 0xa.?
mpt0: mpt_wait_req timed out?
mpt0: read_cfg_header timed out?
uhci0: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-A> port 0xff80-0xff9f irq 16 at device 29.0 on pci0?
uhci0: [GIANT-LOCKED]?
usb0: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-A> on uhci0?
usb0: USB revision 1.0?
uhub0: Intel UHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1?
uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered?
uhci1: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-B> port 0xff60-0xff7f irq 19 at device 29.1 on pci0?
uhci1: [GIANT-LOCKED]?
usb1: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-B> on uhci1?
usb1: USB revision 1.0?
uhub1: Intel UHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1?
uhub1: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered?
uhci2: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-C> port 0xff40-0xff5f irq 18 at device 29.2 on pci0?
uhci2: [GIANT-LOCKED]?
usb2: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-C> on uhci2?
usb2: USB revision 1.0?
uhub2: Intel UHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1?
uhub2: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered?
ehci0: <Intel 82801DB/L/M (ICH4) USB 2.0 controller> mem 0xffa20000-0xffa203ff irq 23 at device 29.7 on pci0?
ehci0: [GIANT-LOCKED]?
usb3: EHCI version 1.0?
usb3: companion controllers, 2 ports each: usb0 usb1 usb2?
usb3: <Intel 82801DB/L/M (ICH4) USB 2.0 controller> on ehci0?
usb3: USB revision 2.0?
uhub3: Intel EHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 1?
uhub3: 6 ports with 6 removable, self powered?
pcib5: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 30.0 on pci0?
pci5: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib5?
fwohci0: <Texas Instruments TSB43AB22/A> mem 0xff0ff800-0xff0fffff,0xff0f8000-0xff0fbfff irq 20 at device 12.0 on pci5?
fwohci0: OHCI version 1.10 (ROM=0)?
fwohci0: No. of Isochronous channels is 4.?
fwohci0: EUI64 86:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:00?
fwohci0: Phy 1394a available S400, 2 ports.?
fwohci0: Link S400, max_rec 2048 bytes.?
firewire0: <IEEE1394(FireWire) bus> on fwohci0?
fwe0: <Ethernet over FireWire> on firewire0?
if_fwe0: Fake Ethernet address: 86:ff:ff:ff:ff:00?
fwe0: Ethernet address: 86:ff:ff:ff:ff:00?
fwe0: if_start running deferred for Giant?
sbp0: <SBP-2/SCSI over FireWire> on firewire0?
fwohci0: Initiate bus reset?
fwohci0: node_id=0xc800ffc0, gen=1, CYCLEMASTER mode?
firewire0: 1 nodes, maxhop <= 0, cable IRM = 0 (me)?
firewire0: bus manager 0 (me)?
isab0: <PCI-ISA bridge> at device 31.0 on pci0?
isa0: <ISA bus> on isab0?
atapci0: <Intel ICH4 UDMA100 controller> port 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6,0x170-0x177,0x376,0xffa0-0xffaf at device 31.1 on pci0?
ata0: <ATA channel 0> on atapci0?
ata1: <ATA channel 1> on atapci0?
pci0: <serial bus, SMBus> at device 31.3 (no driver attached)?
fdc0: <floppy drive controller> port 0x3f0-0x3f5,0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2 on acpi0?
fdc0: [FAST]?
fd0: <1440-KB 3.5" drive> on fdc0 drive 0?
atkbdc0: <Keyboard controller (i8042)> port 0x60,0x64 irq 1 on acpi0?
atkbd0: <AT Keyboard> irq 1 on atkbdc0?
kbd0 at atkbd0?
atkbd0: [GIANT-LOCKED]?
psm0: <PS/2 Mouse> irq 12 on atkbdc0?
psm0: [GIANT-LOCKED]?
psm0: model IntelliMouse Explorer, device ID 4?
sio0: <16550A-compatible COM port> port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on acpi0?
sio0: type 16550A, console?
pmtimer0 on isa0?
orm0: <ISA Option ROMs> at iomem 0xc0000-0xcbfff,0xcc000-0xcffff,0xe0000-0xe17ff,0xe1800-0xe3fff on isa0?
ppc0: parallel port not found.?
sc0: <System console> at flags 0x100 on isa0?
sc0: VGA <16 virtual consoles, flags=0x300>?
sio1: configured irq 3 not in bitmap of probed irqs 0?
sio1: port may not be enabled?
vga0: <Generic ISA VGA> at port 0x3c0-0x3df iomem 0xa0000-0xbffff on isa0?
Timecounter "TSC" frequency 1993577736 Hz quality 800?
Timecounters tick every 1.000 msec?
ad0: 76293MB <Seagate ST380011A 3.16> at ata0-master UDMA100?
acd0: CDRW <HL-DT-ST GCE-8481B/C102> at ata1-master UDMA33?
Waiting 5 seconds for SCSI devices to settle?
da0 at mpt0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0?
da0: <SEAGATE SX173404LC BD12> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-3 device ?
da0: 80.000MB/s transfers (40.000MHz, offset 63, 16bit), Tagged Queueing Enabled?
da0: 70007MB (143374738 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 8924C)?
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ad0s1a?
em0: link state changed to UP

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Accepted
Music: 

Fri, 13 Oct 2006
9:52 AM

src compiles
Just an FYI, buildworld and buildkernel are working again.  I'm running both on the servers.  The OpenSSH update appears to have worked fine. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:52 PM

src/sys/dev/ata
I started working on ata tonight.  src might be broken on and off during the weekend as i work on it.  Archite is working on mtree and security scripts.Wintellect has been commiting some ports.  Cherokee was added on the 11th.  OpenBox and xli were commited earlier in the week.  Development has slowed down this week.  Most commiters are quite busy right now.  I'm personally still working on getting MidnightBSD to support my new computer.  

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Not Specified
Music: All Apologies - MTV Unplugged in New York - Nirvana

Wed, 18 Oct 2006
12:11 AM

New Snapshot posted yesterday
A new snapshot including the fixed to em and updates to ata was posted on the FTP server.  There are also possible fixes for installing mports during install and setting time zones.More updates to ata will be commited in due time.  Also, we had talked about releasing a beta a few weeks ago.  We decided to hold off until the installer issues are fixed.  There is also a possible problem with the OpenSSH updates which we must test and correct if necessary.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:16 AM

rm, ls, amd, GNUstep?
I've commited some minor changes to rm (1) and ls (1) today along with some corrections to the amd (8) rc startup script.  On the GNUstep front, installer changes must be made to add GNUstep and its environment.  This can not be completed until the installer allows ports to be installed, etc. A list of apps to include in a default install have not been determined yet.  A word processor, text editor, email client, web browser and media player are obvious needs.  I'd like a good sampling of GNUstep applications with the system.  I'm going to look at the GNUstep live cd for ideas, but any additional thoughts could be left on our website forums in the GNUstep section.  In fact, any applications that you want in base, please post there.  We'd love to know what users or potential users actually want or need.  Please specify if you *need* it or just want it.  As a BSD project, we don't want to include too much where it feels big (4CD redhat install is bad for instance)  Our installer should be smaller than Windows Vista + Visual Studio or Mac OS X including developer tools. (hopefully smaller than that)So far we have been unsuccessful getting Etoile to run on MidnightBSD.  Our current plan is to roll out GNUstep and some basic apps with our installer first and then revisit Etoile.  This will give their project more time to improve the system and will give us time to get essential components ready.  If etoile does not work out, we'll go down a different path.  We've had increasing pressure to release a release lately.  I realize everyone is anxious, but I also know we will be heavily judged on this first release. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 26 Oct 2006
12:02 AM

Firefox 2, WITH_DEBUG for mports, ECHO_MSG cleanup
Firefox 2.0 was added to mports on Tuesday.  The www/linux-firefox port is now firefox2.  linux-firefox-devel is now an october release of firefox 3.0a.FreeBSD recently announced some of the SoC project results.  We've been reviewing a few of the projects for possible inclusion in MidnightBSD.  Two of the ports changes have been added to MidnightBSD's mports.  WITH_DEBUG allows you to add common debug flags (-g) or a specified flag to ports to allow them to compile with debuging turned on.  This could be useful for port maintainers.  Some mports already have a WITH_DEBUG option.  We've also fixed some of the erroneous uses of ECHO_CMD and replaced it with ECHO_MSG.  For details on the differences, please consult the  bsd.port.mk file in your mports/Mk directory.  I realize many of you are waiting for unique features in MidnightBSD.  We are working on some new things, but we also want to track FreeBSD enhancements as long as possible.  All the BSD projects share from one another and someday we hope to contribute useful code back to the community.  Our security officer has been working on some very interesting improvements.  I've been working on several projects at the same time including Python patches, fixing installation problems with the ISOs, and working on adding support for the intel ICH8 chipset used in my new desktop.  The IDE controller is not detected on bootup but all sata controllers are working in compatibility mode. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 27 Oct 2006
8:36 PM

src/sys/dev and cam updates
I've spent a good part of the day updating support for various hardware devices.  MidnightBSD now supports Intel ICH8 sata chipsets including the version found on the Intel DP965LT Motherboard.  Fixes were imported for usb, atkbd, kbdmux, and kbd.  The mpt driver used by several LSI SCSI and Fibre Channel controllers was udated, although it has not be extensively tested yet.  ?
?
If you purchase a newer system with an unsupported PATA controller like that included with the above mentioned intel board, you can install MidnightBSD using a USB cd/dvd drive.  There are some issues with some usb devices and midnightbsd.  If you have difficulty, try booting a freebsd 6.2 beta cd.  You can install freebsd and then build and install midnightbsd from source.  Remember the kernel will not sync well with userland so you must do an installworld before rebooting.  You can always install the kernel and boot off kernel.old to installworld if you wish to test first.  I'm hoping the new USB driver updates might help with this problem.  I've noticed it with a Pioneer DVD burner which is also known to be a bit odd in OS X and Windows.  ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

8:45 PM

mports
Phil's been hard at work with mports lately.  In the last few days he's imported postgresql, php5, aide, mhash, php5-mysql, mplayer, mplayer-skins, xvid, mail/spamd, www/neon, pwgen, bitlbee, postgresql-plruby, p5-DBD-pg, and postgresql-docs.  ?
?
I'm also added linux-firefox and linux-firefox-devel updates.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Hopeful
Music: 

8:50 PM

A list of drivers updated
ata, fdc, kbdmux, usb, mpt, atkbd, vge, random, pci, and ahb.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 28 Oct 2006
2:39 AM

Gaming
Our first OpenGL game is working under MidnightBSD.  Enemy Territory was running with the nvidia freebsd binary driver tonight at about 70fps @ 1024 x 768 on a GeForce 7300 pcie card while compiling gcc on a dual core 2.66 Pentium D.  ?
?
For ET fans, there appears to be some kick issues on the server I tested tonight.  It could be a cvar violation in relation to "linux" checks.  I need to sleep so I won't be investigating it further tonight.  ?
?
The system is running a kernel from late yesterday prior to the last few commits with SSE.  ?
?
On a side note, I noticed the generic ide controller detection is picking up the single pci channel on my intel motherboard but not the drives connected to it.  There is more information on this in the forum under general hardware support.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 30 Oct 2006
2:59 AM

OpenSSH issues
I've isolated the problem with OpenSSH.  OpenSSH 4.4p1 requires strtonum.  Archite commited it 2 months ago, but he forgot to add it to stdlib.h :)?
?
As such, the function didn't have a correct prototype and caused the function which reads /etc/ssh/moduli to always hit its error handler.  ?
?
The mport version now appears to work properly.  I'll try base later.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 1 Nov 2006
10:57 AM

New Snapshot
A new snapshot was released yesterday for i386.  It includes improved hardware support for ATI and Intel graphics cards as well as Intel ICH8 support.  mpt, vge, pci, usb, and a slew of other device s were synced with FreeBSD 6.1 Release or 6-Stable.  We've also updated base and it includes a recent mports tarball with around 450 ports!  Installation Notes:1. packages are still not bundled on the isos.  The holdup is python support.  We need to either rewrite the package split script or get python running correctly (preferred).  Python modules are not loading in our experimental port and its marked broken.  Do not try to install xorg or other packages in the installer as you will get annoying error messages.  This is by far the largest holdup to 0.1 Release.2. If you have a recent motherboard such as the Intel DP965LT with a third party sata to pata interface on the motherboard, it may not detect your cdrom drives.  You can use a usb cdrom to install in this case.3. If you'd like to update your mports, use anonymous cvs as posted on the website.  The tar.gz file on the ftp is older than the one included in this release.  Hardware:This release is solely for i386, but I'm attempting to cross compile an amd64 snapshot.  If all goes well, I will post it on the ftp today or tomorrow.  Testing:This release has been tested on three systems.  All three have Intel processors of various ages... PIII Xeon 550mhz on Generic,  Xeon P4 2.0Ghz SMP, D805 2.66 Dual Core.  Sadly I no longer have an AMD system to test with. Feedback:Please report any issues on our forum.Download:You can get this release on the MidnightBSD FTP server or the ISC mirror.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:48 AM

mports: screen Vulnerability
Ubuntu published a security vulnerability on screen yesterday.  I've already patched the mport.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:49 AM

mports: German
I've added several german mports this morning including additional aspell and ispell dictionaries, acrobat reader and staroffice.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Blah
Music: 

Sat, 4 Nov 2006
8:28 AM

Update
The python 2.1 port has been fixed.  We finally have working python on MidnightBSD.  We will attempt to port a recent version of Python soon, but the older version was much easier to get working.  I will be experimenting with the package build system later today.  If the scripts work with python 2.1 or can easily be back ported, I should be able to build packages on the next snapshot or possibly beta release.  Including packages is a requirement for installing the graphical environment as we want to use ports to ease upgrades and allow us to automate software updates in the future.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:06 PM

New ports
apr and subversion were added today.  python 2.1 now creates a symlink as python to enable these ports.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 9 Nov 2006
9:11 AM

mports and openssh
A new version of OpenSSH was released.  We are researching the need to update the version in base.  The fix list states that there were bugs in solaris and a potential security hole that requires additional interference to compromise.  ?
?
There have been several additions to ports.  One of the most recent additions is xinetd.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:09 AM

OpenSSH port
OpenSSH port was updated to 4.5p1.  Anyone concerned about the possible security issue can install this port.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:37 AM

Python 2.2
Python 2.2 was just added to mports.  We now have 2.1 and 2.2 working on MidnightBSD.  The 2.1 port makes a symlink to /usr/local/bin/python but the 2.2 port does not.  If you use a port that requires python like subversion, you will need to manually add the symlink if you choose to use python 2.2

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Accomplished
Music: 

Tue, 14 Nov 2006
1:40 PM

(no subject)
Subversion was updated to the latest release.  This should fix the fetch issue some people were having. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 16 Nov 2006
8:40 AM

Vulnerability in Firewire
 Here is an advisory that also affects MidnightBSD.  A patch was added to cvs moments ago. ?
?
--?
http://www.kernelhacking.com/rodrigo?
?
Kernel Hacking: If i really know, i can hack?
?
GPG KeyID: 5E90CA19?
?
?
?
________________________________________________?
Message sent using UebiMiau 2.7.2?
?
?
?
?
FreeBSD all versions FireWire IOCTL kernel integer overflow information disclousure?
11/15/2006?
?
Notice?
===================?
    This bug has been specially discovered for the Month of Kernel Bugs and to?
    the Hackers to Hackers Conference III (http://www.h2hc.org.br/en/).?
?
?
Summary?
===================?
?
    Firewire device is enabled by default in the GENERIC kernel.  It defines?
    an IOCTL function which can be malicious called passing a negative buffer?
    lenght value.  This value will bypass the lenght check (because the value?
    is negative) and will be used in a copyout operation.?
?
Systems Affected?
===================?
?
    FreeBSD     all versions?
    NetBSD      all versions?
    DragonFly   all versions?
    TrustedBSD* all versions?
?
Impact?
===================?
?
    This is a kernel bug and the system can be compromised by local users and ?
    important system informations can be discloused (basically, a mem dump  ;)  )?
?
Explanation?
===================?
?
    Firewire interface can be tunned.  It provides an ioctl function receiving?
    many parameters that can be changed.?
?
    The follow is a code fragment from (FreeBSD - dev/firewire/fwdev.c (fw_ioctl    function) || DragonFlyBSD bus/firewire/fwdev.c (fw_ioctl function) || NetBSD    - dev/ieee1394/fwdev.c (FW_IOCTL function)) file:?
?
	if (crom_buf->len < len)?
		len = crom_buf->len;?
	else?
		crom_buf->len = len;?
?
	err = copyout(ptr, crom_buf->ptr, len);?
?
    We control the crom_buf->len (it's passed as argument to the ioctl function)?
    so, passing it as a negative value will bypass this if statement (our value?
    is minor than the default one).?
?
    So, our value is used in a copyout function. ptr is defined before this?
    copyout as:?
	 if ( fwdev == NULL ) {?
		...?
		ptr = malloc(CROMSIZE, M_FW, M_WAITOK);?
		...?
	 } else {?
		ptr = (void *)&fwdev->csrrom[0];?
		...?
	}?
?
    This information disclousure lead an attacker dump all the system memory.?
?
Solution?
===================?
?
     Attached in this advisory a patch for the FreeBSD 5.5 (it's pretty simple,      so, just need to be little changed to the other BSD's)?
?
Timelife?
===================?
?
     11/15/2006 - Advisory Public Disclousure (sorry for the developers, but we ?
     are just respecting the Month of Kernel Bugs Timelife)?
?
Acknowledgments?
===================?
?
     Filipe Balestra <filipe@balestra.com.br> and Rodrigo Rubira Branco ?
     (BSDaemon) <rodrigo@kernelhacking.com> for the discovering, analysis?
     and patch.?
?
Contact Information?
===================?
?
     You can reach the authors of this advisory by mail or visiting some?
     websites:?
	http://www.balestra.com.br  -> Personal Website of Filipe?
	http://www.risesecurity.org -> RISE Security Research (Rodrigo is member     of the RISE Security Team)?
	http://www.kernelhacking.com/rodrigo -> Personal Website of Rodrigo?
?
References?
===================?
?
     http://www.kernelhacking.com/bsdadv1.txt -> Actual version of the advisory?
     http://www.risesecurity.org/RISE-2006002.txt -> Related issue?
?
Disclaimer (taken from teso-team)?
===================?
?
     This advisory does not claim to be complete or to be usable for any?
     purpose. Especially information on the vulnerable systems may be?
     inaccurate or wrong. The supplied exploit is not to be used for malicious?
     purposes, but for educational purposes only.?
?
     This advisory is free for open distribution in unmodified form.?
?
?
?
--- dev/firewire/fwdev.c.orig	Fri Oct 13 13:12:49 2006?
+++ dev/firewire/fwdev.c	Fri Oct 13 13:13:42 2006?
@@ -712,7 +712,7 @@ out:?
 			else?
 				len = fwdev->rommax - CSRROMOFF + 4;?
 		}?
-		if (crom_buf->len < len)?
+		if (crom_buf->len < len && crom_buf->len > 0)?
 			len = crom_buf->len;?
 		else?
 			crom_buf->len = len;?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 17 Nov 2006
5:35 PM

New mports
audio/nas, qmake, qt33, python 2.3, and python 2.4 were added to mports today.  linux-thunderbird was updated.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 24 Nov 2006
1:22 PM

NVIDIA mport
The NVIDIA driver port was updated to fix the buffer overflow vulnerability from some weeks back.  I also added x11/nvidia-settings to allow configuration of graphics cards.  ?
?
glxgears is working great with the new driver although i've noticed a problem with Enemy Territory.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:24 PM

lang/tcl83, tuxracer, MySQL 5.0.27
I've added the lang/tcl83 port as a dependancy of tuxracer which was also added today.  I also added kdehier as a start toward kde in ports.  I'm not going to push kde, but some users like some of the applications.  GNUstep is still the focus of the project.?
?
Yesterday, I updated MySQL to 5.0.27.  ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Annoyed
Music: 

2:42 PM

BSD banner INT overflow
I've corrected an overflow in banner as reported on bugtraq.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

6:42 PM

Security patches to several mports
I'm in the process of catching up on several security problems with ports.  QT was updated to 3.3.7.  PHP was updated to 5.2.0.  Ruby was patched for a cgi vulnerability.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

6:53 PM

Apache 2.0 and 2.2
Apache 2.0.59 and 2.2.3 were finally added to mports!  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Accomplished
Music: 

Tue, 28 Nov 2006
9:52 PM

Dovecot mport
The dovecot port was updated to fix a security issue and simply to catch it up.  There were 8 release canidates since the version was added to ports.  A few options changed in the config file.  The default_mail_env variable changed name and requires a slightly different entry.  Consult the new example config for mail_location to fix your paths.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 29 Nov 2006
11:14 AM

lha vulnerabilities
Several vulnerabilities have been found in archivers/lha.  These are similar to the gzip issues found a few months back.  MidnightBSD was the first to get an update into ports as OpenBSD, NetBSD's pkgsrc and FreeBSD do not have an update in cvs.  Several of the linux distros beat us to it, however.  ?
?
In the process, I've switched the port over to a maintained version.  The original had not been updated since 2000 and had port specific patches up to two years ago.  OpenBSD is using this version as well although they haven't updated to p1.  ?
?
The port was a bit rushed so please report any problems with it.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:14 AM

OpenLDAP mport
OpenLDAP was updated to 2.3.30 to work around some potential security issues.  OpenLDAP-sasl-client was added to mports as well.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:14 AM

MSDOSFS fix
msdosfs was patched to handle dates correctly.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:50 AM

GNU tar 
Teemu Salmela has reported a security issue in GNU tar, which can be?
exploited by malicious people to overwrite arbitrary files.?
?
The security issue is caused due to the "extract_archive()" function?
in extract.c and the "extract_mangle()" function in mangle.c still?
processing the deprecated "GNUTYPE_NAMES" record type containing?
symbolic links. This can be exploited to overwrite arbitrary files by?
e.g. tricking a user into unpacking a specially crafted tar file.?
?
The security issue is reported in version 1.15.1 and 1.16. Other?
versions may also be affected.?
?
?
---?
?
MidnightBSD mports included 1.15.1 which is vulnerable.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 7 Dec 2006
3:58 PM

China creates server os based on FreeBSD
http://www.pacificepoch.com/newsstories/82819_0_5_0_M/?
?
There have been quite a few derivatives of FreeBSD floating around lately.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 9 Dec 2006
8:42 PM

HTTP downloads
I've setup HTTP downloads on the MidnightBSD website again.  The mirrors are now listed in a table with upload speed estimates when possible.  Its recommended you download from the ISC mirror.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 10 Dec 2006
9:34 PM

mports activity
GNU tar was updated to fix the semi-recent vulnerability.  It was also updated to 1.16.FreeTar, a GNUstep graphical tar utility was added to archivers.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 11 Dec 2006
1:16 AM

More ports fixes
security/gnupg was updated to 1.4.6 to fix a security issue.  All users that use gnupg should update as soon as possible.  mail/squirrelmail was updated to 1.49a to fix a security issue.AddressManager (mail/addresses) is a GNUstep Address Book.  It was added tonight.  x11-servers/mga_hal, a Matrox driver, was added.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 20 Dec 2006
3:36 PM

Browser updates
Several browsers have been updated in recent weeks.  Many of the mports were updated today.?
www/linux-firefox : 2.0.0.1 (recent security patch)www/linux-firefox-devel  (last snapshot)www/linux-seamonkey (last release 1.0.6)www/opera  : 9.10

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 27 Dec 2006
5:53 PM

Recent changes
A CVSup server was created to download src and mports.  csup was also added to base to help with retrieving mports.  sup files were created, edited and in some cases deleted so /usr/share/examples/cvsup is now safe to use as an example to connect to our server.?
?
A bug was patched in burncd which caused erasing a CDRW to go on forwever.  ?
?
A problem with the bsnmpd update from Oct 30 was corrected.?
?
Updates to sync GEOM with FreeBSD 6.2 stable are underway.  ?
?
A bug with long double to long and long long conversions on sparc64 was fixed.  ?
?
A bug with syscons/tty support was fixed which could cause a race condition in certain situations.  ?
?
An rcNG script was added for rdate to allow clients to sync to a time server.  We introduced OpenNTPD and rdate several months back, but had not created a replacement for the ntpdate script.  This has been corrected and other scripts depending on ntpdate were adjusted.  To use the rdate script, a server must be specified in rc.conf as well as enabling it.  rdate_enable="YES" and rdate_flags="-n stargazer.midnightbsd.org" for instance would enable rdate and have it sync to our local time server.  Its not recommended to use our server as its on a slow link and not designed to be very accurate. ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 30 Dec 2006
11:50 PM

The last few days
Most of my time has been spent on src these last few days.  I just commited seq(1) from NetBSD.  Yesterday I spent some time on init(8).  A patch was proposed for FreeBSD which also worked quite nicely for us to allow init to chroot.  I also did a bit of cleanup work on the source and shrunk the binary a bit.  I also worked on /etc/rc.d.  Several of the scripts ordering was changed and some imrprovements were done to a few scripts. The Acer m5288 PCI id was added to src/sys/dev/ata/ata-chipset.c to allow that chip which is found on newer laptops.  The loginfail periodic script was altered to display login errors from more daemons.  mixer_enable="YES" was added to rc so that one can turn off the mixer on systems without sound cards.  src/usr.bin/login was changed to log errors from setenv.  On the mports front, Phil has been commiting updates to several existing ports.  First ReleaseI've made a decision about the first release.  I had held off on many source commits between early November and this last week as I had thought I'd do a release by now.  In fact, I promised it to several people.  The release has been held off mostly due to issues with automating building of packages for the ISO, generating the index and spliting the packages.  I'm at a point I can manually create packages and could possibly do a limited release.  I'd rather not ship packages which are not built in a very clean environment.  I've been working on modifying and writing scripts to do our package building in my spare time.  I've decided that I will ship the first release without packages on the ISO.  mports will be installed however.  I plan to finish up some current projects on src and then possibly creating a snapshot early next week.  If all goes well, I hope to ship a tested release without packages by the end of January.  I will need to make adjustments to sysinstall as to not confuse users or cause any errors.  That deadline will also allow me to try to finish my scripts to build packages.  At this point, I feel the project has progressed far enough to warrent a release and allow us to start with a solid foundation to start doing interesting work.  The vast majority of commits have been to simply keep up with FreeBSD which is not what we want to do.  I don't want to be a distro of FreeBSD, but rather branch out with a complete desktop system.  You should start seeing more commits of features from other BSD systems and unique additions from our own project.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 6 Jan 2007
5:03 PM

HEAD broken for SMP
I'm in the process of making some changes with syscons which breaks HEAD at the moment.  If you need to cvsup to a more recent version, it should be safe to grab the changes from around Dec 31.  Alternatively, you can save your syscons directory and sync up now.  This should be fixed soon.  Systems with 1 CPU and no hyperthreading should be fine.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

5:06 PM

bsdtalk
Our mports manager, Phil Pereira was featured recently. (bsdtalk091)?
?
http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 19 Jan 2007
2:22 PM

mports and src status
src:?
    Progress continues on syncing with relevant FreeBSD 6.1 Release changes.  I tagged the code today with a snapshot point that has been known to work on a limited number of systems.  (not massive testing)  If you've been holding off updating your sources, its stafe to use that tag.  Please note that we have not patched the jail vulnerability found when starting jails with syslog yet.  This will be done after our other changes are completed.  ?
?
mports:?
    The mports index is not building currently.  That means using portupgrade can fail unless you have an old stable index.  The problem occured as I commited some kde ports awhile back without the entire KDE distrobution.  It will be resolved one way or another shortly.  ?
?
I fixed up some typos in various Makefiles and added ghostscript-apsl.  I also made a few adjustments with the ghostscript references in bsd.port.mk... Phil had already made several changes recently in this area.  ?
?
The sudden attention to detail with mports was long overdue.  We also need to clean up mports for a snapshot and release on the horizon.  ?
?
With the kde ports locally, I'm able to to bulid the index.  I also noticed some bugs with the cups mport that need some research.  (make clean fails for instance)  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 20 Jan 2007
2:25 PM

mports & kde
I've been focusing on getting KDE working in mports.  While we still plan to focus on GNUstep solutions, KDE is very popular among BSD users.  It also gives us access to koffice and konquerer so that we have native office and web browsing.  Opera is also working which is somewhat native although it requires compatibility libraries for freebsd 4 and 5.?
?
index building is still most likely broken, but i've got kdebase, kdelibs and several other parts of kde in already.  ?
?
Once these commits are completed, ports should be fairly stable to use for a snap or release.  ?
?
Phil has been importing several other ports today.  In the last day and a half we've done 255 commits so far alone.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 23 Jan 2007
8:02 PM

jail security issue
I patched the jail security issue tonight.  The /etc/rc.d/jail startup script did not check various paths for symbolic links which made them prone to attack.  This patch corrects the issue and also changes the default output from /var/console.log.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 28 Jan 2007
1:25 PM

New snapshot for i386
I've added a new snapshot to the ftp server for i386.  It does not include mports as we're working out some index issues during the KDE import. ?
?
This snap includes the recent jail fix.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:26 PM

New PATA support
The Marvell 6101/6145 PATA used on the Intel DP965LT and other boards was added today.  A JMicron chip was added also.  ?
?
This actually fixed my personal desktop.  The sata controllers were renumbered so be prepared to fix fstab if you update to this.  ?
?
This was done after the snapshot since it had not been tested yet.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:46 PM

DVD playback
I've got DVD playback working on my system with xine and that last patch.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 2 Feb 2007
2:06 PM

Bill Gates on Windows Vista
I typically only post MidnightBSD related entries to this blog.  I saw this link on a mailing list today.?
?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16934083/site/newsweek/page/2/?
?
Bill Gates actually said "Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine."?
?
Wow. I feel a renewed spirt toward this project after reading that sentence.  In the end, it does not matter what operating system I prefer.  All systems have security issues from time to time.  Making a blanket statement like that is just amazing.  What's next?  Windows crack of the month?  ?
?
I haven't read the whole article yet, but from what I've read so far he attacks Apple for their ad campaign in all the wrong ways.  I've blogged about Apple's ads and inconsistencies before.  I agree some of them are misleading.  And I thought his Daily Show performance was bad...?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

2:12 PM

Bind 9.3.4, Sendmail, Archite, and Status
I've been working on importing Bind 9.3.4 into the tree.  Its imported and compiling on three different ia32 machines.  It still requires further testing.  I'm going to upgrade my secondary dns server tonight and see how well it runs.  ?
?
Bind 9.3.4 was also updated/added to mports. ?
?
I noticed sendmail did a new release.  I'll start looking at that when I get some more time.?
?
Also, lets welcome back our security officer.  Adam has been busy and PCless for the last month or so.  ?
?
Finally, my work on mports has paid off.  The index is in much better shape.  We have most of KDE available.  joe was added to editors last night.  I'm attempting a snap build of amd64 right now with mports included.  It also includes the bind update.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 3 Feb 2007
8:05 PM

Snapshots
A stupid commit to sysinstall caused some serious problems with installing MidnightBSD in the last few snaps.  October or earlier are safe.  The newest i386 snap seems to fix it and also correctly enables encrypted swap.   The last amd64 snap is not good.  I'll do new snaps for other architectures soon.  I noticed a few other issues with sysinstall I need to look into.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 9 Feb 2007
3:41 PM

PowerPC
I was asked to build a PowerPC iso just to see it if was working for G4 Macs.  I test booted the iso on my iBook G4 800Mhz.  The kernel seems to work as long as a usb keyboard is plugged in.  There is a freeze around drive detection without it.  The mfsroot does not mount correctly.  Out of curiosity, I mounted it on /dev/md0 on my i386 box and many files were all listed as 2.1M in size.  Very strange.  There could be an endian-ness issue present or something might be wrong with the isofs.  For some reason, my initial import of FreeBSD did not include src/sys/powerpc/conf/* files either.  I added them today.  ?
?
Even the FreeBSD PowerPC port isn't that far along and I don't want people to think we're going to support this officially.  We simply don't have the people to maintain a PPC port.  It would be rather interesting though.?
?
Based on personal experience, I'd recommend OpenBSD to anyone wanting to run a BSD on PowerPC hardware.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 13 Feb 2007
5:59 PM

An update
src now includes sudo.  It has a rather conservative default config file.  ?
?
I've updated Samba to 3.0.24 to deal with several security issues listed in the commit.  I'd recommend updating to the new port when possible.?
?
mports/devel/dmalloc was added today as well as mports/net/zillion.  dmalloc is a memory debug library and zillion is a gnustep based job control system...?
?
I've got guile working now, but gnustep-guile is failing to compile.  I'll look at that when I get more time.  ?
?
I've put off the remaining KDE issues as I'd like to get some higher priority issues resolved.  The PowerPC stuff is still not working with errors mounting the mfsroot.  I'd like to get more gnustep apps in and possibly do something similar to the newer FreeBSD gnustep-app port.?
?
I noticed FreeBSD is starting to work on priority queues.  That might be something we'll need to look at.  I personally would love that feature and Windows offers support for it.  ?
?
I'm hoping to compile a list (with help) of outstanding security issues wiht MidnightBSD.  I'm sure there are several ports which need updating.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 14 Feb 2007
3:13 PM

Python port updated to 2.4.4
I just commited changes to the Python port to bring us to 2.4.4.  Let me know if there are any issues.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:12 PM

GNUstep ports
guile and gnustep-guile are now in mports.  ?
?
deskutils/preferencepanes?
x11-toolkits/gtookit (gtk/gnustep interface)?
devel/wizardkit?
devel/objcunit?
devel/highlighterkit?
devel/performance?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 15 Feb 2007
2:48 PM

Wireless
I just got a refurbished thinkpad and I'm working on getting wireless up.  Here are some helpful references:http://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/01/05/freebsd-howto-ndisulate-windows-drivers/http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-wireless.htmlhttp://taosecurity.blogspot.com/2006/02/linksys-wpc54g-with-freebsd-yesterday.htmlThe linksys WPC54GS version 2 is a Broadcom chipset so avoid it if possible.  I believe you must use an ndis wrapper with this card.  I've managed to get that working,, but using a native driver is certainly better. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:11 PM

More on wireless
Setting up an airport express based network is a pain with BSD or Windows.   My configuration is with WPA2 personal and non broadcasted SSID.  Most everything in google is about WEP.  WPA2 only does not play nice with my setup on the airport end.  Here's my working config for reference:/etc/wpa_supplicant.confctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicantctrl_interface_group=wheelap_scan=2network={    ssid="The name of my lovely network"    scan_ssid=1    proto=WPA2    key_mgmt=WPA-PSK    psk=myhexkey}if you don't use a hex value... use quotes for psk=/etc/rc.conf ...ifconfig_ndis0="WPA DHCP"(this could be the problem with WPA vs WPA2 above)This does seem to work.  I have two airport express wireless routers with the latest firmware (6.3 i think) 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 19 Feb 2007
4:01 PM

Just a little update
First, let me point everyone to this MSNBC article with Richard Stallman in Cuba....?
?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17190349/?
?
The article includes a quote from Bill Gates referring to open source people as communists.  I'm going to need to disagree with Bill on this one.  Many open source companies profit from open source software.  Redhat, Novell and Sun come to mind.  Other companies also profit including Apple and indirectly Microsoft.  Lets not forget that Microsoft is giving linux vouchers away now.  I guess Microsoft likes communists after all.  ?
?
On topic, we've got several new mports this week.  Archite has commited a new version of ispell which should fix the problems many  have had with various ports including pine4 which depend on it. ?
?
I just commited emulators/mtools to mports.?
?
We've also been commiting various mail server ports recently.  While MidnightBSD is a desktop system, we still use it for our own servers.  We may release a server version at some point as well.  Integration of desktop and server environments can offer some exciting administration possibilities.  It also allows IT users to test software on their desktop systems.  ?
?
The astro category was added today.  We'll start bring over a few ports for that purpose.  ?
?
Archite has been adding ports related to various wireless chipsets and video cards.  ?
?
Finally, I've recently purchased a used IBM Thinkpad T30.  So far MidnightBSD is working flawlessly on it.  Intel Enhanced Speedstep is bring the cpu down to 450Mhz when idle, the sound card, video card, and intel fxp based network card are working great.  I've even managed to get a linksys wireless adapter working with an ndis wrapper.  I'd strongly discourage buying linksys pccards though.  Many of them use broadcom chipsets which are not natively supported.  I won't rant on this issue since the OpenBSD folks take care of that already.  That said, the card occasionally has watchdog timeouts if the system is under load.  Playing a DVD is enough with xine.  With the card enabled, I see a constant 5% interrupt load.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:16 PM

Source Code
MidnightBSD source is not available on the FTP and HTTP servers.  The code is automatically checked out from HEAD everyday in the morning.?
?
http://www.midnightbsd.org/ftp/MidnightBSD/mbsdsrc.tar.gz?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 23 Feb 2007
3:31 PM

Missing php-extensions
php5-extensions-1.0: "/usr/mports/misc/php5-calendar" non-existent -- dependency list incomplete?
php5-extensions-1.0: "/usr/mports/ftp/php5-curl" non-existent -- dependency list incomplete?
php5-extensions-1.0: "/usr/mports/ftp/php5-ftp" non-existent -- dependency list incomplete?
php5-extensions-1.0: "/usr/mports/databases/php5-interbase" non-existent -- dependency list incomplete?
php5-extensions-1.0: "/usr/mports/graphics/php5-ming" non-existent -- dependency list incomplete?
php5-extensions-1.0: "/usr/mports/devel/php5-readline" non-existent -- dependency list incomplete?
php5-extensions-1.0: "/usr/mports/converters/php5-recode" non-existent -- dependency list incomplete?
php5-extensions-1.0: "/usr/mports/devel/php5-shmop" non-existent -- dependency list incomplete?
php5-extensions-1.0: "/usr/mports/databases/php5-sybase_ct" non-existent -- dependency list incomplete?
php5-extensions-1.0: "/usr/mports/devel/php5-sysvmsg" non-existent -- dependency list incomplete?
php5-extensions-1.0: "/usr/mports/devel/php5-sysvsem" non-existent -- dependency list incomplete?
php5-extensions-1.0: "/usr/mports/devel/php5-sysvshm" non-existent -- dependency list incomplete?
php5-extensions-1.0: "/usr/mports/textproc/php5-wddx" non-existent -- dependency list incomplete?
php5-extensions-1.0: "/usr/mports/net/pecl-yaz" non-existent -- dependency list incomplete?
?
This needs to be fixed pronto.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:32 PM

java problems
I've noticed the FreeBSD java package is exhibiting some strange behavior.  I'm researching the problem.  The forums are not currently allowing new users for instance.  It appears to be an x11 problem.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 6 Mar 2007
5:01 PM

MidnightBSD and the upcoming DST issues
Here's a simple test you can perform: zdump -v EST5EDT | grep 2007(replace EST5EDT with your time zone)EST5EDT  Sun Mar 11 06:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 01:59:59 2007 EST isdst=0 gmtoff=-18000EST5EDT  Sun Mar 11 07:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 03:00:00 2007 EDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-14400EST5EDT  Sun Nov  4 05:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Nov  4 01:59:59 2007 EDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-14400EST5EDT  Sun Nov  4 06:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Nov  4 01:00:00 2007 EST isdst=0 gmtoff=-18000Since Mar 11 and Nov 4 have entries then this box is ok.  It was run on a recent MBSD install.  I imported timezones near the end of last year.  There maybe a few countries I missed with changes.  I will do another timezone update soon.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 9 Mar 2007
1:27 AM

more ports
GWorkspace and GNUmail were added to mports along with several windowmaker compatible dockapps. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:29 AM

Recent Activity
Most of us have been rather busy lately, but we did get a few things commited. mfi was added today.  Its a driver for LSI MegaRAID SAS RAID controllers.  It supports some of the Dell perc5i's and various other newer controllers from LSI.  A few minor changes to improve timeout behavior in nfsclient were commited.  Kernel PPP was corrected to use GIANT.  added mports:x11/xlockmorex11/xscreensaverx11/xscreensaver.appx11/wterm

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:15 AM

mports and sysinstall
The following ports were added recently:?
devel/libical,  misc/xtail, misc/cpuid, gworkspace, gnumail, math/R, math/blas?
?
sysintall now "knows" about several additional ethernet and disk  devices.  ?
?
Archite is looking into bring BSD licensed more and less into our tree.  ctriv, a new developer with MBSD is working on several projects including a possible new package management system.  ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 10 Mar 2007
1:03 PM

DST Changes
While the tzdata update last year should have fixed any changes in the US, I was not so sure about other countries.  I updated to tzdata2007c today.  Anyone concerned about DST can download the source and update their systems. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:05 PM

Emulation
Yesterday, I added vMac, pearpc and basiliskII to mports.  Anyone with a fondness for Macs should love it.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:06 PM

OpenSSH 4.6p1
OpenSSH 4.6 was released yesterday.  Its already in mports and we'll be updating the version in userland soon.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 11 Mar 2007
1:01 AM

980 mports
We've hit 980 mports today.  Considering darwinports has less than 4000 if their website count is correct, I think we're making good progress.  Compared to the 16,000 ports FreeBSD has this isn't that significant.  Many FreeBSD ports are useless crap though.  ?
?
I'm debating what bug tracking software to use for the project.  Tonights work was done to get Bugzilla into mports.  I want to test it for a time.  GNATS appears to be a big hassle to setup.  Request Tracker has more dependancies than Bugzilla.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:39 AM

Live Journal clive port and DST
I've just added the live journal command line client to mports.  ?
?
My systems seem to have faired DST ok.  ?
?
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/11/time.change.reut/index.html?
?
According to this CNN article, DST was changed for the environment.  This is false.  It was proposed for trick or treaters by Fred Upton. More time was put into y2k testing.  I don't think Microsoft charged $4000 to update Windows (2000) back then.     

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 13 Mar 2007
1:02 AM

mports, Etoile, Java, src
Today I managed to get some much needed work on src done.  While nothing essential was commited, there were several fixes to sound done.  I also cleaned up a few other things.  I'm in the process of testing buildworld/buildkernel at the moment.  if things prove stable, I'll try to sneak in the openssh update and then build new snaps.  We could use some with the timezone changes in.  With mports, I updated the linux-sun-jdk ports as well as the freebsd java ports (freebsd binary versions).  I also added dilion, gnustep-tracker (rss feed scroller), and i've begun importing etoile!  I'm as shocked as anyone, but I've got part of etoile working.  I synced our bsd.gnustep.mk with FreeBSD's and did a few other changes and then Dirk's ports are working on mbsd.  I can't take much credit for these ports, but I'm happy to have them.  With some ports, even starting with a FreeBSD port still involves a lot of additional porting time.  These are going smooth so far.  ctriv hit some snags with the msk driver.  He's made some progress with  packages.  We're hoping Wintellect will be available soon to discuss the changes with ctriv.   Most people are very busy in their personal lives right now.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:35 PM

Etoile
I spent a few hours getting etoile into mports last night.  I just posted a screenshot of Etoile running on mbsd.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

5:16 PM

Exciting mports work, src
We're making some progress for a change.  Archite got mozilla to finally compile on mbsd although its not working just right yet.  I just did some refinements to the gnustep ports which seem to be working well so far.  gzip and gtar in mports were updated to fix some security concerns.  There is still a possibility gtar has an issue.  That's up for debate.  The new sound code seems to be working.  I've successfully installed the new kernel build on my laptop and desktop so far.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

7:15 PM

OpenSSH 4.6p1
I just finished updating OpenSSH in src to 4.6p1.  So far it seems to be working well for me.  The merge was a bit awkward so if there are any problems with defaults, let me know. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 14 Mar 2007
11:22 AM

Étoilé
Now that &Eacute;toilé is in mports, I thought I'd start looking into using it properly. :)  http://www.etoile-project.org/etoile/blog/2006/12/minimal-toil.htmlWhat you can't see from my first screenshot is that I was manually starting the various processes.  What can I say, it was early and I was just happy it compiled.  Presuming we can get everything working well, I could see using &Eacute;toilé.  The UI has potential and I was shocked how fast it was.  I suppose the similarities with Mac OS X made me expect Tiger speed.  My desktop is beating my wife's new Mac Pro hands down while running MBSD + &Eacute;toilé  + various GNUstep apps.  I've only got a Pentium D 805.  Honestly, I was beginning to have doubts about this project's choices.  This has really shown me that we're doing the right thing.  On a side note, I guess I'll find out if Just Journal can handle the accents in &Eacute;toilé.  I don't know :) 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:29 AM

libarchive, not a release yet, ...
I'm in the middle of updating libarchive + bsdtar in src.  I seemed to get it to get through buildworld + installworld on one system and manually compiling libarchive + tar on another.  I am still a little suspect of it though.  Be sure to test tar thoroughly if you update source and any compilation issues should be reported to luke@midnightbsd.org.   I suppose you could comment on this blog if you have a JJ account as well.  I've been meaning to setup bugzilla, and I think this might be a good case for why I should have done it sooner.  As for a RELEASE, I know I promised one several times in the past.  We just don't feel its a good idea to release until we have a simple desktop working.  Perhaps if archite is successful with his mozilla patches and ctriv gets his prototyping done for our new package management system we'll be ready to work on a release.  We don't need the new package system done, but I certainly want to have it planned out before the release.  I do hope wintellect gets some free time to help us prototype it.  He's just getting enough time for bsdnexus.com I think.  I received an e-mail yesterday from an upset individual who just realized we exist.  He was quite upset about our fork and asked why we forked.  He also assumed that I must have been involved in a fight with the core team of FreeBSD to work as DF and OpenBSD started.   Some of his concerns were understandable, but I don't feel like my actions are similar to the Linux distro scene.  In my view, PC-BSD and DesktopBSD are distros of FreeBSD.  Granted, DesktopBSD flatly states they are not a distro but rather a project writing tools.  I don't see the difference between that and say Gentoo writing portage (tools) for an existing kernel + userland.  Regardless, my point is not to define DesktopBSD's place in the world.  I did not follow the Freesbie, DesktopBSD, PC-BSD path of making a livecd or distro* because I feel that certain changes will need to be made to make MidnightBSD more friendly as a desktop environment.  FreeBSD is "the power to serve" after all.  They also have made close deals with Intel and binary blobs.  I'd rather have an open desktop.  I've said before that I am not against binary blobs in the way that OpenBSD is but I do prefer to avoid them.  FreeBSD has probably hurt the rest of the BSD community by agreeing to binary blobs in base from Intel.  There is an example of a problem with FreeBSD.  I've previously ranted about extreme SMP, treatment of commiters, and other problems with their project.  Some of those issues are being addressed.  I was never a commiter to any other BSD project.  I did submit patches to FreeBSD commiters and I did try to get involved with an HFS+ port to FreeBSD 6.  The former resulted in my code used without credit and the latter was a wasted three months when my hard drive failed and I didn't make a backup like an idiot.  (There are backups of the MBSD cvs, although I could use a tape drive or something...)  I don't feel like defending myself yet again.  People still bring up OpenBSD and DragonFly so I know this won't end regardless of what I do.  I got news for FreeBSD fans... they based theirs on 386BSD!   I do want to address one concern he had.  "The community is stagnating".  Well, yes it is to some degree.  More likely people are joining younger BSD projects who can't get into FreeBSD or don't have the years of ass kissing to get commit bits.  From my experiences, OpenBSD seems to be much better on this front.  There is still a power structure which is inevitable in all open source projects, but people listen and discuss things.  Its not a flame war.  If I were to go back in time and not start MidnightBSD, I would probably try to join OpenBSD or DragonFly.  They are great projects with some interesting goals.  There is also nothing stopping someone from working on more than one BSD project.  In fact, there are developers doing that with DF, FBSD, etc.  So why did I fork?  Things weren't getting done on the desktop.  At the end of the day, PC-BSD, DesktopBSD and Freesbie are just going to be ports.  Besides some people don't like KDE. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 15 Mar 2007
1:33 PM

OpenBSD security
This is an interesting read.  The patch is very small.  ?
http://secunia.com/advisories/24490/?
?
Index: sys/kern/uipc_mbuf2.c?
===================================================================?
RCS file: /cvs/src/sys/kern/uipc_mbuf2.c,v?
retrieving revision 1.24?
retrieving revision 1.24.2.1?
diff -u -p -r1.24 -r1.24.2.1?
--- sys/kern/uipc_mbuf2.c	17 Mar 2006 04:15:51 -0000	1.24?
+++ sys/kern/uipc_mbuf2.c	7 Mar 2007 19:21:48 -0000	1.24.2.1?
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@?
-/*	$OpenBSD: uipc_mbuf2.c,v 1.24 2006/03/17 04:15:51 brad Exp $	*/?
+/*	$OpenBSD: uipc_mbuf2.c,v 1.24.2.1 2007/03/07 19:21:48 deraadt Exp $	*/?
 /*	$KAME: uipc_mbuf2.c,v 1.29 2001/02/14 13:42:10 itojun Exp $	*/?
 /*	$NetBSD: uipc_mbuf.c,v 1.40 1999/04/01 00:23:25 thorpej Exp $	*/?
 ?
@@ -226,16 +226,14 @@ m_dup1(struct mbuf *m, int off, int len,?
 {?
 	struct mbuf *n;?
 	int l;?
-	int copyhdr;?
 ?
 	if (len > MCLBYTES)?
 		return (NULL);?
 	if (off == 0 && (m->m_flags & M_PKTHDR) != 0) {?
-		copyhdr = 1;?
 		MGETHDR(n, wait, m->m_type);?
+		M_DUP_PKTHDR(n, m);?
 		l = MHLEN;?
 	} else {?
-		copyhdr = 0;?
 		MGET(n, wait, m->m_type);?
 		l = MLEN;?
 	}?
@@ -249,8 +247,6 @@ m_dup1(struct mbuf *m, int off, int len,?
 	if (!n)?
 		return (NULL);?
 ?
-	if (copyhdr)?
-		M_DUP_PKTHDR(n, m);?
 	m_copydata(m, off, len, mtod(n, caddr_t));?
 	n->m_len = len;?
 ?
?
This isn't the first time they've had a problem though:?
http://secunia.com/advisories/10801/?
?
I reviewed MidnightBSD code.  Our handling is a bit different.  ?
?
static struct mbuf *?
m_dup1(struct mbuf *m, int off, int len, int wait)?
{?
	struct mbuf *n;?
	int copyhdr;?
?
	if (len > MCLBYTES)?
		return NULL;?
?
	if (off == 0 && (m->m_flags & M_PKTHDR) != 0)?
		copyhdr = 1;?
    else?
    	copyhdr = 0;?
     ?
	if (len >= MINCLSIZE) {?
    	if (copyhdr == 1)?
        	n = m_getcl(wait, m->m_type, M_PKTHDR);?
        else?
        	n = m_getcl(wait, m->m_type, 0);?
    } else {?
    	if (copyhdr == 1)?
			n = m_gethdr(wait, m->m_type);?
		else?
			n = m_get(wait, m->m_type);?
	}?
	?
	if (!n)?
		return NULL; /* ENOBUFS */?
?
	if (copyhdr && !m_dup_pkthdr(n, m, wait)) {?
		m_free(n);?
		return NULL;?
    }?
    m_copydata(m, off, len, mtod(n, caddr_t));?
	n->m_len = len;?
	return n;?
}

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 16 Mar 2007
3:55 PM

mports index
I just posted a freshly generated index on the webserver.  make fetchindex grabs this file and its also retrieved when the local index is broken at times.  I'm quite bad about keeping it updated as it had be about 45 days since I updated it last.  On the upside, the index generated fine the first time.  ?
?
Its cleanup day for mports.  I'm going to attempt to build packages this weekend and do our first package filled isos.  That also means you can expect a new snap this weekend if all goes according to plan.  That snap will include the timezone changes, the new BSD licensed gzip import from NetBSD/FreeBSD, the libarchive updates, openssh 4.6p1, and so on.  ?
?
I should also clarify that there is one commited mport that does not work.  Mozilla was imported to help us work on the problems with it.  Its currently building on some systems, but the GUI does not seem to be connected to the backend code so it does not do much of anything.  We suspect a project with their security manager.  Adding a new OS to it isn't fun.  The linux versions of Mozilla branded browsers are available as well as opera.  I may try to get permission from opera to distribute opera on our isos.  Its working very well on MBSD.  I realize a lot of people like that browser in spite of its closed source and "unique" UI.  I have to admit it works very well on unix like systems.  I would probably buy it for my wii if i could get a wii!  ?
?
I just did a test install on an old HP Pavillion made around 2000.  It shipped with windows me and has a celeron 700Mhz processor.  It took about 5 minutes to install mbsd on it.  I'm going to build a few packages on it since its got a clean install.  ?
?
Archite is continuing to work on building new packages and trying to figure out what is wrong with mozilla.  He's also researching making pf our default firewall.  I personally like ipfw, but most others I've talked to prefer pf.  There are several advantages to pf so we'll see where that goes.  The version in our tree is from around OpenBSD 3.7 or so.  We'd need to work on updating it.  ?
?
I also did a successful test package-split today.  We need to build a few more packages as we've updated freetype2 and a few other things that mess with a lot of x11 ports.  ?
?
As far as new ports are concerned, I am simply going through ports I started to work on previously and commiting them if they are now working.  Most of them just needed some dependancy which is now in and I forgot about them.  Most notably I got several of the broken KDE ports in.  ?
?
On the topic of GNUstep, we're hoping to start installing GNUstep + xorg as part of the installer soon.  If we ship a working snap with packages this weekend, we'll start working on the installer to automate that step.  We'll also add some new meta ports to install GNUstep based software.  After these steps are completed, we'll do our first release.  ?
?
Concurrently, ctriv will be working on what we are currenly calling "mport" which is a package management system.  pkg_add and other package tools will become wrappers for this new system.  It will be written in C and eventually a graphical version will be built as well.  Most likely the gui version will be a GNUstep app.  He's almost done planning and will be developing a perl based prototype in the near future.  It hit me the other day that GNUstep has an installer available.  I want to look at that before we go to much farther with "mport" but i suspect some integration will be required.  ?
?
We're looking at having a database containing all the packages available, their security status, some meta tags describing them, and a few other pieces of information.  End users would just do something like mport install pkgname.  There would also be mport status, mport list and so on.  The hardest step so far has been finding a name for this thing that is not a usability nightmare and still not taken.  mport, mpkg and several other variants are taken.. i'm starting to see why gentoo called thier stuff emerge/portage.  All the good names were taken.  ?
?
I'll create an entry with new ports later.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:19 PM

Étoilé  live CD
We haven't shipped anything with Étoilé  yet, but in case you are curious they've got a live CD.?
?
http://xdev.org/etoile/

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 18 Mar 2007
5:14 PM

New mports, updated sound code
New ports:print/gvnet/netatalkjava/mysql-connector-javadevel/log4jjava/jboss4graphics/quickshowgraphics/gozergraphics/goomx11-wm/fvwm2Updated ports:shells/zshtextproc/docprojx11-tookits/qt33 (note not the latest version)sysutils/cdrtoolsmports/audio/liboggmports/audio/linux-liboggx11-tookits/gtk20lang/php5-extensionsnet/samba3emulators/winex11/xscreensaver-kdeAlso, archite has commited new sound drivers which improves compatibility with some newer sound cards.  He was inspired by a new acer laptop he acquired.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 19 Mar 2007
10:53 AM

New snaps, more..
I now have a redistribution agreement with Opera Software to distribute the Opera(c) browser with MidnightBSD.  This is relevant as I'm able to distribute it on ISOs.  This morning I uploaded a new snapshot without ISOs.  (dated the 18th)  Our make release script is not including the packages properly.  I manually made ISOs with packages for testing.  Its in the snapshots/i386/0.1-Special folder on the FTP server.  In theory, xorg should be installable from the disk1 CD as well as many other packages.  There are about 500MB of packages between disk1 and disk2.  Only fetch disk2 if you intend to use the packages on it.  Mostly its GNUstep, WindowMaker and KDE packages.I have not had an opportunity to test this ISO yet.  It may not work or not be bootable for some reason.  As for the release script, I have an idea why it might be failing and can setup a work around for it.  Once these little details are worked out, I will start working on modifying sysinstall to drop a GNUstep base + some apps with installation.  I will also create a metaport for GNUstep related ports and another for MidnightBSD "gui" customizations which will actually setup the graphical environment.  By not including it in base, I'm able to possibly offer non gui installation for servers.  I'm not targeting servers, but I personally use MBSD on servers so its helpful to me.  There are also a few in the project that aren't big GUI fans like our security officer. :) 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

6:51 PM

tcsh 6.15 diff for MBSD
i just created a quick diff for MBSD with tcsh 6.15 which was released very recently.http://www.midnightbsd.org/tcsh.diffI also sent this upstream.I noticed when mports was started after our "ports" issue, the config.sub and config.guess files are lying and saying we are freebsd.  While this might be necessary in ports for now, we should post patched versions for MBSD.  I've had some on my system for some time.  I'll try to do this later.  I also have a small qemu disk image with the latest snap + x11 installed to post on the ftp later.  I was able to install MBSD with the xorg packages on the new ISOs and that's what the qemu image is.  I'm starting to think I need to make my own patches directory that's publicly accessible.  I am hoping to import tcsh 6.15 soon.  There is at least one known bug with the new version.  It has improved memory allocation/cleanup code though. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 20 Mar 2007
5:05 PM

bugreport.midnightbsd.org
MidnightBSD now has a bug reporting and tracking system setup.  Please add future bug reports to this system.?
?
http://bugreport.midnightbsd.org/?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

5:07 PM

mports X11 changes
ctriv is working on migrating X11 ports to install in /usr/local/ instead of /usr/X11R6.  This will allow us to migrate to xorg 7.x in the future.  Some ports might be broken for a few days while he does the transition.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

5:08 PM

amd64/sparc64 broken
A few changes in the tree have broken AMD64 and sparc64.  i386 should be fine.  I'm working on it.  It was discovered when I was trying to make new snaps.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

5:11 PM

Opera(c) browser
I've had a few complaints about including Opera(c) with MidnightBSD.  Some people feel closed source software does not belong in open systems.  I would love some feedback on what you think.  (comment on this entry or use the forum)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

5:13 PM

tcsh
The patch was accepted upstream.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:00 PM

(no subject)
An informal count of ports shows 1077.  I guess that means we have 1/16 of the freebsd ports :)  ?
?
I added spam assassin tonight. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 21 Mar 2007
10:11 AM

AMD64 snap released
I just uploaded an AMD64 snap to the FTP server.  It includes all the recent enhancements such as OpenSSH 4.6, new sound code, etc.  It does not include binary packages.  The mports collection included was taken during transition with xorg.  It would be useful to update mports after installing this snap.?
?
The sparc64 snap is not ready yet.  There are still some problems with sparc compatibility.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

7:48 PM

(no subject)
bugreport.midnightbsd.org was fixed.  Apparently I can't type in URLs properly.  Users should now be able to login.  bugzilla stores the base url in the database and this was entered incorrectly.  linux-firefox needs to be updated to 2.0.0.3 which I will hopefully get to tonight.  sparc64 release building is broken.  It appears sunlabel is broken so if you upgrade from an older release keep an old copy of this lying around until its fixed.  I was going to add a bug for this when I noticed bugzilla :) x11-tookits/vte was reported broken today.  I'll be looking at that soon.  The transition is continuing to keep ports out of /usr/X11R6.  We've been asked about migrating/merging to another ports system which may or may not happen.  We're talking it over right now.  In the mean time, we are operating on the assumption we'll keep our own ports.  There are pros and cons to this approach such as not worrying about some of the ports issues.  We would still need to build guis, package management and other tools on that system and it may or may not hold us back with GNUstep related elements.  The last point is my largest concern at the moment.  Something to think about is ipfw.  Apple's working on some new extensions to ipfw for 10.5 that might be interesting to do in mbsd (see below lol)  Dynamic rulesets that alter rules based on conditions so that say large storms of traffic to port 80 that are "unusual" would be blocked by 10.5 server, etc.  The concept isn't amazing but their implementation might be.And now for some good news.  Allbsd.org will start mirroring our CVS and possibly our FTP server.  I'll post details on the midnightbsd website later. Lastly, I guess the MirBSD project doesn't like us using mbsd as an abbreviation.  I was under the impression they were just using mir or else I wouldn't have gone there.  I suppose some people might be confused so I'd love suggestions on alternatives.  mibsd seems weak.  I guess we could just call it Midnight as DragonFly does with their stuff....  ideas welcome.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 22 Mar 2007
2:54 PM

BitchX in, mports transition?, naming
BtichX is now in mports.  I think this will make several of us happy. Gnome support does not work since we don't have gnome in our tree.  We're still talking over the proposal for transitioning mports to another system.  It looks like we will probably stay with our own ports tree.  Aside from MirBSD ports, we also talked about pkgsrc.  The conclusion so far is that we need our own ports to maintain the control for tight desktop integration that we'd need.  We didn't see any particular deficiencies in the other projects, just the fact that we don't feel we could get the user experience we are working for.  In my blog, I will probably continue to call it mbsd but for official channels I guess we'll start calling it Midnight for short.  Someone suggested MNBSD but i don't like that much.  Our first bug report is in so it appears bugzilla is working now.  http://bugreport.midnightbsd.org

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:39 PM

New Website
I just published a new website design I had been working on.  I haven't had time to polish it, but it was still significantly better than the old design.  This one is not a ripoff of another BSD project.  The new "logo" uses an actual photo of Midnight's eyes.  I thought it was a little creepy.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 29 Mar 2007
10:04 AM

qemu disk image
You can now download a qemu disk image with MidnightBSD pre-installed. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 30 Mar 2007
8:45 PM

New Mirror
We've got a new MidnightBSD HTTP mirror.  The Eastern Michigan University Computer Science department is now mirroring our FTP server via HTTP.  Updates are not as fast with this mirror. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

8:46 PM

The last week in brief
There are quite a few new developments with the project.  Archite is experimenting with some very interesting patches.  I'm hoping they'll work out as the enhanced security would be nice.  ctriv has a good start on the changes to mports.  A bsd.mport.mk file was created which will eventually replace bsd.port.mk.  He's working on several new targets, changing existing targets and has prototypes of a new database format for packages and some perl prototype scripts.  We will most likely implement the final system in C, but perl is an excellent language to prototype with.  raven has been working on a prototype package management GUI application.  (GNUstep)I've been very busy the last week and haven't done much.  I did update Enhanced Speedstep (ESS) support with cpufreq to support several Pentium M chips.  I also increased the default loopback MTU (LOMTU is now 32768).  In some cases, the speed was slightly less but in others it made a significant improvement.   NetBSD has been using a similar value since 4.4 lite and OpenBSD also uses it.  FreeBSD and DragonFly use 16384.  I believe some adjustments to the network stack could improve throughput on lo0 with the new value.Archite also made adjustments to the umask default to make installing mports easier.  He also added a .kshrc file to the system.  I've had some feedback on the new website design.  Everyone I've talked to has found one element about it strange.  Surprisingly, its not the new "logo" with the cat eyes.  Most people dislike the gray background or the layout.  We're considering some changes to the design and changing the layout of content.  I designed the current site with a little feedback from archite.  wintellect has been working with ctriv on the mports overhaul.  ctriv has almost completed the x11 ports transition to /usr/local.  We need to do more testing.  I've also had some requests to change the CVSup server to add CVSROOT and some other modules.  I'll try to get to that soon.  I'm no expert with CVSup  (just pretend the registered trademark is there) .  I'd appreciate if there are any other changes or addition to CVSup, rsync or the ftp layout that it would be shared with me soon.  I'd rather be coding.  I was talking with archite today about the DragonFly 1.0 RC1 announcement on slashdot from a few years back.  We talked about the struggle that project went through in the community for forking as well as the amount of work they accomplished going into 1.0 Release. We realized that we don't have a very structured list of goals and a timeframe as that project did from the beginning.  It was rather nice looking back.  Several of us plan to write up some goals in our respective areas of interest and hopefully publish that on midnightbsd.org soon.  I made up a list of changes for userland a few weeks ago that I'll be posting as well.  The DragonFly project focused heavily on the kernel design early on.  In our case, we are more concerned with getting a basic desktop environment working.  That means immediate goals include creating a live cd based installation system with a new installer, overhauling mports to improve package management  (including GUI tools), working on improving management of services as well as providing graphical system preferences, etc.  At the same time, I have a personal wish list which includes doing a lot of work on the network stack, improving file system interopability, adding a journalized file system, possibly trying to get gjournal working, and there's even been talk about eventually bringing zfs in.  We'd like to improve the wiereless user experience including new drivers, easier administration, and so on.  I'd also like to overhaul syscons at some point.  Then we have the normal userland related changes we'd like to do:update gcc to something more recent (3.4.6 and later 4.1.x) binutilesbind 9.4sendmail (no i don't plan on switching to postfix)merge some of the changed to dhclient from OpenBSD and FreeBSDlessOK, i forget the rest right now.  rc.d cleanup is also planned. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 2 Apr 2007
1:06 AM

ProPolice
From our security officer:?
?
After a long weekend and much testing, I have integrated propolice into our system.. This will translate into both a more secure and stable userland, kernel, and mports system. While this is very well tested on OpenBSD and a few other systems, it is still very much beta for us. We will be requiring a lot of testing of both the base system as well as that of mports. While many mports will not be affected, I am certain that many of them have horrid code that will turn up when we least expect it.?
?
This is only the first step in what will become numerous security changes to our base system. While we are creating a Desktop system that will be easy to use, another aspect is that we must keep it secure with little needed interaction from a user unless they want to.?
?
Please send any issues or concerns that you find with this change to security@ and we will be happy to explain and or try and resolve your issue.?
?
?
?
archite@

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 3 Apr 2007
12:52 AM

Pro Police patch update
So far several users have had great success with the new patch.  One of my systems experienced a problem with the patch.  Any program linked with pthread or thr would seg fault.  A few ports are not working well.?
?
If you installed opera, be sure to use the shared library qt version.  We are still reviewing other ports.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:54 AM

Other changes
We've removed giant lock from portions of geom.  Please report any unusual behavior.  ?
?
I just updated sed(1) with several interesting changes from FreeBSD.  Yar has done a lot with that lately.  I still need to update the man page.  ?
?
Finally, we're experiencing a lot of HTTP traffic.  Our security officer posted a piece on osnews about the Pro Police patch.  We've had several people volunteer so its certainly worth the exposure, but our site might be slow.  If you are downloading, please be sure to use a mirror.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 4 Apr 2007
3:07 PM

bsd.mport.mk, new ports, amd64
bsd.mport.mk is in "alpha" now.  There will be continuous testing and changes to ports over the next week as we clean up problems.  The new system does a fake install and rolls packages similar to OpenBSD's ports system.  As we've been using modified FreeBSD ports for most things, there are several problems with this approach.  Ports which do not honor PREFIX are broken.  We're working on this issue.  ?
?
Today, I added two linux flash plugin ports.  I also added the linux-mplayer-plugin port but it appears there might be problems with mplayer.  I'm going to work on that issue.  ?
?
I fixed the dependancy in the xine port on an old version of curl so that should be working again.  I'm waiting for the test compile to finish.  ?
?
I've been working on adding several missing tk ports so that we can bring in the FreeBSD mbone category.  Most of us don't have a great deal of experience with ipv6 so its a good time to pick it up.  ?
?
We've also did several changes to the Opera port.  The "native" version stopped working unless we used shared QT.  The reason for this is our recent pro police patch.  That means we can not add the opera linux plugins port, but we were able to get opera to work again on i386 and now on AMD64.  (its still 32bit)?
?
I decided to install AMD64 MBSD on my destkop.  We didn't have any active developers running it as we've been trying to focus so much on the common desktop case.  I'm working on fixing mports and any bugs I encounter.  Its actually running much more smoothly on my desktop than the i386 version.  There have been some ports problems but i'm taking care of them as I go.  I'm also building some packages which I will post on the FTP server at a later date.  You will need the propolice patch to use the packages.  ?
?
I will be making new snapshots soon with propolice included.  We're still cleaning up a few things for that snap.  Also, I'd like to wait until  mports settles down a bit since the index must be clean.  ?
?
GNUstep compiled after a little hiccup on AMD64.  It was actually an excternal dependancy.  I need to do more testing on that.  ?
?
A word of warning, if you have an old install of midnightbsd, consider that propolice is a very intrusive change and you may have problems.  After following /usr/src/UPDATING and before buildworld try to compile a simple program linked with pthread or thr.  If it works, you're OK.  ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 9 Apr 2007
5:01 PM

RELENG_0_1
We've created a branch which should be more stable.  We hope to have a basic release ready by sometime in June.  ?
?
The first release will include binary packages using the old system.  mport will (hopefully) be available between .2 and .4.  For the .2 release, we plan to work on the installer.  From now on, each release will have a specific goal.  ?
?
If you find bugs in 0.1, please report them using our bugtracking system (ideally) or our forums.  ?
?
The first system will most likely be text based with options to install xorg and GNUstep.  I have not completed the changes to the installer for GNUstep installation yet.  As soon as that is done, I'll post an RC for 0.1.  ?
?
Also, we had to back out propolice due to breakage in the threading libraries.  As we had hoped to do a release, it only made sense not to leave an obvious flaw in the system before branching.  We're re-evaluating the patch and also considering just moving toward gcc 4.1. ?
?
RELENG_0_1 will have the following (unless a security issue arises):?
OpenSSH 4.6p1?
tcsh 6.14 (6.15 in CURRENT soon)?
Bind 9.3.4?
gcc 3.4.4?
ksh?
OpenNTPD 3.9p1?
sendmail?
...?
?
?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 10 Apr 2007
5:35 PM

cvs and tcsh updated
cvs 1.12.13 is now in CURRENT.tcsh 6.15.00 is now in CURRENT.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 12 Apr 2007
2:56 PM

New Committer
Welcome Fred Gibbs (fgibbs) to the MidnightBSD project.  He has joined the project to work on documentation.  He is a technical writer. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

2:57 PM

cpio updated
GNU cpio was updated to 2.7 in CURRENT last night.  Many of the other BSDs use pax for cpio including NetBSD and OpenBSD.  We may think about that down the road.  ?
?
In case you haven't noticed, I'm trying to update many of the applications in contrib.  We've got quite a bit of stale software in there.  ?
?
In the last few days, I've updated bzip2, cpio, less, and tcsh.  ?
?
I'm considering updates to amd (auto mount...) , diff and so on.  diffutils was released in 2002 which was the first update since 1994.  FreeBSD did a number of local patches over the years that we inherited so a feature comparison might need to be done and a verification that we aren't depending on anything weird for ports before I can update that.  (same goes for patch which is now included in it)   ?
?
In the case of amd, we wouldn't benefit from new features just a few bug fixes.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:05 PM

bsd.mport.mk
We've decided to migrate to bsd.mport.mk as soon as possible.  There probably will be a disruption with various ports during this process.  If you find a broken port, please report it to us using various methods (bugreport.midnightbsd.org, forums.midnightbsd.org, email, etc) ?
?
I will post when the transition is required for all users.  CURRENT will be switching very soon.  I don't like to call RELENG_0_1 stable, but compared to CURRENT it should be.  Anyway, that branch will also switch after we know its "safe".  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:08 PM

New ports
I haven't been posting about new ports lately but there have been several.  The most recent commit:?
?
mports/security/secpwgen?
?
Mostly, I've been trying to update ports as we've got many that were added last year and have not had any TLC.  I do hope that is corrected soon.  ?
?
This is a great time to join the project.  We are nearing a release in June and have some exciting changes coming.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 13 Apr 2007
5:22 PM

clamav
A security hole was found in Clam Antivirus.  Versions prior to 0.90.2 are vulnerable.  Our port has been updated to address this issue.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

6:33 PM

mports list
To see a list of mports with descriptions on the web: http://www.midnightbsd.org/mports/README.html

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

6:34 PM

New ports: ruby-gnustep, kismet, gdl2, aircrack, aircrack-ng, freeradius
management/cracking:kismetaircrackaircrack-ngGNUstep related:ruby-gnustepgdl2 (think EOF for GNUstep)Note: If you have any problems installing the gdl2 port, try installing postgresql81-client first.  There seems to be a subtle problem with detecting pq.4 as postgresql81-client is not fully installed when called from gdl2.. i'm looking at that.  The port itself should work fine.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

6:46 PM

AMD64 packages
I've built a few amd64 packages.  You can find these on the ftp server under current. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 15 Apr 2007
1:19 AM

mports status
We are in the transition period to bsd.mport.mk.  That means many ports are currently broken.  Many X11 ports do not install properly at this time.  ctriv is working on this transition nearly everyday so progress is made.  Critical issues at the moment:GNUstep base doesn't work well.  This is clearly a big issue and we believe transitioning to the new gnustep-make 2.0 will fix this issue as it has destdir support.  QT 3.3 is not installing just right.  This means KDE and friends aren't going to work.  If you wish to use mbsd, i recommend you stick to the 0.1-special snap with its packages or grab some packages from the FTP server.  Those packages should run on newer mbsd versions, although this will also switch you over to the new ports system.  This transition will be worth it.  I do not know how this transition will effect our release schedule.  It was critical we move forward with it, however.  I will work on the base system and installer during this transition.  Our security officer has been working on his new binary patch system.  Our remaining developers are working on different projects related to ports or documentation.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 16 Apr 2007
4:55 PM

CBL antispam list
I recommend that no one use the CBL "anti spam but not for spammers" list.  It falsely accuses legitimate mail servers running on BSD of having windows trojans.  Clearly this is impossible.  They refuse to help or work with people they list.  ?
Further, if you do not get a reply from me make sure you or your ISP is not using that list.  ?
I hate spam as much as the next guy, but this is not the answer.  Worst of all, these people will not provide any evidence what so ever of the accusation.  There is no email with headers.  There is nothing they will give you.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 17 Apr 2007
12:54 AM

mports transition update
We are starting to make progress with the transition of ports.  Its very import that people mention broken ports.  We are testing everything, but hitting ports that people depend on first is always a good thing.  Today, I fixed the windowmaker port.  I'm going through X11-wm.  wmii, skippy-xd, ratpoison and pekwm are working.  (bottom up approach)  The opera port is known to be broken right now.  lynx and links were updated yesterday and should be new versions that also work properly. Opera has two problems.  First, qt33 is not installing.  If you already have qt, you'll find that the port is dying trying to package up its manpage.  Some ports that we know are broken have been added to bugzilla.  Once we are done with this transition, all ports will correctly create packages.  This will be helpful to anyone running more than one system on the same architecture.  It will also simply building packages for us.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 19 Apr 2007
12:33 AM

(no subject)
ctriv committed fixes for the qt33 port, and opera.  He's also working on GNUstep.  gnustep-base and a few other gnustep ports are now working.  If GNUstep is already installed, some GNUstep ports are working.  Many still have make package related errors.  Ports relying on binary packages seem to die on make fake or make package.  I've personally noticed problems with compat4x, compat5x, and the linux emulation packages.  At the moment, I wish Just Journal had a poll feature.  We started talking about packages to include in the first release.  There is a balance between packing too much cruft and not enough software that people need.  With our ports system, its possible for end users to install additional software.  At the same time, our target audience is not the typical CLI friendly BSD user.  Out of the box, we need a few basics working.  I'd rather not turn this into the typical bloated linux distro.  I also doubt my mirrors would be happy with me if I started shipping four disc installers.  One or two is the ideal target.  ctriv has been planning the mport library that will be used by pkg_tool replacements and the GUI mport interface which will be developed by raven (nightlily on IRC).  I've mostly been testing ports and playing around with sysinstall a bit.  I need to write a new installer, but for the first release we plan on using a modified sysinstall.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 22 Apr 2007
3:43 PM

bcw
I don't want to get too involved in the bcw driver debate.  I just wish this wouldn't have happened as I was personally looking forward to a BSD implementation for broadcom chipsets.  http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20070406104008&thres=(u+*+100)+/+c+%3E=+75Had this happened to us, I would have hoped for a private contact from the GPL code owner.  I also would have wanted to release this information myself through the project website instead of what actually transpired.  The OpenBSD project has a stronger view on GPL that we do.  I suspect this was part of the reason the reaction has been so strong on both sides.  I feel bad for the OpenBSD developer.  I might as well take the opportunity to clarify our position on licensing.  In short, BSD code is preferred.  We hope to maintain the kernel + userland with BSD licensed code.  Obviously, using GNUstep we have a great deal of LGPL and GPL 2 code in the X11/GUI portions of our system.  We are trying to keep that code as default installed ports to keep it isolated as much as possible.  At one time I greatly disliked the GPL, but now I've realized there are some cases it makes sense.  Our stance on BSD only code in certain portions of the system must be so in order to share code between our project and the many BSD projects.  We could start using GPL code, but then we would become an island with no other land masses to swim to. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:51 PM

mports
I've decided that I'm going to avoid ports for awhile.  There is a great deal of work to do in other areas of the system.  Apparently, I'm not keeping up with ctriv's changes. :) I'll still maintain several ports that I've commited and possibly change the maintainer on them to my personal email address.  I'll need to work something out with Phil and Chris for status reports that we can publish periodically.  I am not sure if RELENG_0_1 has been getting the mports updates as current has.  At this time, I do not know if we will hit our June target for 0.1 Release.  I expect the project to move slowly over the next week.  Most of us are very busy this week.  I'm in limbo with sysinstall until I can test the installation of new packages.  I've started some minor changes to the loader.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:03 PM

Debugging the kernel
Here's an article on debugging the FreeBSD kernel which also applies to MidnightBSD.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 23 Apr 2007
10:29 PM

gnu config project
I urge everyone to flood the gnu config project with config.sub and config.guess patches for MidnightBSD.  One was submitted last year and magically new rules were made to keep us out.  bje doesn't like BSDs.?
?
http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/config/

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 27 Apr 2007
4:32 PM

ipv6 type 0 routing headers
CURRENT and STABLE both have the patch for ipv6 type 0 routing headers.  The problem is that ipv6 routing headers could be run over the same link multiple times.  We've been debating how to best handle this problem over the last few days.  It was a known issue with the RFC, however, OpenBSD recently brought it to everyones attention.  Their solution was just to add an ifdef 0 in the code which seemed rather poor.  There are research cases where this could be useful.  If your system is not acting as an ipv6 router, it is not needed anyway.  While most MidnightBSD systems are intended for desktop use, home users often use *NIX systems for personal routers, etc.  We chose to use the FreeBSD approach of adding a new sysctl to enable the old behavior.  For more information, consult the OpenBSD website or the FreeBSD security advisory FreeBSD-SA-07:03.ipv6. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:48 PM

(no subject)
This blog will now be updated by two people.  I (laffer1) and ctriv will both post updates.  ctriv knows more about the status of mports as he's actively working on it.  New ports today:devel/patcheditors/2bsd-vieditors/impressarchivers/p5-Archivers-Zipsysutils/p5-File-Whichctriv has been commiting fixes for many existing ports all week. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:54 PM

Hello and mports...
I should introduce myself. I'm ctriv; one of the newer comitters here on the project. I've been working on changes to our mports system.  ?
?
As mentioned earlier, ports now "fake" install into a temporary directory and a package is made from that temporary directory.  This package is then installed with pkg_add.  This makes the logic of the ports system much simpler.  Everything builds a package. Ports only need to know how to build the package. Much of the work that pkg_add does, such as maintaining the package database and running install scripts, is not duplicated in ports.?
?
Unfortunately, such a large change in the system means that many ports no longer function correctly, but in the last week a great deal of progress has been made.  The GNUstep core ports have all been updated.  GNUstep-make 2.0 has helped a great deal - almost every GNUstep port now works correctly.?
?
GTK and KDE have been updated, as have all the editors except vim5.   Changes to bsd.mport.mk have really improved the state of things.  The failure rate of ports continues to drop as the system matures.?
?
I'm continuing to go thru the ports tree, my hope is to have all the ports updated by the start of summer.?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 2 May 2007
10:04 PM

Russian website translation
I've just added several translated documents to the midnightbsd.org website.  Special thanks to Klu for translating them.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:07 PM

Website in CVS
I don't recall if I announced this, but I added our website to cvs a few weeks ago.  The module is "www".  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 3 May 2007
1:17 AM

CVSup server
I'm making changes to the CVSup server tonight.  If you are using CVSup to fetch mports, note the example supfile was changed.  The change was checked into current and stable.   ?
?
For those of you mirroring MidnightBSD CVSup, we now support prefixes as the other BSD projects do.  I'm still testing and playing around with a few things.  ?
?
If you wish to setup a cvsup mirror site, these directions may now be useful.  http://motoyuki.bsdclub.org/BSD/cvsup.html?
?
I've also enabled some connection limiting since our main server can only handle so much.  ?
?
This is one of those projects I've been putting off way to long . 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 7 May 2007
3:29 AM

Its native time
I was going to write about my progress with pidgin tonight.  Its now included in ports (2.0 beta 7) with 2.0 release almost working.  I could write about how ctriv has fixed many of the ports in devel and several other categories lately.That's not the big news though.  One of our largest hurdles has been getting a native web browser on MidnightBSD.  When I say native, I mean really native.  Opera was working before our mports fake changes, but that's technically a FreeBSD binary and it won't be "native" forever.  Tonight, I managed to get mozilla 1.7 semi working on my box.  Currently only the browser component (Navigator) is compiling with debug flags.  The fake and install targets aren't up to snuff yet so you can't install it just yet, but its possible to run it.  In fact, I'm writing this post from native mozilla!  Even after I get this working much better, we'll have to figure out how to unbrand it since we can't distribute official builds of their browsers.  Archite did most of the work on mozilla.  He should get most of the credit.  I don't know if we will make the June date for release or not now.  It might be possible to do it. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:08 PM

linux-firefox, linux-thunderbird, linux-seamonkey, etc
The linux versions of these ports should be properly installing their linux-portname script to start them.  Previously, the path was wrong and set to a fake destdir.  I fixed this last night.  The port versions were not bumped though.  If you installed any of these ports before the mports changes, you don't need to do anything. I'm committing a few improvements to src/sys/dev/firewire today.  Most of these changes were done in the FreeBSD project by Hidetoshi Shimokawa.  I committed a fix for the architecture issue with the mozilla port.  Next step is to try to fix make package and work on some of the other "options" like mail, calendar, etc. The other BSD projects seem to be actively working on SMP.  This could promote more code reuse between the BSDs.  OpenBSD has added some nice UltraSparc III support. Lastly, if you've been reluctant to check out ports since our big todo, this might finally be a good time to do it.  Quite a few ports do work now.  We've also started updating ports again with security updates and things.  I'm debating what to do with the installer.  For the first release, we planned on using sysinstall and then writing a new installer.  sysinstall does not scale well in terms of adding distribution sets.  It uses a bit for each one limiting the total to 32.  Since we have a lot of packages to install for a desktop system this isn't very helpful.  The easy hack is out. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

2:17 PM

mozilla
While we're still working on it, I am now able to make install the mozilla browser.  We still need to get mail, chatzilla and other things working with it. seamonkey or firefox would be nice as mozilla is a bit old.  I do hope we'll get there eventually.  Mozilla still runs faster than the linux browser on my system.Special thanks to archite and ctriv for helping with this port.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 9 May 2007
2:41 PM

Enhanced feed
If you subscribe to mbsd's rss feed, this might be more friendly.?
?
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Mbsd?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:49 PM

Mozilla Seamonkey
We've got Seamonkey building natively on MBSD now.  We have only tested the browser and this is not 100% yet, but its a good start.  The port was committed.  We did notice some problems with the install process.  It was tested on amd64 so far. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:51 PM

mozilla port
WIth the mozilla port, chatzilla, composer and mail work but not ldap.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 19 May 2007
9:46 PM

a few ports
I've been quite busy with real life lately.  ctriv and wintellect have been working on the MidnightBSD mports system.  Our ports tree changes have been coming along nicely.  Many ports are working on i386 and amd64.  Tonight I've been adding some benchmarking applications.  Here's a run from bonniedefiant# bonnieFile './Bonnie.7486', size: 104857600Writing with putc()...doneRewriting...doneWriting intelligently...doneReading with getc()...doneReading intelligently...doneSeeker 1...Seeker 2...Seeker 3...start 'em...done...done...done...              -------Sequential Output-------- ---Sequential Input-- --Random--              -Per Char- --Block--- -Rewrite-- -Per Char- --Block--- --Seeks---Machine    MB K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU  /sec %CPU          100 38765 33.0 26854  8.0 32064  7.0 111012 99.9 1663688 100.0 62714.6 176.0This isn't a real "benchmark" since I didn't follow proper testing procedures, but its still interesting.  I'm running UFS2 on a Western Digital SATA I 80GB 7200 RPM disk, Pentium D 805 2.5 GB RAM, and an intel ICH8 chipset. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 25 May 2007
4:17 PM

Security update, documentation update, installation instructions
Security UpdateThe recent file magic issue discovered in FreeBSD has been patched in MidnightBSD. Current and Stable have been updated. cvsup to get the latest updates.Documentation Updatectriv updated the documentation on mports.  Please review the new policy document if you are developing ports.  Installation InstructionsOur current snapshots are out of date.  It is recommended that you download the most recent update and do the following:?
?
    Install the most recent snapshot for your architecture?
    Use anonymous cvs or cvsup to update the src and mports collections.  See the MidnightBSD website for more on this.?
    Update MidnightBSD using the checked out source by building the new code.  (buildworld + buildkernel + installkernel + reboot + installworld + mergemaster)  Note that mergemaster -p is probably not needed unless you get an error about audit?
    Build and install mports using the new version.  ?
    Report any bugs to http://bugreport.midnightbsd.org?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 26 May 2007
12:18 AM

New 0.1 stable i386 snap
ctriv has created a new i386 snapshot.  Look for 0.1-20070525-SNAP which includes the latest security update.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 31 May 2007
2:21 PM

Germany declares "hacker" tools illegal
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/31/1629259This could effect MidnightBSD distribution in Germany. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 2 Jun 2007
1:03 AM

Using a widescreen in MBSD
I just purchased a Widescreen display for my PC.  It was a low cost (read cheap) display from westinghouse.  I couldn't get X11 to display anything except at 1280x1024 which isn't even supported by the display!  Very strange.  After a little googling, I learned about the ModeLine property for monitors in X11.  I've written a blog entry on the setting changes here.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:05 AM

SMP is now default
The GENERIC kernel configuration is now SMP enabled.  With new processors shipping with at least two cores, it makes sense to look forward with MidnightBSD.  By the time we ship 1.0, these new systems should be commonplace.  This change is only in CURRENT and will not be done in STABLE. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:08 AM

linux-firefox port
I've updated linux-firefox to 2.0.0.4.  This is a recommended security update for all users of that port. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 8 Jun 2007
10:45 AM

Light ports work
I updated the MySQL port to 5.0.41.  I added a bittorrent client, ctorrent.  adodb for php was added to mports/databases. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 10 Jun 2007
7:41 PM

Bit Torrent
I've added a new torrent for the latest 0.1 snapshot.  The link is 0 1-20070525-SNAP-i386-disc1 iso

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 15 Jun 2007
4:20 PM

sendmail and dovecot ports updated
Both the sendmail and dovecot ports were updated to the most recent versions.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 16 Jun 2007
1:17 AM

(no subject)
Just adding my Technorati Profile

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 24 Jun 2007
12:24 AM

OpenBSD's sdiff
Steven Kreuzer has ported OpenBSD's BSD licensed sdiff to FreeBSD.  I'm experimenting with this tonight.  If it seems to be working well, I will commit it to current.  Please send in objections.  Below is the e-mail:?
On 5/17/07, Steven Kreuzer <skreuzer at f2o.org> wrote:>> Greetings->> OpenBSD includes a version of sdiff written by our very own Ray> Lai, and released to the public domain.>> In a quest to remove as much GPL code from FreeBSD as possible, I> ported it over.>> If you want to try it out, You can download the source at> http://www.exit2shell.com/~skreuzer/code/sdiff.tar.gz>> To install:> $ su -> # cd to /usr/src> # patch -p0 < /path/to/sdiff-cvs-merge.patch> # sh /path/to/sdiff.shar> # make buildworld && make installworld>> Let me know if you encounter any problems. I would like to see if> I can get the GNU version of sdiff removed and replaced with this> in FreeBSD. It might be somewhat of an uphill battle, but it is> worth a shot.>> --> Steven Kreuzer> http://www.exit2shell.com/~skreuzer 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 25 Jun 2007
2:41 AM

screenie added to ports, screen, libtorrent and rtorrent updated
I did a little ports work tonight.  screen and rtorrent were updated.  rtorrent is at 0.11.4 which is the most recent stable version.  screen is now at 4.0.3.  ?
?
I also added screenie which allows you to get a list of backgrounded tasks using the screen facilities.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:07 AM

Limewire
I added a Limewire port tonight.  This will only work with i386 and you must have a binary Java port installed.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 27 Jun 2007
1:18 AM

Opera 9.21 update
The Opera Software browser was updated to 9.21.  /usr/mports/opera

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:20 AM

GNUstep issue
There seems to be some issues with the GNUstep ports.  I'm discussing some changes with mports that might have caused the problem with another developer.  We hope to get these working soon.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

2:28 PM

Forums
I've had some reports of problems with the captcha on the account registration page.  I've disabled it for now.  If you were having problems registering, please try again. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 29 Jun 2007
7:30 PM

GNUstep
triv has committed several changes to mports to correct recent problems with GNUstep ports. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

7:32 PM

Downloading an ISO
The most recent 0.1 snap from May has been reported not to work on several systems.  We are investigating the problem.  Please use the March snapshot for now. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

7:50 PM

GPL3 released
http://gplv3.fsf.org/FAQ:http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.htmlSlashdot article:http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/07/06/29/172228.shtml

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

8:05 PM

libdvdread port fixed on i386
A recent update to libdvdread broke the mport on i386.  The optimized byte swap patch was removed.  The port now works as intended.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 30 Jun 2007
2:20 AM

PHP5
The PHP5 port was updated to 5.2.3.  The new version includes several security patches.  ?
?
Fixed an integer overflow inside chunk_split() (by Gerhard Wagner, CVE-2007-2872)?
Fixed possible infinite loop in imagecreatefrompng. (by Xavier Roche, CVE-2007-2756)?
Fixed ext/filter Email Validation Vulnerability (MOPB-45 by Stefan Esser, CVE-2007-1900)?
Fixed bug #41492 (open_basedir/safe_mode bypass inside realpath()) (by bugs dot php dot net at chsc dot dk)?
Improved fix for CVE-2007-1887 to work with non-bundled sqlite2 lib.?
Added mysql_set_charset() to allow runtime altering of connection encoding.?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:08 AM

More ports updates
Some bugs with the xine and libxine ports were fixed.  If you had trouble building libxine before, try now.  Let me know if there are any errors.  ?
?
GNU m4 in devel/m4 has been updated to 1.4.9 from 1.4.4.  ?
?
GNUstep ports seem to build on my laptop now.  I'm having some issues running the TextEdit port, but I'm thinking it's a local issue with my laptop setup.  I'm building a fresh system in virtual pc on my windows box to test.  ?
?
The php5-sqlite port was fixed.  It was failing after the PHP 5 update.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:11 AM

Sound
I checked in a new sound rc.d script that loads the appropriate kernel module for specific sound cards.  Not all the PCI IDs are in the associated file.  This  is based on the FreeSBIE/PC-BSD/DesktopBSD scripts.  ?
?
If you find a missing PCI ID, let me know.  You can disable the script and then load all the sound drivers using loader.conf or try loading the module for your specific card.  ?
?
So far I've tested this on my laptop with great success.  After a little testing, this will be included with 0.1 as well.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 7 Jul 2007
12:51 AM

New Committer
We just gained a new committer.  Alex is interested in GUI related projects and has interest in the installer and GUI for the mports system.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:22 AM

New Pictures
I've added three pictures to http://www.midnightbsd.org/  The pictures show MidnightBSD running on my ThinkPad.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 12 Jul 2007
11:24 PM

Security: Errors handling corrupt tar files in libarchive(3)
We inherited libarchive from the FreeBSD project.  A security issue effects both FreeBSD and MidnightBSD.  We have applied the patch to CURRENT and the 0.1 branch.  ?
?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----?
Hash: SHA1?
?
=============================================================================?
FreeBSD-SA-07:05.libarchive                                 Security Advisory?
                                                          The FreeBSD Project?
?
Topic:          Errors handling corrupt tar files in libarchive(3)?
?
Category:       core?
Module:         libarchive?
Announced:      2007-07-12?
Credits:        CPNI, CERT-FI, Tim Kientzle, Colin Percival?
Affects:        FreeBSD 5.3 and later.?
Corrected:      2007-07-12 15:00:44 UTC (RELENG_6, 6.2-STABLE)?
                2007-07-12 15:01:14 UTC (RELENG_6_2, 6.2-RELEASE-p6)?
                2007-07-12 15:01:32 UTC (RELENG_6_1, 6.1-RELEASE-p18)?
                2007-07-12 15:01:42 UTC (RELENG_5, 5.5-STABLE)?
                2007-07-12 15:01:56 UTC (RELENG_5_5, 5.5-RELEASE-p14)?
CVE Name:       CVE-2007-3641, CVE-2007-3644, CVE-2007-3645?
?
For general information regarding FreeBSD Security Advisories,?
including descriptions of the fields above, security branches, and the?
following sections, please visit <URL:http://security.FreeBSD.org/>.?
?
I.   Background?
?
The libarchive library provides a flexible interface for reading and?
writing streaming archive files such as tar and cpio, and has been the?
basis for FreeBSD's implementation of the tar(1) utility since FreeBSD 5.3.?
?
II.  Problem Description?
?
Several problems have been found in the code used to parse the tar and?
pax interchange formats.  These include entering an infinite loop if an?
archive prematurely ends within a pax extension header or if certain?
types of corruption occur in pax extension headers [CVE-2007-3644];?
dereferencing a NULL pointer if an archive prematurely ends within a?
tar header immediately following a pax extension header or if certain?
other types of corruption occur in pax extension headers [CVE-2007-3645];?
and miscomputing the length of a buffer resulting in a buffer overflow?
if yet another type of corruption occurs in a pax extension header?
[CVE-2007-3641].?
?
III. Impact?
?
An attacker who can cause a corrupt archive of his choice to be parsed?
by libarchive, including by having "tar -x" (extract) or "tar -t" (list?
entries) run on it, can cause libarchive to enter an infinite loop, to?
core dump, or possibly to execute arbitrary code provided by the?
attacker.?
?
IV.  Workaround?
?
No workaround is available, but systems which do not read tar or pax?
extension archives provided by untrusted sources are not vulnerable.?
Note that while these issues do not affect libarchive's ability to?
parse cpio, ISO9660, or zip format archives, libarchive automatically?
detects the format of an archive, so external metadata (e.g., a file?
name) is not sufficient to ensure that a file will not be parsed using?
the vulnerable tar/pax format parser.?
?
V.   Solution?
?
Perform one of the following:?
?
1) Upgrade your vulnerable system to 5-STABLE, or 6-STABLE, or to the?
RELENG_6_2, RELENG_6_1, or RELENG_5_5 security branch dated after the?
correction date.?
?
2) To patch your present system:?
?
The following patches have been verified to apply to FreeBSD 5.5, 6.1,?
and 6.2 systems.?
?
a) Download the relevant patch from the location below, and verify the?
detached PGP signature using your PGP utility.?
?
# fetch http://security.FreeBSD.org/patches/SA-07:05/libarchive.patch?
# fetch http://security.FreeBSD.org/patches/SA-07:05/libarchive.patch.asc?
?
b) Execute the following commands as root:?
?
# cd /usr/src?
# patch < /path/to/patch?
# cd /usr/src/lib/libarchive?
# make obj && make depend && make && make install?
# cd /usr/src/rescue?
# make obj && make depend && make && make install?
?
NOTE: On the amd64 platform, the above procedure will not update the?
lib32 (i386 compatibility) libraries.  On amd64 systems where the i386?
compatibility libraries are used, the operating system should instead?
be recompiled as described in?
<URL:http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/makeworld.html>?
?
VI.  Correction details?
?
The following list contains the revision numbers of each file that was?
corrected in FreeBSD.?
?
Branch                                                           Revision?
  Path?
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------?
RELENG_5?
  src/lib/libarchive/archive_read_support_format_tar.c           1.26.2.8?
RELENG_5_5?
  src/UPDATING                                            1.342.2.35.2.14?
  src/sys/conf/newvers.sh                                  1.62.2.21.2.16?
  src/lib/libarchive/archive_read_support_format_tar.c       1.26.2.7.2.1?
RELENG_6?
  src/lib/libarchive/archive_read_support_format_tar.c           1.32.2.5?
RELENG_6_2?
  src/UPDATING                                             1.416.2.29.2.9?
  src/sys/conf/newvers.sh                                   1.69.2.13.2.9?
  src/lib/libarchive/archive_read_support_format_tar.c       1.32.2.2.2.1?
RELENG_6_1?
  src/UPDATING                                            1.416.2.22.2.20?
  src/sys/conf/newvers.sh                                  1.69.2.11.2.20?
  src/lib/libarchive/archive_read_support_format_tar.c           1.32.6.1?
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------?
?
VII. References?
?
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2007-3641?
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2007-3644?
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2007-3645?
?
The latest revision of this advisory is available at?
http://security.FreeBSD.org/advisories/FreeBSD-SA-07:05.libarchive.asc?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----?
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (FreeBSD)?
?
iD4DBQFGlkN5FdaIBMps37IRAl/vAJ4vKkZ9eXBW4PPljvbgALUlAPdxCQCXRMzY?
4hKO09Xhj1akwPufFXJS2w==?
=sRGA?
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 13 Jul 2007
5:20 PM

Long term plans
I've had a lot of questions about MidnightBSD's future plans.  We have not provided a comprehensive roadmap or even a weak one in some time.  Here's a brief summary of our current situation and where we are headed plus some of our possible plans.First, we have nearly completed 0.1 for release.  I am building packages for 0.1 on i386 right now.  There are several problems with mports exposed in the builds for 0.1.  We should have work arounds before the release.  0.1 will not include a new installer, but some of the mports changes will be included.  Security patches present in 0.1 and 0.2 for everything known except the recent theoretical scheduler attack that effects practically every OS except Mac OS X.  I don't see us moving off of a tick based kernel anytime soon.  It's in the back of my mind though.Most of the changes in 0.2 so far are in the mports infrastructure or userland.  There were a few subtle updates to drivers including firewire.  I expect more driver work in the next month.  No one has reported any hardware that doesn't work in MBSD but does in other systems barring the limits of Xorg 6.9.One of our developers has been working on migrating to Xorg 7.2.  I don't want to commit this change to a specific release, but it will happen before 1.0.  We will also include an x11 based installer, current GNUstep environment, and a GUI mports management system for 1.0 release.0.1 release will not be an ideal desktop system.  It is a new project working out release engineering, testing, and proving the changes we've made from FreeBSD are correct.  It should be fairly stable, but not feature complete as a desktop.  (think CLI)  We are toying with a way to install GUI packages as a hack until the new installer is done.  0.2 release will include the critical ports of the mports tree.  Depending on ctriv and wintellect's progress, we hope to ship command line tools and possibly a GUI if caryn and alex get that part done.  If not, we will be very close to done with major mports work.  We also plan on having a new installer for desktop installation, plus any userland + kernel work during the development cycle.  (cvs, ssh, and quite a few other things have been updated in current already)0.3 should complete the mports and installer work based on feedback from 0.2 and anything that was not completed during the previous release.  More kernel and userland improvements0.4 will focus on the desktop experience.  We plan to get documentation in order,  determine the final packages for 1.0 release, and work on integration.  This will be point we make the judgement call on Etoile.  Prior to this release, we plan on using WindowMaker and slim.  We could revisit Etoile later, but not for 1.0.  (more userland + kernel stuff)0.5 will be the beginning of the server release.  The desktop version of MidnightBSD is the focus of the project, but we've decided to ship a server installer with separate ISOs.  People in the project use MBSD as a server and it would be helpful for us to have it.  The installer will be a bit different for this release as we plan on allowing users to select packages (think httpd, mail, ftp, etc)  as well as add more control over partitioning and things required in a server OS.  I don't plan on making the server a priority as FreeBSD is quite capable as a server as is all of the mainstream BSD projects.  (Free, Net, Open, DF)    You could compare this to Mac OS X server versus Mac OS X client.  They are the same but the server had additional tools and services.  Die hard security fans wouldn't run a GUI on a server so we don't consider this to be a mission critical type of thing.  It's for a computer lab or small business environment where the other BSDs fail to target and Linux or windows get used.  ... (whatever else we need to do before release)1.0 ReleaseFull desktop environment with installer, GUI package management, command line environment and package management, documentation, client/server, and GNUstep integration with many GNUstep based applications.  There will be a web browser, some office productivity software, etc.  (mozilla based, open office?)  We'll also have a server version.  That covers what we'll be doing with basic desktop stuff which is what most people want to know.  However, there are a lot of things we'd like to see under the hood too. These are projects with which we have no specific timetable but want to see added.1. Enhanced disk encryption for portions or the entire disk.  (subset might be like an OS X home directory with encryption)2. Something similar to OS X style dmg files.  A transparent disk image system.  There are many things we could use to implement this.  3. An alternative scheduler more suited to desktop SMP usage.  Multicore is here to stay.  We need to grow up to it.  4. Disk schedulers.  Disk IO is notoriously slow in FreeBSD and MidnightBSD.  There are a number of factors including locks, scheduling, poor UFS2 performance, etc.  5. Enhanced wifi configuration and support.  Wifi should be much more transparent than trying to enable wpa_supplicant in rc.conf and hacking out a config file for it.  The network stack is not optimized for wifi or the newer FIOS/cable modem packages available in some parts of the world.  This means we need a self tuning stack to handle both extreme cases.6. Support for Intel Macs.  This is a combination of power management, fans control, drivers, and either Mac EFI 1.x support or a hack around it.  (i.e. use the emulation)  MBSD does not boot on a Mac Pro due to the keyboard probe timeout and other issues.7. Cleanup of the threading libraries.  The FreeBSD project has changed to libthr from KSE in current.  We need to evaluate what is best for us and pick a final default and make sure it is standards compliant.  Changing threading libraries every other release is very painful with ports and third party software development for your OS.  8. Integration of BSD licensed replacements for GNU licensed tools.  Unlike some projects, we are much more content with other licenses, but for flexibility it is preferred to use BSD licensed software in the system.  As much as possible we'd like to keep everything below the GUI layer a BSD licensed app.  I do expect to use a lot of GPL/LGPL code during the course of the project as well.  Both licenses serve different needs.  This also includes importing code from OpenBSD, NetBSD and to a lesser degree DragonFly.  Those projects have more actively targeted userland improvements.  We also hope to develop many of our own.9. Security.  We have a great deal of plans to improve security including a default firewall, improvements to the existing firewalls.  (pf upgrade, changes to ipfw)  I've mentioned the disk encryption and we hope to look at other sections of the code for enhancement.  Switching to gcc 4.x would also be helpful on this path.I'll write more on this later.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 16 Jul 2007
7:00 AM

0.2 snapshot
I've created an i386 0.2 snap without ports or packages.  The snap has yet to be tested, although I'm preparing to do so.  Presuming this snap works as expected, it should be much more compatible with the changes to the mports system.  This snap includes userland updates to openssh and cvs as well as bug fixes and improvements.  There is support for additional sound hardware.  You can get a feel for ctriv and wintellect's work on mports. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

7:09 AM

Doh!
The 0.2 snap does not work.&nbsp; There seems to be a problem with cpio<br />/stand/cpio malformed number...<br /><br />ugh.&nbsp; Well I'll be looking at this problem later.&nbsp;?
?
Update:  it does appear to be cpio related. http://www.gnu.org/software/cpio/

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 19 Jul 2007
1:10 AM

linux-firefox, lynx, links1 and links updated
There was a new version of firefox released (2.0.0.5).  I've updated our linux version.  I also checked on some of our other browser ports.  links1 was about 5 years out of date.  links and lynx also had newer versions.Unrelated, I also fixed a bug that was causing current to fail to build.  I'm testing some changes to cpio to fix the make release problems.  I have a few more options if that is unsuccessful. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

2:27 AM

What are we doing?
Some people wonder about MidnightBSD commit activity.  Now there is an easy way to follow the action.?
?
http://cia.vc/stats/project/midnightbsd?
?
You can also view commits from many different projects on #commits on freenode.  ?
?
I just set this up a few minutes ago.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 20 Jul 2007
8:06 AM

tcpdump security issue
A buffer overflow issue was discovered in tcpdump which is shipped with MidnightBSD.  A patch has been committed to CURRENT (0.2)?
?
http://secunia.com/advisories/26135/?
?
http://www.tcpdump.org/?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 21 Jul 2007
5:55 AM

CLI Live CD
I've posted two Live CDs on the FTP server.  Both are based on MidnightBSD 0.2 CURRENT.  You can download a Live CD for i386 or AMD64.  The current approach uses acd0 for booting so most elements are mounted read-only.  These Live CDs are not intended for installation, although it might be possible to fdisk/bsdlabel the system and copy the contents of the CD with a few changes to /etc/fstab.  ?
?
Long term I'm hoping to get this working with X11 + GNUstep and create an installer for MidnightBSD.  ?
?
This is based on the process used to create DragonFly ISOs. ?
?
(amd64) http://www.midnightbsd.org/ftp/MidnightBSD/snapshots/amd64/0.2-070720-LIVECD/mbsd.iso?
?
(i386) http://www.midnightbsd.org/ftp/MidnightBSD/snapshots/i386/0.2-070721-LIVECD/mbsd.iso?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

6:21 AM

How to make your own MidnightBSD Live CD
Yesterday, I committed some new files in src/nrelease in CURRENT.  cvs update -d your source tree, then do a make buildworld, buildkernel, installkernel, reboot installworld, mergemaster process. This approach works if you're tracking CURRENT.?
?
Now, go into /usr/src/nrelease.  Run make buildiso and make mkiso.  This will create a new directory /usr/release, install the buildworld into it and then create an ISO. ?
?
If you wish to customize the ISO, go into src/nrelease/root.  You can add files and tailer files for the CD there.  ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 24 Jul 2007
3:55 PM

MidnightBSD installation videos
I've added four quicktime movies demonstrating the process to install MidnightBSD as it stands now.http://www.midnightbsd.org/ftp/MidnightBSD/videos/These files are on the FTP server and should be available on the mirrors in the next few days.  I'm also attempting to add them to Google video.  I'll post the relevant links later. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

8:11 PM

Installing MidnightBSD Part 1

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 27 Jul 2007
8:19 AM

0.1-20070726-SNAP-i386
A new 0.1 snapshot is available for MidnightBSD.  ?
?
http://www.midnightbsd.org/ftp/MidnightBSD/snapshots/i386/0.1-070726-SNAP/0.1-20070726-SNAP-i386-disc1.iso?
?
It is recommended that you download from a mirror instead.  ?
?
This snapshot continues to use GNU cpio 2.4.2.  It does have two outstanding security issues.?
?
1. The recent BIND 9.3.4p1 update is not included in either branch yet.?
2. The tcpdump issue has not been patched in 0.1 yet. ?
?
This is now the recommended snapshot for a MidnightBSD install.  Please report any issues as we are nearing a release on this branch.  Packages are missing and aside from the above issues, we need to remove some menu options in sysinstall. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 30 Jul 2007
12:49 AM

Etoile Project releases 0.2
While we don't have this in mports, it's still of interest.  Etoile has released 0.2 as well as a live cd.?
?
http://www.etoile-project.org/?
?
The LiveCD?
http://download.gna.org/etoile/etoile-livecd-0.2-build-A2.iso?
?
Please note that Live CD does NOT work on Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 for Windows or Microsoft Virtual PC 7.02 for Mac.  It did boot up on my IBM Thinkpad T30.  Their Live CD is based on Ubuntu.  It uses a username/password combination of etoile/etoile.  ?
?
I may try to do something with this later in the week.  I'm still working with sysinstall in current.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 1 Aug 2007
10:39 PM

BIND and Tcpdump security updates
MidnightBSD 0.1 and 0.2 (CURRENT) have been patched for the recent vulnerabilities in BIND and Tcpdump.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:42 PM

OSVERSION / kern.osreldate
MidnightBSD currently maintains the FreeBSD osreldate of 601000 as we have most of the patches and elements from 6.1 Release. However, osreldate is a very useful tool to make adjustments between versions in ports.  The ports tree relies on OSVERSION values for FreeBSD.  All uses of this must be purged before we can switch over to using our own value.  ?
?
All new ports should not use the value and any existing ports found should remove the dependance on it.  I went through the mports tree and cleaned out about half of the uses today.  When mports are updated, you may notice a lot of changes.  Few ports had any significant functionality change.  ?
?
Also, we are getting reports that some ports have not been fixed from the mports transition.  Please file bug reports or let one of the developers know if a port is broken.  Any developers should mark them broken and file a bug report so we can look at them later.  If it is an easy fix or you have time, fix it and submit.  compat4x is known to be broken.  The firefox (native) port is also broken.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 2 Aug 2007
2:26 AM

German Translation/ Mailing Lists
Seirei has been working on a German translation of the website.  It is still a work in progress, but I've linked it in on the first page of the English site.  I'll probably work on adding the link on the rest of the site and trying to add the images and movie to the russian site if I get a chance. ?
?
http://www.midnightbsd.org/de/?
?
I added some new mailing lists tonight.  There is now a users, kernel and cvs list.  You can follow ALL cvs commits, discuss issues with midnightbsd on users or talk about kernel issues and development.  Actually, the kernel list should be used for more technical questions in the same manner as the DragonFly lists.  We're not big enough to warrant having so many lists like FreeBSD.  I'm rather new to setting up GNU MailMan so if anything is borked, let me know.  ?
?
http://www.midnightbsd.org/mailman/listinfo?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 4 Aug 2007
8:26 PM

MBSD status
We're working on last minute fixes before the 0.1 Release.  Most of the issues are in ports.  I'm test building some packages and hope to get the new ones on the FTP server in the next 24 hours.  All security issues have been dealt with in 0.1 and CURRENT that we are aware of at this time.  There are quite a few out of date ports.  I'm trying to patch ports with security issues first. CUPS was at 1.2.7 which is quite out of date.  I've managed to update it to 1.2.11.  The new version fixes several security issues.  The MUTT port has some issues.  I'm working on that now.  astro/xearth is broken.  A recent GNUstep fix was backed out to solve problems building gnustep-back.  razor-agents was updated to fix a build issue with the p5-Mail-SpamAssassin port.  OSVERSION checks were removed from all ports.  This should speed up building various ports and prepare us for switching kern.osreldate to our own value.  We still need to go through the src tree.  A few obsolete file systems were removed from src in CURRENT.  The autofs and umap are no longer included.  The former was never finished and the latter was seriously broken.  We enabled HPFS for testing, but we do not yet know if this will be permiment.  I'm going to install OS/2 Warp 4 to test it after the 0.1 release cycle.  Work continues on removing alpha and pc98 support.  We do not have the machines to support either architecture so it is best just to remove the code.  The arm, ia64 and sparc64 code will remain for now.  I'd like to support sparc64 and arm down the road.  We're debating what to do with PowerPC.  If we can get it running on a system, it's very possible we will support it.  Several of the developers have older Macs.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 6 Aug 2007
12:58 AM

Heads up: 0.1-RELEASE coming
I've already tagged the release.  It's the first time I've done this so expect a few hiccups.  The i386 version should be out in the next 24 hours unless something weird happens. I already forgot something.... the example csup file is wrong..http://www.midnightbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/src/share/examples/cvsup/standard-supfile?annotate=1.2So here's what I did do:RELENG_0_1_0_RELEASE is taggedmports was tagged as RELEASE_0_1_0src/sys/sys/param.h was bumped.changes were made to various files in src/releasesysinstall was altered so that several documentation menu entries are not present.  This release does not include documentation (beyond man pages). If there are any glaring issues, I'll do a 0.1.1 release.  Remember this is a 0.1 release for a reason.  It should be fairly stable, but there are many things we have not done yet.  0.1 does not use many of the mports changes and things of that nature.  Users interested in that will want to move to CURRENT (0.2).  A few closing words, try to download from a mirror!

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:54 PM

MidnightBSD 0.1-RELEASE
We are proud to announce the first RELEASE of MidnightBSD for 32bit Intel systems. (Intel Pentium, Core, AMD Athlon, etc) .  ?
?
http://cs.emich.edu/mbsd/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/0.1/ ?
(rsyncing right now)  ?
?
http://www.midnightbsd.org/ftp/MidnightBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/0.1/   ?
(official mirror)?
?
Here is a list of issues with the release:?
?
ERRATA?
?
Installation issues?
?
projectcenter.app package is missing dependancies on disc2.?
mutt package is missing urlview dependancy on disc2.?
?
GNUstep package includes gdnc which is missing libgcc_s.so.1.?
?
bash 3 and gmake missing libintl.so.6.  This can be fixed by uninstalling gettext and building it from the port.  The port is not including the shared library for some reason.  We are investigating. ?
?
?
System issues?
?
CVSUP example for updating src fetches CURRENT instead of RELENG_0_1?
?
Using Virtual PC for Windows:?
If you install MidnightBSD in VPC, you will need to set hint.acpi.0.disabled="1" in /boot/device.hints  This will help with the "calcru: negative runtime of" issue.?
?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

5:16 PM

German Article
Apparently, we were featured in an article.?
?
http://www.cul.de/data/freex52007inh.pdf?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:46 PM

Post 0.1-RELEASE Updates
RELENG_0_1 includes two fixes with issues found in 0.1-RELEASE.  The first update fixes the CVSUP standard-supfile example (see http://www.midnightbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/src/share/examples/cvsup/standard-supfile).  ?
?
The second update turns on the new mports system.  0.1-RELEASE uses the older bsd.port.mk file.  Packages built for 0.1-RELEASE relied on the old system as well.  ?
?
It is recommended that users install the new gettext package from our FTP server or build the port and replace the version included on the install CDs.  This fixes several problems with the ports not running with missing libraries.?
?
The m4 port was backed back down to 1.4.9 to fix some issues with older software requiring automake/autoconf in mports.  ?
?
Submit any bug reports using http://bugreport.midnightbsd.org/ or midnightbsd-users@midnightbsd.org?
?
Finally, the ISC mirror finished rsyncing.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 11 Aug 2007
5:07 PM

Things we've learned this week
Obviously, releasing an operating system is a very complex process. We've made several mistakes in the process.  ?
?
1. Our testing methods are not sufficient.  ?
?
Several issues were found just after release.  Packages for the release were not tested on another machine before it shipped.  (big mistake) Several ports were broken that we didn't know about.  mports was not included in 0.1-RELEASE, but rather the old method of gererating ports.  ?
?
To clarify, bsd.port.mk was being used instead of bsd.mport.mk.  This single difference results in most of our ports not working.  There are assumptions in our ports.  We could fix each port, but how do we detect the OS version?  OSREL won't catch the fixes we made right after release in RELENG_0_1 and the kern.osreldate is not incremented yet.  ?
?
2. The videos needed to be posted on mirrors and/or google video.  The most common complaint we get in IRC is that our videos were hosted on our own site and their size.  These videos were generated on a Kodak digital camera which creates quicktime videos using a very old codec which does not compress well.  It is 640 x 480 video with sound.  Today, I moved the install video links to google video and the demo is on a mirror with a faster pipe.  ?
?
3. mports don't work.  Quite a few mports were not fetchable or had other build problems.  We don't have an automated build/testing system setup yet for MidnightBSD ports.  There is no tinderbox/pointyhat for us.  We don't have the hardware to make a massive build cluster.  Thankfully, a few new users have been testing ports and reporting success/failure to us.  We've fixed over 20 ports reported to us and found many others that had bugs.  Several ports (particularly database ports) have been updated this week to new versions.  We know these ports work in CURRENT, but testing on 0.1 is still not adequate. They *should* work with post 0.1-RELEASE ports fixes.  I'm setting up an old HP Pavilion 700mhz system with a refurb Western Digital drive today.  (yes a drive failed on me during this process)  WD sure waits to ship a drive during an RMA.  ?
?
4. We are not even close to usable yet for the average joe.  The majority of issues reported to us are actually usability issues.  People have trouble with the website, installation, installing ports, and other issues.  One of our goals is to make things easier and we have failed in that quest to date.  I promise it will get better.  ?
?
We take bug reports seriously.  If you have trouble doing something, using something or even surfing our website, report it to us.  You can use http://bugreport.midnightbsd.org/ (preferred) or post it to our mailing list midnightbsd-users@midnightbsd.org.  Subscription to the list is not currently required to post to it.  This may change if we get a lot of spam, but for now it is easier to get reports.  Please feel free to ask questions on this list.  It's like freebsd-questions and freebsd-hackers rolled into one plus some bug reports.  ?
?
5. Hardware support?
?
We do not have a list of supported hardware for MidnightBSD.  As a rule of thumb, if it works with FreeBSD 6.0, it will work in MidnightBSD.  In some areas, we are near FreeBSD 6.2 hardware support.  ATA and sound are current.  Video card support is comparable although we have xorg 6.9 instead of 7.2.  Intel gigabit network support is a little behind.  Intel ICH8 boards like the intel 965LT work (i have one).  ICH9 support has not been merged in yet.  Wireless support is not that good.  We do not yet have the FreeBSD firmware loading stuff in place so loading support for newer Intel wireless or other vendors is not there yet.  My laptop has a broadcom wireless adapter (linksys) and it's working with ndis wrappers, albiet a little buggy at times. ?
?
Intel Macs do not work with MidnightBSD.  Mac Pro and MacBook Pro systems are known not to work.  We have not tested MacBook, iMac or Mac Mini systems with MidnightBSD.  ?
?
Cross compiling for PowerPC is also not working properly for G4 based systems.  ?
?
I've tested MidnightBSD on Mac Pro, Dell Precision 650 workstations, home built systems with the intel 965LT, a ThinkPad T30 laptop, a Dell poweredge 2300 (p3 xeon), HP Pavillion 700mhz celeron, a compaq with a cyrix 366mhz (i think it was) chip, an iBook G4,  and a Sun Ultra 10 3d creator.?
?
The Macs didn't work.  The Dells work perfectly with all devices including SCSI working.  The IBM Thinkpad does not "sleep" properly, but everything else works. The HP and Compaq work as expected.  The sun system worked early on but died on me last september or so.   I don't know the current state of sparc64 support.   The intel board has not been tested with sound, but everything else works.  I have a creative labs soundblaster audigy gamer in there (audigy 1) and it works in i386 perfectly but amd64 causes weird problems during DVD audio playback.  ?
?
----?
?
Remember, this is our first release and we selected 0.1 for a reason.  Until MIdnightBSD hits 1.0, don't expect it to be ready for regular people. ?
?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 15 Aug 2007
9:38 PM

Installing MidnightBSD on Parallels
It has come to my attention that the MidnightBSD 0.1 release iso does not work on Parallels if the VM mode is set to any form of Windows.  Make sure you create a new VM with FreeBSD 6.0 selected.  I've tested this on a Mac Pro. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 16 Aug 2007
10:18 PM

FTP servers
I've added some DNS entries tonight.?
?
ftp.midnightbsd.org maps to stargazer (but this may go round robin soon) ?
ftp1.midnightbsd.org maps to stargazer (our official ftp) which is slow.?
ftp2.midnightbsd.org maps to the ISC mirror?
ftp3.midnightbsd.org maps to the ALLBSD mirror. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:20 PM

Status of mports
Since the release, we've had quite a few reports on broken or misbehaving ports.  We've been working as quickly as possible to fix the ports and in some cases update them to newer versions.?
?
We've fixed several ports including some of the GNUstep related ports, and some of the KDE ports.  Opera and linux-opera were updated to 9.23.  ?
?
Ports with problems:?
?
GNUmail is known to be broken.  It crashes on most systems.  ?
?
Subversion was updated to 1.4.4 and it works except for a few of the non default options like mod_dav_svn.  We're still working no that port?
?
KDE3 meta port sometimes fails.  A file with the configuration information is copied into /usr/local instead of the fake directory.  copying the file in the right place fixes that port enough to install.  We'll fix that when we get time to test it thoroughly.  ?
?
Firefox (native) is flat out broken.  ?
?
Seamonkey (native) only works as a browser.  The other features (mail, ldap, etc) are broken.?
?
Mozilla (native) works with everything except LDAP.?
?
Gorm and ProjectCenter fail on some systems and work on others.  We haven't determined the cause although it started after we upgraded the GNUstep ports.?
?
The GNUstep cd player port was reported broken.?
?
Most of the Etoile ports are not working presently.  They all need GNUstep 2 + fake fixes.  I'm going to look at that soon.?
?
plus any bug reports in bugzilla.?
?
Working:?
compat4x was fixed today.?
aspell can fetch files again.?
qmake?
all shells in ports work?
limewire?
linux-realplayer?
freebsd binary java ports?
poppler-qt?
poppler (path fixed for include files)?
apache 2?
apache 2.2?
lynx?
links?
neon?
perl?
linux-firefox?
linux-seamonkey?
linux-thunderbird?
xorg?
ruby?
python 2.4?
mysql 4.1, 5.0, 5.1?
bind 9.3.x, 9.4.x?
sendmail?
spam assassin?
pine?
pico?
emacs?
vim?
terminal.app?
textedit.app?
windowmaker?
wterm?
?
plus many other ports.?
?
I think the last estimate was 1,300+ ports total (working and broken)  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 21 Aug 2007
4:33 PM

Etoile progress
Most of the Etoile ports have been fixed.  ?
?
x11-themes/etoile-camaelon is still broken.  It is looking for a header that does not exist in newer GNUstep releases.  The Etoile project has a fix in their SVN repository.  One of our new developers, Seirei@ has offered to update the Etoile ports to a newer version.  (0.2)  He's started working on that.  ?
?
I'll post an update when we have everything back in action.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:36 PM

BSD licensed compiler
We've added nwcc to mports.  The current version in mports is not designed for everyday use, but we hope to help find bugs and such.  Eventually, it might be included in the base system.  There is a newer version on sourceforge with bug fixes.  We'll be adding that as a devel port later.  This version requires nasm or yasm (depending on arch).  ?
?
Obviously we will still ship gcc in some capacity for GNUstep development.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 22 Aug 2007
12:07 AM

bsdtalk Interview
I did a bsdtalk interview yesterday.  I'll post a link when the interview is live.  It will be on http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

2:29 AM

cafepress
I've updated our cafepress store with new items.  Some of the items now include a picture of Midnight the cat.  I've ordered one of the green t-shirts with midnight on the back.  I'll take a picture when it arrives.?
?
http://www.cafepress.com/midnightbsd?
?
The calendar is pretty cute.?
?
http://www.cafepress.com/midnightbsd.162548881?
?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

5:22 AM

New ports
We've now got Abiword and Mono in mports. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 23 Aug 2007
12:14 AM

bsdtalk126
The bsdtalk interview is now posted online.  ?
?
http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/?
http://cisx1.uma.maine.edu/~wbackman/bsdtalk/bsdtalk126.mp3?
http://cisx1.uma.maine.edu/~wbackman/bsdtalk/bsdtalk126.ogg?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 29 Aug 2007
3:16 AM

Ports work
Several GTk related ports have been updated.  gtkmm ports need work.  ?
?
Python 2.5.1 was added to mports.  ?
?
koffice was updated to 1.6.3 (from 1.5.2)?
?
INDEX building was fixed for mports on AMD64 (finally).  The default java port is now the native amd64 freebsd binary.  Old java port references were removed from bsd.java.mk.  ?
?
ctriv@?
xchat was updated?
fixes for gcc ports?
?
Seirei@ has updated a good share of the Etoile ports.  The version numbers in in flux right now.  ?
?
src:?
?
archite@ switched our bc in CURRENT over the weekend. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 31 Aug 2007
11:34 PM

0.2 i386 snap
I posted a MidnightBSD 0.2 snap built on sources from two days ago.  It does not include ports or packages.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 28 Sep 2007
9:48 AM

pcc
pcc has been added to CURRENT.  It is not currently connected to the build, however you can test it locally by going into src/usr.bin/pcc; make; make install?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

9:50 AM

libmport
ctriv@ has imported his initial offerings toward libmport.  This new library will be the basis of the tools for our ports collection and will be used by the new installer.  It uses libarchive and initial testing shows a 30% increase in speed while creating packages.  ?
?
Consider this a pre-alpha version.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 30 Sep 2007
7:19 PM

libarchive
ctriv@ imported a newer version of libarchive and bsdtar into CURRENT.  He's started a port freeze for 0.1.1 release with tagging soon. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 2 Oct 2007
4:55 PM

xorg7 Integration Started
Work has started to integrate xorg 7.3 into mports.  This will destabilize mports while the switchover is in progress, but the tree was tagged for the 0.1.1 release just before work began.  If you need a stable mports tree, use the MPORTS_0_1_1_RELEASE tag.  ?
?
The work should take about 2 weeks, after which xorg should be build-able from ports again.  It will take additional time to make sure that the toolkits and window managers all work properly under xorg7.  ?
?
This transition is inconvenient, but it is important to get MidnightBSD onto the 7 series.  Future updates will be much simpler, and we gain a great number of new features with this update alone.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 3 Oct 2007
8:15 PM

OpenSSL security, build cluster
First, a security update is avaiable in RELENG_0_1 and CURRENT for OpenSSL.  It is recommended that everyone upgrade to this new version.?
?
Second, Eastern Michigan University's Computer Science Department has offered us a build cluster for ports.  ctriv@ is writing the software for the build cluster.  We'll post more information when it is available.  (x86)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 13 Oct 2007
12:47 AM

X.org 7.3 update, 0.1.1 release coming
Chris has added the vast majority of X.org 7.3 ports into the mports system.  We're just beginning testing to find bugs in the ports.  It is recommended that you stay on 6.9 for now.?
?
The 0.1.1 release will ship with 6.9.  We've started building packages for that release.?
?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:50 AM

php 5.2.4
I've been working on bringing 5.2.4 into the mports system.  While our project focuses on the desktop, we also realize that open source users often dabble with writing web apps and doing various other things on their systems.  PHP is handy for testing apps.  We also use MidnightBSD on our own servers.  ?
?
mports/lang/php5 has been updated.  The extensions are still getting worked on.  A subset of them already work.  A few, such as gd have not been tested due to the X.org upgrade.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 18 Oct 2007
12:03 AM

xorg status update
I've got x.org 7.3 running on an amd64 host and a i386 box (pentium 4) at home and work respectively.  GNUstep, qt, gdm, gedit and all their depends are working.  ?
?
We are using a symlink for /usr/X11R6 -> /usr/local ?
?
I still need to test KDE and many other small apps.  Please report any bugs to us using the forums, bugreport.midnightbsd.org, irc, email, or whatever.  ?
?
I'm test building Etoile 0.2 right now.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:09 AM

0.1.1 status
I've been having trouble getting time to build packages on our 0.1.1 systems.  ctriv and I setup three new machines with 0.1.1 at EMU.  We're going to build the packages on those machines.  The downside is that it's taking longer, but we'll have a larger variety of packages than the 0.1 release had.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:37 AM

GNUstep + etoile situation
Further testing has revealed a real problem.  GNUstep seems to have two issues.  First, at 16 bit color depth it has blank menus.  Someone else reported this issue on ubuntu and closed the ticket:?
?
http://www.nabble.com/-bug--18128--Art-backend-does-not-draw-properly-on-Ubuntu-6.10-t2518416.html?
?
I've experienced this on X.org 7.3 with the latest stable versions of GNUstep.?
?
At 24 bit depth, the menus draw about a menu's length from the top.  So instead of say a menu getting put at the top there is an offset.  In the console there are errors about negative values and bad values.  I first noticed this with Etoile, but realized it was GNUstep causing the problem.  This totally ruins the Etoile experience.  When I get more time, I need to investigate a fix for this.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:40 AM

Testing Etoile
Here's a blog entry detailing some steps to test Etoile.  It also describes how to start Etoile properly.?
?
http://www.etoile-project.org/etoile/blog/2007/08/toil-02-troubleshoot.html?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 21 Oct 2007
10:46 PM

MidnightBSD status on 10/21
X.org testing has been going fairly well.  We still have the issue with GNUstep not working properly.  See previous posts for an explanation.?
?
I'm testing KDE currently.  I'm about half way through the build.  A problem has been fixed with koffice and teTex-base.?
?
poppler was updated to .6 and gstreamer has been updated.  The firefox port now builds and runs, although we need to do a lot with it yet.  It is the most recent 2.0.0.8 release.  ?
?
GDM has been working well for me on my desktop.  ?
?
Some ports that have been added recently:?
gconf-editor?
gnome-themes?
poppler-data?
doomlegacy?
doom-data?
anjuta?
libgnomekbd?
(updates to opera and linux-opera)?
devhelp?
gnome-build was updated to .2?
yelp?
gnome-terminal?
epiphany?
linux-seamonkey  updated?
openmpi?
gnome-panel?
gstreamer-plugins-bad?
update to pidgin?
mksh update (ports)?
postgres 8.2?
libGLU?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 23 Oct 2007
2:26 PM

KDE port working with x.org 7.3, work in CURRENT
The KDE port is now working with x.org 7.3.  koffice does not have PDF support at the moment.  ?
?
Most of the dependancies are in for a minimal gnome install.  We're still stuck on a few things.  ?
?
CURRENT has been broken during the work on PCC.  We've decided to back out some of the changes to get the system building and continue to wrk on it locally.  ?
?
netcat and mksh were updated today in CURRENT.  (OpenBSD 4.1 netcat and R31d of mksh)  ?
?
I can't seem to get an answer from the GNUstep folks on our current issue with x.org 7.3 and GNUstep.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 27 Oct 2007
12:53 AM

Magus build cluster
Instead of writing additional text, I'll post a message I sent to the mailing list:?
?
Chris has written software in perl to run a build cluster for mports.   ?
Our first run was done this week.  We built 1112 ports successfully  ?
with 137 failures and the remaining ports untested (depends that  ?
failed prevented the build).   This run was done on the tagged mports  ?
for 0.1.1 release.  We'll be using many of the packages on the FTP  ?
server and in the release.?
?
Eastern Michigan University's computer science department donated 10  ?
Dell Optiplex GX 240 systems for use with the cluster.  They also  ?
donated network resources.  The results of the cluster activities can  ?
be seen at http://cs.emich.edu/magus/?
?
The first run started with three nodes and one master at 12:30 in the  ?
afternoon and completed the next day before noon.  We added systems  ?
during the run as we brought them up.  Eight nodes were online by the  ?
end.?
?
The next run will be done on the current ports tree which has grown by  ?
300 ports or so.  We've updated to x.org 7.3 and added many gnome  ?
ports in the last few weeks.  20-30 of the failures have been fixed in  ?
the current tree.?
?
The build cluster uses perl and MySQL 5.0.  It builds each port in a  ?
chroot environment which has allowed us to catch several subtle issues  ?
with some ports.  Each node has 512MB of RAM, an ATA 100 disk and an  ?
early Intel P4 chip.?
?
You can direct questions about the cluster to the list or email the portmgr@midnightbsd.org ?
.?
?
Special thanks to EMU's CS department for helping us and ctriv@ for  ?
writing the software.?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:54 AM

rc.d
I've made several changes to rc.d.  Sendmail no longer regenerates aliases.  A new pivot point was created, FILESYSTEMS.  This follows a similar change in FreeBSD.  We don't need it as we're not preparing for ZFS, but it makes sense, and it's much easier to follow.  We also added the graceful stop when an error occurs from NetBSD.  Testing on my desktop has been rather successful.  ?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 9 Nov 2007
6:03 PM

MidnightBSD 0.1.1-RELEASE
We're happy to announce the release of MidnightBSD 0.1.1.  The software is available on our FTP server and will be on the mirrors shortly. ?
?
The packages for 0.1.1 are on the FTP server, but the Latest and category symlinks have not been put in place on the FTP server yet.  You can manually download packages to use with pkg_add or give it an exact url to the file with pkg_add -r  We're planning on fixing this in a few days.  These packages were generated on our new mports build cluster called magus.  There were near 1000 packages generated for this release on i386. ?
?
I'm planning on making an amd64 release, but have not started that build yet.  It will probably be another week before that is done as I have to build packages too.   ?
?
What's new:?
?
Updated to bzip2 1.04?
?
mports collection is included with the release.  This greatly simplifies getting additional software for MidnightBSD.  ?
?
OpenSSL security issue corrected.?
?
libpthread output intended as an error is written to stderr instead of stdout.?
?
find has new "birth" time options.?
?
pkg_install tools like pkg_add know about mports. ?
?
?
Late breaking information:?
?
This release includes x.org 6.9.  It will be the last release with x.org 6.9.  Users who want to use x.org 7.3 should update their mports tree and uninstall all ports depending on X11.  It is recommended that you delete /usr/X11R6 and create a symlink to /usr/local for /usr/X11R6.  This will allow all the ports to work.  The updated ports tree has many new software packages including most of Gnome 2.18.3.  Since this mports tree was created (0.1.1's), over 300 ports were added to MidnightBSD.  1500 ports are building correctly on our build cluster.  ?
?
Special Thanks:?
?
Eastern Michigan University's Computer Science Department donated the computing resources for the magus build cluster.  This allowed us to build packages in 10 hours for this release.  ?
?
The next release:?
?
0.2 will be the next release barring any need for a later 0.1.x release.  It will include replacements for pkg_add and a new installer option.  Expect it in 2008.  

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Nerdy
Music: 

Sat, 10 Nov 2007
12:17 AM

Magus build cluster + amd64
For the first time, we're running a second architecture on the build cluster.  I'm testing CURRENT on amd64 against the most recent mports snap used by the i386 run.  This setup is a bit odd as the only machine is at home. ?
?
The current build cluster is housed at Eastern Michigan University in one of the Computer Science department labs.  Since the master is also there for performance reasons, and behind a firewall, I've setup a ssh tunnel to proxy the mysql connections to the master.  (it's actually 2 tunnels)  I'm a  bit concerned about one of the tunnels dropping, but it's still an interesting experiment.  The packages are getting stored locally instead of going to the master as usual.  ?
?
We did manage to get through most of archivers so far.  Even though this machine is the only node building, it's also a Pentium D 805 with 2.5GB of RAM and SATA instead of a P4 1.4Gzh with 512MB and IDE.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 11 Nov 2007
4:15 PM

Power Outage
There was a power outage that lasted more than 4 hours taking down the MidnightBSD website, CVS, etc.  Service has been restored.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 13 Nov 2007
12:23 AM

x.org drivers
The drivers for ati, nvidia, and intel graphics adapters have been updated to the newest available versions.  I've also updated the joystick driver to 1.3.0. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:25 AM

Magus
We're still running the AMD64 build.  With one machine it is not as fast as it could be.  The real issue is that magus does not have support for 2 core systems. We can't manually exec a second instance as they will clash.  We're looking into ways to allow for concurrency on powerful systems . This was not a design consideration since we were working with old intel boxes and thinking about old single cpu suns.  We've had a few bugs with this run.  Specifically the ssh tunnel is dying once in a while.  I modified the script to start the tunnel to sleep 5 seconds and then try to open a fresh tunnel.  If it happens at the right time, we're fine.  Since making that change, it's only occured once where the tunnel dropped.  We may have to move the master elsewhere to avoid this in the future. One port (pear) has continuously failed and should be fixed.  It attempts to ask for a file to patch :)Overall, considering magus is still "alpha" software I'd say it's working quite well.  We've been able to fix a large number of ports we didnt' know where broken or unfetchable.  I'll admit that it's been distracting though.  We haven't done much outside of ports in the last month or so. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 15 Nov 2007
10:47 AM

GNUstep/Etoile
While I haven't been updating on all of our ports activity, I thought I'd share recent progress with GNUstep and Etoile ports.  A change in current to bring in pcc has caused a problem with any objective-c port.  Specifically the inclusion of libgcc_s in the base is conflicting with the port versions.  This only happens on current systems and only during the last few months.  (say september or so).  The changes *should* be backed out, however you may have a libgcc_s in /usr/lib causing problems.  If you update to the latest snap and then remove that file, things should work as expected.Last night I updated gnustep-make to 2.0.2 and gnustep base.  I was able to build gorm and ProjectCenter successfully on these new versions.  Today I'm working on fixing several Etoile ports that have not weathered the recent change in naming of shared libraries as well as improvements to bsd.gnustep.mk and bsd.mport.mk.  In short, I'm making the ports work again.For variety sake, I've recently imported a good share of gnome into the system.  We're not switching from our goal, but wanted to diversify the ports system.  A few problems with GNUstep + the gcc changes + updating x.org has caused us headaches and some developers and users wanted a backup.  GNUstep has been working on 0.1-RELEASE (plus mports update) for some time.  We are currently building gcc 4.1 as a dependancy as it seems to be the most recent, reliable compiler for GNUstep on MidnightBSD.  Etoile-iconkit was fixed just moments ago.  The current recommended configuration for working with GNUstep on MidnightBSD is0.1.1-RELEASEgcc 4.1 (default port)gnustep (as of last night)  Etoile (if you want to play with it)Gorm + project center or project managerwhatever apps you like.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 1 Jan 2008
1:42 PM

Theo vs Richard
Normally, I reserve this blog for MidnightBSD status updates and information about the project.  Today, someone gave me this link in IRC to a conversation regarding comments about "free" software in the OpenBSD ports system.?
?
Richard Stallman claims the ports tree in OpenBSD contains non-free software.  Ports are just a collection of makefiles and patches.  There are a few special ports in FreeBSD and MIdnightBSD which contain BSD licensed code, but that is very rare.  In general, the ports system allows you to fetch software and build it yourself.  All the BSDs also provide binary packages built from the ports tree, but these comments focused on the ports tree.?
?
I'd also like to point out many linux distros have their own repositories and package distribution systems including gentoo (most iike bsd ports) and sometimes third party repositories for extra packages such as Debian and Fedora users have setup.  ?
?
It is also important to consider the definition of free each side is using in the conversation.  Free software has a different meaning to a BSD user.?
?
http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=119750352332512&w=2?
?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 4 Jan 2008
10:23 AM

New mports
devel/cvsps?
devel/cvsps-devel?
x11/fast-user-switch-applet?
x11-themes/gnome-backgrounds?
textproc/rarian?
misc/getopt?
accessibility/at-poke?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:03 PM

Unexpected headaches
I've been upgrading our server "stargazer" which hosts the website, cvs and other services for MidnightBSD.  I recently purchased two seagate drives for a RAID 1 on /home where I store the CVS repository and other files.  The motherboard has an onboard intel raid controller (ATA).  ?
?
That process was fairly painless. ?
?
The other issue is the failing video card.  The fan on the current card is wobbling and occasionally stopping which has caused problems.  I'm not in a position to run headless with the system, so I purchased a new evga nvidia 6100 LE AGP fanless video card from NewEgg.  However, the package was stolen at my front door (or never delivered).  After spending half my morning on the phone with Fedex and contacting NewEgg, I have a replacement coming in 5-7 days.  Both companies have provided courteous customer service, but I'm left wondering what happened to my video card.  Was it stolen on my doorstep?  Did a driver forget it on the truck?  Including shipping, the card was only $43 dollars.  I guess at this rate, I could have gone to a local store and bought a card.  Of course, then it wouldn't be fanless.  ?
?
I'm left with a whining video card for another week.  In case anyone is curious about the server specs, I'll list them now.?
?
Dell Precision 650 Workstation?
Dual Xeon 2.0Ghz?
1.5GB PC2700 ECC RAM?
1 Seagate 80GB IDE disk (2MB cache 7200RPM) (primary boot disk)?
2 Seagate 160GB IDE 8MB Cache 7200RPM?
1 IDE CD burner?
integrated intel gigabit nic?
ATI AIW 9600 XT (soon to be replaced?)  ?
integrated LSI scsi controller (used to have a backup volume (72GB) until the raid...)?
?
Originally, the system was my desktop which explains the ATI AIW card.  I used to dual boot BSD and Windows XP on the system.  I'm in the process of setting up a backup "server" for data which should be live in the next week.  I'm waiting for a new heatsync/fan for the CPU.?
?
The CVS repository is backed up weekly to a system offsite.  ?
?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:22 PM

Work in progress
I've been quite lazy about maintaining this developer blog.  I'd like to catch people up on happenings in the project.?
?
First, smultron has been working on a new website design for us.  It includes a new logo design similar to the logo we're using on the blog and cia.vc.  MidnightBSD was named after my cat and this new logo includes a cat as well as the obvious other usage of Midnight.  I'm very impressed with his progress on the site.  It will be published when it's complete.  Originally, we had hoped to publish a new site with the 0.1.1 Release, but well things happen.  The new design improves navigation quite a bit.?
?
Chris (ctriv@) is working on libmport.  This is the library that will be used with the command line and GUI replacements for pkg_add and friends.  He has made great progress with most of the new code in his local subversion repository.  He's promised a checkin of that code soon.  raven@ has been looking at the libmport code in preperations for the new GUI tools to manage ports.  I believe she is planning on using GNUstep.  Chris will write the mport command line tool.  ?
?
I've been working on several things.  The build cluster found many ports that are broken and we've been trying to get many ports current or at least patched for critical security holes.  KDE was updated over the weekend to 3.5.8.  We're behind on many other ports including php, seamonkey (well this one isn't really done anyway), gnome related ports, etc.  I committed an update for php5 today, but many of the "extras" are not updated yet.   With the build cluster down, I can't test many ports at the moment.  Please submit bug reports or email us if you find bad ports.  (math/R is known to be broken as well as devel/ncurses)?
?
The build cluster has not been run since mid December.  We had to shut it down for the holidays at EMU and ctriv@ has been working on a new version of the software to allow us to test multiple OS versions and architectures.  However, his work was stalled on that so that he could finish up libmport during the holidays.  I suspect we'll have the build cluster hardware setup by next week and some of the machines upgraded to CURRENT.  Our new plan is to run 5 machines on CURRENT and 5 on 0.1.1 for i386.  We also want to test CURRENT on amd64 and sparc64.  ctriv has a sparc machine for that and I'm hoping to get my netra working as well.   ?
?
I have been working on the Live CD and installer as well.   I'll post an update on that next week.  ?
?
archite created a wifi network script that looks interesting.  He's posted it for the OpenBSD community on undeadly as well.  He's also been doing some scripting for things on stargazer.  ?
?
We did an interview for the NetBSD pkgsrc 10 years celebration, however it hasn't been posted yet.  It was a fun interview.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 17 Jan 2008
5:44 PM

Magus build cluster
During December, we had to shutdown the build cluster for the holidays.  In the mean time, many new computers were purchased and shuffled around at EMU.  Systems were moved and disconnected.  Today, I've restored access to 3 cluster nodes.  Each node currently has 0.1.1 (snap) on it which was basically 0.1.1 release.  I'm upgrading the nodes to 0.2.  These nodes are labeled build1, build2 and build3.  We also have a 0.1.1 node and the build master working.  ?
?
At the same time, Chris has been working on rewriting parts of our cluster software to work better with multiple architectures as well as support multiple releases concurrently.  When the cluster is back online, we'll have 9-10 nodes running on p4 chips with either 0.1.1 release or 0.2 current.  The cluster build time will be slower, but we can test both branches.  A full build took less than a day with all the nodes.  Usually it was done in 10 hours.  Based on the increase in ports and less nodes, I suspect it will take a day or so to do a run.  ?
?
In addition to this work, I'm also planning on setting up two machines to do amd64 builds, and one or two machines for sparc64.  Chris already had a sparc on current for this purpose.  ?
?
The Eastern Michigan University computer science department has been quite generous giving us access to so many machines.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 25 Jan 2008
12:29 AM

Round Robin DNS for FTP
ftp.midnightbsd.org now uses round robin to speed up downloading packages with pkg_add -r, etc.  ?
?
If you need to get to our main site, use ftp1.midnightbsd.org?
?
ftp2 and ftp3 are aliases for our mirrors. ?
?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:29 AM

Current fixed
There was a minor build problem with sendmail in current.  It has been fixed as of a few hours ago.  Current has built successfully on an i386 box.  ?
?
We're also testing a new threading fix for libpthread in relation to fork() calls.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 2 Feb 2008
9:26 PM

MidnightBSD 0.1.1-RELEASE AMD64 now available
I'm happy to announce the release of MidnightBSD for amd64 systems. (and Intel equivalents)  This release does not include packages for KDE and several other programs like the i386 release, but you can build them with mports.  XORG, Samba, WindowMaker, and several other ports are on the isos though.  ?
?
The packages are also up on the FTP server along with the ISOs.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 15 Feb 2008
11:47 AM

Some stats on webserver traffic for MidnightBSD
Analysed requests from Fri-14-Sep-2007 11:13 to Fri-15-Feb-2008 10:04 (153.95 days).?
?
Successful requests: 311,495 (10,072) ?
Average successful requests per day: 2,023 (1,438) ?
Successful requests for pages: 118,349 (4,210) ?
Average successful requests for pages per day: 768 (601) ?
Failed requests: 54,531 (1,623) ?
Redirected requests: 52,518 (1,814) ?
Distinct files requested: 41,433 (4,365) ?
Distinct hosts served: 19,626 (1,680) ?
Corrupt logfile lines: 15 ?
Data transferred: 1.03 terabytes (21.44 gigabytes) ?
Average data transferred per day: 6.88 gigabytes (3.06 gigabytes)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:47 AM

Updated ports
I've updated several of the browser ports to correct security issues.  ?
?
Firefox & linux-firefox?
linux-flock?
linux-seamonkey?
Opera & linux-opera?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:49 AM

Security patch in src for sendfile
CURRENT now has a patch to correct a potential security issue with sendfile.  Files were not checked prior to serving which would allow a file that was write only to be served.  While this scenario is rare, we decided to fix it anyway.?
?
sendfile is used by many daemons including Apache httpd.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:51 AM

www/analog port
I've modified the analog port to report several additional BSDs including MidnightBSD, MirBSD and Dragonfly.  ?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:52 AM

Status of the build cluster
Magus has been down since december for a rewrite.  I've discussed this previously.  The build master was brought down for a faculty member to take the video card in the last week.  It had been up 113 days which is a record for any machines I'm running.  The website has not been restored as of yet, but the system was upgraded to 1GB of RAM.  ?
?
ctriv hopes to complete the software soon. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 28 Feb 2008
12:23 AM

Security update for random IP id, mports work
First, a security update was applied to CURRENT for users who turn on the random IP id feature.  It is off by default.  This feature has a flaw in the random id generation.?
?
See http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/27647/info?
?
Second, we've updated a large number of ports in the last few days.  The astro, archivers, accessibility, and net (except samba3) ports have been updated with the latest versions where possible.  I'm currently working on the audio category.  ?
?
Progress on Gnome 2.20 is still going strong as well.  ctriv had a bit of a hardware snafu which has slowed the deployment of the new cluster software.  I'm hoping to have many new port updates ready when it's back online.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 5 Mar 2008
3:17 PM

Purchase MidnightBSD CDs
A third party is selling MidnightBSD 0.1 CDs.http://www.linuxcd.org/view_distro.php?id_distro=394&PHPSESSID=8bb30f794a15cc2f17704dd93982b3cfWe do not get any economic gain from the sale of these CDs, but it might be an option for those on low speed connections.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

9:59 PM

Interesting list of supported cards in Linux
The FSF has a nice list of supported wireless chipsets on Linux systems.  I have not yet reviewed the list to confirm that all of them are supported in MidnightBSD, but if not it might be a good area investigate.http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/net/wireless/cards.html

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 8 Mar 2008
7:18 PM

Wiki
We're working on a new MidnightBSD wiki.  It will contain some documentation, todo lists, and other elements that developers and users want to collaborate on.?
?
http://www.midnightbsd.org/wiki/FrontPage

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 13 Mar 2008
7:20 PM

Interview on mports
Chris and I did an interview regarding mports late last year.  it's now on the NetBSD website.?
?
http://www.netbsd.org/gallery/pkgsrc-interviews.html#mports?
?
There are many interesting interviews about various ports systems in the BSDs on that site.  Check it out. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 14 Mar 2008
4:12 PM

MirPorts, mports, etc
MirPorts is now working on MidnightBSD.  This now gives users a choice between two ports systems.  I'll post more on this when I get time.  MirPorts also run on MirBSD and Mac OS X.  ?
?
mports:?
?
Anyone using Dovecot should update to the new version in ports.  There was a recent security issue.?
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2008-1218?
?
We're still upgrading gnome ports for the 2.20 release.  After that, we'll probably update KDE to 3.5.9 and then look at 2.22 gnome.  ?
?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 15 Mar 2008
12:38 AM

Magus Build cluster website
The build cluster is back up at EMU.  We've moved the status site to http://www.midnightbsd.org/magus/As the database schema has changed, the site is still undergoing work.  ctriv@ has done an excellent job with the new version.We're now able to run multiple architectures and OS versions at the same time. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 17 Mar 2008
5:23 PM

Google SoC Alternatives
Laffer1 wants more time for coding so I (Raven) will be handling some of the MidnightBSD blog updates from now on.We were not accepted into the Google SoC program.  It's a bummer but let's move beyond that.  It looks like FreeBSD, NetBSD and DragonFly BSD were accepted (interesting no OpenBSD).The ideas page will remain up.  http://www.midnightbsd.org/soc/If you're a student  (or just a regular old developer) and would like to join the project, go to the developers page, http://www.midnightbsd.org/developer/index.html. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 18 Mar 2008
9:27 AM

More about MirPorts
As promised, we are posting more about MirPorts on MidnightBSD.First, there is some information on how install MirPorts here, http://www.mirbsd.org/ports.htmI'd like to thank the developers at MirBSD / MirOS for porting to MidnightBSD.  We still consider mports as our primary ports system but we felt it was necessary to give our users more options.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 20 Mar 2008
2:02 PM

MidnightBSD on Sparc64
Last night, laffer1 installed MidnightBSD on two Sparc64 computers.  The most recent Sparc64 current snap does not work.  Right now you need to use the 0.1 snap.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 25 Mar 2008
11:28 AM

Autotools, Sparc Updates, Magus
First, Magus has been quite busy lately.  Laffer1 and ctriv have been very busy fixing broken packages.The second sparc is almost up and running.  Big update, laffer1 has been updating autotools.  You will need to rebuild autotools.  Laffer has been adding upgrading autotools and integrating the recent autotools wrapper changes from FreeBSD.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 31 Mar 2008
11:08 AM

Main Server, Magus Database
We encountered a problem sometime this morning with the latest run.  We ran out of disk space on the database partition.  Everything is up and running at the moment, and we are working to correct the problem.A side effect of this is that you may have had trouble accessing the website this morning.  I apologize for any problems you may have experienced with the MidnightBSD site this morning.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 1 Apr 2008
10:11 AM

WebKit
WebKit has been added to mports.&nbsp; Now MidnightBSD users have the option to install WebKit.&nbsp; We are working on adding a few WebKit front end applications.?
?
Use mports/www/midori in mports to try WebKit.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 2 Apr 2008
2:43 AM

New Screenshot
We've got a screenshot of Gnome 2.20 running on MidnightBSD.  We're still working on some of the Gnome related ports.?
?
This image was captured from a MidnightBSD current install in Parallels running on Mac OS X.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 3 Apr 2008
1:53 PM

CVE-2008-1391 Integer Overflow Fixed
This affected the strfmon function in libc.  It has been corrected in CURRENT.  A memory leak was also corrected.?
?
References: ?
http://nvd.nist.gov/nvd.cfm?cvename=CVE-2008-1391?
?
http://www.midnightbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/src/lib/libc/stdlib/strfmon.c

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 13 Apr 2008
4:10 PM

Nice tutorial on setting up dual-head displays with X11
http://www.freebsddiary.org/xorg-two-screens.phpThis is a nice tutorial on how to setup multiple displays with X11.  I've managed to get mirroring and extending to worth with my IBM Thinkpad T30.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:11 PM

Webkit, recent changes
We've recently added webkit to mports.  Install the midori port to try it out.  It's based off a nightly build, but seems rather stable.We also recently removed gaim (replaced by pidgin) and updated openssh and bzip2 in CURRENT.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 17 Apr 2008
7:18 PM

mksh security update
A security update has been applied on CURRENT for mksh.  It is unlikely to be a problem.?
?
http://secunia.com/advisories/29803/?
?
We now have r33d

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

7:52 PM

less updated
Less has been updated in CURRENT to v416.  I've reintroduced the FreeBSD patches for less to behave like more.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 25 Apr 2008
11:38 AM

MidnightBSD 0.1 Torrent, Metalinks
First, there is a torrent available for MidnightBSD 0.1-RELEASE (older)I also posted a new metalink for 0.1.1-RELEASE i386 on the MidnightBSD website. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 29 Apr 2008
2:23 PM

Changes in CURRENT, mports
We've had a lot of activity the last few days.?
?
src:?
?
MidnightBSD now has a threaded version of Bind 9.4.2 in CURRENT.  We'd appreciate feedback on Bind and related applications (nslookup, dig etc)?
?
libpthread and libthr are built early during buildworld now.?
?
pcvt removed!  ?
?
bsd.cpu.mk now has definitions for core2 cpus (as an alias) ?
?
Several usr.sbin utilities were removed for pc98 and alpha architectures.?
?
syslogd, adduser, rmuser, mergemaster, mailwrapper have been updated with new features and fixes.?
?
periodic won't send empty emails anymore.  ?
?
man pages:?
man4.alpha removed?
smp.4?
config.5?
rc.conf.5?
build.7?
?
?
mports:?
?
added:?
devel/upnp?
security/sshguard?
security/sshguard-ipfw?
security/sshguard-pf?
devel/p5-Term-ReadKey?
devel/p5-Term-ANSIColor?
finance/openhbci?
finance/kmymoney2?
finance/kexchange?
finance/opentaxsolver?
?
updates:?
graphics/png?
security/sudo?
deel/pkg-config?
shells/bash?
devel/p5-AppConfig?
?
removed:?
bash2

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

2:31 PM

Magus + mport
The build cluster is currently running with fixes to test our java ports for the first time.  ?
?
Chris has added a lot of fixes and functionality to libmport.  Developers are now testing it.  The frontends are not complete yet

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 6 May 2008
7:44 PM

Build Cluster
The MidnightBSD build cluster went down over the weekend.  We had a power outage.  ctriv@ got the cluster back up and running yesterday.  We were told that it was using too much juice :)         

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 7 May 2008
3:35 AM

MidnightBSD VMware appliance
I added a VMware appliance to the MidnightBSD website.  It includes MidnightBSD 0.1.1-RELEASE, Perl 5.8.8, X.org 6.9 (no configuration file), and mports.?
?
The image virtual hard drive is 10GB and no root password is set. ?
?
http://www.midnightbsd.org/download/vmware.html        

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 13 May 2008
12:37 AM

pcc compiler
I added the pcc compiler to ports.  As some of you know, I made an attempt to get it working in src awhile back and hit some issues with the way GCC is setup on MidnightBSD.  (funny isn't it)  I need to revisit that issue when I get some free time.?
?
Some changes were made on CURRENT to facilitate compiling using pcc with some of our system headers.  I can now compile cp in src with pcc.  The binary is a bit smaller than GCC's version.  It seems to run.  I'm not ready to give it a glaring endorsement.  ?
?
Both cdefs.h and stdarg.h required changes.  I decided to put the changes in i386, amd64 and sparc64 on the rare hope that we'll see ports to other platforms working in the future.  Currently, pcc is working on i386.?
?
I would love some feedback on things that work and don't work in src.?
?
One warning, some of the POSIX visability stuff was circumvented while using pcc.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 20 May 2008
10:54 AM

Mirports adds "firesomething" patches for MidnightBSD
This means that using Mirports, users can access "firesomething" 1.5.x on i386 based hosts.  Firesomething is the clever name for a popular web browser which has strict limitations on use of the name with ports to other operating systems.?
?
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.os.miros.cvs/18466        

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 22 May 2008
12:38 AM

Mirror Sites
I added a new page to monitor the state of mirrors.  As of yesterday, there is a timestamp file on each mirror that shows when it was last synced.  The timestamp is updated every hour on the main server, and the freshness of mirrors is checked hourly as well.  (about 20 minutes apart)  ?
?
http://www.midnightbsd.org/mirmon/?
?
Note that ftp1, ftp2, and ftp3 are stargazer, ISC, and AllBSD.  ?
?
As a side effect, I realized that the cs.emich.edu mirror was seriously out of date.  For some reason the cronjob has been failing to rsync.  I'm doing it manually now and will look at that when I get more free time.  The amd64 release and snaps are now on that site as well as distfiles that have been added on the other servers.          

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 24 May 2008
2:28 AM

Live CD
 I've been working on a new Live CD for MidnightBSD.  It is based on  ?
0.2-CURRENT from earlier in the month.  It does not include X yet, but  ?
has several other useful tools like lynx, bash, nano, screen, vim,  ?
perl, and irssi.  (also viteris for smultron)?
?
The current version uses md devices for /root, /var and /usr/local/ ?
etc.  /etc is read only and I'd love suggestions on working around  ?
that.  unionfs is a no go, but I may end up making / a md to get  ?
around it.?
?
dhclient is run for several different network interfaces automatically  ?
and i've hard coded my DNS servers in /etc/resolv.conf since the file  ?
system is read only for now.?
?
The ISO is 264MB.?
?
http://www.midnightbsd.org/wiki/livecd?
http://people.midnightbsd.org/~laffer1/livecd0.2.iso?
?
It is an i386 iso as that will run on most systems.  I'm not sure what  ?
the minimum memory requirements yet.  I've been testing it in a vm  ?
with 512MB RAM allocated.?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 25 May 2008
5:29 PM

Flyer
I created a flyer for MidnightBSD.?
?
http://web.mac.com/lucasholt/Site/Podcast/Entries/2008/5/25_midnightbsd3_files/midnightbsd.pdf        

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 1 Jun 2008
6:00 PM

mports
We're in the process of updating a large number of ports.  This will cause ports to be broken, etc.  (gnome 2.22)  ?
?
Feel free to file bug reports, but things should be fairly unstable for another few days then back to normal.  ?
?
This was sparked by a recent security vulnerability that requires us to update gnome to fix.          

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 4 Jun 2008
2:24 PM

OpenOffice.org
I added editors/linux-openoffice2 today. Please report any problems to the maintainer email addresss.  This is our first OpenOffice.org port.  We're still working on upgrading Gnome to 2.22. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 7 Jun 2008
11:51 AM

bind95 porrt
We've got a new bind 9.5.0 port.  dns/bind95

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

7:47 PM

(no subject)
Midori port updated to .18.  ports index updated on stargazer.  Fetch it with make fetchindex in /usr/mports

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 9 Jun 2008
11:35 PM

openoffice.org and kaffe
I made some progress on open office 2.4 and kaffe today.  The former installs freedestkop style entries for gnome/kde menus, but does not execute quite right yet.  I suggest you use soffice with this port.  (linux-openoffice24)  kaffe seems to work fine, although registervm does not properly set the path to the jdk with the javavmwrapper yet.  There's a file /usr/local/etc/javavms (as i recall) that has the invalid path to the ports directory.  Fix that after installation and it should work as expected.  This and linux-blackdown 14 are installable without a lot of fuss. (if you need java in a hurry)  java/netbeans was updated to 6.1 tonight.  It works aside from a nag message about a missing solaris file.  The old version had fetching problems, so we went with the latest despite this bug.  Either myself or one of the other port maintainers can tackle these at a later date.ctriv and I met today to discuss current and future work with midnightbsd.  We've got an idea what our next steps are going to be.  I'll probably post more about my work soon.  The gnome 2.22 fallout is still at play with mports.  This was compounded by perl bug that should be fixed.  It was not the perl port, but rather some code that sets the default version of perl within mports.  The next magus run should be more productive as we've isolated a few gnome issues and this perl fix should restore the mports collection.Finally, stevan@ reported a bug in csup awhile back.  I finally got time to test it in a similar environment.  It is recommended that users use cvsup or cvs to checkout mports and src instead of csup at this time. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 12 Jun 2008
5:44 PM

Opera 9.5
Opera software recently released Opera 9.50.  Normally, we'd like to include new versions of browsers anyway.  However, this version also includes several security fixes.  The mports/www/opera port has been updated to 9.50, but it may be tweaked as we move forward.  The structure of the port changed quite a bit.  We're not doing any config file changes yet.  Paths for plugins might be incorrect, etc.  ?
?
We were not able to update the linux-opera port.  That was marked broken as the new versions require qt4 or are debian packages we don't have support for right now.  If you don't care about the security risks, just comment out the BROKEN= with a # in the Makefile for the port. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

5:48 PM

Vacation, new release schedule
Some of our developers are taking time off for the summer.  At least two of them will be on vacation within the next few weeks.  I'm currently taking a summer class which ends at the end of the month.  At that time, I plan to pick up on work.  (laffer1@)?
?
mports commits might get slower during the next few weeks as I start working on src.  We do plan to get gnome ports fixed up.  ?
?
There has also been a change in plans for 0.2 and 0.3.  We plan to release 0.2 sooner than planned.  MidnightBSD 0.1.1 comes with many outdated packages.  Most of our users are installing from CD and not updating mports.  We feel that it is necessary to release something in the next two months with updated package and security updates. So 0.3 will be the feature release that 0.2 was supposed to be.  ?
?
Prior to the release, we want to stabalize mports and fix one outstanding bug in src.  There will also be some installer changes.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 18 Jun 2008
12:53 AM

No linux-firefox3 coming
I started working on a linux-firefox3 port, but ran into several problems.  First, it uses TLD which means we can't use it on amd64.  Second, it requires libpangocairo, which I updated/added.  now there is a linux-cairo port too.  Finally, it requires GTK 2.10.  I can't work around this one without upgrading our linuxolator.  This is a big problem for us.  Not only can we not ship a native firefox at this time, but when mozilla drops firefox 2 support, we'll be without an updated linux browser. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 20 Jun 2008
12:31 AM

CURRENT i386 packages
I've copied some packages from magus (run 80) to stargazer.  We still have some symlink problems with a few files, but there are a great number of packages available.  (2.3GB)  A few were not included for distribution issues.  For instance, the gnome ports will work, but you'll have to manually provide firefox.  Not all the gnome ports built anyway on that run.  We're still fixing a few issues with them.  it's still the largest distribution of packages we've provided to date.  ( ~  1890)I pruned these using the ports marked restricted.  It's possible not all the ports were caught.  Please let me know if you see anything that shouldn't be there.  These packges will work on 0.2 branch systems too.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 22 Jun 2008
10:44 PM

Quick update on magus
I've just migrated about half the nodes to 0.2-PRERELEASE.  I've also started a new build run on that release.  The remaining nodes will move to CURRENT (0.3) soon.          

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 25 Jun 2008
1:18 PM

mports status
We're getting the mports tree ready for 0.2-RELEASE.  On the last magus run, we had 28 failures and 30 untested ports.  ?
?
http://www.midnightbsd.org/magus/runs/83?
?
These results are promising.  Due to the nature of this release, we need a larger number of packages built.  ?
?
The idea goal would be to get KDE, Gnome, and GNUstep related ports in shape for the release.  We'd like to have packages for all three environments.  Most people tell me they would like us to focus on either GNUstep or Gnome.  KDE comes into play because it was easier to get working, and at this point we're depending on Firefox for Gnome which we can't ship in package form.  (ported versions of firefox can't use the name or artwork unless approved by Mozilla Corporation)  I'm going to try to get some unbranded variant of a mozilla browser available for package building if possible.  It takes a long time to get a port working due to build times and complexity.  Firefox 3 is out of the question right now.  It requires new versions of many ports that would be disruptive this close to a release.  ?
?
I'd like some feedback from users about their preferred environment.  When I started this project, I wanted to focus on GNUstep.  I'd like to know that's what people want.  If so, we need to overhaul the GNUstep ports and get some patches upstreamed.  I personally feel that KDE is well covered by PC-BSD and DesktopBSD folks.  ?
?
If we get more port maintainers, it might be possible to keep all of them and allow choice during install and/or different ISOs.?
?
After the release, ctriv@ is going to do some disruptive changes to the structure in mports/Mk          

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 1 Jul 2008
2:56 PM

Recent activity
I've been working on hardware support.  Several users have been having problems running MidnightBSD on newer hardware.  ?
?
src/sys/dev/ata?
?
Last night, I merged some things from FreeBSD to support newer ATA and SATA controllers form NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD into CURRENT.  I also added a few to 0.2 that I can test here.  We've got a few devices that FreeBSD does not support as well.?
?
src/sys/dev/msk?
?
I added an experimental msk(4) to 0.2 and CURRENT.  It is built as a module only at this time.  I'm also experimenting with a device on my iMac Core 2 Duo and msk(4).   To test this, kldload if_msk?
?
src/bin/sh ?
?
sh changes are now available on 0.2 and CURRENT which fix some GNU configure scripts like those found in recent versions of graphviz.?
?
src/bin/*?
?
I've brought in several changes from FreeBSD 6.3 to CURRENT. Several commands have updated man pages, new flags, and bug fixes.  bin/cp needs the most testing.?
?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 2 Jul 2008
2:18 AM

T-shirts
I updated some of the t-shirts on the MidnightBSD store with our newer logo.  I also created two other shirts.  "I Love BSD" and "Hello World" are geeky shirts without the MidnightBSD branding. ?
?
 I have not purchased any of these shirts yet, so I don't know how well they come out.  I used at least 900pt x 900pt size with each image. ?
?
http://www.cafepress.com/midnightbsd 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 5 Jul 2008
10:15 PM

Magus nodes
Tonight, I updated the chroot tarball used by 0.2 magus nodes.  This will allow us to test and build ports with a very similar environment to a 0.2-RELEASE machine.  ?
?
I'm hoping to get this release done by the middle of the month, but we'll have to see what happens with mports. ?

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Optimistic
Music: 

Sun, 6 Jul 2008
12:56 AM

Writing a kernel module
I saw this article linked on the FreeBSD website today.  It might be helpful for beginner kernel hackers.?
?
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/writing_a_kernel_module_for_freebsd        

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 10 Jul 2008
12:18 AM

DNS server vulnerabilities
Most DNS software packages have a common design problem, they don't use random source ports. There is a great deal of coverage on this issue at isc.org as well as a CVE, etc.  ?
?
I've committed a patch to MidnightBSD CURRENT tonight.  Until I test it seriously, I'm not going to put it on stable branches.  I've also updates all three bind ports with the latest patch level.  ?
?
These patches are known to slow down bind.  I don't think most midnightbsd users run DNS servers, so it shouldn't be a big issue.  Any ISP or larger DNS deployment should update their servers though.  ?
?
My patch does not include all the documentation updates.        

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:47 AM

pcc
Recently, I added pcc to midnightbsd.  While testing mksh, the maintainer noticed that some symbols were missing.  Linking libgcc with pcc worked as did libpcc (Mirports version).  ?
?
Any programs compiled with pcc should link libpcc with them.        

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 14 Jul 2008
4:37 AM

mports, prepairing for 0.2
I began the day planning to create a snap in preperation for our new release.  I ended up modifying the script used to separate packages for release isos, and looking at what packages are missing that we might want to include.?
One problem I had not anticipated was the position we're in selecting a default desktop environment.  I had been planning on using Etoile + GNUstep.  That may still come to pass, but Etoile is not ready for this release.  The next logical choice is Gnome.  It is not used extensively in the BSD community as PC-BSD and DesktopBSD both use KDE.  I'm indifferent as I alternate between KDE, Gnome and other environments on my systems periodically.  I like to try out new verisons, and I'm fond of applications from several environments.  I started this project hoping to offer something unqiue, and I want to suceed at that.  If we role with Gnome, it would be new in the BSD world, but nothing special among the countless Linux distros and Solaris.  Many people do love Ubuntu and that ships with Gnome.  Another problem with Gnome is that it depends on Firefox.  We can't ship a Firefox binary do to usage restrictions for new ports.  The webkit work with the project might save us on this issue down the road.  ?
Presuming a native Firefox or Seamonkey is built, it's possible to get a fully working Gnome environment on MidnightBSD.  KDE 3.5.8 is also working, but we don't have a QT4 port available to work on KDE 4.1.  As for GNUstep and Etoile, I think we need some people porting and upstreaming patches for those projects to proceed on those fronts.  I also have an interest in improving the underlying operating system.  I have a few radical ideas that I'd like time to explore. ?
MidnightBSD 0.2 will ship with KDE-lite or KDE3 ports as a necesity.  I also plan to include the GNUstep ports if they're working at the time of release.  Until the browser matter is settled, I can't do much with Gnome.  ?
I'd appreciate feedback via comments on this blog, email, mailing list communication or chat in iRC about the direction you think the project should go.  ?
Regardless of the choices, we need to accomplish the following tasks.?
1. Finish the new installer and package tools?
2. Select a desktop environment, port it completely without any "freebsd hacks" and upstream the patches.  ?
3. Work on integration of the environment with the OS, and usability.?
Then there's the matter of making the kernel changes I'd like to see as well as bringing in new hardware support.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 23 Jul 2008
3:50 AM

OpenSSH 5.1
 The security issue affecting some operating systems with X11 forwarding is not an issue on MidnightBSD.?
http://www.openssh.com/txt/release-5.1

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 24 Jul 2008
3:24 AM

More details on the recent DNS disclosure
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/148854/attack_code_released_for_new_dns_attack.html 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 25 Jul 2008
4:55 PM

Avoid Foxconn motherboards
Foxconn is delibertly forcing users to run windows on their motherboards. Avoid their motherboards.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 31 Jul 2008
1:02 PM

CVS mirror
 I've setup an anonymous cvs mirror (pserver) for MidnightBSD.  This is rsync'd every two hours from stargazer.  It won't help with bandwidth as it's still on the same network, but the system is much faster (sata, pentium d 805, ...) ?
?
For instance, to checkout mports:?
cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@ds9.midnightbsd.org:/home/cvs co mports?
 ?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:20 PM

rsync/firefox/thunderbird
I've updated the rsync port to 3.0.3 and fixed the Firefox port  The linux-thunderbird port was updated for a security issue last night.  ?
We're still having some problems with graphviz building on some systems and magus.  It works on both of my local systems.  graphviz is a show stopper for the 0.2 release at this point.  We need that port to build on magus before I can do the release.  The point of this release is to get users a security fixed version with recent packages.  0.3 is a feature/technology release.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 7 Aug 2008
2:48 PM

MidnightBSD q and a

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 11 Aug 2008
11:30 AM

Mailing lists
Several days ago, we had an issue on our main server, stargazer.  It was corrected, but mailman was not restarted completely.  That's been corrected and users should be receiving mailing lists postings.?
We've had light activity so far this month.  Many developers are busy with summer vacations, moving, trips, etc.   ?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 13 Aug 2008
2:07 PM

Ruby security
Our mports are not updated for these yet. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 14 Aug 2008
12:16 AM

Ports work
 Our objective has been to stabilize the ports tree for 0.2 release.  Two ports have been causing us headaches for way to long.  They appear to be working.  graphviz and gnuplot are fixed.?
We've also updated doxygen which failed on magus.  Several other ports are still broken including GNUmail, Abiword, xemacs-packages, and finance/libofx. ?
Regardless of our situation, I plan to tag the ports tree this week.  We need to get moving on 0.3.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 18 Aug 2008
10:22 AM

libxslt
There is a yet unpatched security vulnerability in libxslt.   We'll update our port as soon as possible.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 22 Aug 2008
9:36 AM

libiconv 1.12 --
I've reverted to libiconv 1.11.  Several key ports have been failing on magus that would hold up the release.  We can't wait for all these developers to fix their code, and patching would take too long in this case.?
You'll most likely have to rebuild a good number of ports.  I suggest waiting until after the release. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 25 Aug 2008
3:48 PM

The 64 million dollar question
When is 0.2 coming?  Very soon.  I'm doing one last magus run for testing.  Run 98 will be tagged upon completion pending any new issues.  That will conclude mports for this release.?
Here is a list of remaining task prior to 0.2 release: ?
?
    Placing run 98's binaries (magus) on the FTP server?
    Changing the name of the release in the src code (0.2-RELEASE)?
    Making last minute adjustments to src/release and sysinstall to handle the packages we generated.?
    Fixing the csup/cvsup files and src/Makefile to point to the cvs branch?
    Creating a test iso set on x86 to find any last minute problems.?
    Tag the src tree?
    Build the final isos ?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:53 PM

mports status
mports are in the best condition in months.  Run 96 on magus had only 11 failures and very few untested ports.  Anyone holding off on updating mports, should consider grabbing a copy.?
Please report any ports that are misbehaving as we want this to be very good for the release. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 27 Aug 2008
4:07 PM

Website
Smultron and i are working on migrating the website to the new design he has created.  Feel free to tell us about broken links, etc.  ?
Nightlily offered to help me with the german pages when she gets back from her trip to Mexico.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:25 PM

More info on the release engineering process
I've added some documentation on our wiki for make release found in src/release.  It explains how to build MidnightBSD ISOs.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 28 Aug 2008
7:40 PM

Update on pending 0.2
The magus build cluster has completed the 98 run, so we now have packages for the release.  I'm using scp to move the files to a machine at home.  I plan to get them on the FTP tonight or tomorrow and do a test build.?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 30 Aug 2008
1:43 AM

0.2-RELEASE
 There's a preliminary release on the FTP server now.  I haven't gone through full testing yet, so avoid it until the developers get through testing the ISOs.  I'll post release notes tomorrow.?
Only i386 is up at this time.   If everything goes according to plan, amd64 will be built in the next week.  It will take at least 2 days to build packages and I've had to use that machine for i386 work.  I haven't made a call on sparc64 yet.  ?
Please tell me if package symlinks are bad on the ftp or files that shouln't be there are there.  I've tried to go through and remove restricted ports and ports listed in mports/LEGAL, but i might have missed something.  It's late and I'm tired.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:54 AM

(no subject)
 and i found a problem with the ISOs.  I'll generate new ones tomorrow.  The packages aren't included correctly.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

6:33 PM

Oops
Due to my snafu with sysinstall, 0.2-RELEASE has problems installing packages.  I could kick myself for not testing this properly, but it happens when you're drinking and coding.  ?
Here's the new schedule:?
i386?
We'll have 0.2.1-RELEASE ready for i386 in the next few days.  I'm not going to rush testing it this time just so we can be "done".  I've already created some patches to fix the above mentioned problem and am building a test snap with packages to verify.  If that goes well, I'll tag 0.2.1 and do the final build. ?
amd64?
This can't be started until 0.2.1 is done for i386.  I'm hoping mid-week, but I start getting busy on Wednesday.?
sparc64?
While I haven't made a final decision on this, I decided to start updating one of my sun machines to 0.2.1 so that I can build packages.  It usually takes a week with 3 machines on magus and I've only got one setup at the moment.  If my second machine and ctriv@'s comes into play, the earliest would be Friday.  If so, this would be our first sparc64 release.?
 ?

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Bitchy
Music: 

Sun, 31 Aug 2008
12:57 AM

(no subject)
 I'm starting a magus run for sparc64.  This will build on deltaflyer, which is a 500mhz netra t1 with 512MB RAM.  If this goes well, I'll try to do a sparc release later in the week.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:28 PM

MidnightBSD 0.2.1-RELEASE
 The 32bit version of MidnightBSD is now available on the FTP server.  Mirrors are rsyncing.  This version is 3 ISOs where the first one is the OS and a few packages (X.org), and disc 2 and 3 contain packages.  ?
The version number is 0.2.1 due to a problem with sysinstall found late in the engineering process.  It was easier to fix it, bump the os version, and tag cvs rather than retag and deal with that mess.  The versions are identical aside from sysinstall and src/etc/firstboot.  No need to update if you have 0.2-RELEASE installed.?
Here is the changelog for 0.2.x.  Please note that the dates at the end are before 0.1 and 0.1.1 as we branched at that time.  A few of the changes were present in 0.1.x releases, but not many.?
CHANGES?
?
?
20080830:?
	MidnightBSD 0.2.1-RELEASE?
?
	Oops, fix some bugs with sysinstall's handling of packages found on the release ISOs.  Tweak etc/firstboot while where here.?
?
20080829:?
	MidnightBSD 0.2-RELEASE?
?
20080703:?
	Correct problem with pcc and DESTDIR that affected creating live cds?
	and jails. ?
?
        sysinstall would incorrectly truncate DHCP info when configuring?
        ipv4 networking.  This was the result of a bad patch several months?
        ago.  Fix this error.  Found via testing a snapshot.?
?
20080627:?
	Add firmware(9), WEP, CCMP, TKIP to GENERIC.?
?
	Add glabel to GENERIC.?
?
	Intel ICH8 mobile chipset used on some iMacs included with ata.?
?
	pcc connected to the build on i386. (alternative compiler)?
?
20080613:?
	Begin work for MidnightBSD 0.2-PRERELEASE?
?
20080528:?
	Sendmail 8.14.3?
?
20080516:?
	ssh-vulnkey allows you to look for vulnerable ssh keys that?
	were generated on Debian and Ubuntu hosts over the last?
	few years.  sshd can block offending keys with a configuration?
	option.?
?
	The elf note on binaries is now set to MidnightBSD.?
?
20080514:?
	Fixed a number of problems with pcc.  It is not yet connected?
	to the build, but usable on i386 hosts.  You may use it ?
	by make; make install in /usr/src/usr.bin/pcc.  It will?
	install in /usr/local as some of the files conflict with?
	GCC versions. __MidnightBSD__ is defined in PCC as well.?
?
	System headers were fixed to allow pcc to compile many binaries?
	on MidnightBSD.  bin/cp will work now for instance.?
?
20080430:?
	__MidnightBSD__ is now defined via gcc.  This can be tested?
	to determine we're running on MidnightBSD in the preprocessor.?
?
20080429:?
	Import bind 9.4.2 with threading?
?
	libpthread (KSE) and libthr are built earlier?
	?
	pcvt(4) removed!?
?
	Alias added for core2 cpus.?
?
	Alpha and PC98 only utilities removed from usr/sbin?
?
	syslogd, adduser, rmuser, mergemaster and mailwrapper have been?
	improved.  See the man pages for info.?
?
	periodic scripts will not send emails with empty message bodies.?
	See mailwrapper fix.?
?
20080410:?
	Sync cpdup with DragonFly.  Add parallel transaction support and?
	-l flag to line-buffer stdout and stderr.?
?
20080406:?
	Import bzip2 1.05?
	Import OpenSSH 4.9p1?
?
20080322:?
	The default umask was changed to 022.?
	?
	/usr/X11R6 paths were removed from several config files.?
?
	.mkshrc files are now installed for root.?
?
20080316:?
	FIx a problem with gif0 tunnels and neighbors with IPV6.?
?
20080312:?
	Add lndir from X.org.  This aides in the porting of MirPorts.?
?
	New OS versions were added to the mapage code (groff)?
?
20080310:?
	Correct a buffer overflow in ppp.?
?
20080308:?
	Remove /usr/X11R6 from manpath config.?
?
20080307:?
	Atheros driver no longer has several options set?
	which corrects building in tinderbox on all three platforms.?
?
	Added a new macro to sx.h which returns true if the current?
	thread holds an exclusive lock on a specifix sx.?
?
	Removed OS/2's HPFS file system.   It's not maintained and?
	I don't know anyone using OS/2 or ecomstation these days.?
	My copy is in the closet collecting dust.?
?
20080306:?
	Synced tinderbox with FreeBSD.  Modified it for MidnightBSD.?
	Developers can now use it to check src builds.?
?
20080303:?
	Add mksh to /etc/shells, made some adjustments to options?
	for mksh builds per suggestion upstream.?
?
	USB HID table updated with modern hardware list.?
?
	Updated BSD family true (we're not in there yet)?
?
	iso3166 file updated and import of tzdata2007k for ?
	new time zones.?
?
	Updated mksh to latest version R33.?
?
20080228:?
	Remplaced the random IP id generation code with a new?
	version by Amit Klein.?
?
20080221:?
	Sendfile write only permissions fix.?
?
	Removed some HPFS and PC98 code.?
?
	iso639 file sycned with DragonFly.?
?
20080128:?
	Changed NTP configuration so that ips aren't cached?
	so multiple servers are used.?
?
	Fix an issue with fork() in libpthread.?
?
20080121:?
	Add virtualization detection to set the HZ rate?
	according to a VM present.  VMWare and Parallels?
	should work better like this.?
?
	Change to full x11 install in sysinstall.  Add?
	xorg 7 support.?
?
20080115:?
	Fix the handling of PTY's.  CVE-2008-0216?
?
20080105:?
	mport delete code added, USE_MPORT_TOOLS knob aded.?
?
20080101:?
	Happy New Year?
?
20071123:?
	Update sendmail to 8.14.2?
?
20071120:?
	Update system compiler to gcc 3.4.6.?
?
20071023:?
	Updated mksh to R31d.?
?
20070911:?
	Updated mksh to version R31b.?
?
	Fixed stderr output in libpthread.  Previously it was?
	written to stdout.?
?
20070831:?
	Added dot.mkshrc file to support the recent change to ?
	mksh from OpenBSD's ksh derived from pdksh.  ?
?
	Added new firewall configuration.  ipfw is enabled by default?
	with a "desktop" configuration.  Consult /etc/rc.firewall?
	or ipfw show to see the ruleset used.  You can disable?
	ipfw by setting firewall_enable="NO" in /etc/rc.conf This?
	change only effects IPv4.  IPv6 does not have a firewall?
	enabled by default.?
?
20070814:?
	Removed GNU tar source.  We've been using BSD tar ?
	for awhile.?
?
20070806:?
	Finished removing umapfs and autofs from the tree.?
?
20070804:?
	BIND and Tcpdump have been patched for recent vulnerabilities.?
?
	We switched to BSD cpio (pax).?
?
20070719:?
	Imported cpdup from DragonFly as /bin/cpdup?
?
20070716:?
	Update GNU cpio to 2.8. ?
?
20070410:?
	cvs was updated to 1.12.13.  cvsbug was removed.?
	cvs now behaves similarly to DragonFly's cvs with?
	most of their local changes.  ?
?
?
?
?
I hope to get another architecture uploaded in a few days, but I want to look at a few outstanding issues listed below.?
There are a few issues with packages for this release.?
?
?
    gtkjj missing??
    vim failed  - ctags & cscope??
    gvfs, goffice failed?
    wine failed??
    gimp-app failed - missing libgtkhtml?
    emacs and xemacs conflict - can't both be installed.?
    xchat - failed missing gtk spell?
    classpath failed?
    mutt failed missing depends?
    samba failed??
?
 ?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 2 Sep 2008
5:45 PM

DistroWatch.com
DistroWatch.com has updated their MidnightBSD entry to coincide with the new 0.2.1-RELEASE. MidnightBSD is currently the top entry on their main home page.  We've had over 500 referrals today from their website so far. ?
The page also includes information about packages available on MidnightBSD.  It allows you to compare our offerings with other BSD and Linux systems.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 3 Sep 2008
12:42 AM

Slow site, high traffic
The website has been very slow today.  In addition to some rsync activity with the mirrors (limited), we had 3,763 visits and 10363 page views for 9/2/2008 according to Google Analytics. ?
If you want to download ISOs, use the ISC or cs.emich.edu mirrors.  The metalink files might be helpful too.  I don't think allbsd has been able to mirror yet.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

2:58 AM

MidnightBSD torrent?
Someone has posted a torrent for disc1 of MidnightBSD 0.2.1-RELEASE i386. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 7 Sep 2008
3:14 AM

AMD64 Packages for 0.2.1
I recently released MidnightBSD 0.2.1 for i386.  Now, I'm working  toward a release for amd64 and sparc64.  Tonight, the packages finished building for AMD64.  ?
?
It's taken six days to build them.  I only have one machine available and although it's a core 2 duo, it can only use one core.?
?
I'm copying the packages to the FTP server now.  Then I'll have a nightmare rsync cycle and finally I'll be ready to make the release ISOs. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:22 PM

Success
I managed to get mports/www/browser working on two machines today.  There are still some issues to work out with dependancies and some tweaks to plists depending on those dependancies.  Still, it's a big step forward as we can distribute Gnome with this.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 10 Sep 2008
9:57 AM

(no subject)
I started the build for 0.2.1-RELEASE amd64 today.  If everything goes according to plan (insert Dr. Evil laugh) we'll have a release on the FTP soon.  ?
Unlike i386, this version will not contain GNUstep or related ports.  We had some build issues with GNUstep on this platform.  Oddly, it appears to have built on sparc64.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

9:17 PM

MidnightBSD i386 0.2.1-RELEASE CDs
 Purchase CDs?
For those of you who can't download ISOs.... 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 11 Sep 2008
1:01 PM

Getting MidnightBSD
One of the most common problems we've had is getting MidnightBSD.  Previously, I wrote about a torrent available for disc1.  One user has reported problems with that torrent.   The other options are typically the mirrors.  ?
The main site is currently rsyncing with two mirrors to distribute the new amd64 release.  The site will most likely be slow for the next 24 hours.  ?
I've been asked why I don't distribute using bittorrent myself. There are several reasons.?
?
    I need my bandwidth for the website, etc.?
    I have Comcast (business class) which does not officially block torrents, but things mysteriously get very slow after using one.  ?
?
I did post a torrent using a third party tracker for 0.1-RELEASE and things went very poorly.  The tracker was often down.  I don't have the speed to run my own tracker.  I can't get away with this at work either.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:13 PM

New ports
I added several ports last night at the request of a user.  Amarok is now available.  I recommend that you grab the gcc 4.1 package before building as this will save you a lot of time.  Without a newer version of GCC, I received several C++ errors.  It sucks, but it's better than not having the port.  GNUstep users will already have this installed most likely.?
With that port, I brought in several additional audio libraries including support for Dell and Creative mp3 players.  ?
I also updated the Opera  browser and XChat.  ?
Some of these ports may require more testing.  ctriv@ is working on some exciting new features for magus so we must wait to run the new ports until that has been well tested.  We're also setting up the build cluster at EMU again with some newer nodes.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 13 Sep 2008
1:20 PM

(no subject)
 I just installed a new SSL certificate for www.midnightbsd.org.  You can use it with cvsweb, etc.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 15 Sep 2008
5:37 PM

0.2.1 sparc64 pending
The sparc64 package build completed.  It's taken like two weeks.  We had 63 failures and 160 ports that were not tested.  57 ports were skipped.   That leaves us with 1479 passes and 456 warns.  Very good considering this isn't a highly active architecture.  ?
I'm planning on rolling a release in the next week, but I am very busy so I don't want to promise a date.  I doubt the line is very big for this one anyway.  Packages will be put on the FTP server soon.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 19 Sep 2008
1:28 PM

ViewVC, mports, CURRENT
 I just added viewvc to the website.  You may use this in addition to cvsweb.?
We've had a lot of mport activity this week.  In particular, several dependancies were fixed for Gnome, mono was updated to 1.2.5.2 (and it's doc port), and crash@ is working on bugzilla 3.x.  There are several new ports and portlint fixes.?
I'm in the process of doing some merges from FreeBSD in our CURRENT for things we can't work on ourselves at the moment.  This will be the last "large" merge from FreeBSD.  We largely ignored certain aspects of the system as we were focusing on magus, mports, and general setup.  After the merge is complete, we plan to diversify this project a great deal more.  The decision to do this merge was a tough one and in the end it came down to a poll among developers.  Most of us felt that we could benefit from improved hardware support, updated linux emulation, and jemalloc.  Another words, we're using some of the good aspects of FreeBSD 7.0, but not the whole thing.  ?
Assume CURRENT is broken and will not compile until November.  That's my estimate on this.  Upon completion, I plan to focus on the installer (finally).  Our next anticipated release is 0.2.1-RELEASE for sparc64, followed by 0.3-RELEASE sometime next year.  We hope to make 0.3 the last in the 0.x releases.  That would mean a 1.0 release in 2010.  If we're ahead of the curve, 0.3 might become 1.0.  This comes down to usability and reliability.?
Most of the requests after 0.2.1 have been for improved hardware support and changes to the gui setup.  (graphical desktop)  I've also had a few people complain about the 3 CDs.  We're considering switching to DVD releases in the future (except sparc64).  I'd like feedback on hardware support, and how many people still need CDs on i386 (x86).  I think it's safe to go dvd with amd64 as newer machines tend to read DVDs.  ?
The other request I've been getting is for a new live dvd.  I plan on working on that in November as well.  The installer project requires a livecd or livedvd anwyay.  I've heard requests for GNUstep and KDE live dvds.  Is there anything else users would like on them?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 21 Sep 2008
8:58 PM

Ports work
This weekend, crash@ and I started updating Gnome ports to 2.22.3 (from 2.22.0).  Not all Gnome related ports will be changed.  Several bug fixes are included in this update.   ?
We hope to have a magus run this week provided the updated cluster software is ready.  ctriv@ has been working on parallel operation for nodes with more than one core.  Some of the new GX270 dell systems the computer science department at Eastern Michigan University donated have hyperthreading.  We also have 3 dual core systems with amd64 MidnightBSD available for runs (potentially).  We may do a test run tomorrow if the software is ready.  In this case, hyperthreading is beneficial.  Often, the nodes are fetching files or in some way waiting on IO operations. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 23 Sep 2008
12:50 AM

CVS activity blog
I've created a new CVS activity blog.  It will display the commits to MidnightBSD in real time.   Since CIA.vc is having reliability problems, this is a way for developers to check on recent activity while avoiding the large emails on the midnightbsd-cvs@midnightbsd.org list.  However, the formatting sucks and I don't have messages included yet.  I'll try to tackle that after I get some sleep.?
The upside to this approach is that we've also got RSS and ATOM feeds of the cvs history automatically. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:44 AM

cvs mirror update change
 I've changed the frequency that ds9's cvs mirror updates.  It no longer rsync's every 30 minutes, but rather every 6 hours.  The previous cycle was giving people trouble over slow links.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 24 Sep 2008
12:44 AM

Desktop Backgrounds (wallpaper)
x11/themes/midnightbsd-backgrounds was added today.  It includes several MidnightBSD inspired desktop backgrounds in PNG and JPEG format. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

8:45 PM

mports: xfce 3.x and linux-flock
xfce?
Today, I added an xfce port to mports.  It is only version 3, but the missing gdk-pixbuf dependancy was finally fixed.  In case anyone is curious, I had to use our port of libtool to get it to build properly with shared libraries.  xfce 4 is very large so I don't know about supporting it right away.  This was done after a user request for xfce. I don't care for it.?
flock?
linux-flock was updated to 1.2.5 today.  This includes several security fixes and feature enhancements. For instance, Digg was added in 1.2.  It also includes a working copy of flash player so you can enjoy youtube without much hassle.?
twitter?
I added a new port, deskutils/twitter which is a shell script that allows you to update your twitter account from the command line.  usage is like: ?
# twitter username password "my entry here"?
midnightbsd-backgrounds?
Another port of interest is the x11-themes/midnightbsd-backgrounds that installs desktop wallpaper with the MidnightBSD logo.  There are several variations created by myself and "smultron".  We'll be adding more to that port at a later time.  It currently installs in a way that KDE can pick up.  We'd like to get gnome aware at a later time.  ?
bind 9.5.0-p2?
I've updated our bind 9.5 port to p2.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 26 Sep 2008
4:29 PM

xfce 4 added to mports
We now have xfce 4.4.2 in mports.  You may install xfce by using the new meta port mports/x11-wm/xfce4  ?
 We do not have a package at this time.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 3 Oct 2008
3:30 PM

Security
Various security issues have been reported in the last two months.  It is important that users update their OS if they use IPV6 or ftpd.  Updates have been committed to our src repository.  At this time, we don't have a binary update system, so there is no method to update in that fashion.  ?
All patches have been applied to RELENG_0_2 which is recommended for 0.2-RELEASE or 0.2.1-RELEASE users.  0.1 users can get some of the updates on RELENG_0_1 (cvs branch), but it's recommended to update to 0.2.x as soon as possible. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:33 PM

Magus
Magus is running again.  It's the first run since 0.2.1-RELEASE.  We've already found 20 ports that need some TLC and the run is still going.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 10 Oct 2008
2:41 PM

(no subject)
 There's been a flurry of activity lately with mports.  We've added a number of new ports including qt4.  ?
Results from our last magus run:?
?
?
    untested: 187 ?
    pass: 1656 ?
    fail: 29 ?
    warn: 408 ?
    internal: 1 ?
    skip: 23?
     ?
     ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 23 Nov 2008
12:40 AM

buy midnightbsd cds, status update
Two different sites are now offering MidnightBSD installation sets.  The links have been added to the download page of our website.  A portion of the sales for OnDisk.com will be given to the project.  ?
I also want to update everyone on MidnightBSD progress.  A few months ago, we had a discussion with developers and a few users about the future of the project and issues with MidnightBSD.  The most common complaint about MidnightBSD is hardware support and the installer.  There have also been feature requests for journaling file systems, ZFS, jemalloc, and .98 openssl.  ?
When MidnightBSD was forked, it was done off 6.1 beta.  We spent time fixing bugs that were corrected in the release version and adding hardware support.  However, we haven't made significant progress with the base system.  This defect has held us back.  In part, I feel the steep learning curve to work with the src tree has discouraged new developers.  Our mports system is working out well and we've succeeded in dramatically improving the experience and packages generated from ports.  A good share of the credit should go to ctriv@ for digging in to the mess and designing something new that continues to get better.  However, a ports system is not enough to keep us viable.  ?
A decision was made to bring in select parts of FreeBSD 7 that we feel are useful or parts that we've not had time to maintain.  It was a difficult decision because it meant we haven't  yet separated ourselves entirely from their project.  Other projects such as DragonFly occasionally bring in code from FreeBSD such as the ata code (nata in DF) or their latest approach at writing a wrapper for the network stack in FreeBSD Current.  Haiku uses FreeBSD drivers, jemalloc and other parts and has successfully wrote a wrapper for many parts of the system they use.  Still, this was something much larger.  We haven't blindly imported the entire FreeBSD 7 environment as we have accomplished improving parts of the system, but it was still a large piece of code.  ?
The work on this started in July and began to appear in CVS sometime later.  The last two months have been a constant stream of merges, fixes, imports and more testing.  At the same time, ctriv@ has been refactoring parts of the mports system to make it more modular and consistent.  ?
The result will be a new system with many improvements and a few regressions.  The changes will be present in 0.3-RELEASE.  We do not have a very specific time table for this release aside from a target date of October-November of next year.  ?
We have an increasing user base, but need more developers of all skill levels. ?
mports?
As for mports, you can take advantage of the new changes by updating your system to the latest stable version RELENG_0_2 and updating your mports tree.  A file was added to /usr/share/mk (src/share/mk) required by the mports system.  Without this file, you will have make errors on some ports.  This change has occurred in the last two weeks.?
GUI?
Many users have expressed an interest in our choice of desktop environments.  GNUstep and many ports were updated recently.  They work on i386 and often sparc64.  The amd64 version of gnustep is not working and we're investigating that issue.  Etoile is out of date and must be updated for the new version of GNUstep.  ?
We also plan to ship KDE and Gnome in the next release.  Until Etoile matures to a point it's usable, it makes sense to let users pick alternatives.  Many linux distros have chosen to do a similar approach.  Fedora has flavors.  Other projects, like Ubuntu, have variations for use scenarios like education, or for desktop choice like Kunbuntu (KDE).  ?
As the GNUstep project is aggressively moving forward, we don't feel it's a good time to count on it for our installer just yet.  The amd64 issue is an obvious road block.  Our plan is to write the installer in GTK for now and evaluate GNUstep later.  Why GTK? It's not huge like QT4, and I have experience with it.  We plan to include GNUstep on live DVDs in the future so users can experience it.  I'll follow up in a later post.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 1 Dec 2008
7:36 AM

The good, the bad, the ugly
First, I'd like to start off with some good news.  Our last few magus runs have shown a noticeable improvement in mports.  The tree again appears to be stable with only 5 ports failing.  Remember that you need to update your OS if you haven't already to take advantage of recent mports.  It is a good idea to update your system anyway as we've had several security updates since 0.2.1 was released.  I'd rather avoid doing another 0.2.x release, but it might be something for consideration for i386 at least.  ?
The crazy merge we're doing is moving along.  We missed the November completion date, but I feel that we've made progress.  Each architecture has a unique problem right now and a few common ones.  amd64 will probably be working first.  The world can be built on amd64 and sparc64 now.  i386 is only failing with pcc (which can be commented out).  At this point, we're working on updating device drivers in the kernel.  I'm in the middle of working on the ATA code.  Sadly, some areas of the kernel had not yet been touched and I've brought many of them in line with FreeBSD 7.  Other parts of the kernel had many local changes which require case by case decisions. I'm still not happy with this approach, and would rather have had more assistance maintaining.  ?
Since we're injecting a large amount of new code into the project, there are bound to be many bugs at first.  The new code has some known issues and the old code did as well.  I will need useful bug reports from users.  Please check tinderbox.midnightbsd.org before reporting compile errors with the code as I may already know about it.  ?
The next question is what do we do now.  This injection of code is not unlike the bsd 4.4 lite / UCB lawsuit situation from the early 90s for the other BSDs.  The reasons are different, but it's a bunch of code to get cleaned up and put in.  FreeBSD and NetBSD diverged greatly after that time period because they had very distinct goals as well as coders adding, tweaking and fixing here and there.  I started this project to work on a desktop BSD.  In the mean time, many of the other BSDs have gotten better on the desktop.  OpenBSD, NetBSD, and DragonFly have decent wifi support.  FreeBSD has been improving it for 7.x and 8.x.  Many of them have loosely associated live cd/dvd projects now.  ?
In order to make a list of areas we need to address, let's first consider the environment.  I use MidnightBSD on some desktops, a laptop, many mports nodes, and several servers.   For my own purposes, I often try to maintain some of the server elements of the system.  It does aid me in finding bugs, but it also distracts me from the desktop environment.  Over the holidays, my mother told me she got a new monitor.  I asked her if she wanted to use the old monitor on her 700mhz celeron which has MidnightBSD on it.  I had set it up as a backup computer for her some time ago.  She was concerned about using something besides windows.  I wanted to argue in favor of using MidnightBSD for her, but I realized that we don't have an intuitive system just yet for someone like her.  When I first envisioned MidnightBSD, it was to make it for everyone.  That task has not been completed (nor started in a satisfactory manor).  So the obvious step is to pop a CD into a system, and try to set it up for a typical home computer user.  There are many challenges to that task.  These areas need to be met with our project first.?
As we've discussed before, the installer is a priority and next on my list after the merge is complete.  Combined with the installer, we'll have a beginnings of a decent live dvd.  This solves the first two complaints I often hear if we do it right.?
So what's next?  What packages do we install?  How do we partition the system?  What features should be enabled by default?  What should be a kernel module and what should be part of the kernel?  What do we do about binary blobs??
These questions should all be answered by now, and many of them were.  Things are different now.  We need to evaluate some of these decisions and write up a clear policy on our website. ?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 2 Dec 2008
11:46 AM

(no subject)
 For those german speakers, we had a brief mention here.  A good part of that section is about PC-BSD, but still interesting.?
Today, I've been working on syscons, twa, twe, and tx.  I've had some interesting suggestions brought to me regarding sub notebooks.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:43 PM

Bit torrent
I finally broke down and setup a torrent tracker for MidnightBSD.  We're still working out some bugs with it and could use some help testing.  You can get the torrents at http://www.midnightbsd.org/torrents/?
 Once we get this working, we'll post torrents for all architectures for the latest release. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 11 Dec 2008
1:04 PM

New Mirror
We have a new mirror for MidnightBSD.  Currently, the mirror is rsyncing so not all files are up yet.  We've posted it on the download page, in mports sites.mk (so it's a backup for files), and in the metalink file for 0.2.1-release.?
Special thanks to Secution 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:06 PM

src work update
I've been running CURRENT on my desktop for a few days.  So far, the results are promising.  There are many things to do.  I've had luck on amd64, but i386 is still broken. (progress is being made)  I have not tested sparc64 due to the length of time required to build it.  I will begin testing it after we get intel based stuff working properly.  ?
You can follow the progress on http://tinderbox.midnightbsd.org/  That process does a more exhaustive LINT kernel test which is not going well on all three architectures.  GENERIC is working on amd64.   ?
I built a live cd from the amd64 build on my desktop and tested it on two intel macs.  The first was an iMac (early 2008) which booted, and dhclient was started manually with success.  I was able to ssh to other systems, etc.  The wireless card is not supported (broadcom), but the msk(4) works fine.  The SATA and IDE controllers were detected properly, but I have not yet done a hard drive install to verify it's working well.  The second system was a Mac Pro (2 Ghz, 5GB ram, Pioneer SATA optical drive).  This system did not boot completely.  The video worked unlike 0.2.1 release including display on both LCDs (dual head)  It froze around GPT_LABEL i think.  I suspect it's having trouble with the sata optical drive.  The SMP kernel seemed ok as all the cores "launched".  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 15 Dec 2008
10:40 PM

0.3-CURRENT
As of this weekend, MidnightBSD i386 and AMD64 are building with GENERIC kernel.  Several kernel modules still need work as well as some bugs ironed out.  Users who attempted to build MidnightBSD earlier this weekend may have it a snap while rebooting.  If you get an error about a missing libutil.so.7, please copy the file from /usr/lib or /usr/obj ... to /lib in single user mode.  You can use the mount, ls etc commands from /rescue to do so.  ?
I noticed an odd bug with mports on CURRENT, but it might be a localized problem.  Packages are not picked up even though their built and placed in /usr/mports/Packages/<archhere>/All?
Assume many ports are broken on CURRENT until further notice.  We'll probably do a magus run in the next few weeks to determine the exact problems.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 1 Jan 2009
5:05 PM

Security, time zones, ...
A security issue was recently corrected in the kernel on 0.1.1, 0.2 and current (0.3) MidnightBSD.  Be sure to update your system.  For 0.2.1, this is 0.2.1-RELEASE-p4.?
Users of current should also consider updating their src tree if they have not recently.  Most recently, env was fixed.  ?
I updated the time zone files today (2008i) to account for things like the added leap second, and various international changes that have occurred since March 2008.   ?
There was a bug in imake on current that ctriv@ corrected today.  This in combination with one of the xorg config files ports caused some problems in current.  Users of current should update their ports tree and rebuild these ports.?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 20 Jan 2009
1:54 PM

Huawei Technologies Mobile and E220 G3 Modem
The Huawei E220 modem has been added to usbdevs and ubsa(4).  There are still some configuration headaches. ?
See http://iswandi.blogs.yarsi.ac.id/2008/09/18/huawei-e220-under-freebsd/

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:55 PM

bwi(4)
Yesterday, I added bwi(4) to MidnightBSD.  It's still quite experimental, but it's working with my LINKSYS pccard.  In fact, there are problems using it with ndis in CURRENT, but it works with bwi(4).  ?
In case you're curious, I use WPA and have wpa_supplicant kicking in on boot.  So far, I've only tested it with very light usage (ssh).  It's probably not as stable as in DragonFly or OpenBSD.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:58 PM

rc.d
Over the weekend, I made a number of changes to rc.d.  In particular, networking and file system mounting scripts were altered.  Please report problems if they are encountered.?
On the upside, more of the ZFS stuff is in place.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 26 Jan 2009
5:59 PM

LinkedIn
I created a new MidnightBSD group on LinkedIn  for developers and users.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

6:01 PM

Recent activity
Today, I'm helping to setup a mirror for our ISOs.  The address is http://kitty.midnightbsd.org/ftp/?
The i386 ISOs are posted and the amd64 stuff is rsyncing now.?
I updated the Apache 2.2 port yesterday to 2.2.11. This week I'm working on a new Live DVD image based on 0.2.1.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 17 Feb 2009
1:35 PM

Etoile Podcast
http://twit.tv/floss56 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 1 Mar 2009
10:21 PM

New linux base port
For current users (0.3), you can now use the linux_base-f8 port.  This uses fedora 8 libraries which run on the newer 2.6.16 kernel emulation.  However, you must make a few changes to your system to do so.  These are listed in the pkg-message file at the bottom for that port.?
In short, you must set the linuxolator to use 2.6.16 os version via sysctl and set a flag in make.conf so that the ports system knows to use the fedora 8 libraries with other linux ports.?
Further, if you update current you will not receive annoying errors (129 and 128) while running certain linux apps.  If your kernel is older than late today, it will do so.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 9 Mar 2009
10:25 AM

Down time
We were down for about 2 days after a lame hack on our webserver.  One of our cgi programs was a bit old and someone happened to find it via google.  I did a fresh os install, removed the offending program and have been auditing various other aspects of the server.  Hopefully we'll get everything going again soon. I used the opportunity to replace the hard drive for the os with a newer one.  ?
For the time being, anonymous cvs is off on stargazer.  You can use our pserver mirror on ds9.midnightbsd.org  (username anonymous)  We also have cvsupd down for now.  The wiki will be restored soon. ipv6 access should be restored as of yesterday afternoon.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Annoyed
Music: 

Mon, 16 Mar 2009
10:55 AM

sudo, X.org, mports updates, port security
I'm in the process of migrating to a newer version of X.org.  (7.4)  About half of the libraries are updated now.  It might be best if users waited on switching.?
ctriv has been working on putting Perl 5.10 in src.  We've always had it as a port, but as we needed some scripting language (besides shell) for tasks and most ports depend on perl, it made sense to bring it in.  This will most likely be included with 0.3+.  ?
I updated our wesnoth port in games yesterday.  We've also had many other ports updated including MySQL 5.0.77, 5.1.32, 6.0.9; Postgres 8.3 (new), PHP 5.2.9, Pidgin 2.5.5, Dovecot 1.1.11, phpMyAdmin, squirrelmail,  ...?
Many of these updates are security related.  If you know of a port that is out of date and contains a security bug, please report it to us.  We need to get the ports system caught up.  I am aware of Opera. ?
Lastly, there have been some minor issues with sudo recently.  It is recommended that users switch to the port version on 0.2.1 and remove the base sudo from their systems until I can get a patch out.  sudo in current has already been updated.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 24 Mar 2009
11:09 PM

(no subject)
Quick update:  I've managed to sneak in some ports work tonight and a bit over the weekend.  There are still some X ports to update, but I've fixed several. Today I got xterm updated. I'm attempting to create an llvm port now.  It builds ok, but has a very annoying makefile. ?
I think it's time we made a wish list for 0.3 before we get any farther toward it.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 27 Mar 2009
5:24 PM

It's friday, what's happening?
First, I just committed a security update for sudo for 0.2.1 users.  It's strongly recommended that you get that update.  CURRENT has been updated for a bit and nothing bad has happened.  That's always good.?
In the last few days, I've updated mksh, bind, pnpinfo, libarchive, bsdtar, bsdcpio (new and replacing pax for cpio), and tcpdump in CURRENT.  ?
There was a recent security advisory with openssl but i don't think it affects us.  I'll investigate the possibility of bringing in a newer version for 0.3-RELEASE. ?
ctriv has been working on connecting perl 5.10 to the build. That means perl will be included with 0.3-RELEASE (not a port, but part of the os).  We discussed this for some time and it made sense for our project.  It might not be 100% correct with mports.  Please report any problems with mports on current or 0.2 after the changes we've been making.?
mports now uses rmd160 in addition to sha256 and md5 hashes for distinfo files.  We decided a little extra verification was a good thing especially since all three hashes have some known defects.  Exploiting three makes it a bit harder. This was also already in the md5 utility driver so we didn't need to do anything but edit a few lines in bsd.mports.mk and then start updating ports.  I did archivers and accesibility last night.  Others will come over time.  You may see some messages when installing ports about missing checksums.  That is ok.?
While I was at it, I removed some checks for ancient port structures still used by NetBSD.  I didn't see a point to slowing down mports any more.  We want it to be quick and to make up for the extra hash algorithm a bit.?
I've investigated the possibility of using mksh as /bin/sh again.  One problem we have is that FreeBSD's version of ash contains some extensions like setvar and ! that mksh does not understand.?
The bsdcpio transition might go well or it might not.  Please report bugs and remember that GNU cpio is available in mports as gcpio.  We hope to get some ports off gcpio soon.  Our pax is ancient and didn't understand a lot of the gnu extensions.  The installer uses it too so further testing will be needed. Unlike freebsd, we don't have a use gnu cpio option in the build.  Their ancient version has some security holes and we removed it long ago. (before 0.2)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 5 Apr 2009
1:54 PM

release notes
I finally got around to putting up the release notes for MidnightBSD 0.2.1-RELEASE.  They were mailed to the mailing list and scattered about.  This should make it easier for users interested in details.?
I also put the 0.1 release notes back up 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 9 Apr 2009
10:25 PM

Midori browser
ctriv@ updated the version of Midori and webkit in our mports system the other day.  If you have difficulty building it, be sure to update your version of bash 4.  (it requires a very recent version with a fix he just committed recently)  Also be sure to update libsoup.?
Midori is now a useful web browser and it runs natively unlike many of the others in our ports tree.  It's recommended that you try the browser which includes history, tabs, plugins, user scripts, "page holder" like in safari, and many other features.  Anyone familiar with safari on the mac (or windows) might find this browser to be quite friendly. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 10 Apr 2009
3:05 PM

mksh R37c
Last night, I updated the mksh port to R37c.  Users are encouraged to test it out and report any issues with it.  I'd like to bring it into current.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:07 PM

Magus cluster at EMU
Yesterday, ctriv and I got the build cluster back up at EMU.  It sounds like we won't be able to keep it much longer, but it's certainly a help to us.  ?
We would like to find some users willing to donate some computing time to do magus runs in the future as we need to replace the cluster.  Users should be familiar with building the system and able to provide hardware running current. The nodes must have internet access with http, ftp, ssh and mysql port access.?
The system can use a virtual machine as well physical hardware.  We need i386, amd64 and sparc64 boxes. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 12 Apr 2009
5:24 PM

Online manual pages
I wrote a script to generate man pages as HTML documents yesterday.  The output is available on the website.  At some point, we'll add a search feature but looking for a good man page generator is not fun.  There are 86MB of man pages available now (for current). 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

5:48 PM

cvs mirrors list
We've had two cvs servers for awhile, but let's get a third:  kitty.midnightbsd.org is now a pserver cvs mirror with updates 4 times a day. ?
 List 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 14 Apr 2009
4:26 PM

Magus Run Results
We've recently completed a new magus run, while the results were not perfect they were much better than expected.   63 ports failed, but due to some ports that are highly used many others were not built.  Here is a list of the top blocking ports from the run:?
graphics/libGLU: 284?
devel/gamin: 218?
x11/xdpyinfo: 86?
x11/xphelloworld: 85?
x11-fonts/xfs: 85?
x11/xkbutils: 85?
devel/dbus-qt4: 59?
devel/automoc4: 59?
devel/qt4-assistant: 44?
devel/qt4-uic3: 41?
devel/qt4-makeqpf: 28?
x11/qimageblitz: 16?
devel/qt4-porting: 14?
java/diablo-jdk15: 9?
devel/subversion: 7?
graphics/graphviz: 5?
lang/ghc: 3?
graphics/ImageMagick: 3?
devel/qca: 3?
graphics/qt4-pixeltool: 2?
lang/ocaml: 2?
lang/ezm3: 2?
devel/llvm: 1?
textproc/qt4-xmlpatterns-tool: 1?
devel/etoile-foundation: 1?
audio/libofa: 1?
audio/linux-libogg: 1?
graphics/ming: 1?
x11-themes/etoile-wildmenus: 1?
audio/vorbis-tools: 1?
x11-clocks/wmbinclock: 1?
java/jakarta-commons-lang: 1?
textproc/raptor: 1

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 19 Apr 2009
3:24 PM

CURRENT status update
For users interested in upgrading to current, there are two paths.  You can install the 0.3 snapshot from january and then do a src upgrade or you can upgrade from 0.2.1-RELEASE-p7.  In the latter case, you must delete the src/usr.bin/Makefile line for perl.  It is safe to build system perl after the update to current.  This will be fixed at a later time.  Once you are on current you can optionally build the system perl (and reinstall your ports using perl files) or leave the ports perl for now. You can also uncomment the pcc line if you want to play with it.  ?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:27 PM

mports work
updated ports:?
mports/textproc/libxml++26/ ?
mports/lang/p5-F77/?
mports/lang/p5-Data-JavaScript/ ?
 mports/devel/pear (fixed)?
mports/x11-drivers/xf86-input-fpit/ (fixed)?
 mports/Mk/extensions/perl5.mk: (fixed with system perl)?
mports/misc/wmweather+?
mports/misc/p5-Geography-Countries?
mports/mbone/xspeakfree ?
mports/mbone/wb?
mports/mbone/speak_freely?
mports/mbone/udpcast?
mports/mail/wmymail?
mports/mail/razor-agents 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:32 PM

Magus run 145
We had a great improvement with the latest magus run over the last run.  Note the number is not the number of ports blocked, but rather a weighted value for it's importance in the run.?
?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------?
x11-toolkits/gtk20: 986?
devel/libIDL: 773?
x11/xphelloworld: 85?
sysutils/xfconf4: 31?
devel/libsoup: 9?
java/diablo-jdk15: 9?
devel/subversion: 7?
devel/libgtop: 6?
graphics/graphviz: 5?
lang/ghc: 3?
graphics/ImageMagick: 3?
lang/ezm3: 2?
lang/ocaml: 2?
textproc/libxml++26: 1?
x11-themes/etoile-wildmenus: 1?
x11/kdebase4-runtime: 1?
devel/etoile-foundation: 1?
audio/linux-libogg: 1?
java/jakarta-commons-lang: 1?
 ?
?
Stats: ?
?
?
    untested: 325 ?
    pass: 1870 ?
    fail: 42 ?
    warn: 206 ?
    skip: 30 ?
    ready: 0?
     ?
     ?
     ?
     ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 25 Apr 2009
4:07 PM

Call for testers
Today, I added a first pass at ale(4), the ethernet driver for eee pc and asus motherboards.  Anyone with this type of hardware, please test on CURRENT (as of today) module.  It's not included in the GENERIC kernel, you'll have to manually build the kernel module.  This is also dependent on another change so your kernel will have to be built with today's sources first.?
Unlike the freebsd implementation, we don't support wake on lan.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:28 PM

New Samba 3.3 port
mports/net/samba33 is a new Samba 3.3 port.  It is under the GPLv3.  The previous port will stay for some time. (samba3)  We have no plans to port 3.2.?
mports/net/smbldap-tools will aid users wishing to use ldap with the new samba 3.3.?
We also updated cups to correct a security vulnerability today. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 8 May 2009
3:55 PM

ae(4) and other things
I just added an experimental version of ae(4) used by some of the eee pcs.  We've now got versions of ae(4) and ale(4) which should cover all the models right now.  I don't have the hardware to do serious testing though.?
I'm working on updating X.org, and mports are a little unstable right now.  There's also some issues with the openssh import (just config files) that need to be addressed. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 16 May 2009
9:56 AM

kde 3 update progress
KDE 3.5.10 base is working in 0.2.1.  kde-lite is failing on ghostscript.  I'm looking into that problem. ?
You can use konquerer and some of the basics now (again).  ?

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Cranky
Music: 

9:59 AM

Asus M4A78 Plus not supported
 The onboard USB controller causes a lockup on boot on the Asus M4A78 Plus.  It's an AMD 770 chipset.  The onboard NIC is also not supported.  Disabling the usb controller completely and rebooting will allow you to get into the system with a ps/2 keyboard.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 21 May 2009
10:55 AM

Mports updates
 New mports:?
converters:?
p5-Unicode-Map?
p5-Unicode-Map8?
p5-Unicode-MapUTF8?
p5-Jcode (japanese) ?
devel:?
p5-Package-Constants?
security:?
p5-Crypt-SmbHash?
Updated mports:?
mail/dovecot?
editors/mg?
 ?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:59 AM

src work; sysinstall tweaks
Yesterday, I added several new features to sysinstall and removed some old code.  sysinstall nows prompts you to select a country on startup so that it can help you pick keyboard mappings, etc.  I removed the option for tape drives that according to freebsd activity hasn't worked in years.  I also got rid of the block size options since the newer installer uses bsdcpio aka libarchive backed.  I also fixed some of the messages regarding the boot loader and a warning for vista users.  The boot manager does not support vista yet.  There are alternatives such as gag or using vista's own boot manager.  Finally, i added a new option to enable powerd from the installer.  It's now disabled by default (again) due to so many systems freezing on startup with it on.  I suggest you use it if it works for you.?
re(4) and the usb stack have been fixed in relation to my Asus motherboard. If you have an 8169 part from Realtek, you may need to turn of hardware checksums, but otherwise it's working.  0.3-CURRENT as of yesterday is required for the Asus M4A78 Plus.?
Users of vge(4) can now turn of hardware checksumming.?
There are a few other fixes like AMD GEODE USB/EHCI chip workaround, reporting of cpu features on newer AMD chips (phenoms)    

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:09 AM

One more thing
Current is building again.  The problems with the openssh 5.2 import have been fixed.  mksh was updated the other day as well from CVS.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 22 May 2009
7:18 PM

Join our group on facebook!
MidnightBSD is now a group on facebook. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

8:10 PM

Magus results
I ran magus on my desktop yesterday. Here are the results:?
?
?
    ?
        ?
            146?
            0.3?
            i386?
            active?
            2009-05-21 12:26:53?
            ?
            ?
                untested: 678 ?
                pass: 1545 ?
                fail: 81 ?
                warn: 154 ?
                skip: 24 ?
                internal: 1 ?
                ready: 0?
            ?
            ?
        ?
    ?
?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 25 May 2009
7:01 PM

Magus results (latest package run on current)
 ?
?
    untested: 296 ?
    pass: 1942 ?
    fail: 68 ?
    skip: 26 ?
    warn: 151 ?
    ready: 0?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

7:02 PM

Website
We've been doing some spring cleaning on the website.  Most of the pages validate as XHTML now.  The footer and many links have been fixed.  The documentation pages have been broken up and expanded a bit.  ?
Committers: if you see any pages that need to validate or need some TLC, feel free to fix them. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 27 May 2009
3:11 AM

current
MidnightBSD 0.3-CURRENT now includes GCC 4.2.1 as the system compiler.  I4B (ISDN for BSD) has been removed from the userland; previously it was removed from the kernel.  ?
Several changes have been made to sysinstall recently, and I'm working on switching over to libarchive.  In 0.3, bsdcpio (backed by libarchive) is exec'd for each install phase.  0.2 used pax as cpio and 0.1 used GNU cpio which was removed for security (and GPLv3) reasons.  The installer now tries to figure out keyboard mappings from the user's selection of a country at the beginning.  Tape install features were removed as they were quite dusty.?
One may ask why I'm even bothering working on sysinstall at all.  While I have started work on a new installer, I realized that it won't be at the level I would expect for 0.3 necessarily.  Having a tuned sysinstall is a good backup and possibly the only option for the sparc64 architecture at this time.  Also, it makes sense to work more in the problem domain with an existing piece of software and then improve upon it. ?
I'm planning on releasing a new snapshot soon with GCC 4.2.1 and the sysinstall improvements.  I'd also like to create a new live cd (or dvd?)  soon.  I'm considering using xfce 4.x and possibly gnustep (if i can get the port using the system compiler quickly) on it along with midori.  We'll see what transpires.  ?
Lastly, I'd like to mention my current thoughts on pcc.  I was excited about it at first, but at this point I don't think it makes sense for a default system compiler.  We've got C++ code in userland, and with our Objective-C ambitions, it doesn't make a lot of sense.  I haven't decided if I"m going to remove it or not from src yet.  It very well may be disconnected from the build for the release unless I get time to fix it/update it.  Both Dragonfly and FreeBSD have been eyeballing llvm + clang.  I've got reservations about that just as much as I do about newer versions of GCC with GPLv3 licensing.  Some members of the BSD community are strongly against the license and certainly it hurts business interests with the various projects.  FreeBSD has a lot of corporate users and developers.  On the other hand, we want to move forward with several GPLv3 licensed pieces of software in the installation for the graphical user interface components.  So, even if i make some grand point with the src tree, it's lost with the package as a whole anyway.  I don't really care all that much about it beyond the limitations it imposes on use of my operating system. I've been contemplating this issue (and others) lately as I'm thinking of writing a very public roadmap.  This project has been moving forward mostly from some mini roadmaps I've detailed in my blog and this blog in the past, ideas I've had for years and work done by new developers.  The flexibility is great, but many people don't know where we're headed and that means we can't gain momentum with more conservative users. I have to admit that I like a bit of randomness to software I write in my own time.  It does seem like a fresh contrast to work.  However, this is an operating system project and should have a higher level of planning.  (and yes we do discuss major changes amongst developers)?
If you refer to the wiki planning document for 0.3, you can see that we're working on a feature release.  The critical points for this release are the new installer, libmport / mport package tools, and the crazy src merge I've been working on.  The good news is that libmport and mport tools are in "pre alpha" state and they are ready for selective testing now.  You can find them in the src tree, but remember that the database and other aspects could dramatically change.  A large part of the "merge" is complete.  That leaves the installer.?
Here's a big picture thought process as of right now:?
1. 0.3 will contain the changes mentioned above and install either KDE 3.5.10 or xfce or windowmaker + gnustep.  Many of our developers have fallen in love with xfce (not me), none of us are very happy with KDE 4 and we feel it's redundant to ship KDE as PC-BSD and DesktopBSD do that.  Not to mention it doesn't integrate well with GNUstep.  For this release it will be a choice.?
2. Most likely we're doing a 0.4 release which will focus on syscons and refinements to the installer.  I'm sure some hardware and userland software changes will be committed.?
3. We're talking about going to 1.0 after 0.4 among the developers.  Regardless which it is, we want to have a binary update system in place by then.  Also, usb flash images suitable for installs and live cd/dvd functionality.  The latter I'd like for 0.3 ideally.  It depends on time.?
Finally, I'd like to mention Etoile.  They've made some progress with Etoile and we need to get the new software running on our system via mports.  I'm not sure the timing will work out for 1.0 but we will still consider shipping Etoile with the system.  At this point, I think a Redhat style dual desktop setup is in order (choice during install?) with xfce and some gnustepish environment. ?
At the end of the day, this project is no longer just about what I wanted when I started it.  Users and developer input is important to consider with any open source project, particularly an operating system.  At present, I've heard a lot of people push for either a very light weight desktop or a very mac os x like desktop.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 30 May 2009
11:54 AM

Magus Results for 0.2.1 amd64
?
?
    ?
        ?
            148?
            0.2.1?
            amd64?
            active?
            2009-05-25 21:19:46?
            ?
            ?
                untested: 231?
                pass: 1973?
                skip: 64?
                fail: 70?
                warn: 145?
                ready: 0?
            ?
            ?
        ?
    ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 9 Jun 2009
12:39 AM

import netpgp from NetBSD
MidnightBSD current now includes the netpgp application and library from NetBSD.  The software was based on the openpgpsdk; we have had a port of that for a few months.  However, this is a significantly enhanced version with several bug fixes and active development.  ?
We will of course track changes as this is an evolving piece of software.  Thanks to Alistair Crooks for this exciting addition to the BSD community.?
Learn more 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:42 AM

Status update on Current
MidnightBSD 0.3-CURRENT has undergone some changes lately.  We've removed PCC from the base system.  Details can be found in UPDATING; we decided that the system compiler must support C++ and Objective-C to some degree.   That leaves us two options right now, GCC and LLVM + Clang (eventually)  One possibly factor will be what system implements the new blocks extension to the C and Objective-C languages from Apple, Inc.  We're quite interested in there work with Grand Central and components that aided that development.  (see the snow leopard website and developer area at apple)?
There's currently a few gotchas in current including problems building world in regards to the mport / libmport stuff.  We're working on it.  Also, we're toying with including libffi in the base system in order to provide a more complete Objective-C environment. ?
We ran a magus run for the first time using the libmport and mport package creation tools under development.  There were about 700 ports that were not built either do to error or non built dependancies.  We consider this quite good for a first time out.  A few bugs have already been fixed with regard to this run and we've also fixed some ports that came up with problems.  During the same time, we ran magus on 0.2 amd64 to help us with a baseline.  Results were quite impressive considering the lack of attention we've had with ports in favor of other projects recently.  ?
Our plan is to get current back in shape for everyday folks, fix as many ports as possible and then provide a snap with mport packges for people to try out.  This isn't going to happen immediately, but it's our next big milestone before a 0.3 release can happen. ?
I also want to point out the mport database format can change and there could be some quirks.  Chris is still actively working on it.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:52 AM

Adventures in ZFS
MidnightBSD current includes ZFS (version 6).  Over the weekend, I got some time to kick the tires.  A usb based disk was setup with a ZFS pool and some informal benchmarking was done.  We also created a new ZFS kernel config file to help people setting up a simple environment.  Tuning is necessary with ZFS, but it's a good head start.?
Results were promising overall.  Since a formal methodology was not used, I won't post results.  One thing to note is that magus will not work with ZFS. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 27 Jun 2009
8:29 PM

Top blockers
Here's the top blockers list from the last magus run (151)?
 ?
graphics/libmng: 193?
devel/gvfs: 190?
lang/gnustep-base: 107?
graphics/libGL: 107?
graphics/dri: 75?
print/teTeX-texmf: 27?
x11-toolkits/libgnomeprintui: 14?
lang/ruby18: 12?
java/diablo-jdk16: 8?
devel/libgtop: 6?
graphics/graphviz: 5?
textproc/docbook: 2?
multimedia/xvid: 2?
lang/ezm3: 2?
databases/db46: 2?
x11-toolkits/pangomm: 2?
lang/ocaml: 2?
misc/gnome-user-docs: 2?
devel/gdb6: 1?
x11-toolkits/gtkmm12: 1?
graphics/libgnomecanvasmm: 1?
multimedia/xmms: 1?
textproc/redland: 1?
mail/courier: 1?
astro/libnova: 1?
devel/hs-haddock: 1?
mail/sendmail: 1?
java/diablo-jdk15: 1?
net/jags: 1?
archivers/p5-IO-Compress-Bzip2: 1?
audio/linux-libogg: 1?
print/hs-hscolour: 1?
multimedia/ffmpeg: 1?
java/jakarta-commons-lang: 1?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 29 Jun 2009
12:54 AM

mports work
www/browser3 is now building on some systems.  It's been tested with current in a limited configuration so far.  Please report success/failure with the port so we can improve it.  (It's unbranded F* 3.0.11)?
net-im/pidgin has been updated to 2.5.8 which fixes several security vulnerabilities.?
net-im/pidgin-twitter has been updated to .84?
net-im/libpurple has been updated to 2.5.8 as well.?
mail/linux-thunderbird has been updated and fixes a security vulnerability.?
multimedia/gstreamer was updated to 0.10.23.  This port hasn't been touched for two years, so it's a big update.  The plugins ports will be updated soon.  This does not include the update for the recently reported png vulnerability, but it does cover several others.?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:00 PM

Current updates related to mports
If you've had trouble building db45, db46 or db47 on current, try updating your sources.  A fix was included in the world that corrects the problem.  There have also been recent updates to fix crashing bugs with SSL enabled mports on current.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 8 Jul 2009
10:59 PM

ATI Radeon HD 4550
I recently purchased new video cards for my system.  I wanted to get the new cards working in CURRENT with the latest version of X from mports.  After several lockups and other odd behavior, I found that I had to disable the second graphics card (crossfireX in windows) in the X configuration along with removing the keyboard and mouse configuration.  I was then able to start the X server with the radeonhd driver. Don't expect acceleration yet.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 12 Jul 2009
11:42 AM

mports results for Current i386
?
?
    untested: 443 ?
    pass: 1801 ?
    fail: 125 ?
    internal: 2 ?
    skip: 41 ?
    warn: 74 ?
    ready: 0?
     ?
     ?
     ?
?
There were a few issues on this run.  First, the tarball used wasn't setup properly for linux ports.  It was assumed that linux base fc4 was used by the indexer, yet fc8 was setup in make.conf by accident.  ?
mport.create seems to hang on bouml-doc for no apparent reason.  No disk activity is in progress.  It just consumes cpu cycles for hours.  This port works with the old tools.  ?
I'm going to attempt to rerun the ports with internals.  That appears to be a node problem.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 29 Jul 2009
11:40 AM

BIND security update
For the few people using MidnightBSD as a server platform instead of a desktop, there is a security update available for named(8).  A denial of service attack is possible against BIND using dynamic update packets.  It causes named to exit. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 1 Aug 2009
5:14 PM

DNS Ports
All dns ports have been checked for security updates and updated including BIND 9.5 and 9.6.  I've removed BIND 9.4 from mports as it's included with the base system (current) and it's the oldest version still supported.  It's also three versions back at this point.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 17 Aug 2009
11:50 AM

Toshiba Laptops
I just purchased a Toshiba L305-S5955.  It wasn't my first choice, and I had neglected to do proper research on a few points. This laptop comes with an Intel Celeron 900 2.2Ghz single core cpu, 2GB of RAM,  160GB hdd, Realtek pciE NIC (10/100) and a Realtek USB wifi 802.11b/g card.  That's right, the wifi is on the USB bus inside the laptop.  ?
Obviously, since we don't have native support for this wifi card and it's usb there is no way to use it.  Our ndis wrapper does not support USB wifi devices.  ?
Interestingly, the ethernet adapter does not work either.  This is one of Realtek's newer parts and it is not supported by rl or re.  Due to the pciE nature, I'm going to work on getting this integrated into re(4).?
The laptop is fully supported in Ubuntu Linux, so we're certainly trailing on hardware support for newer systems.?
The sad thing is the realtek card works much better in windows or ubuntu than my previous linksys pccard with a broadcom chipset.  (yeah i really pick em) ?
Aside from the hardware support issues, I've been pleasantly surprised by the build quality of this laptop considering it's low cost.  It's not at the same magnitude as my old T30 Thinkpad, but it's good.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:02 AM

Mports updates
Over the weekend, I got an opportunity to update some mports wtih fetching errors per the last AMD64 0.2 magus run.  The results are as follows:?
?
?
    untested: 610 ?
    pass: 1526 ?
    fail: 191 ?
    skip: 63 ?
    warn: 97 ?
    ready: 0?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:04 AM

ipv6 connectivity
<p>We've had our ipv6 tunnel down since Thursday morning. &nbsp;Apparently, some users of sixxs have experienced problems with static tunnels from the chicago POP. &nbsp;I'm hoping that it will be resolved soon.</p>

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 21 Aug 2009
1:50 PM

(no subject)
Our magus run is almost complete.  I've already fixed several ports found to be
broken during the run.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 28 Aug 2009
2:32 PM

Status update
I've been working on getting some of the ports fixed lately.  We've still got over 100 ports that are currently broken.  I've managed to update part of Gnome, and add MySQL GUI tools (Administrator and query browser) ports.?
I've found a number of bugs in the latest version of X on MidnightBSD.  I'm trying to get my new laptop up to snuff so I can perform testing on different hardware. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 24 Sep 2009
12:14 AM

Mports work
I've been trying to catch up on some ports work I've let slip by during the 0.3 development.  This week I've updated to libtool22 (with some help from smultron), removed autoconf 2.61,  updated some X ports, and about half of the ports in mail.  ?
I also updated mysql to 5.1.38.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 27 Sep 2009
4:49 PM

Last amd64 run top blockers
 graphics/cairo: 1359?
x11/kdelibs3: 93?
multimedia/gstreamer-plugins-good: 15?
sysutils/fusefs-kmod: 10?
java/diablo-jdk16: 8?
security/nss: 6?
multimedia/gstreamer-plugins-ugly: 5?
multimedia/gstreamer-plugins-bad: 4?
graphics/linux_dri: 3?
misc/compat6x: 3?
lang/ghc: 3?
lang/gcc34: 3?
devel/php5-readline: 2?
lang/ezm3: 2?
lang/ocaml: 2?
textproc/libuninameslist: 1?
x11-themes/etoile-wildmenus: 1?
math/ldouble: 1?
textproc/p5-String-Format: 1?
lang/python26: 1?
java/diablo-jdk15: 1?
devel/etoile-foundation: 1?
audio/linux-libogg: 1?
devel/dev86: 1?
java/jakarta-commons-lang: 1?
multimedia/win32-codecs: 1?
textproc/raptor: 1?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 28 Sep 2009
7:16 PM

Magus results for 0.2.1 amd64
?
?
    untested: 890 ?
    pass: 1444 ?
    skip: 37 ?
    fail: 68 ?
    warn: 61 ?
    ready: 0?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 1 Oct 2009
10:05 PM

(no subject)
I just spent most of the evening swapping out components into another case + motherboard only to find the heatsink was dead.  I didn't notice until the system powered off with a CPU temp of 86C!  So I had to go back to the Pentium D.  it looks like the plastic clips broke.  I'll have to get one with a backplate when I replace it. ?
I was looking forward to a decent database server for home and work... 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 16 Oct 2009
9:04 AM

mports status
 I've spent the last week getting the mports tree back in order.  We let a number of ports get stale while working on other projects.  It's time to get caught up.  ?
These results are poor, but roughly 100 ports now work that did not before.  We had some X.org dependancies fail; I checked in the corrections for those ports.  A new run was just started.  We should have the results in about two days.?
Ports such as libdvdread, libtool, gtk, and browser 3 all had some tlc this week.  We're also updating PHP, Apache HTTPD, Lighttpd, and a few other web related ports.  Many perl ports have been updated, particularly database related.  Bind 9.5 was removed in favor of 9.6.  Some of these changes are not present in the results below.  ?
Ports we need to get updated or working:?
virtualbox, firefox 3.5 unbranded, p5-DBD-Pg, remaining gnome ports (50% of 2.26 is in), KDE4, GNUstep (updates), Etoile, postgres (updates)?
Here are the last results from Magus on AMD64 0.2.1-p10?
?
?
    untested: 1018 ?
    pass: 1340 ?
    fail: 46 ?
    skip: 42 ?
    warn: 58 ?
    ready: 0?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

9:12 AM

Current status
AMD64 MidnightBSD 0.3-CURRENT works using WITHOUT_LIB32=yes in /etc/make.conf.  We're working on the 32bit libs problem.  That means i386 and AMD64 can be built on current again.  I'm hoping to start sparc64 testing soon. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 18 Oct 2009
5:41 PM

Magus run 160 completed (amd64 0.2.1)
 ?
?
    untested: 587 ?
    pass: 1741 ?
    skip: 61 ?
    fail: 57 ?
    warn: 60 ?
    ready: 0?
     ?
     ?
     ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

5:51 PM

Top blockers for run 160
 graphics/cairo: 1415?
print/ghostscript-gpl: 42?
x11-toolkits/gtk12: 29?
multimedia/gstreamer-plugins-good: 15?
java/diablo-jdk16: 9?
devel/apr: 8?
security/nss: 8?
textproc/ruby-deplate: 7?
security/libksba: 7?
multimedia/libxine: 5?
multimedia/gstreamer-plugins-ugly: 5?
multimedia/gstreamer-plugins-bad: 4?
lang/ghc: 3?
graphics/linux_dri: 3?
misc/compat6x: 3?
lang/guile: 3?
lang/gcc34: 3?
devel/php5-readline: 2?
lang/python26: 2?
lang/ocaml: 2?
lang/ezm3: 2?
games/libggz: 1?
java/diablo-jdk15: 1?
devel/apr-svn: 1?
multimedia/win32-codecs: 1?
math/ldouble: 1?
security/libotr: 1?
java/jakarta-commons-lang: 1?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 24 Oct 2009
8:50 PM

A commentary on BSD development
I started the day with a little development work on MidnightBSD.  Many people think I'm wasting my time working on an open source project, particularly when it hasn't taken off like they think it must to "beat" ubuntu.  The reason I keep working on this project is two fold.   First, I enjoy the experience.  It's fun to work on a long term project with many different aspects to it.  I can work on anything from an installer to a device driver to a port of an application that I like to use.  Sometimes, I find it quite relaxing.  it's different from the Java based web development that I do at work.  Second, I am convinced that a UNIX desktop environment is the best approach.  Sure some things have to be changed to make it fit that environment.  Some days I just look at Mac OS and see what is possible.  Apple didn't make all the right choices in my mind, but it certainly proves that it's possible.  BSD on the desktop is a good idea.?
Many of us in the open source community have been arguing and duplicating effort over the years.  Sometimes there are good reasons for it, but many times it's just a big terrible twos style tantrum.  Many people were angry at me when I started this project.  How dare I fork a server OS for a desktop?  The FreeBSD community at that time did not care about the desktop.  Sure, there were ports for this or that  but it was not even on their radar.  Today, they've been pulled into embedded systems and some desktop exposure due to PC-BSD and DesktopBSD.  There were improvements in their ports infrastructure, list of applications, utilities and updating tools for the OS, and even a little improvement in the attitude their developers have toward the desktop.  Some people within the project have passion about the desktop.  Still, you mostly hear excitement about embedded systems where they can get corporate assistance and funding (freebsd foundation, etc.)  There's nothing wrong with that, but embedded systems is a completely different direction from what I see as a good desktop OS.  Embedded space is huge but traditional systems are very small.  Any electrical engineer will tell you that.  I intentionally chose a subset of the full x86 market because I feel users need special attention to their daily computing habits.  They need a stable, secure, virus free environment with structure and consistency.  The linux community can't  offer this consistency due to the adhoc nature of development between the kernel and various components.  We're also limited by the X.org development and the fuss around various components, but at least the base system is under our control.?
I was sent an e-mail this even asking for assistance with another project.  Many other developers from this and other BSD communities received the same e-mail.  I thought about the best way to respond for some time.  I believe in BSD on the desktop, but for the reasons found in that projects forums, I know that this can only be accomplished with greater control.  I did not make a distro of freebsd because I don't feel we could maintain a stable system with enough stability.  It is not possible to keep throwing bandaids on an OS that differ as it targets routers and cell phones for your desktop.  It just doesn't make sense.  FreeBSD is a damn good server OS.   It may turn out to be an ok embedded system, but frankly I think NetBSD has that market.  ?
Since we appear to be near the last man standing (like highlander?), it appears I can't give up on my dream.  ?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 1 Nov 2009
12:42 AM

Perl 5.10.1 in mports
I've updated the Perl port to 5.10.1.  However, I noticed later in the day there is a known security issue with Perl 5.10.1 in relation to utf-8 characters.  I'll look into a patch tomorrow.?
http://rt.perl.org/rt3//Public/Bug/Display.html?id=69973?
http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git/commitdiff/0abd0d78a73da1c4d13b1c700526b7e5d03b32d4?
MidnightBSD current contains Perl 5.10 which is not vulnerable. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:59 AM

New SSL Certificate
I finally got around to requesting a new SSL certificate for MidnightBSD.org.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:00 AM

mports work
I just updated the egroupware and unzip ports.  The former update is a major version jump 1.4 to 1.6 and includes many security updates.  Optional components for mail and ldap must be installed separately if you choose to use those modules.  The latter contains updates for handling symbolic links as well as fixes for fetching the source distribution.?
crash@ and I have been working on getting gnome ports updated to 2.26.  He's done most of the work so far, but I did get Mk extensions updated and a few ports last night.  Assume the gnome system is broken until we get this done.  Also, note that KDE 3.5.10 should build on midnightbsd 0.2.x but several ports are broken on current.  You can work around this by installing many things manually without using the meta package.  The sysadmin related tools are broken and possibly some of the multimedia stuff.  While, I was going to fix this, I think my time might be better spent getting KDE 4.x working instead.  Gnome will come first, however. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 7 Nov 2009
12:36 AM

(no subject)
 I'm indexing for a new magus run right now.  It should start running on 0.2 amd64 soon.  I do miss the cluster setup at EMU sometimes.  It takes us at least two days to get results, often times do to fetching time.  I'd love to separate the fetch and build testing for magus. ?
Last night, I committed a change to our TCP stack.  Anyone running current should report unusual problems.  It does seem stable so far.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 14 Nov 2009
7:18 PM

(no subject)
Our last magus run showed a noticable improvement in package building on 0.2 amd64.  I'm quite pleased with the progress on the ports system.  It's not quite where I want it, but 1900 packages were built.?
I've been so busy with work that I haven't had time for MidnightBSD this week.  I'm hoping thigs will go back to normal soon. On the upside, I've been reading up on some new security research with regard to kernel designs.  I'm considering some changes that could greatly reduce attack vectors of rootkits on the system. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 24 Nov 2009
9:48 PM

Port updates
mercurial, git, ogg, theora, and flac ports were updated tonight.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 30 Dec 2009
11:54 AM

Recent work
src:?
amdtemp(4) was added to current.  This allows you to monitor the temperature on AMD CPUs such as the Phenom and Phenom II.?
openssl and other security fixes.  See UPDATING for more info?
mports:?
Several different categories of ports have been updated.  We're still working on the Gnome 2.26 update.  gstreamer and pidgin are particularly behind and need work.  ?
 MySQL 6.0 ports were dropped due to EOL upstream.  MySQL even deleted the manuals online for this release.  We made 5.1 default.  Python 2.6 is now the default version of Python.?
There have been some reports of cyrus-sasl2-saslauthd not building.  Please send logs and details of your environment.  Both of the cyrus-sasl2 ports were updated for a security issue from some time back.  ?
lightttpd was updated for a security issue.?
p5-Error was just updated.?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 31 Dec 2009
1:10 PM

python 2.6 port
Yesterday, I updated the Python 2.6 port to 2.6.4.  This seems to work as expected on i386, but there are some issues on amd64 related to libffi and _ctypes.  I'm working on the problem.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 2 Jan 2010
12:48 AM

Magus run 0.3-CURRENT amd64
Our latest magus run was significantly better than the previous run.  With the previous run, we had roughly 700 ports pass, mostly due to bugs with our Perl environment.  The new Magus run had 1904 ports pass.  Several of the failures were in Java ports and due to a problem with the chroot tarball used during the run.  It contained JAVA_HOME in the environment.   This is the first amd64 current run to use the system perl correctly.  ?
 ?
?
?
    ?
        ?
            167?
            0.3?
            amd64?
            active?
            2009-12-31 18:55:22?
            ?
            ?
                untested: 410 ?
                pass: 1904 ?
                skip: 67 ?
                fail: 107 ?
                warn: 23 ?
                ready: 0?
            ?
            ?
        ?
    ?
?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 4 Jan 2010
9:29 AM

New magus results.. getting better

  

    

  

    

          168

          0.3

          amd64

          active

          2010-01-02
          18:09:16

            
              untested:
              251 

              pass:
              2092 

              skip:
              69 

              fail:
              102 

              warn:
              4 

              ready: 0

        

    

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 10 Jan 2010
2:58 PM

Sendmail 8.14.4 in mports
A?
    vulnerability has been reported in Sendmail, which can be?
    exploited?
    by malicious people to conduct spoofing attacks.?
    ?
    The vulnerability is caused due to an error when?
    processing?
    certificate fields containing NULL characters. This can?
    be?
    exploited to e.g. conduct Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks?
    via?
    specially crafted certificates.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:00 PM

New src work

  

    

  
    MidnightBSD now has support for posix_spawn(3) related
    functions in libc.  We've also made changes to kqueue(2)
    to support libdispatch (Apple's GCD).  libdispatch does
    not work yet as there are other change that must be made to
    support it.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:05 PM

QT4 update, KDE4, Gnome

  

    

  
    QT4 has been updated to qt 4.5.2 this weekend.  We've
    also begun the work to update KDE 4 to 4.3.1.  Work on
    Gnome 2.26 has been progressing as well.  We need to fix a
    few dependancies (gstreamer plugins and fuse). 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 23 Jan 2010
10:11 AM

New server coming soon

  

    

  
    We've been running the MidnightBSD website on a Dell
    Precision 650 workstation for several years.  It's a dual
    xeon 2.0Ghz with 3GB PC2700 ECC ram, intel nic (gigabit), 500GB
    IDE HDD + 2 x 160GB RAID1 IDE on 32bit MidnightBSD.

    Today, we bought a new server.  It's a HP Proliant
    ML110 G6 with Intel Xeon X3430.   It should be a nice
    little upgrade.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 25 Jan 2010
11:25 PM

Latest Magus results

  

    

  
    The most recent magus run looked much better.  We had
    2150 packages pass.  Both KDE and Gnome have a few
    packages that need work.

      
        
          70

          0.3

          amd64

          active

          2010-01-23
          18:46:31

            
              untested:
              223 

              pass:
              2150 

              skip:
              68 

              fail:
              110 

              warn:
              6 

              ready: 0

        

    

     

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 3 Feb 2010
8:47 PM

BSD Magazine

  

    

  
    I just wanted to point out that bsd magazine is now free and
    online. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

8:51 PM

New server running, more to do

  

    

  
    I have the new server setup, but several services still need
    some TLC including Bugzilla and magus.  I probably wont'
    get to them until Saturday. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 4 Feb 2010
10:26 PM

Status udpate
 Magus website and bugzilla are back up.  I also
committed a fix for the seg faulting sftp problem on some systems.
 I've noticed it on amd64.
Several perl prots were updated today and I found a bug in
XML:Parser.  Don't give it two single ticks in a row.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:30 PM

(no subject)
 Tip: If you're using MidnightBSD current, you can try out
the netpgp utility as part of the base system.  It allows you
to do PGP operations without installing a port. 
There's also the new unzip utility which works for basic unzip
operations but doesn't always work as a replacement for the port
version.
There's also been some recent improvements to several periodic
scripts; be sure to mergemaster if you upgrade to recent
current.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 5 Feb 2010
7:58 PM

Apache 2.2 port
I've made several changes to the Apache 2.2 port.
 mod_proxy_connect should now work properly and scgi has been
added to the list.  I've also added support for BDB
4.x 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 7 Feb 2010
4:11 PM

FTP
The MidnightBSD FTP server has been down since the server
migration.  I'm working on getting it back into place.
 It's over 32GB in size currently.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:13 PM

0.3-CURRENT Snapshot
I'm pleased to announce a new i386 snapshot for MidnightBSD.
 This is the first snap in some time and a big improvement
over our previous snapshot.  It does not contain mports, but
is a fully functioning installer.  I've tested it on VMWare
Fusion with great success.  
This version includes this weekends work on ata(4), re(4), and
rl(4).  
I'm going to upload it as soon as the FTP is in place. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:05 PM

FTP status update
The FTP server is back online.  45GB of data copied.
 I've also posted the new snapshot for i386 tonight.
 
Mirmon is now getting updated again with FTP history.  Most
sites haven't tried to sync for a week.  Of course there was
nothing to sync.   I'm going to verify that rsync is working
properly tomorrow.  
A few CGI scripts and portions of the site including viewvc and
the wiki are still down.  cvsupd is also not operational due
to problems on amd64.  (i switched architectures in the move)
 Once the port is fixed, I'll get it back online.
 Patches are welcome to speed up the process :)
The news script should be rotating again on
midnightbsd.org. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 28 Feb 2010
10:09 AM

mports updates
Yesterday, I updated over 70 ports.  mports/audio ports
have all been updated if needed and several in multimedia.  I
also updated browser3 to 3.0.18 this weekend. 
Our status on gnome2 is that many of the core systems including
gstreamer related ports are now working, but we have some issues
with gnome-desktop preventing a gnome2-lite build from working.
kde3-base is blocked on a depends against mDNSresponder and
avahi.  I'm trying to figure out what's pulling in
avahi.  These ports do effectively the same thing and they
conflict with each other.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:52 PM

More ports work
I'm trying to get the mports tree back in line as it used to
be.  I just indexed a magus run.  It will be the first
since January 24th.  Several fetch errors and dependancies
have been fixed since the last run.  It will be
interesting.  This does not use the new "jail" index setup
that the January run went on.  I haven't had time to set that
back up on the new server yet.  A few failures may be the
result of that, particluarly with perl related ports.  We'll
see.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 2 Mar 2010
7:50 PM

Magus results for amd64 current

    
      172
      0.3
      amd64
      
        active
      
      2010-02-28 21:03:53

          
          untested: 299
          
          pass: 2107
          
          skip: 70
          
          fail: 101
          
          warn: 6
          
          ready: 0

    

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 20 Mar 2010
10:25 PM

www/browser35 update
The browser port has been updated.  The new version needs
further testing and some options aren't quite right yet.  We
need to get dbus support working and ogg.  SVG has been
enabled and it's up to 3.5.8 which includes all current security
updates. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 21 Mar 2010
5:05 PM

New mports/security/skipfish port
I created a skipfish port today.  It's a web app security
scanner written in C. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

5:06 PM

zlib 1.2.4 update
zlib has been updated to 1.2.4 in current.  Please report
any problems experienced with the new version (if any) 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 13 Jun 2010
2:26 PM

LLVM
The devel/llvm and devel/llvm-devel mports have been updated to
2.7 and 2.8.  lang/llvm-gcc4 is now at 2.7 as well.
 We've also got a binutils 2.20.1 port now in devel/binutils.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 4 Jul 2010
10:04 AM

We got brainfuck
brainfuck(1) has been added to MidnightBSD.  Check it out.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:40 AM

Fun brainfuck resources

http://jonripley.com/brainfuck/  and 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 31 Jul 2010
4:15 PM

BSD Magazine Article
This month's 
BSD Magazine features an article
by Lucas and Caryn Holt about MidnightBSD installation.

  http://download.bsdmag.org/en/BSD_as_operating_system_BSD_08_2010.pdf 

 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 1 Aug 2010
11:32 AM

AMD64 0.3-CURRENT snapshot
I just posted the first AMD64 snapshot to the FTP server for
CURRENT since 0.2.  It does not include mports or packages,
but will allow you to install MidnightBSD 0.3 to get up to date
hardware support and try out features such as mport tools /
libmport, and ZFS.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 12 Aug 2010
12:34 AM

New Mirror
We have a new mirror for midnightbsd.  The download page
has been updated to reflect the removal of the EMU CS department
mirror and the addition of the new mirror.  I also updated
most of the metalink files for releases as well.  
Another place to get MidnightBSD :) 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 14 Aug 2010
5:26 PM

libdispatch
MidnightBSD 0.3-CURRENT now includes Apple's libdispatch.
 With libdispatch, you can create  multithreaded
applications with ease.  
The current port does not include blocks support.  We plan
to add llvm to the base system in the future.  At that time,
we'll setup libdispatch to work with blocks.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 23 Aug 2010
7:33 AM

mDNSResponder
Over the weekend, I connected mDNSResponder in src to the build.
 mDNSResponder is 
apple's
implementation of 
multicast DNS. 
Currently, the mdnsd and dnsextd daemons as well as the command
line tool dns-sd are available.  I've also included the
libdns_sd library.
FIles are located in src/contrib/mDNSResponder and
src/apache/

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 5 Sep 2010
8:23 PM

RELENG_0_3 created for 0.3 release
We've started the process to 0.3.  RELENG_0_3 is now
available and has been added to our tinderbox builds.  This
will become 0.3-RELEASE.  HEAD is now 0.4-CURRENT. 
If you want to continue to use 0.3, use -rRELENG_0_3 with
cvs.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 18 Sep 2010
2:23 PM

mports/dns updates
I've updated every port in dns today.  I've also added
several new ports.
bind97  - version 9.7 of the popular dns server
autotrust - download new dnssec root zones automatically
ldns & unbound: a library containing RFC compliant dns
resolver code and a bsd licensed resolver
Users of c-ares or ddclient probably want to update their ports
now. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 20 Sep 2010
3:31 PM

The BSD Show

The BSD
Show has an interview with Caryn Holt about MidnightBSD 
(raven@).

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 1 Oct 2010
8:42 AM

netwait
I've added a new rc.d script called netwait.  It allows the
system to use ping testing to wait for a working network interface
on startup.  One problem I've found is that certain network
cards change link state several times during system startup.
 My desktop's re(4) is notorious for it.  
This script allows remote file systems, system daemons like
ntpd, and other services to startup properly with a working network
connection.
Additional testing is required with several situations:
1. various no and limited network connectivity
scenarios 
2. different network cards
3. ipv6 on/off
The script sits between NETWORKING and mountcritremote in rc
order.  
I found the script as part of a FreeBSD PR:
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=151063
Jeremy Chadwick wrote this for FreeBSD prior to the shuffling of
the networking scripts in rc.d in FreeBSD CURRENT.   There are
two interesting discussions on the FreeBSD mailing lists about this
problem.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 8 Oct 2010
1:35 PM

Security issue
There is a security issue in glob(3) in libc that can lead to
remote DOS attacks against ftpd and sftp servers.  This
affects many vendors.
I've committed patches to CURRENT and 0.3 branches, but 0.2 has
not been patched yet.  I'm still determining what the best
approach is there.  If you can't wait,  go to
0.3-PRERELEASE.  
The patch on those branches is based on a patch from DragonFly
and NetBSD.  You must build libc as well as sftp and reinstall
them then restart ftpd and sftp services. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 20 Oct 2010
5:21 PM

Magus results on amd64 0.3-PRERELEASE

  
    189
     0.3 
    amd64 
    
      active

       
      2010-10-18 15:30:56

      
        
        untested:
        352
        
        pass:
        2110
        
        skip:
        64
        
        fail:
        108
        
        ready:
        0   

  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 23 Oct 2010
11:06 AM

sysrc
 In current, we have a new utility called sysrc.  With
sysrc, you can manage entries in /etc/rc.conf.  It will
overwrite existing values instead of spamming the file like
traditional echo foo >> bar approaches.
Please let me know what you think about this utility.  It
won't make it into 0.3-RELEASE because I want to test it and
consider possible integration options for mports.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 30 Oct 2010
5:12 PM

Top blockers for magus run 191
 x11-toolkits/qt4-gui: 180
net/mDNSResponder: 28
java/linux-blackdown-jdk14: 27
security/libgnome-keyring: 21
devel/etoile-foundation: 20
java/diablo-jdk16: 13
devel/libgtop: 8
x11-themes/etoile-iconkit: 7
www/browser35: 6
math/fftw3: 5
sysutils/gnome-settings-daemon: 4
x11-fm/thunar: 4
multimedia/ffmpeg: 4
graphics/linux_dri: 3
x11-toolkits/gtkmm24: 3
deskutils/gucharmap: 3
graphics/popplerkit: 3
graphics/eog: 2
x11-themes/etoile-wildmenus: 2
net-im/pidgin: 2
lang/ezm3: 2
audio/gnustep-cdplayer: 2
misc/e2fsprogs-libuuid: 2
x11-themes/etoile-camaelon: 2
sysutils/etoile-powermenulet: 2
lang/tcl86: 2
lang/ocaml: 2
www/mod_dnssd: 1
math/ldouble: 1
multimedia/xmms: 1
audio/etoile-volumecontrolmenulet: 1
graphics/svgviewer: 1
mail/libmapi: 1
devel/hs-haddock: 1
java/diablo-jdk15: 1
devel/ruby-gnustep: 1
x11/xscreensaver-gnome-hacks: 1
textproc/linux-aspell: 1
print/hs-hscolour: 1
math/fftw3-float: 1
net/samba34: 1
multimedia/win32-codecs: 1

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 1 Nov 2010
1:34 PM

Tasks I could use help with
Here is a list of things that I could assistance with:
Get perl to cross compile in the base system.  This would
allow me to test via tinderbox on non amd64 architectures.
Integration of mdns responder.  I've got a good start on
it, but it needs to be finished.  I've got to focus on other
parts right now.
Investigate the newer intel drivers in freebsd for network
cards.  em was split into three and we should look at porting
those changes back.
Upgrade DRI/DRM support in the kernel to either the version in
FreeBSD 7.2 or something newer from the Linux kernel (it's MIT
licensed).  This would help  us get some ATI cards
working.
Port changes to get newer NVIDIA binary blobs working. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 18 Nov 2010
7:44 PM

Magus run results on 0.3 amd64

    
      195
      0.3
      amd64
      
        active
      
      2010-11-15
      19:46:02

          
          untested:
          343 
          
          pass:
          2176 
          
          skip:
          64 
          
          fail:
          86 
          
          ready: 1

    

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 26 Nov 2010
2:47 AM

4k alignment on WD HDDs
I'm attempting to get a WD EARS drive working properly in one of
my servers.  There are a number of issues using one of these
new advanced format drives.
1. The default alignment causes significant performance
problems.  Some users have reported 1-8Mbps read speeds.
2. sysinstall doesn't let you change the offset in bsdlabel in a
convenient way.
3. Many people have problems with these drives, but few people
have good solutions under BSD.
Things I've found out so far:
An offset of 1 is helpful (so it's on 64 instead of 63 for the
first partition).  Most people trying to use these things are
going for one large drive for data.  I need to boot off this
thing which means bsdlabel has several entries.  I haven't
found anyone trying this yet.  
First, I thought I'd get clever and try gpart/gpt.  I
actually got the drive setup and some testing showed decent
performance but I forgot that I hadn't ported the boot code yet.
 Doh!  
Next, I went to plan b.  I used fdisk as normal and instead
focused on making appropriate changes in bsdlabel.  WD says
that as long as sectors are divisible by 8 you are ok, but an
interesting analysis showed performance improvements by using a
block size o 32768, sector size of 4096 (with newfs).  That
meant I had to be a little more careful during bsdlabel so that
everything lined up nicely.  
DES looked into this for FreeBSD and wrote a handy utility to
test called phybs.  It doesn't do performance testing, but you
can see the affect on alignment.  
Using that utility, I found that the fdisk setup was slower than
gpt for some reason and i suspect things are still not optimal.
 However, a quick and dirty test of moving some files around
showed it was running better than the horror stories I've read.
One test of copying files from a 7200 RPM seagate HDD to two
different green drives (a samsung and the WD) showed that the
samsung drive was slightly faster (1MBps).  diskinfo shows the
WD drive faster on the inner part of the disk but slightly slower
on the outer part.  
I'll post real numbers up later.. it's 3 am.  
 
here's the results under GPT
./phybs -r /dev/ad8p1
   count    size  offset  
 step        msec     tps  
 kBps
 
  131072    1024       0
   4096       18198    7202
   7202
  131072    1024     512  
 4096       18026    7271  
 7271
 
   65536    2048       0
   8192       10233    6404
  12808
   65536    2048     512  
 8192       11135    5885  
11770
   65536    2048    1024  
 8192       11304    5797  
11594
 
   32768    4096       0
  16384        7508    4364
  17456
   32768    4096     512  
16384        8394    3903  
15613
   32768    4096    1024  
16384        8789    3728  
14913
   32768    4096    2048  
16384        8458    3873  
15495
 
   16384    8192       0
  32768        5672    2888
  23107
   16384    8192     512  
32768        5723    2862  
22900
   16384    8192    1024  
32768        5999    2730  
21846
   16384    8192    2048  
32768        5867    2792  
22337
   16384    8192    4096  
32768        5735    2856  
22852
# gpart show
=>        34  1953525101  ad8
 GPT  (1000.2GB)
          34      
 2014       - free -  (1031.2KB)
        2048     2097136
   1  freebsd-ufs  (1073.7MB)
     2099184    16572032    2
 freebsd-swap  (8.5GB)
    18671216     2097136    3
 freebsd-ufs  (1073.7MB)
    20768352   268435456    4
 freebsd-ufs  (137.4GB)
   289203808  1664320808    5
 freebsd-ufs  (852.1GB)
  1953524616         519  
    - free -  (265.7KB)
 
Here's some rsync data for the samsung drive:
sent 4858801691 bytes  received 41302 bytes
 28497612.86 bytes/sec
total size is 4858055400  speedup is 1.00
51.771u 35.499s 2:50.08 51.3% 459+1906k 41623+36549io 4pf+0w
rsync for wd:
sent 4858801691 bytes  received 41302 bytes
 27685715.06 bytes/sec
total size is 4858055400  speedup is 1.00
55.324u 36.006s 2:54.74 52.2% 457+1899k 41572+36276io 0pf+0w
This is not scientific at all..  i was copying tarballs
from the last magus run.
 
fdisk for the drive:
 fdisk -v ad8
******* Working on device /dev/ad8 *******
parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
cylinders=1938021 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl)
 
Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl
1
parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
cylinders=1938021 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl)
 
Media sector size is 512
Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1
Information from DOS bootblock is:
The data for partition 1 is:
sysid 165 (0xa5),(FreeBSD/MidnightBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
    start 64, size 1953525105 (953869 Meg), flag
80 (active)
beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 2;
end: cyl 613/ head 0/ sector 1
The data for partition 2 is:
<UNUSED>
The data for partition 3 is:
<UNUSED>
The data for partition 4 is:
<UNUSED>
bsdlabel (note i reserved some of the drive)

  # /dev/ad8s1:
  8 partitions:
  #        size   offset  
   fstype   [fsize bsize bps/cpg]
    a:  2097152        0
     4.2BSD     4096 32768    
  8
    b:  6340608  2097152    
   swap
    c: 1953525105        0
     unused        0     0
          # "raw" part, don't edit
    d: 125829120  8437760    4.2BSD
      4096 32768 58368
    e:  2097152 134266880    4.2BSD
      4096 32768     8
    f: 1699679616 136364032    4.2BSD
      4096 32768     0

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 15 Dec 2010
7:53 PM

OpenBSD IPSEC allegations
There has been some concern raised about the possibility of a
backdoor in the IPSEC implementation of OpenBSD.  As OpenBSD's
implementation was the basis of FreeBSD's IPSEC code and we use the
same code,  I want to make others aware of this issue.

  http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=129236621626462&w=2

 I have not audited this code so I don't know if this is
true, but I find it unlikely.  I will defer to others in the
BSD community to audit the code in OpenBSD before taking any
actions.  
I have never been approached about adding a backdoor into
MidnightBSD. To the best of my knowledge, none exists.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

8:13 PM

The next release
We're working on stabalizing mports for the next release.
 There are several ports known to be broken that are
important.  Currently, we've got about 2200 ports building on
amd64 and a little less on i386 (although that environment is using
the new mport tools).  
When KDE 3 and a good part of gnome are stable, we'll do RE.
 Now is the time to look for security updates or to help with
port fixes for 0.3.  Also, any issues with 0.3 (src) should be
noted.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 18 Dec 2010
1:44 PM

Magus run
 mports look much better.  Here are the latest amd64
results:  2355 is the highest pass rate we've had in some
time.  Part of qt4 is working again and we're starting to get
a good part of gnome 2.30 ready.

  untested: 168 
  
  pass: 2355 
  
  fail: 92 
  
  skip: 60 
  
  warn: 1 
  
  ready: 0

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 14 Jan 2011
9:51 PM

Magus results for run 207
This is the current status of mports on amd64 arch for
0.3-prerelease.  We're getting close now.  I'm not going
for 100% pass, but several of the fails must be fixed before
release.

  
  untested: 155 
  
  pass: 2388 
  
  skip: 58 
  
  fail: 76 
  
  warn: 1 
  
  ready: 0

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 24 Jan 2011
9:25 AM

Update on release prep
The amd64 package run is complete and we're in a ports freeze
right now until the release is completed.  Currently waiting
on i386 packages.   I plan to create a snapshot with packages
for testing before the branch is tagged.  I'll post it on the
FTP server for public testing.
Several little bugs were fixed yesterday with some newer
functionality and with the check-old target.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

9:38 AM

Magus run 209
This is the run for AMD64 that I intend to use for the
0.3-RELEASE. Some of the failed packages can be safely built
outside of magus and I'll post those on the FTP server later.
  210 might be the i386 run depending on the
results. 

  
  pass: 2447 
  
  untested: 96 
  
  skip: 57 
  
  fail: 79 
  
  ready: 0

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

7:35 PM

amd64 packages
I've published the preliminary packages for amd64 to the FTP
server.  The symlinks need to be setup yet for pkg_add -r to
work.  There's roughly 2420 packages available.
i386 is still building. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 26 Jan 2011
10:29 PM

(no subject)
I'm attempting to build a snapshot with a package split right
now.  If everything goes according to plan, we'll have our
first test build for 0.3-RELEASE tomorrow.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 28 Jan 2011
8:56 AM

Sensors Framework
Awhile back, I imported the sensors framework into MidnightBSD.
 For more information on it, visit these sites:

  http://kerneltrap.org/OpenBSD/BSDCan_2008_Hardware_Sensors_Framework 

  http://www.openbsd.org/papers/bsdcan08-sensors.pdf

  http://wiki.freebsd.org/GSoC2007/cnst-sensors

0.3-release will include the core patch, and 0.4-CURRENT
includes three devices using it so far. (including intel cpu temp
monitoring)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

9:13 AM

snapshot
There is a new i386 snapshot on the FTP server.  It
includes packages.  This will probably be very similar to the
final release.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 29 Jan 2011
1:14 PM

0.3-RELEASE building
I'm starting the build process for 0.3-RELEASE i386 now.
 Hopefully, we'll have some nice ISOs available by this
evening.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 31 Jan 2011
9:33 AM

0.3-RELEASE amd64 ISOs now available
I've uploaded the AMD64 release of MidnightBSD 0.3.  It
should be available on the mirrors shortly.  Distrowatch and
freshmeat have the release announcements now. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 2 Feb 2011
5:38 PM

Autotools update & tcsh update
In mports, autotools meta port along with libtool, libltdl,
automake and autoconf were updated to newer versions.  We're
no longer using an insane number of autoconf ports.  
It appears autoconf now "knows" about MIdnightBSD as well.
 That's great news.
mports/emulators/wine was updated to 1.3.12 today.
In 0.4-CURRENT src, we now have tcsh 6.17.00.  0.3 has
6.15.00.   

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 3 Feb 2011
9:41 AM

MidnightBSD 0.3-RELEASE-p1
I just posted a non security update to the 0.3 branch.
 sqlite 3 was misreporting it's version in the pkg-config
script.  This has been corrected.  It shouldn't have any
real impact on the base system or packages shipped with
MidnightBSD. 
I also fixed the example cvsup file so that it checks out
RELENG_0_3 on that branch.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 11 Feb 2011
9:04 AM

Activity in 0.4-CURRENT
Right after the release, I focused on getting some contrib
software up-to-date.  While writing the release notes for 0.3,
it was apparent that we needed to get on the ball.  
OpenSSL, OpenSSH, file, GNU sort, awk, sqlite, tcsh, BIND and
sudo have all been updated in the last month.  I've added
it(4) and lm(4) to work with the sensors framework introduced in
0.3.  eeemon(4) was recently added for hardware monitoring on
some Asus eee PCs.  alc(4) was introduced for atheros gigabit
lan cards.  ale, alc, ae were all added to GENERIC in current.
 
Intel coretemp(4) monitor was modified to work with the sensors
framework. It's now possible to monitor the CPU temp with sensorsd
on Intel CPUs.  I'm working on adding similar functionality to
amdtemp.  
A locking fix was introduced today on the route code related to
ICMP traffic.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 20 Feb 2011
3:49 PM

MidnightBSD in BSD Magazine
We've got a news mention discussing 0.4-CURRENT in this month's
issue of 
BSD Magazine. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:53 PM

amdtemp(4)
Over the weekend, I updated the amdtemp(4) driver to support the
sensors framework.  This serves the same function as kate(4)
in OpenBSD and DragonFly, but it supports K10 and K11 AMD CPUs as
well. I based some of the design on how the coretemp(4) works, but
it's exposed differently in hw.sensors because of the bus it's
on. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 23 Feb 2011
7:29 PM

BIND
If  you are running BIND 9.7  or 9.8 from mports,
please update to the latest release.  There is a security
issue affecting these versions which is rather serious.  See
the ISC website for details.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 24 Feb 2011
8:56 AM

X.org and AllowEmptyInput
This is an 
interesting
page on the evils of AllowEmptyInput in X.org config files.
  In short, if you use hald, you don't need input sections in
your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.  If you don't want to use hald
for input devices, use
 
Option
"AutoAddDevices" "Off"

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 3 Mar 2011
6:29 PM

mport tools
I've been working on getting the mport tool to list packages
that need updating.  Some of this code was already in place,
but there was no driver for it.  It also required creating a
new utility to generate an index from our magus package cluster
system.  
A new command is available:
mport list updates
Output currently looks like this:
# mport list updates
apache: 2.2.17 < 2.2.17_1
clamav: 0.96.3 < 0.96.5
dirmngr: 1.0.2_1 < 1.1.0_1
docbook: 4.1_3 < 4.2_1
The system supports aliases for package names.  We could
eventually add aliases like apache for the apache22 port to make it
easier to work with popular packages.
Indexes are created from the MySQL based magus database for a
specific run (os version + arch are unique).  The index is a
sqlite3 database containing the package meta data such as the name,
version and license as well as the aliases and list of mirrors to
download from.  The index file is bzip2 compressed and placed
on the HTTP server for distribution to clients.  If an index
is older than twenty-four hours, mport will download an updated
index, extract it and then perform operations on it.
The next step is writing the upgrade and update commands in
mport to automatically fetch and update packages. When this work is
complete, mport will be come the new default package
format. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 9 Mar 2011
4:59 PM

Multicast DNS
Over the last two days, I've updated mDNSResponder in
MidnightBSD to 258.14.  I've also added a new nsswitch module
(nss_mdns) for resolving mdns entries.
To enable this, you would need to be on current, have
mDNSResponder enabled, and then add mdns to the hosts line in
/etc/nsswitch.conf

  hosts: files mdns dns

To enable mDNSResponder, add the following to /etc/rc.conf

  mdnsd_enable="YES"

It might be necessary to implement additional routines in
nss_mdns, but at this point I'm able to ping hosts and run basic
programs like ssh while connecting to hosts on my local
network.

 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 30 Mar 2011
9:14 AM

Who visits our website?
I read a recent post on osnews.com about their recent traffic
and wondered what type of users are visiting the MidnightBSD
website.  We don't get a lot of traffic, but still it was an
interesting question who visits the site.  Here is a breakdown
by OS:
 1 3677372 485071 OS unknown
2 1519710 228260 Known robots
3 767452 108338 Windows
  437089 78553   Windows XP
  306080 24350   Unknown Windows
  13331 2691   Windows Server 2003
  8845 1763   Windows 2000
  1149 403   Windows 98
  471 282   Windows NT
  143 126   Windows ME
  140 79   Windows 95
  183 72   Windows CE
  21 19   Windows 3.1
4 488384 35717 Unix
  449753 32489   Linux
  29375 2302   FreeBSD
  3039 291   OpenBSD
  2124 172   NetBSD
  903 151   Unknown BSD
  1668 150   SunOS
  964 100   MidnightBSD
  101 25   MirBSD
  330 20   DragonFly
  126 16   Other Unix
  1 1   AIX
5 119959 9461 Macintosh
6 189 21 Symbian OS
7 137 12 Sony PS3
8 31 5 BeOS
9 26 4 OS/2
10 81 4 Amiga
11 9 2 Sony PSP
12 1 0 Nintendo Wii

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

9:17 AM

MidnightBSD: March Happenings
The current focus of the project is to get the mport tools ready
for the 0.4 release.  mport tools are now the default on
CURRENT.  They work for basic operations and while we're not
actively using it yet, they have a downloadable index with current
packages available.  This index is created on the server with
data from our Magus package cluster database and sqlite3.  It
includes information like package name, license, mirrors to
download the file, version, etc.  
I'm currently working on adding additional information to the
index about categories mports belong to.  This would be nice
for display in the installer as well as for searches.  
Speaking of the installer, I've been working on modifications to
use the mport tools instead of the legacy pkg_tools.
 sysinstall will eventually be replaced, although I doubt
we'll use the pc-sysinstall or bsdinstaller backends from other
systems.  Most likely it will not be a shell or lua based
environment.  The installer is our next big project after
mport tools.  
sysinstall was simplified recently.  Several menu options
that are confusing to our userbase were removed.
In addition to this work, we've been updating and adding new
features to the base system.  DRM/DRI code was imported from
FreeBSD 7.1 as well as cdevpriv wrappers.  nss_mdns was added
to the base system; it allows one to find other systems on the
network using multicast DNS.  Systems running mDNSResponder or
Avahi can now be seen on the network.  I'm now able to ssh
between my iMac and MidnightBSD machines by name (.local).
 
The time zone update file, tzdata2011c, was imported. An
OpenSSL security issue was patched that only affects CURRENT.
  
Finally, xz 5.0.1 and liblzma were imported into the base
system.  mports was modified to use the system version when
possible. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 18 Apr 2011
12:39 AM

(no subject)
This month has been crazy for me.  As I had a business trip
and then got sick, I haven't had as much time as I'd like with
MidnightBSD.  I managed to get a few ports updated today and
fixed a bug in src showing up in tinderbox.  
The MidnightBSD forums have been taken offline until I can find
a solution to the terrible spam problem.  Please use the
mailing list instead.   The BSD licensed forum software I was
using, jforum, has a few antispam features but it's rather clunky
to use.  It would be nice if I could block ip quickly by
user's last ip or even a subnet.  The spam is coming from
China.  I suspect there are a few bugs with input parsing and
a script is able to create accounts and spam from it even with
activation emails and other measures. It was using a large amount
of my bandwidth as well as slowing down several of the websites and
causing large companies to contact me regarding trademark use.
 :) 
My original goal was to get the 0.4-RELEASE out in May.  As
I've lost most of April, I'm not shooting for June.  This is a
smaller release focusing on the transition to the mport package
system.  I'm also trying to get as many ports as possible
updated for the release.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 24 Apr 2011
3:54 PM

(no subject)
 Currently uploading packages for amd64 current from the
last magus run to the ftp server.  These are located in the
0.4 directory rather than the historical use of current.  They
are mport based packages.  An index will be generated from
them for further testing the new mport tools.
Reverse DNS for our IPV6 addresses was finally completed today.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 2 May 2011
7:56 PM

This month is all about mports
I'm working on updating several key ports I've let slide for far
too long.  Getting ready for the next release. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 11 May 2011
10:31 AM

Magus run results

    
      217
      0.4
      amd64
      
        active
      
      2011-05-10
      09:55:50

          
          untested:
          1225 
          
          pass:
          1350 
          
          skip:
          41 
          
          fail:
          45 
          
          ready: 0

    

 
These results aren't too good.  Part of this is some
cleanup happening to make the new X.org happen.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 17 May 2011
6:14 PM

Sendmail 8.14.5
For those of you using sendmail on MidnightBSD, the port has
just been updated to 8.14.5.  i plan on updating the base
system sendmail in current when I get time. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 28 May 2011
2:50 AM

X.org, gnome
X.org 7.5 is working on MidnightBSD now.  There are a few
tweaks I want to make to ports, but it's running on i386 CURRENT.
 The nv driver didn't get installed automatically.  
I've also started the migration to gnome 2.32.  
Totally unrelated, GNU grep was bumped to 2.7 tonight. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 12 Jun 2011
4:15 PM

MidnightBSD Status Update for June 2011

  mport tools

Progress has been made on the MidnightBSD package tools.
 The mport tool can now download an index generated from the
Magus build cluster using a bootstrap site and then fetch from
mirrors defined in that file.  It checks for updates weekly
for index files.  Several bugs have been fixed in fetching
files.  Delete and Update commands are working and progress
has been made on the upgrade command, although it's not quite
production ready.  Upgrade allows you to update all packages
on your system.  There are some ordering issues left to fix
and we have some minor bugs with ports that contain
pkgnamesuffix.
mport has a new command deleteall, which will remove all
packages for a system.  This is good when you want to start
over with an update or you want to test different package
configurations. 
The remaining steps for mport tools include integration with the
installer and squashing a few more bugs before the 0.4-RELEASE.

   mports

  Browsers

The GECKO engine makefiles have been tweaked to work better with
newer versions of Mozilla products. Unbranded versions of Firefox
are building again and work has begun on porting libxul for use
with GNOME ports. 
Opera 11 has been added to the ports collection, but requires a
very recent version of 0.4-CURRENT. . 
Chromium 5 has been in the tree for a few months and we're
working on getting a newer version ported. 

  Gnome

Gnome 2.32 is slowly shaping up in the tree. We have 90% of
gnome2-lite working excluding yelp and epiphany which require
libxul.  Gtk, and many Gnome ports have been updated in the
process

  Databases

MySQL, Postgresql, and sqlite3 have been updated to recent
builds.  This includes several performance and security
enhancements. 

  X.org

X.org 7.5 has been imported into mports.  This combined
with the recent drm update, allow newer video cards to work with
acceleration.  This should improve support for all major
graphics card vendors.

  src

0.4-CURRENT has many improvements including mksh R40, Perl 5.14,
security updates for BIND, drm updates, fixes for cam(3), and the
default blocksize for UFS/FFS was increased to 32K with 4K
fragments. The latter change will work better with advanced format
hard drives like the WD Green drives (EARS).  
Sendmail 8.14.5 was imported.
Finally, xz and liblzma have been added to the tree.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 15 Jun 2011
8:50 AM

Google +1 Button
I've added the Google +1 button to the MidnightBSD website as an
experiment.  I'm hoping users will use it on pages they find
useful.  It will help MidnightBSD in search results and let me
know what pages I'm succeeding on.
I've also realized I've ignored the website too long.  I
plan on adding more content to it. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 6 Jul 2011
8:31 AM

BIND vulnerabilities
A vulnerability exists in the base system version of BIND as
well as BIND 9.7 and 9.8 in mports.  The mports were updated
last night, but the base system has not been patched yet.  It
is recommended that users track the ports versions of BIND at this
point.  
I will work on getting BIND updated in src.  I'm seriously
considering dropping BIND from base as there have been a lot of
security holes and changes at a fast pace over the last year.
 It's becoming a lot of work and updating ports is much
quicker. If I choose to do this, the first change will be switching
to the separate libbind library and updating the few tools from
BIND such as dig.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 7 Jul 2011
11:07 PM

(no subject)
Opera, curl, tnftp, and tnftpd mports were updated tonight.
 I also removed ftp/mirror as the upstream disappeared and the
license limited what we could do with the software.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 9 Jul 2011
5:20 PM

Mozilla kind of day
I've finally completed the libxul port (mozilla gecko). 
This allows us to build yelp again for Gnome.  I've also
created a linux-firefox5 port and a linux-thunderbird5 port.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 7 Aug 2011
10:28 AM

New search tool for MidnightBSD
 One of the nice features of Mac OS X is Apple's spotlight.
 It makes it easy to find documents because it supports full
text search and is aware of different file types.  In the open
source world, there are many search tools for Linux, but they all
fail in different ways.  Some of them are slow.  Others
don't support full text search and rely on inotify.

  Linux solutions 

With inotify, the Linux kernel can notify a program that a file
has changed by path name.  In the BSD community, we have
kqueue that will report changes via fd.  Ideally, one would
create a system daemon that can monitor changes in files and update
the index on the fly.  This is planned for a future version of
msearch(1).  A flaw with most BSD approaches is that it's easy
to hit the kern.maxfiles limit as one has to have many directories
and files open to detect changes.  kqueue approaches tend to
work with UFS and UFS2 file systems only.  Someone using ZFS
or fat32 would not get changes unless polling was used. Most modern
Linux systems use gamin or FAM to monitor file changes.  
Many of the Linux solutions are under the GPL license. They were
not designed for BSD.  I've started down the path of solving
this problem.  The first iteration of my work is called
msearch.  msearch(1) is a command line tool to search for
files on the computer either matching elements of the path or by
using the full text search feature.  

  Indexing

All text files on the computer can be indexed by msearch.
 It uses libmagic to determine the mime type of the file.
 This allows it to skip files that are empty, binary, or
otherwise useless to the search tool.  
msearch(1) uses two index files generated by a program called
msearch.index.  /var/db/msearch.db is a sqlite database
containing path information, owner, group, and file size at the
time of indexing. /var/db/msearch_full.db contains a sqlite 3 FTS4
full text index of the text files on the computer.  It makes
use of zlib to compress the text data.  On my computer,
approximately 350,000 files were indexed and 84,000 were considered
text files indexable by the full text engine.  Prior to adding
compression, the database used 850MB of space. After compression,
the file uses 413MB.  Another compression algorithm might cut
off additional space at the expense of indexing
performance. 
The current version of msearch relies on a periodic script
similar to locate(1).  It is run weekly and most be turned on
with weekly_msearch_enable="YES" in periodic.conf.  I would
like to replace this process with a daemon that handles search
requests and indexing.  Apple's search features work in this
manner.

  Graphical Search

Most of the logic for msearch(1) was placed in a shared library,
libmsearch, which can be used to create a graphical search tool.
  I envision a sherlock like search tool for the initial
release and possibly an integrated solution if MidnightBSD ever
gets it's own window manager.  

  Security

There are several possible issues with generating an index of
all files.  If the index is readable by any user, it could
allow one to open the sqlite file and read the contents of
sensitive files.  For this reason, I've limited the indexer so
that it cannot run as the root user.  Files most be readable
by nobody (if using the periodic script) to become part of the
index.  
There is also the possibility of sql injection.  The
database files aren't writable by normal users and the indexer uses
prepare statements.  As the searching functionality is
currently using a custom built search string, this could result in
undesired behavior.  It's also not recommended to do a search
as the root user.  sqlite does have the ability to load
extensions, and this feature is used to compress and rank full text
data.  The extension loading is turned off right after the
database is created to avoid problems form uesrs. 

  Future directions

I have a large list of features to add to mserach(1).  I
plan to add filtering based on file size, user id, group id,
created and modified times. I've considered adding a network search
feature in combination with the plans for the search daemon and
indexing in near 'real time" with file monitoring.  In order
for this to work efficiently, a new kernel interface would need to
be created or kqueue would need to be modified.  
I don't intend for this tool to replace locate(1), find(1) or
similar search functions, but merely allow users to have an
additional option with full text.  

  Performance

Full text searches are quire fast.  Simple queries such as
searching for Linux are done in seconds.  A search against
path names takes longer than locate(1), but is still respectable.
locate(1) uses a path compression technique to keep the database
small and was optimized for low resources.  msearch(1) takes
advantage of the convenience of sqlite 3 and the modern performance
of PCs. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 18 Aug 2011
12:00 AM

Port updates
I've been working hard on getting the port upgrades in place for
the next MidnightBSD release.  The following ports have been
updated recently:
QT 4.7.3
GNUstep (make, base, back, gui, ...) .  This uses the
system compiler now as there are some issues with the GCC 4.4 snap
Objective-C support with it.
GCC 4.4.7 snap 6/28

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 28 Aug 2011
12:41 AM

Apache HTTPD
There's an apache exploit that affects everyone running 2.x.
 On MidnightBSD, we only ship 2.2.x now.  A security
patch was supposed to be out for this yesterday, but it hasn't
happened.  As such, I'm providing a 
link
to the discussion. There has been active discussion on the 
Apache
mailing lists starting on the 24th.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 29 Aug 2011
10:56 PM

Perl 5.14.1
mport perl updated
Perl 5.14.1 is now available in mports.  While I've
considered updating base, 5.14.2 is scheduled for release next
month.  If 0.4 is not ready by the time the release occurs,
I'll update it in base, otherwise it will be included in 0.5.
Base Perl issues 
Users having difficulty upgrading from MidnightBSD 0.3 to 0.4
with failures in perl should try freshly checking out perl and
building it outside of the full buildworld cycle (cd
/usr/src/usr.bin/perl && make && make install)
first. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 30 Aug 2011
11:03 PM

Web browsing on MidnightBSD
MidnightBSD has been lagging some other systems with respect to
web browsers.  Tonight, I updated Opera, Flash 10 (linux
emulation), Firefox 6 and Thunderbird 6 (linux) ports and the
nspluginwrapper port.  It's now possible to play flash video
on several browsers in current (again) and access youtube.
You must be running 0.4-CURRENT to use some of these.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 31 Aug 2011
8:00 PM

Opera 11.51
I've just updated the opera port to 11.51.  This version
includes some security fixes.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 1 Sep 2011
1:02 PM

Apache 2.2.20
MidnightBSD mports now includes the latest Apache release.
 This fixes a DOS attack using range headers.  Users are
encouraged to upgrade. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 2 Sep 2011
10:52 PM

New packages for 0.4 current on i386
I just blessed the magus run for i386.  That means there
are a new set of packages on the FTP server for i386.  I also
put out a new ports index for this release tied to the mport tools
sqlite3 database.
I've got a dedicated i386 system for package builds again.
 It takes a few days to do a run, but it's better than
nothing.  It's a Pentium D 805 w/ 2GB RAM. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 5 Sep 2011
7:31 PM

mports weekend
This past weekend, I've focused on updating ports. 
www/linux-firefox-devel (3.6.21), most multimedia ports, and
gnustep related ports have been updated. 
I've also currently running package builds for i386 and
amd64. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 10 Sep 2011
10:54 AM

mport gains new command
The mport command now supports a new "download" command.
 This allows a user to download a package independant of
installation.  It's saved to the normal package storage path
inside of /var. 
This is useful when you know you're going to lose network
connectivity and want to fetch several packages for installation
later.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 14 Sep 2011
10:21 PM

Updates for early september
I've found myself sidetracked lately with server upgrades, a new
laptop I'm trying to get working with MidnightBSD, and other fun
things.
Several new happenings in MidnightBSD:
xz 5.0.3 in CURRENT
improvements to mport, msearch and batt(1).
In mports, apache 2.2.21 and xz 5.0.3.    
The last magus run is looking a lot better.  Here's the
results from i386 0.4-CURRENT:

    
      229
      0.4
      i386
      
        active
      
      2011-09-04
      17:00:43

          
          untested:
          207 
          
          pass:
          2432 
          
          skip:
          54 
          
          fail:
          90 
          
          warn: 1 
          
          ready: 0

    

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 17 Sep 2011
11:49 PM

mports
 I've been working on getting ports in shape for the next
release.  Python 2.6.7 is now in ports along with HelixPlayer
(Linux) 11, Gstreamer 0.10.35, and emacs 23.3a.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 24 Sep 2011
12:18 AM

(no subject)
mports
 PHP 5.3.8 and phpMyAdmin 3.4.5 are now available in
mports.  A new magus run will be scheduled for this weekend to
test the recent mports changes. 
Refinement continues on the mport command line tool.
 Current work focuses on integrating libmport with the
installer so that we can do the next release.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 4 Oct 2011
10:09 PM

MidnightBSD 0.3-RELEASE-p4
MidnightBSD 0.3-RELEASE-p4 includes a patch for a regression
introduced in p3 with the linuxolator.  The unix socket fix
changed the size of a kernel structure and it no longer matched the
linux computer part.  This broke compatibility with Linux
applications.  
Users are advised an ugrade to this release. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 22 Oct 2011
11:42 AM

MidnightBSD gains GPT boot, CPU Affinity, and more
Over the last few weeks, I've been working on several new
projects.  I ported the FreeBSD 7.1 ULE scheduler to
MidnightBSD along with CPU affinity and the cpuset(1) utility.
 The default scheduler has been changed to ULE on i386 and
AMD64.  
MidnightBSD now supports booting off of GPT partition schemes
and gpt(8) was updated to allow one to partition the disk.
 sysinstall does not support this, however.  
Marcus von Appen's BSD licensed cflow implentation has been
imported into MidnightBSD.  cflow allows one to build call
graphs from C and Assembler files and is part of the POSIX.1
standard.
less v436 and awk 20110810 have been imported into 0.4-CURRENT.
 They are the latest versions available. I've also updated the
tzdata to v2011l from October 10, 2011.  The timezone data is
now hosted at ICANN.  
et(4) has been imported.  It is an Agere Gigabit Ethernet
and Fast Ethernet driver written for DragonFly.  I have not
included this in the GENERIC kernel, but one can use the kernel
module.  As I don't have hardware to test with, feedback is
very helpful.
A security issue with unix domain sockets was fixed and the
linuxolator updated to handle the changes.  
fetch(1) was updated from FreeBSD 9 sources.  It includes
several changes, but the most important one is that passive mode
FTP is now the default.  If you wish to use active mode FTP,
you must set an environment variable now.  
gcache(8) was introduced to speed up RAID 3 volumes.  
alc(4) includes several fixes which improve performance.
 I've also added some workarounds for users with CyberPower
UPS devices connected to their systems over USB.  
My next big project is attempting to get a live cd based
installer working.  This will also need to work with the new
mport tools.  Boot crunch barfs on liblzma (xz) which makes
building a crunched sysinstall impossible.  libmport uses lzma
archives to store mport packages now.  This is the biggest
issue holding up the next release. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 4 Nov 2011
2:03 PM

CVE-2011-3336
 I just patched 

    CVE-2011-3336

This could be used as a denial of service attack against FTP
servers or anything else that uses regular expressions from libc.
 A "bad" regex can consume massive amounts of memory.
The fix has been committed to CURRENT.  I want to test this
further before applying it to 0.3, but if you have a public facing
system, you may wish to grab the following file and rebuild
libc:

http://www.midnightbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/src/lib/libc/regex/regcomp.c?rev=1.3;content-type=text%2Fplain
The patch does pass the regression tests, but I'm not certain
the memory limit calculation is correct. Our implementation is a
bit different than NetBSD's as it supports wide characters.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 17 Nov 2011
8:27 PM

BIND security
 If you're running BIND on MidnightBSD 0.3 or lower, I
strongly recommend switching to the mports version. There are a few
security issues with the base system bind.
I've patched it tonight in 0.4-CURRENT, but it's not fun to
backport.  
Also, our resolver has been patched to allow underscores in
names.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 27 Nov 2011
11:59 AM

wake(8)
 MidnightBSD gains the wake(8) utility.  You can use
it to wake up machines supporting WoL on the network. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:00 AM

make universe
 make universe target runs again with the new build
infrastructure. perl's still being difficult.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:08 AM

alc/bge/mii
 alc(4) is now working properly.  cable detection,
dhcp, etc. are working. bge(4) has support for several new chips.
mii(4) supports new PHYs

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 4 Jan 2012
9:29 AM

State of the BSD: January 2012
2011 was a good year for the MidnightBSD project. We released
MidnightBSD 0.3 in January, and began work on 0.4.  The
mport(1) tool was written to allow users to manipulate ports using
the new package management system. Work finally began on replacing
sysinstall(8), the MidnightBSD installer with a new
replacement.
MidnightBSD gained the ability to boot from GPT
partitions.  We've created our own partition types:
midnightbsd, midnightbsd-ufs, midnightbsd-vinum, midnightbsd-zfs,
etc. for GPT.
Several critical flaws with CAM were addressed from the 0.3
release.
MidnightBSD can now read ELF notes and understands both FreeBSD
and MidnightBSD notes. Legacy FreeBSD 7.0 and lower binaries will
continue to run, but also MidnightBSD binaries can be distinguished
by the kernel.  Eventually, we'll create a compatibility
option as things diverge further. An effort to update binutils has
started.  The freebsd vector hack will be removed, and we'll
go standard like DragonFly. This was a kludge to get Linux binaries
working, but elf notes should solve that problem for us.  This
means we may see the end of brandelf for Linux
executables. 
GIANT lock has been removed from many sysctls.  A few
locking problems are still getting sorted out, but the kernel is
running fine on most systems.
MidnightBSD gained a new search tool, msearch(1), that uses a
sqlite3 database with a full text index of text files on the
system.  The indexer is off by default due to the space
requirements.  It supports some globbing for queries.
For a complete list of improvements, read UPDATING in CURRENT
(0.4).
MidnightBSD now has pages on Google + and a twitter
account.  Expect a new release this year.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 11 Jan 2012
7:45 PM

Installer work
 
Work
is processing on the MidnightBSD installer for 0.4-CURRENT.
 As soon as it's working, I'll post a new snap.  It's
been awhile.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 28 Jan 2012
3:01 PM

Quick and Dirty GEOM print program
While debugging a GEOM related problem with a program, I ended
up needing a way to print out data from what libgeom gets from the
kernel.  Below is a quick and dirty dump program for just such
a situation.  Compile it with 
gcc -std=c99 -lgeom prog.c -o prog 
 
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <libgeom.h>
#include <stdint.h>
 
void read_geom_mesh(struct gmesh *mesh);
 
void
read_geom_mesh(struct gmesh *mesh)
{
        struct gclass *classp;
        struct ggeom *gp;
struct gprovider *provider;
 
        /*
         * Build the device table.
First add all disks (and CDs).
         */
 
        LIST_FOREACH(classp,
&mesh->lg_class, lg_class) {
puts(classp->lg_name);
 
LIST_FOREACH(gp, &classp->lg_geom, lg_geom) {
printf("	%ud %s
", gp->lg_id, gp->lg_name);
LIST_FOREACH(provider, &gp->lg_provider, lg_provider)
{
printf("		provider: %u %s %s
", provider->lg_id,
provider->lg_name, provider->lg_mode);
}
}
        }
}

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
int error;
        struct gmesh mesh;
error = geom_gettree(&mesh);
 
if (error == 0)
             
 read_geom_mesh(&mesh);
 
return 0;
} 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:04 PM

Output from the previous program
Here's some sample output from the previous program:

    

  

  
     MBR

  
    3333812352d ad2

  
    provider: 3333787264 ad2s1
    r0w0e0

  
    3330560128d ad8

  
    provider: 3334536832 ad8s1
    r0w0e0

  
    3334457344d ad10

  
    provider: 3334457088
    ad10s1 r0w0e0

  
    provider: 3334456832
    ad10s2 r0w0e0

  
    3334600960d ad14

  
    provider: 3334600704
    ad14s1 r5w5e5

  
    provider: 3334600448
    ad14s2 r0w0e0

  
    provider: 3334600192
    ad14s3 r0w0e0

  
    3334599680d ar0

  
    provider: 3334536064 ar0s1
    r2w2e3

  
    VFS

  
    3335112064d
    ffs.ad14s1a

  
    3337421568d
    ffs.ad14s1e

  
    3334689408d
    ffs.ad14s1f

  
    3334689024d
    ffs.ar0s1d

  
    3337421184d
    ffs.ad14s1d

  
    3334688128d
    ffs.ar0s1e

  
    LABEL

  
    3334596480d ad10s1

  
    provider: 3334596352
    ntfs/System Reserved r0w0e0

  
    3334636288d ad14s3

  
    provider: 3334636160
    ntfs/BackupSegat r0w0e0

  
    3334820992d ad8s1d

  
    provider: 3334820864
    ufsid/4b96b6328b08d595 r0w0e0

  
    3334817280d ad14s2a

  
    provider: 3334817152
    ufsid/498431b32a15c897 r0w0e0

  
    3334816000d ad14s2d

  
    provider: 3334815872
    ufsid/498431b7f20edba4 r0w0e0

  
    3334691200d ad14s2e

  
    provider: 3334691072
    ufsid/498431b339c56ba6 r0w0e0

  
    3334462208d ad14s2f

  
    provider: 3334462080
    ufsid/498431b3649da79d r0w0e0

  
    BSD

  
    3334599168d ad8s1

  
    provider: 3334599040
    ad8s1c r0w0e0

  
    provider: 3334598784
    ad8s1d r0w0e0

  
    provider: 3334598272
    ad8s1e r0w0e0

  
    3334595328d ad14s1

  
    provider: 3334595200
    ad14s1a r1w1e1

  
    provider: 3334594944
    ad14s1b r1w1e0

  
    provider: 3334594688
    ad14s1c r0w0e0

  
    provider: 3334456704
    ad14s1d r1w1e1

  
    provider: 3334456960
    ad14s1e r1w1e1

  
    provider: 3334596992
    ad14s1f r1w1e1

  
    3334691584d ad14s2

  
    provider: 3334637696
    ad14s2a r0w0e0

  
    provider: 3334637440
    ad14s2c r0w0e0

  
    provider: 3334637184
    ad14s2d r0w0e0

  
    provider: 3334636928
    ad14s2e r0w0e0

  
    provider: 3334636672
    ad14s2f r0w0e0

  
    3334534912d ar0s1

  
    provider: 3334635776
    ar0s1c r0w0e0

  
    provider: 3334822656
    ar0s1d r1w1e1

  
    provider: 3334822400
    ar0s1e r1w1e1

  
    PART

  
    3334536192d ad10

  
    provider: 3334601856
    ad10p1 r0w0e0

  
    provider: 3334601600
    ad10p2 r0w0e0

  
    3358966272d da0

  
    provider: 3440290816 da0p1
    r0w0e0

  
    provider: 3350360320 da0p2
    r0w0e0

  
    provider: 3359112064 da0p3
    r0w0e0

  
    DEV

  
    3333812992d ad2

  
    3333786368d ad2s1

  
    3331329152d acd0

  
    3334457600d ad8

  
    3334536576d ad9

  
    3334536320d ad10

  
    3334456576d ad14

  
    3334599936d ar0

  
    3334599424d ad8s1

  
    3334597888d ad10p1

  
    3334597376d ad10p2

  
    3334638208d ad10s1

  
    3334637952d ad10s2

  
    3334535168d ad14s1

  
    3334598016d ad14s2

  
    3334638592d ad14s3

  
    3334600576d ar0s1

  
    3334822016d ad8s1c

  
    3334821376d ad8s1d

  
    3334820352d ad8s1e

  
    3334819328d ntfs/System
    Reserved

  
    3334818560d ad14s1a

  
    3334534144d ad14s1b

  
    3334533632d ad14s1c

  
    3334937088d ad14s1d

  
    3334817920d ad14s1e

  
    3334634112d ad14s1f

  
    3334633600d ad14s2a

  
    3334816640d ad14s2c

  
    3334462848d ad14s2d

  
    3334692224d ad14s2e

  
    3334637056d ad14s2f

  
    3334633344d
    ntfs/BackupSegat

  
    3334595712d ar0s1c

  
    3334598144d ar0s1d

  
    3334534656d ar0s1e

  
    3334822784d
    ufsid/4b96b6328b08d595

  
    3334822272d
    ufsid/498431b32a15c897

  
    3334462464d
    ufsid/498431b7f20edba4

  
    3334936192d
    ufsid/498431b339c56ba6

  
    3335072256d
    ufsid/498431b3649da79d

  
    3440312704d da0

  
    3440383360d da0p1

  
    3372503936d da0p2

  
    3440380288d da0p3

  
    DISK

  
    3333813376d ad2

  
    provider: 3333813248 ad2
    r0w0e0

  
    3334459776d ad8

  
    provider: 3334459648 ad8
    r0w0e0

  
    3334459392d ad9

  
    provider: 3334459008 ad9
    r0w0e0

  
    3334458752d ad10

  
    provider: 3334458624 ad10
    r0w0e0

  
    3334458368d ad14

  
    provider: 3334458240 ad14
    r5w5e6

  
    3334457984d ar0

  
    provider: 3334457856 ar0
    r2w2e4

  
    3440305536d da0

  
    provider: 3372510464 da0
    r0w0e0

  
    MD

  
    SWAP

  
    3334536448d swap

  
    MBREXT

  
    ACD

  
    3333787008d acd0

  
    provider: 3333786880 acd0
    r0w0e0

  
    FD

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 9 Feb 2012
9:15 AM

First magus run in months
This was a run queued up in November, so it's not that current.
 As you can see from the results, we had a very poor run.
 Some of the packages are no longer fetchable, and some of
this is problems that were created in the mports environment but
have since been fixed.  I plan to do a current run soon on the
same hardware.  Still having problems with the amd64 runs and
I'm looking into it.

  
    
      233
      0.4
      i386
      
        active
      
      2011-11-10
      15:21:10

          
          untested:
          1021 
          
          pass:
          1628 
          
          skip:
          53 
          
          fail:
          86 
          
          internal: 2 
          
          ready: 0

    

 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 12 Feb 2012
4:31 PM

preinit, init and fini from ELF
rtld-elf modified to support preinit, init and fini arrays.
 Obtained from: DragonFly.  This makes us BSD #2 with
this feature.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 24 Mar 2012
7:22 PM

New ZFS Documentation
I've created some basic ZFS documentation on the website.
 This is in addition to some content on the wiki.  Anyone
interested in using ZFS on MidnightBSD may wish to look at it as a
starting point.  It doesn't replace the man pages
though. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 3 May 2012
2:32 PM

MidnightBSD 0.3-RELEASE-p6
Several security issues have been addressed in OpenSSL in the
latest security update for MidnightBSD.  0.3-RELEASE-p6 and
0.4-CURRENT have been patched to work around these issues.

  OpenSSL
  failes to clear the bytes used as block cipher padding in SSL
  3.0

  
  records when
  operating as a client or a server that accept SSL 3.0

  
  handshakes.
   As a result, in each record, up to 15 bytes of
  uninitialized

  
  memory may be
  sent, encrypted, to the SSL peer.  This could include

  
  sensitive
  contents of previously freed memory. [CVE-2011-4576]

  

  
  OpenSSL
  support for handshake restarts for server gated cryptograpy
  (SGC)

  
  can be used
  in a denial-of-service attack. [CVE-2011-4619]

  

  
  If an
  application uses OpenSSL's certificate policy checking
  when

  
  verifying
  X509 certificates, by enabling the
  X509_V_FLAG_POLICY_CHECK

  
  flag, a
  policy check failure can lead to a double-free.
  [CVE-2011-4109]

  

  
  A weakness in
  the OpenSSL PKCS #7 code can be exploited using

  
  Bleichenbacher's
  attack on PKCS #1 v1.5 RSA padding also known as the

  
  million
  message attack (MMA). [CVE-2012-0884]

  

  
  The
  asn1_d2i_read_bio() function, used by the d2i_*_bio and
  d2i_*_fp

  
  functions, in
  OpenSSL contains multiple integer errors that can cause

  
  memory
  corruption when parsing encoded ASN.1 data.  This error can
  occur

  
  on systems
  that parse untrusted ASN.1 data, such as X.509
  certificates

or RSA public
keys. [CVE-2012-2110] 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 31 May 2012
9:26 AM

0.3-RELEASE-p7
MidnightBSD 0.3-RELEASE-p7 fixes a new security issue found in
OpenSSL.  It is recommended for all users.  
0.4-CURRENT has also been updated.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 3 Jul 2012
8:49 AM

0.3-RELEASE-p8

    
      MidnightBSD 0.3-RELEASE-p8

Fix a problem with cyrpt's DES
implementation when used with non 7-bit ascii passwords.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

8:50 AM

MidnightBSD 0.3-RELEASE-p9

  MidnightBSD
  0.3-RELEASE-p9

Bind vulnerability related to resource records.  See CVE-2012-1667.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 31 Jan 2013
10:57 PM

MidnightBSD 0.3-RELEASE-p10

  Fix a longstanding bug with
  libmport's return status. As this affects installation of
  ports, 
  an update was applied to this branch. This is not a
  security update and not needed for pkg_tools.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:59 PM

0.4-CURRENT progress
 There have been many updates in current lately.  
BIND 9.8 is in progress.
Here's a brief changelog.

20130125:
        MKSH R41 imported

20130122:
        OpenSSH 5.8p2 imported

        SQLite 3.7.15.2 imported

        Fixed a longstanding bug in libmport extrating new index
files.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 19 Feb 2013
6:43 AM

Latest magus run results
We started up our package build cluster again.  A run was
queued up on the 10th and run over the weekend on the new server
hardware. The results are much better than I expected after such a
long time without magus. 

    
      ID
      OSVersion
      Arch
      Status
      Created

    
      237
      0.4
      amd64
      
        active
      
      2013-02-10 16:49:31

          
          untested:
          818 
          
          pass:
          1717 
          
          fail:
          231 
          
          skip:
          58 
          
          internal: 1 
          
          warn: 2 
          
          ready: 0

    

    

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 20 Feb 2013
10:44 PM

New Magus run
Here's the latest run from magus.  Package count was just
shy of 1800.  Many of these failures are related to Java
ports.  I've made a change tonight to fix most of these.

  
    
      238
      0.4
      amd64
      
        active
      
      2013-02-19 16:13:36

          
          untested:
          749 
          
          pass:
          1796 
          
          fail:
          216 
          
          skip:
          61 
          
          internal: 1 
          
          ready: 0

    

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 14 Apr 2013
12:30 AM

0.4 amd64 snap on FTP
We have a new snapshot uploading to the FTP server. It's the
first snap in a year.  This snapshot is a little buggy, but
does allow you to install MidnightBSD.
Please note there are many changes from 0.3-RELEASE:
1. Uses new midnightbsd partition types: mnbsd-ufs, mnbsd-boot,
etc on GPT
2. ZFS is much newer than 0.3.  If you upgrade your pools,
you can't use them with 0.3 anymore.
3. KMS with Intel Ivy Bridge graphics
4. Installer is completely different
5. hastd
6. updated mksh, BIND, tcsh, file, diff, binutils,
mDNSResponder, libffi, openpam, openresolv, tnftp, tzcode, tzdata,
wpa, xz, compiler_rt, sqlite3, ncurses, netcat, pf, traceroute,
perl, openssh, openssl, less
7. updated from FreeBSD: make ipfw & ash, forth menus for
the loader, bsdinstall, bsd sort, new USB stack, new cam based ATA,
geom
8. llvm + clang
mport is the default package manager!
Major hardware support updates.. several wifi adapters, etc.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 26 Jun 2013
8:26 AM

MidnightBSD Update
There have been two snapshots release in the last few months,
i386 and amd64.  The former appears to be bug free and was
created this month.  You can find it in the snapshots
directory under i386 and 0.4-130610-SNAP.  The amd64 snap
has a few bugs, but can be installed.
Both of these snapshots are for 0.4-CURRENT.  Recently, we
created a branch for 0.4 and there are a few large big fixes and
one security update since the snapshots were released. It is
strongly recommended to rebuild from the 0.4 branch after
installing a snapshot.
There are currently no packages for i386 available.  The
index does not work with the newer mport tool in RELENG_0_4.
 As the ports tree is in the middle of a major update, it's
not stable enough to release packages yet.  I'm working on
this problem.
Most notebly QT4 is broken right now. X.org ports, dbus, gcc and
many other ports have been updated in the last month. There have
been many architecture changes to the mports/Mk extensions as well.
We now support some FreeBSD ports USES statements (pathfix,
charset, ncurses, pkgconfig) which makes migrating ports from
FreeBSD easier.
Magus has been running lately and churning out test builds of
packages. The results for the last 3 runs were quite bad. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 6 Jul 2013
3:41 PM

MidnightBSD 0.4-RELEASE
MidnightBSD 0.4 has been released on July 5, 2013. It includes
many new features, but
of particular interest is the new package management tool,
mport.  
 
This release is a bit different from previous releases in that
we plan to update
packages during the support period for 0.4. Rather than upload
packages and
sit on them for the life of the release, you will be able to
download updated
packages for i386 and amd64 periodically. 
 
Due to this new feature, our initial package offering is
smaller than we've done
for previous releases as many things had to get migrated and
updated. We plan
to expand the packages available in the coming
weeks. 
 
In addition to mport, we've imported a large number of
features from FreeBSD 9.1
including ZFS with ZPOOL 28/dedup support, LLVM + CLANG in
base, migration to GPT
as the default in the installer, bsdinstall, BSD licensed sort
and grep,
cpucontrol(8), and UFS2 + SUJ (journaling). We've also
imported the newer FreeBSD
USB stack, NFSv4 client, syscons, and CAM based
ATA. 
 
Support for newer hardware includes Intel Sandybridge and Ivy
Bridge graphics,
various wifi chipsets, updates to Intel and Realtek ethernet
adapters, and acpi.
 
The default system compiler is still GCC 4.2, but it has been
updated to a newer release.
We also removed libobjc from base as it was GCC specific and
we want to migrate to
libobjc2.  We offer libobjc2 in mports and it will work
with GCC and LLVM. 
 
MidnightBSD now has it's own GPT partition types and offers a
new search command,
msearch.
 
libc gains strnlen(3), memrchr(3), stpncpy(3).
 
We've also imported and updated many third party
libraries:
 
bzip2 version 1.0.6
Diffutils 3.2
FILE 5.05
OpenSSH 5.8p2
SQLite 3.7.15.2
MKSH R44
NetBSD's iconv
BIND 9.8
tcsh 6.18.01
Perl 5.14.2
mDNSResponder 333.10
less v436
libarchive 3.0.3
libdialog (lgpl version)
libffi 3.0.10
wide-dhcpv6
openresolv
sendmail 8.14.5
sudo 1.7.4-p6
tzdata_2012j
 
This release is a bit disruptive due to the number of changes,
but it was decided
to move forward with it due to the age of 0.3-RELEASE.
 The next release is planned
as a stability release and meant to work on desktop related
functionality. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 8 Jul 2013
8:23 AM

Downloading MidnightBSD
In addition to our mirrors, we have some other options for 
downloading
0.4 release popping up. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 17 Jul 2013
7:00 PM

Bug in 0.4-RELEASE
We've identified a bug related to package management in
MidnightBSD .0.4-RELEASE.
The hash check that is part of libmport is improperly working.
 This means you can't install packages with the mport
command.
To work around this issue, please checkout the 0.4-RELEASE
source from CVS using the directions 
on the
site and then rebuild and install libmport.
cd /usr/src/lib/libmport
make
make install

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 22 Aug 2013
7:59 AM

0.4-RELEASE-p2 : Fix IP MULTICAST and SCTP vulnerabilities
Fix two security vulnerabilities.
 
Fix an integer overflow in IP_MSFILTER (IP MULTICAST). This
could be exploited to read memory by a user process.
 
When initializing the SCTP state cookie being sent in INIT-ACK
chunks,
a buffer allocated from the kernel stack is not completely
initialized.
 
Patches obtained from: FreeBSD

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 7 Jul 2016
8:26 PM

Downloads and traffic to midnightbsd.org
We’ve had 1370 downloads from our CDN in the last month for 0.7 release.?

Website traffic from April 20 to May 20: 

1840 sessions
1504 users
3558 page views
31% traffic from Russia
17.66% from US
5% from Germany

Browser stats:
48% Chrome
27% Firefox
6% Safari
5% Opera

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

8:26 PM

MidnightBSD 0.7.9 RELEASE
Fix four security issues with MidnightBSD.

The implementation of TIOCGSERIAL ioctl(2) does not clear the output
struct before sending to userland in the linux emulation layer.

The compat 43 stat(2) system call exposes kernel stack to userland.

libarchive - CVE-2015-2304 and CVE-2013-0211 fix issues with
cpio directory traversal and an integer signedness error in the archive
write zip data routine.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 30 Jul 2016
12:15 AM

0.8 release delay
The 0.8 release has been delayed due to bugs found with the package manager. As this is a critical part of the system, the decision was made to delay it. 

We currently have developers debugging the problem.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 23 Aug 2016
11:45 AM

updated packages for 0.8 amd64
MidnightBSD 0.8 amd64 packages have been updated.

Note that xorg is included!

There are 2,884 packages available (more than i386 now) including part of qt5 and lumina desktop environment.

Also, if you have issues installing packages, make sure you have the latest libmport  and mport tools from SVN (0.8 stable).

Security: Public
Location: Work
Mood: Indifferent
Music: 

11:46 AM

MidnightBSD 0.8 release
I'm happy to announce the availability of  #MidnightBSD  0.8 release! It is now available on our primary FTP server and uploading to our mirrors.  You can download it from our website. 

You may also read about the changes in the release notes. http://www.midnightbsd.org/notes/

Security: Public
Location: Work
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 5 Feb 2017
7:37 PM

MidnightBSD 0.8.5
MidnightBSD 0.8.5 RELEASE ISOs now available on our primary ftp server for 32bit and 64bit processors. (i386 and amd64) It includes all the fixes for mport package manager, and security updates to openssh, openssl, sqlite, etc.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

7:38 PM

MidnightBSD on AWS
I am experimenting with MidnightBSD on AWS. It's possible to take the memstick image of 0.8.5 and modify it to enable the network interface, sshd and a test user to ssh in and then create a AWS AMI. So far, I've gotten it to boot to a login prompt.
The EC2 steps are as follows:
ec2-import-volume ~/memstick -f RAW --region us-east-1 -z us-east-1a -s 10 -d "MidnightBSD 0.8.5" -O "${AWS_ACCESS_KEY}" -W "${AWS_SECRET_KEY}" -o "${AWS_ACCESS_KEY}" -w "${AWS_SECRET_KEY}" -b "mnbsd-vm"
find out if it's done converting
ec2-describe-conversion-tasks -O ${AWS_ACCESS_KEY} -W ${AWS_SECRET_KEY} --region us-east-1
create a snapshot (get volume id for last arg from previous command)
ec2-create-snapshot -O "${AWS_ACCESS_KEY}" -W "${AWS_SECRET_KEY}" --region us-east-1 -d "MidnightBSD 0.8.5" vol-0d149b0dfc22962b1
check on snap
ec2-describe-snapshots -O "${AWS_ACCESS_KEY}" -W "${AWS_SECRET_KEY}" --region us-east-1
register ami (snap argument shown from last command)
ec2-register -n "MidnightBSD 0.8.5" -O "${AWS_ACCESS_KEY}" -W "${AWS_SECRET_KEY}" --region us-east-1 -a x86_64 -d "MidnightBSD 0.8.5 AMD64 Test" --root-device-name /dev/sda1 --virtualization-type hvm -s snap-0a7bb785269bfb08e

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

7:39 PM

MidnightBSD 0.9 includes doas(1)
MidnightBSD 0.9 current now includes the doas(1) utility, an alternative to sudo. Learn more about this utility http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/doas-mastery

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 4 Jul 2017
10:42 AM

Checking out MidnightBSD with git svn
You can check out MidnightBSD with git svn. 

For developers
git svn clone svn+ssh://laffer1@stargazer.midnightbsd.org/home/svn/repos/src/ -T trunk -b stable -t releases
(replace with your username of course)

For folks looking to fetch the code, you can just use the http protocol instead. Use the URL:
http://svn.midnightbsd.org/svn/src/

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:50 AM

Ryzen Support
Initial testing of MidnightBSD on a Ryzen 7 1700 CPU with an Asus PRIME x370-pro motherboard indicate that there are some issues that prevent the system from booting. 

There are two problematic areas:

1. The system timer detection code is not finding a timer that will work .
2. The Intel NIC included on this motherboard is not detecting properly and causing a panic.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 4 Aug 2018
7:16 AM

Reconfiguring a ZFS pool
One of our servers was setup in MidnightBSD 0.7 and had an older ZFS configuration. Over time, the drivers were replaced with 4k advanced format disks. Since ZFS won't let you change the ashift setting on an existing pool, the drivers were not running at optimal performance.  MidnightBSD 1.0 current warns about this sutation. 
How to fix it? 
In this case, there were 2 drives in a mirror and a cache disk as well as another backup pool.  First, we performed a backup to the other pool just to be safe using zfs send -R mypool@snapshot | zfs receive -F backup/mypool, then we removed one of the disks from the pool using zpool detach ada4p1.  We then blew away the partition and created a new gpt partion that was 4k aligned.  gpart add -t mnbsd-zfs -a 4k ada4 
Next, we created a new pool called tank  with the one drive.  We then ran zfs send and receive to copy data from mypool to tank. 
Once this data is copied, we went into single user mode (shutdown now) and exported both pools. We then imported the new pool tank.  zfs export tank; zfs export mypool; zfs import tank.  This allowed our mount points to kick in.  
Next, we repreated the process of repartitioning the second disk, ada3.  We then add it by doing zfs attach tank ada4p1 ada3p1 to include the second disk in the mirror.  Finally we did zpool add cache tank ada1 to re-add our ssd cache drive. 
The drive will need to rebuild which can take some time. 
This approach prevents any data loss.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 3 Aug 2018
7:37 PM

MidnightBSD 1.0 Current
We're currently working on a large merge of FreeBSD 10-stable (from late may) into MidnightBSD.  A large portion of this work is done, but there are still a few loose ends. 
* Symbol adjustments might be made to libc
* Several utilities are not connected to the build yet. 
* There are problems building some of the release targets such as the uefi memstick
* A few third party apps were etiher newer or older and not updated.  For example, our svn is still 1.8.x. 
* There were bugs in the boot loader code due to a bad merge. Most if not all of this was fixed. 
* Some architectures may still be using freebsd partition types, some utilities might not be switched over yet.  
We also removed the sensors framework during this migration.  There have been some locking problems in 0.8.x and it requires a rework.  
Also, we now have bhyve.  The good news is that it's possible to run FreeBSD on MidnightBSD in bhyve. The trick is to use a freebsd userboot file.  You can compile one from FreeBSD 10.x on midnightbsd or use the new port.  Another option that may work is using the grub port.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 12 Oct 2018
1:11 AM

Nearly at 1.0
The 1.0 ISOs are on the FTP server. The release notes are nearly written. Waitnig on some updated packages and we'll be able to call this thing.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 14 Oct 2018
4:59 PM

1.0 release is available
The 1.0 release is finally available. Still buidling packages for i386 and plan to do an amd64 package build later in the week.  
The single largest issue with the release process has been the web server performance.  The CPU is overloaded and has been at solid 100% for several days.  The server has a core i7 7700 in it.  I'm trying to figure out what to buy as an upgrade so that we don't continue to have this issue going forward. As it's actually blocked in multiple processes, a 6 or 8 core chip might be an improvement for the workload.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 8 Dec 2018
3:25 PM

mports updates
Hadoop 1.x was just added to mports in devel/hadoop.  This took some time to port.  
devel/glib20 was recently updated.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:26 PM

mport package manager configuration feature added
New feature in current mport package manager:
mport config get <setting> lets you see a setting configured.
mport config set <setting> <val> lets you set a setting.
This allows you to configure the region that you want to download packages from.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:27 PM

Take advantage of our third party security advisory site. "http://sec.midnightbsd.org/#!/ " (https://t.co/nHqBNHN7K7) It has a searchable REST api and shows software from all software even windows :) It powers our security-advisory-client port
Perl client code: "https://t.co/0feWsHnf3v" (https://t.co/0feWsHnf3v)
Backend source: "https://t.co/4JitOuMG5U" (https://t.co/4JitOuMG5U)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 19 Jan 2019
11:38 AM

1.1-CURRENT updates
mksh R56C and OpenSSH 7.5p1 are now in current.  The latter removes support for the legacy v1 protocol.  
Several bugfixes were done related to MSI-X allocation and for intel gigabit network cards.  (em/igb)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 20 Jan 2019
1:10 AM

OpenSSL 1.0.2p imported
MidnightBSD 1.1-CURRENT now has OpenSSL 1.0.2p rather than the 1.0.1 verisons. 
Ideally, we will need to get 1.1.1 in, but that will take a lot more work in userland. 
Anything built against the system OpenSSL should be rebuilt.  Many ports should not be affected.  
In light of other changes in the last 24 hours, it's ideal to rebuild world completely if you're running current.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:20 AM

Roadmap
A lot of people have been curious what our plans are for this year.  I've also had a lot of bug reports lately. 
First, the plan is to release 1.1 in the next few weeks. This is mostly a security update with new versions of several popular software packages. It will be a small update from 1.0.  As a result of this work, plans for package manager changes have been pushed to 1.2 along with the related installer work. 
In terms of ports, we plan on looking into the flavors feature available in FreeBSD and other BSDs ports systems. Some of the plumbing has already been put into the package manager to support this. However, it will take a bit more work as there are modifications needed for our package cluster software to handle it. 
The package cluster software is getting rewritten currently. 
At the time of the 1.0 release, there were a lot of outdated packages. We've since fixed several and updated many gnome related ports. Qt5 updates are still on the todo list.  It was also determined that there are problems with python ports as more things are transitioning to python 3.x.  This requires the flavors work or a bunch of py3 ports to be created. 
On the browser front, epiphany and midori were updated last month along with some of the webkit ports. The firefox port is partially done, but stalled on badly needed compiler updates and patches. 
Work was started on porting LLVM properly, but complications arose upstream.  We didn't get a hard no, but a soft no along with needs for a build cluster node for their project. If someone is willing to donate this or time to help with getting upstream patches, that would be quite helpful. Proper LLVM/CLANG ports are needed at a starting point to get Rust and other languages working more easily. This is a top blocker for really solving long term browser support issues. 
We need help getting patches upstreamed with various projects.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 7 Nov 2019
2:07 PM

MidnightBSD 1.2 now available
MidnightBSD 1.2 release is now available. It's a security and bug fix release. 
Most of the focus was on mports and base system third party libraries.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 14 Dec 2019
3:52 PM

Elasticsearch on MidnightBSD
If you're trying to run a recent elasticsearch such as 6.x on midnightbsd, you may find it doesn't startup.  
Try adding the following to /usr/local/etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml:
xpack.ml.enabled: false
bootstrap.system_call_filter: false

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 29 Mar 2020
5:22 PM

MidnightBSD 1.3-CURRENT
New development is progressing on 1.3-CURRENT. it's recommended that users avoid it and stick with stable branches for now.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 3 Jul 2020
4:20 PM

i386 packages updated for 1.2
We finally fixed a number of issues with the package build and i386 packages were refreshed.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:21 PM

New wiki
We now have a new wiki for MidnightBSD at "http://wiki.midnightbsd.org/" (http://wiki.midnightbsd.org/)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:22 PM

Overriding DNS server changes when dhcp is enabled.
By default, /etc/resolv.conf is updated when DHCP is enabled for an interface.  This is useful for WiFi or laptops where you frequently change networks. However, it can be problematic sometimes when different DNS servers are required. 
For static IP addresses, this is not modified automatically. 
Preventing Automatic Config Changes
Methods to try:
Use a static IP address
Make /etc/resolv.conf immutable
Override the dhclient configuration
Turn off resolvconf
Static IP
Simply edit your /etc/rc.conf and replace DHCP in your ifconfig line with a static IP configuration
Immutable resolv.conf
chflags schg /etc/resolv.conf
Override the dhclient config
place the following in /etc/dhclient.conf, but change the name of the interface as appropriate.  This example uses OpenDNS with an Intel Gigabit NIC. 
interface "em0" {
    supersede domain-name-servers 208.67.222.222,208.67.220.220;
}
You will need to restart the dhclient for changes to take effect. 
service dhclient restart em0
Disable resolvconf(8)
Create a file 
"/etc/resolvconf.conf"
"Place this in the file"
resolv_conf="/dev/null"

resolvconf="NO"

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:23 PM

Enable Duo 2FA for SSH on MidnightBSD
Enabling two factor authentication on MidnightBSD for SSH. 
Recently, we added a security/duo port in mports. 
When setting up two factor authentication, we recommend using the login duo setup. It's much easier to get going and we noticed some segfaults with the duo pam module. 
Steps:
Setup a Duo account
Install the security/duo port.  If you only want to use SSHD, you can avoid the SUID port option.  However, for testing it can be helpful
Obtain the appropriate API host, skey and ikey and add them to the /usr/local/etc/login_duo.conf file.
Fix the permissions on the login_duo.conf file so that they are 600 and owned by sshd if you are only using with SSHD. if you did choose SUID option in the mport, then own by root. 
In the /etc/ssh/sshd_config, you will need to add a line with ForceCommand /usr/local/sbin/login_duo
If you wish to protect all logins, you can leave ForceCommand line global. However, you can also choose to only protect certain users or groups. For instance, if you want to protect the wheel group for admins
<pre>Match group wheel 
        ForceCommand  /usr/local/sbin/login_duo</pre>Duo also has instructions on setting up on FreeBSD and this works with MidnightBSD as well. 
Login Duo "https://duo.com/docs/loginduo" (https://duo.com/docs/loginduo)
PAM "https://duo.com/docs/duounix" (https://duo.com/docs/duounix)
Using it
When logging into ssh the first time, you'll get an activation link that you'll want to load in a browser. It will walk you through configuring your phone.  You'll probably want the duo app installed so you can do push notifications. 
After that, you'll see a menu asking if you want a push as you attempt to ssh into a box.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:24 PM

Setup multicast dns on midnightbsd using mDNSresponder
MidnightBSD includes mDNSresponder in base. You can configure your local machine to access resources on your local network.  This can be useful to ssh into Apple Mac systems, etc.  This is sometimes called Bonjour.
To see other systems with mdns enabled on your network
Edit /etc/nsswitch.conf and add 
mdns
to hosts line.  It should read
hosts: files mdns dns
add mdnsd_enable="YES" to /etc/rc.conf
start mdnsd with service mdnsd start
To advertise services on your local machine
Add mdnsresponder_enable="YES" to /etc/rc.conf
create a new file called /etc/mdnsresponder.conf in /etc/
file contents:
<pre>#
# Example services file parsed by mDNSResponderPosix.
#
# Lines beginning with '#' are comments/ignored.
# Blank lines indicate the end of a service record specification.
# The first character of the service name can be a '#' if you escape it with
# backslash to distinguish if from a comment line.
# ie, "\#serviceName" will be registered as "#serviceName".
# Note that any line beginning with white space is considered a blank line.
#
# The record format is:
#
# <service name>
# <type>.<protocol> <optional domain>
# <port number>
# <zero or more strings for the text record, one string per line>
#
# <One or more blank lines between records>
#
# Examples shown below.
#

#serviceName1
#_afpovertcp._tcp.
#548
#name=val1

SSH
_ssh._tcp.
22

#FTP
#_ftp._tcp.
#21

#HTTP
#_http._tcp.
#80

samba
_smb._tcp
445

adisk
_adisk._tcp
0
dk1=adVN=TimeMachine
adVF=0x82

deviceinfo
_device-info._tcp
0

model=Xserve</pre>

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:25 PM

Migrating from bugzilla to jira
Bug reporting change: We've migrated from bugzilla to Atlassian Jira. URL hasn't changed. Note: we decided not to migrate old bugs. Most were closed or for very old releases. "https://bugreport.midnightbsd.org" (https://t.co/JjwuXoWetz?amp=1)
Please report issues using the new jira to us. File OS bugs in MidnightBSD project (MNBSD), website bugs in WWW project and mports issues in the mports project.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:26 PM

mport bug
We just discovered a bug with the ca_root_nss port and mport package manager. It seems that the symlink isn't generated correctly in /usr/local/openssl Manual fix for now is cd /usr/local/openssl && ln -s /usr/local/share/certs/ca-root-nss.crt cert.pem This fixes lynx

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:27 PM

Helping out
If you're interested in helping the project, here's a list of ideas "http://wiki.midnightbsd.org/display/MD/Ways+to+Contribute…" (https://t.co/UwRlxEVS5Y?amp=1) We need translators, website design, documentation, porting apps, etc.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 9 Jul 2020
12:39 AM

MidnightBSD 1.2.3
MidnightBSD 1.2.3 tag created in git. It only includes updates for 2 third party apps/libs:
unbound
sqlite3
Both include security updates.
NOTE: packages built against sqlite3 may be affected. Report issues. it's possibly a breaking change in 1.2.x
You do not need to rebuild everything to update to this release.
Run make clean; make; make install in these directories:
src/lib/libsqlite3
src/usr.bin/sqlite3
src/lib/libunbound
src/usr.sbin/unbound
If you don't use the local unbound caching resolver then sqlite3 is the only immediate need.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 3 Aug 2020
9:13 AM

ntp in mports
ntp 4.2.8p15 is now in mports and addresses a security issue. "https://t.co/3n4tIOxbUK" (https://t.co/3n4tIOxbUK) note: this doesn't affect the base system as we use OpenNTPD

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 25 Aug 2020
1:23 PM

MidnightBSD 1.2.7
MidnightBSD 1.2.7 is available via the FTP/HTTP and mirrors as well as github.  
It includes several bug fixes and security updates over the last ISO release and is recommended for new installations.  
Users who don't want to updatee the whole OS, should consider at least updating libmport as there are many package management fixes

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 8 Sep 2020
10:11 AM

MidnightBSD 1.2.8
There was a security issue in dhclient. We've created new ISOs for 1.2.8 for those installing from scratch.  
If you are on 1.2.7, you can simply update the source from git for stable/1.2 branch and rebuild dhclient.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:13 AM

Rust
We've finally got a native rust port (lang/rust) with 1.2.6.x version of rust.  The blocker to updating further is a newer system compiler. We will attempt to updatee to 1.3.0 or so.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:14 AM

Golang
The go port has been updated in mports to 1.14.3.  (lang/go)  This should allow newer go apps to be built.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:15 AM

Current
Current was recently renamed 2.0 (rather than 1.3) in case we need to do a security upate past 1.2.9.  It also made sense as 2.0 is a major update. 
There aren't any snaps yet for current.  In fact, it's not building at the moment. We're actively working on it.  Buildworld on an amd64 box gets into lib32 compat libraries at this point.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 10 Sep 2020
11:03 AM

2.0-CURRENT update
It's now possible to install 2.0-CURRENT from a 1.2.7 machine with some caveats. 
This is only tested on amd64 so far. 
before installworld, setenv  MK_TESTS no  (or put this in /etc/src.conf) 
lib/libcasper won't install without this. 
mergemaster is broken AFTER installworld.  Do mergemaster -p before at least
makewhatis is broken.  Comment out lines using it in src/share/man/Makefile when running installworld, then build makewhatis with new compiler, then uncomment and run make install from src/share/man directory to workaround this.  (it segfaults)
sendmail is not binding after updating.  Unclear what is going on so far.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 13 Sep 2020
4:44 PM

webcam on MidnightBSD
Folks have been asking me about webcams lately.  I've previously gotten an integrated cam on my thinkpad working, but decided to try to get my logitech 920 usb camera working on my desktop.  
I've installed the following packages:
webcamd, cuse4bsd, pwcview (new port), v4l-utils (new port), v4l_compat
I then did 
kldload cuse4bsd 
also added it to /boot/loader.conf
Then I did 
webcamd scan
I found the camera line and copied the -N  line for it into /etc/rc.conf as 
webcamd_o_flags="-N ... " 
webcamd_enable="YES"
I added my user to webcamd group. 
I then started webcamd.  I was able to load pwcview (as root) and see the picture from the camera at this point. Cheese is not seeing the camera though and neither is firefox with youtube.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 29 Sep 2020
11:01 AM

ESET file server antivirus scanner on MidnightBSD
I recently setup a new system with the FreeBSD 9 32bit scanner.  I was able to get it to work on a modern 64bit system with a few caveats. 
As it's an old school FreeBSD package and not using the modern pkg, I extracted it at / and then removed the "+INSTALL, +DESC" and other + files from /. 
First, the binary requires libintl.so and libiconv.so which are external dependencies not included with the compat32 system in FreeBSD. Normally one would install some packages to get those. gettext-runtime and libiconv i think.  It would be nice if the binary was either static linked or at least mentioned these need to be installed.  You can get packages from a 32bit version of freebsd 10.x  or MidnightBSD 1.2.x for these and install them and it will just work.  
Second, since I was trying to run on a 64bit system, I had to install compat9x, compat8x and manually copy the above mentioned libraries into /usr/local/lib32/compat/ and then update the runtime path.  I set the following in /etc/rc.conf to get it to run easier
ldconfig32_paths="$ldconfig32_paths /usr/local/lib32/compat /usr/local/lib"
ldconfig_local32_dirs="$ldconfig_local32_dirs /usr/local/libdata/ldconfig"
Then I ran /etc/rc.d/ldconfig restart 
I found that I had to make two directories that are included in the +INSTALL script including one for license files and one for logging.  You'll see errors when running the tools that tell you what to make if you forget.  
I was then able to import the license file and startup the daemon using the rc.d script and then perform a manual scan.  
It would be really nice of the binary was static linked and also if a 64bit version could be created.  
I technically did this on a MidnightBSD 1.2 amd64 system, but it would also work on FreeBSD 10.x or 11.x.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:02 AM

F-PROT antivirus on MidnightBSD
We just added the F-PROT antivirus comamnd line scanner for BSD systems to mports under security/f-prot.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 4 Nov 2020
11:37 AM

2.0 release status
We identified some issues with the 2.0 ISOs slated for release with the ZFS bootloader not working. 
Until this issue is resolved, we are unable to build release ISOs. We've left the old ones up as they work fine for anyone using UFS.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 19 Dec 2020
12:28 AM

MidnightBSD 2.0.1
MidnightBSD 2.0.1 was released for amd64.  The only change is a fix for UEFI booting.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:28 AM

MidnightBSD 2.0.2
MidnightBSD 2.0.2 in git.
Fixes the following:
firstboot script package name
ICMPv6 security issue
tzdata 2020d import to fix time zone problems.
certctl & certificates updated/fixed
USB audio improvements.
ACPI improvement with newer AMD systems.
NFSv4 server fixes
Hygon AHCI and USB controllers
pciconf can show extended pci capabilities
mlx5 improvements
WD green ssds quirk for trim
Denverton UART PCI ID
ZFS fixes
synaptics touchpad fixes
Add Atom C3000 watchdog ID.
JMicron JMB582/JMB585 AHCI

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:30 AM

OpenSSL security fix in stable/2.0 branch
There is a security fix for OpenSSL in master and stable/2.0 branches of MidnightBSD. It's strongly recommended that you update to this version.  It will be part of the 2.0.3 release.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:30 AM

late november mports activity
mports:
We've updated gnome web (epiphany), midori and webkit2-gtk3 mports.
We're in the process of updating GNOME 3.x
Two new security ports were added for systems that have ssh, mail, web or other services exposed to block some attackers. security/blacklist-de-all and security/fire-hol-list which install scripts that can download updates and you tie it in with IPFW and cron. These are unique to midnightbsd at the moment.
We've added bhyve-firmware ports recently to allow you to run linux or windows vms on midnightbsd, with some effort.
We just fixed a plist problem with the nvidia-driver port that should help folks trying to use it in stable/2.0 or 2.0.1.
We fixed a bug with one of the install scripts that will be present in 2.0.2. You can use mport install midnightbsd-desktop manually for now to get the desktop stuff.
We recently added an eclipse port. You can of course use this with java, php, C/C++ and several other languages.
We fixed some of the mono ports on stable/2.0 releases. Still need to update fsharp and fix gnome-sharp20
We updated the chromium port, although it's still broken at the moment, it's the first step in bringing a new native browser in.
As for firefox, we will first need to update our rust port which also is needed to fix several other broken ports and bring in librsvg_rust. The blocker on this before was the compiler in 1.2 so now with 2.0 out, we can revisit it.
we updated 2.0 amd64 packages recently.
We just ran a 2.0 i386 build with the first of the gnome 3 changes. 450 ports less than the previous run. we won't be releasing these packages, but it's a good start.
mail/evolution was updated.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:32 AM

Youtube Install Video for MidnightBSD
We have a new video up on youtube that explains how to install MidnightBSD 2.0.1 with a desktop environment. 
"https://youtu.be/HpSEx6ICHrw" (https://youtu.be/HpSEx6ICHrw)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 14 Jan 2021
2:07 PM

Jenkins
We have a new Jenkins CI server at "https://jenkins.midnightbsd.org/" (https://jenkins.midnightbsd.org/)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 16 Feb 2021
10:27 AM

Project Status, happy 15th anniversary
We've recently added a default .xinitrc file for user profiles to help with the desktop integration on a fresh install.  The default desktop environment has recently changed to Xfce.  We still need to build packages to get the default on midnightbsd-desktop updated. 
A number of package bugs are being worked on and we've placed the mport package manager in it's own repository now to help with contributions and allow us to easily package it in mports.  You can test newer versions there. 
February is the 15th anniversary for the project!

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 24 Feb 2021
10:40 AM

MidnightBSD 2.0.5
New 2.0.5 release tagged in git.
Happy 15th anniversary to MidnightBSD!
Fixes: pam security issue Updates: mport 2.0.5 tzdata 2021a Now uses sysrc for firstboot script.
We will do ISO builds later for this one.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 27 Feb 2021
12:46 AM

BastilleBSD
We recently added a new port, mports/sysutils/bastille that allows you to manage containers. This is a port of a project that originally targetted FreeBSD, but also works on HardenedBSD. 
You can see the getting started guide at the link below. 
"https://bastillebsd.org/getting-started/" (https://bastillebsd.org/getting-started/)
A few notes on using this with MidnightBSD.  Our port supports bootstrap, create, stop and destory.  It may work with ZFS but we have not tested it.   If you are using MidnightBSD 2.0.x amd64, you likely want to use a version of 2.0.3 in your create statement.  MidnightBSD versions don't include RELEASE or other strings at the end so it's just a straight up version number.  
The getting started guide also recommends using PF.  The instructions will work on MidnightBSD just fine, but you do need to disable IPFW which is enabled by default on MidnightBSD first.  
The update/upgrade function does not work in MidnightBSD right now because it requires binary update support. We do have the binary in 2.0 as it was planned to add it but the server side work isn't done yet. 
There's also a bug in the port but it shouldn't affect operation on MIdnightBSD, just if you tried to use that code on FreeBSD with pkg integration.  This came up when we upstreamed it and should be fixed in that PR now, although we didn't bother to fix the port since it's not used on other systems.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:17 AM

A comparison between mports and FreeBSD ports
MidnightBSD mports started as a refactor of the FreeBSD ports with some influence from OpenBSD many years ago.  For the first few months of the project, we actually had a "ports" that was literally a checkout of FreeBSD ports with a bunch of changes to make things build. It was horribly unreliable and a huge mess.  Chris Reinhardt did a big refactor along with input from Phil Peria and I.  We started moving features into the extensions directory, which FreeBSD is now doing with their Uses directory. We also broke up a bunch of the bsd.port.mk and bsd.*.mk files into components as smaller chunks to work on and pull them in as necessary. Then the mport package manager prototype in perl happened as a replacement for pkg_tools (pkg_add, pkg_delete, etc).  Chris ported that prototype mostly to C and then I finished the port and wrote the driver program for it.  Chris got it to a point it could install and deinstall packages from the mports tree.  
One of the big design goals we all agreed on as well as our then security officer Adam Karim, was that we wanted to install the package into a directory, which we called FAKE_DESTDIR, and to force all installed mports to be packages and then installed by the tool.  This cut down on installation errors from packages that we frequently had as everything was tested this way.  It was a bit slower in mports, but the benefits outweighed the risks. This wasn't really our original idea and it was inspired by OpenBSD ports at the time. Still, it worked out really well.  As we were trying to adapt FreeBSD ports, we made a bunch of decisions that are still a difference from how FreeBSD ports work today. 
FreeBSD eventually introduced STAGEDIR which aside from being a better name, also works similarly to FAKE_DESTDIR with a few differences.  When we did the change, many ports did not have or honor a DESTDIR directory.  We found that the ones that did would just work if we made the do-install and post-install targets include it in make invocations.  In contrast, FreeBSD often has to add STAGEDIR everywhere to get it to work.  There are cases their way is better such as dealing with ruby gems or similar funky ports.   We have some mechanisms for those problems too.  FAKE_OPTS has a trueprefix option that with change the behavior of the do-install and post-install targets. Sometimes you will see ports that are double appending the DESTDIR  (/usr/mports/mycat/my/port/fake_install/usr/mports/mycat/my/port/fake_install/usr/local) type of nightmares. This works around that.  In some cases PREFIX includes both the DESTDIR and the PREFIX from a makefile sense. This is only true for do-install, post-install, do-fake, post-fake.  So if you have a newer target like ones based on options, it will not apply and you will need to use FAKE_DESTDIR.  If you actually need the PREFIX value without DESTDIR, it's available as TRUE_PREFIX.  
Another difference is the order that different parts of the framework are loaded. This can cause weird bugs if you're trying to copy a freebsd port over.  It's very evident with some of the python ports. Different modules will sometimes fail to save the options selected using the options framework.  It's a combination of the loaading order and the name that is used to distinguish different port options.  In midnightbsd, port names must be unique or it really breaks the package manager index. OPTIONS mostly work the same aside from that bug. 
Fetching distfiles is another area that can differ slightly.  Most of the same features work, but there can occasionally be difficulties fetching from github or gitlab due to the subtle differences in how package names are used in the framework as well as features we're supporting.  Sometimes one just has to add the DISTFILES explicitly or set the git tag to get it to fetch right.  MidnightBSD like FreeBSD includes fetch and libfetch.  Both mports and mport use these to get files.  The MidnightBSD version also includes the OSNAME in the user agent string so you can actually tell it came from MidnightBSD in logs. 
mport package manager doesn't support LUA scripts like pkg.  Most of those trigger operations in the PLIST files. pkg-plist by default.  You will see basic commands like @dir or @mode that work in both.  Some have been augmented in mport with the use of hacks that substitute the commands for @exec or @preexec/@postexec commands in package plists. In other cases, the business logic is in the mport package manager and requires a minimum version. 
on that topic, we recently created a port to install new versions of the package manager.  That meant we needed to put it in it's own repo.  We're bumping the version number based on updates, but mport itself doesn't know about that. Instead it reports the OS version and it's bundle version.  That is the version of the package format and sqlite database schema in use. It gets bumped when we add breaking features.  This used to go out with new OS versions and we're still working on how to manage that going forward. We may add version numbers to the package manager to make it easier to determine in the future. 
We also are looking at adding UCL support to mport. 
Another area where things are quite different is how we build packages, where to find information for them and how to detect security issues in installed packages.  We have magus for package building which is a set of perl scripts included in the mports repository currently along with a postgresql database.   There was some work to rewrite this in java a few years ago but it hasn't been completed.  We also have a few endpoints that return JSON in there for services like repology to use as well as the MidnightBSD app store which is a searchable list of packgages.  the app store also powers metadata in the graphical mport package manager in gtk3.  Then we have the sec.midnightbsd.org security advisory site which is mostly there to work with a perl script in mports called security-advisory.  It will check installed ports against the website REST api for security issues. it's a bit slow because it fetches vulnerabilites for ALL versions from the API so as to not tip off our server what release you're using for security reasons.  We may know IP x is curious about apache httpd but we don't know what version.  We have considered adding some kind of range to this as apache in particular is very slow to process.  Magus has a web interface but it's optional.  You can actually do a package build just with the perl client that runs on a build node, and the indexer.  We then have a C program called bless that creates a sqlite3 database from the postgres database data for a given run.  We then vacuum it and bzip2 it and put it on the index site.  Finally, we mark it blessed=true in the database which is a signal for the app store and repology that those files are LIVE.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 23 Mar 2021
1:40 PM

mport package manager
Several bug fixes have been made on the mport package manager. 
It's now using a sha256 hash for verification of files rather than md5. 
It gracefully ignores missing files on a mport update.
mport install can now update dependencies it needs to install a package.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 7 Jun 2022
11:59 PM

MidnightBSD 2.2 is nearing
We're waiting on packages, but the ISOs are ready.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 15 Oct 2022
4:13 PM

MidnightBSD 3.0 development progressing
We have our first snapshot available on the FTP. it has a lot of problems and we're working on squashing bugs right now.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 3 Feb 2023
12:53 AM

MidnightBSD 3.0 status update
The 3.0 stable branch is pretty much ready.  We may update sqlite3 yet. 
The delay in the release has been due to issues with several mports.  We're still working through those problems, but one can't ship a desktop OS without a working desktop.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 13 Feb 2023
3:39 PM

MidnightBSD 2.2.7 release
We released a minor update to MidnightBSD which contains the following changes:
tzdata 2022g
less 551
ISOs are on the main site and starting to copy to mirrors.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 7 Mar 2023
6:27 PM

MidnightBSD project updates
First, the 3.0 release has been blocked for some time due to a few key mports that just refused to build.  Today, we got LLVM 9/10/11 working on MidnightBSD 3.0.   This unblocks us to work on the remaining desktop ports to prepare for the release. 
We've published updated packages for 2.2 amd64, 2.2 i386, and 3.0 i386 over the weekend.  A new package build for 3.0 amd64 is in progress. 
Several bugs have been reported with the mport package manager stemming from some changes made back in December.  Users on 3.0 or 2.2 from git are impacted.  If you have 2.2.7 or older installed, it's not a problem.  We have a workaround committed in 2.2 stable branch to allow folks to install packages.  We're working on a better fix for the 3.0 release cycle. 
We fixed a recently reported security issue in the magus package cluster web interface.  Thanks for the report!
The new tentative plan is to release MidnightBSD 3.0 by the end of April.  This gives us time to get mports in shape and do additional testing.  
We've added some documentation on settings to use when creating virtual machines of MidnightBSD guests on the MidnightBSD wiki on Github (under src). 
Known issues: 
Some options don't appear to be working on some mports.  
Perl ports on some 3.0 installs aren't working properly.  
OpenJDK 8 is broken on 3.0
Avahi and boost broken on 3.0 and the biggest blockers to release at the moment.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 23 Mar 2023
11:30 PM

MidnightBSD 3.0
3.0 i386 packages haven't been built for the release yet.  There are some older ones available but without the full desktop environment.  We'll be building those this weekend. 
We're uploading some ISOs but still need to do final testing on them.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 4 Apr 2023
10:38 PM

MidnightBSD 3.0.1
3.0.1 was tagged in our git repository and we've started building ISOs for it.? It includes several security updates such as OpenSSL 1.1.1t, doas 6.3p9, a fix for a telnetd vulnerability.? It also includes some cleanup work on rc.d scripts, fixes for periodic scripts that were incorrect around ntpd and restoring msearch/mport db backups.? ?We also updated mport to 2.2.9 which fixed the mport mirror list command.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 21 Apr 2023
9:34 AM

Server outage
We've had a bad hardware upgrade and some of our infrastructure is down.? This includes the midnightbsd app store, jenkins and portsnap updates.? We also use this system for a number of magus package builds.?
A replacement motherboard should arrive soon to fix this.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

9:38 AM

Using the MidnightBSD security advisory api
We've updated the security advisory api recently and it now has a new endpoint that lets you lookup by CPE.?
"https://sec.midnightbsd.org/api/cpe/partial-match?cpe=cpe:2.3:a:openssl:openssl:1.0.1d" (https://sec.midnightbsd.org/api/cpe/partial-match?cpe=cpe:2.3:a:openssl:openssl:1.0.1d):::::::*
This URL will lookup CVEs that may impact openssl 1.0.1d?
We're considering possibly using this with mport to provide security notifications via a new command.? Right now we have the security-advisory-client in mports that hits different endpoints within this API to provide auditing data.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

9:40 AM

Access to packages available
If you're an end user and you want to know what software is available for MidnightBSD, the best place to go is the?"app store" (https://app.midnightbsd.org/). You can also use the mport search command to look for available packages, or in mports use make search key=
For software developers, there are several ways to get the data for consumption. Our package build cluster software has several endpoints available including:
"https://www.midnightbsd.org/magus/api/latest" (https://www.midnightbsd.org/magus/api/latest)
"https://www.midnightbsd.org/magus/api/run-ports-list?run=328&status=pass" (https://www.midnightbsd.org/magus/api/run-ports-list?run=328&status=pass)
The latest endpoint gives you a list of packages available in the most recent magus runs that have been blessed (published). The other one lets you look at a specific run and filter on status.
There are multiple APIs available in the app store as well. Consult the midnightbsd-app-store repository on GitHub for details on those.
Finally, there are the actual sqlite3 databases generated by blessed package builds per arch and os-release.
"http://index.mport.midnightbsd.org/amd64/3.0/index.db.bz2" (http://index.mport.midnightbsd.org/amd64/3.0/index.db.bz2)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

9:42 AM

ZFS Replacing a bad disk
First, identify the failed disk. You can run zpool list to identify the failed drive.
zpool status
If you were clever, you named your disks with meaningful labels. If not, it might be trial and error. If it's ada0, you know it's in the first SATA port, for instance.
Remove the old disk. Confirm the disk is gone in the BIOS after booting the system.
Now put in the new disk.
It's recommended you boot into single-user mode. (see the option on the midnightbsd boot menu)
Now verify the OS detected the new drive.
camcontrol devlist
You should see the new drive. If you placed it in the same sata port, it is likely the same name. For our example, ada0
"gpart create -s gpt ada0"
"gpart show"
"gpart add -a 4k -t mnbsd-zfs -l mydisklabel ada0"
"gpart show"
Now if you run zpool status again you should see one drive marked as offline with a long number identifier rather than a label or device name (ada0)
"zpool replace mypoolname longnumberfromzpoolstatus gpt/mydisklabel"
If you didn't use the label flag above, replace that last part with ada0
This will start the resilvering process, which can take several hours. You can run zpool status to check the status of this process.
While you can boot the system at this point, and it will work, it will run slowly. If possible, let it resilver in single-user mode. It will go a lot faster.
Note there is a better guide on this here:?"https://dan.langille.org/2015/08/03/replacing-a-failed-drive-in-zfs-on-freebsd/" (https://dan.langille.org/2015/08/03/replacing-a-failed-drive-in-zfs-on-freebsd/)?The big difference is the partition type above (mnbsd-zfs vs freebsd-zfs)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 27 Apr 2023
9:54 AM

MidnightBSD was mentioned on the BSD Now show.
Check out the episode here "https://www.bsdnow.tv/504" (https://www.bsdnow.tv/504)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 5 May 2023
9:34 AM

Project Update
project update:
We're still restoring VMs from our recent server issue. Some services are back up, but we still have a few like Jenkins, OpenGrok, and build nodes for our package cluster to restore.
We've been running package builds on a single server lately. The latest amd64 run has had a few issues that we're working through.
mport package manager has received several updates in recent weeks. It now supports an audit command that lets you check for CVEs against a copy of the NVD data.
Usage:
mport audit
mport audit -r
mport -q audit
The first version prints a list of all CVEs with descriptions for each package.
The second includes a list of packages that depend on this vulnerable port so you can also update those.
The third doesn't give details about the vulnerabilities and just prints a list of vulnerable packages with package name and package number using the "global" -q aka quiet flag.
This isn't included in MidnightBSD src git yet as we're working through a few bugs. You can check it out and try it now though git clone "https://github.com/midnightbsd/mport.git" (https://github.com/midnightbsd/mport.git)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 12 May 2023
10:05 AM

Project status update
First, we've had several contributions over the last few weeks.? Thanks, new contributors!??
In current, we imported 2?months' worth of bug fixes from FreeBSD 12-stable.? ?We've also made several changes to the firstboot script.? For folks running current, please test the new firstboot script changes.? If you want to run it, just delete /etc/fbreceipt and run /etc/rc.d/firstboot start (after installing the latest version)?
We've also had a few server outages lately. Here's what's going on:?
1. We had a botched upgrade to our primary virtualization server.? This was running VMware ESXi.? A CPU upgrade killed a motherboard as the CPU wasn't actually supported, as I misread the support list.? The motherboard was replaced.? Additionally, some memory modules had failed in that.? Those were replaced.? We are in the process of migrating VMs to a bhyve environment.??
2. We upgraded our primary network switch.? The new switch is an aruba instant on 1960?12XGT and replaced an aging buffalo bs208 8 port nbase-t switch.? Since the new switch doesn't have 2.5G support, we had to upgrade the network card in our file server to an intel x540.? (it was using a realtek dragon 2.5G)?
3. While upgrading the network switch, we uncovered a thermal issue with another server.? We'll have to bring that down to replace some fans soon.? It's our other virtualization server used primarily for package builds.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 16 May 2023
1:02 PM

Short term goals
Here's a list of some short term goals we're hoping to get done in the next few months:
* mports: fix firefox-esr port
* Add llvm12 or 13 to mports and update mesa libraries using it
* Update perl in current?
* Look into updating CPAN included in stable/3.0 perl to fix a CVE
* Import bug fixes / improvements from FreeBSD 12-stable branch from September-December 2022 into midnightbsd current.?
* Look into updating the mport manager to work with newer libmport versions

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 28 May 2023
2:59 PM

New Browser: Raphael
Midori 9.x, the default browser in MidnightBSD, went EOL.? The 10.x version of the browser is electron based and doesn't support many operating systems.? That put us in a pickle.? We need a default browser and webkit browsers have been the most consistent with working on MidnightBSD.? Therefore, we forked Midori 9 as Raphael.? It's on github at "https://github.com/midnightbsd/raphael/" (https://github.com/midnightbsd/raphael/)
All browsers don't have to be chromium based.? That's a bad thing!?
We've also made progress on the firefox-esr port and getting that to build.? It's close to working but still some hurdles.? If we can get that fixed, we have two?decent options.
If you're interested in helping with the Raphael browser or fixing the firefox ports, we are open to pull requests!

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 2 Jun 2023
1:39 PM

Ravenports
The Ravenports folks are looking into supporting MidnightBSD so there'd be an additional source of packages for the OS available.
We've done some work on the firstboot script in Current to support this experimental bootstrap/integration.
"https://ravenports.com" (https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fravenports.com%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR0uMVjg3t_yhUBGkmZ9QmxzhW2-5JDf-6IIXGi8bwTGCakYxi_t9izKSm8&h=AT2Ck8GeDXP9VGOpgSdqAkvGxr9EBrNYPAftHRB4taVm3mrx4EAZro1if-f_zhGkUQx2U0h2ruJyz-n0bZFPgYhozuD6jw6_diwQjyvcIeHz3sOKtFz5fSEZnvvotsnEy_nXITlglw&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT0TNQaC3S5MuF6UsUWpaA4CILyzoDeDe6CIfOsHsi8kaYX5Z9K07JdOiPPYDnqQ-WB_yaHHyiZrqx8hffIYz3j_Aegd8K8-IQvk79hI2lX_knNFUuiOUZH-9R8Hfn4mP_Fn0vsYHGWkziu9cTI_lrM5Mt3-2Q)
This is certainly not final yet, but looking promising. There are a number of packages available via Ravenports that aren't available in mports.
For example: recent firefox releases!
We won't be discontinuing mports, and consider this an additional package manager / repository. However, we will try to make it easy to use on a fresh install and support it as much as we can.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 5 Jul 2023
1:35 AM

Magus changes
I started working on some changes for Magus to parse the MOVED file. In MidnightBSD, a lot of tools don't do much with that file so it's never been consistently managed.Â 
The idea is that we can index it with each magus run and then provide the data in the index file generated for packages.Â  This would provide hints about packages that were really removed vs renamed.Â  We could then install the renamed/moved package on upgrades and when using the mport list command, it could more accurately guess if packages were removed or just unavailable.Â 
This solves a problem that's bugged me for awhile with mport.Â  Of course, we're only working on the first step now.Â Â 
The steps for this are:
1. add it to the magus indexer.Â  (needs testing)
2. Export the data during a magus bless from the new MOVED table in the postgresql database to a table in the generated sqlite index files for mport to use.Â  (need to update magus bless utility)
3. Modify mport package manager to read the data from the table in the indexÂ 
4. Update the mport list command to display more accurate data about packages that have expired, will expire, or are deleted/removed
5. Modify the mport info command to display information about package expiry etcÂ 
6. Modify the upgrade command (and possibly update) to make more intelligent decisions about package renames and possibly ask a question on upgrade/update/install paths about packages that are deprecated.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 29 Aug 2023
11:33 AM

MidnightBSD 3.1.0 release
MidnightBSD 3.1.0 has been released.Â  You can learn more about it in the release notes on githubÂ "https://github.com/MidnightBSD/src/releases/tag/3.1.0" (https://github.com/MidnightBSD/src/releases/tag/3.1.0) or the MidnightBSD website at "https://www.midnightbsd.org/notes/" (https://www.midnightbsd.org/notes/)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:36 AM

mport 2.4.4
MidnightBSD 3.1 includes mport 2.4.3
mport clean now removes temporary files that might get left behind by other operations
mport clean now removes left over /var/db/mport/infrastructure/* folders that might get left behind prior to a fix for mtree files last year. (mostly for older systems)
mport's internal rmtree functionality has been modified to use native C routines rather than executing rm -r as a system command. (Please report any issues with removing files in packages on delete with this) This is slightly faster with very large packages. (0.03 seconds or so)
mport list updates will now give you better information about why a package is not found in the index. If the package is listed in the MOVED file in mports repository, it will tell you if it's removed/expired or moved to another location.
Now that MOVED file contents are part of the index, we can start doing smarter updates in the future. The first package build to include this data is the latest amd64 3.1 build that is likely going to be used for the upcoming midnightbsd 3.1 release.
We've tagged 2.4.4 in git with additional improvements
- Adds mport config list to display all configured values
- Fixes a bug with non-interactive console messages when downloading a file. (Uses percent and cuts down on output)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:39 AM

Ravenports
MidnightBSD 3.1.0 now includes the keys and the install will bootstrap Ravenports.Â  This will create a /raven directory and allow you to install software using /raven/sbin/ravensw
Refer to the Ravenports website for more information on how to useÂ "http://www.ravenports.com/" (http://www.ravenports.com/)
Please note that we don't setup paths for /raven/bin, /raven/sbin, etc, automatically.Â  You'll need to do that to make it easier to run apps there.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 5 Sep 2023
8:36 PM

xfce 4.18 now in mports
We updated xfce desktop to 4.18 in mports.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 26 Oct 2023
3:56 PM

mports status
Packages for i386 and amd64 MidnightBSD 3.1 have been released this month.Â  We're currently trying to fix a number of vulnerable mports with updates and also add support for PHP 8.3.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 9 Jan 2024
1:51 PM

Project Status 2024
Here are our plans for 2024:
* 3.2 release - bug fix release with some base system third-party library updates. This is on track to be released in the next few months. TODO: decide if perl will migrate to ports. (likely)
* 4.0 work started - still planning what will be in this release Updating mesa and llvm ports (llvm 12 recently added)
* Migrate from svn to git to magus indexer. (done today) Find ways to cut costs month to month. (spending roughly $300 a month on server/cloud plus on prem infra including business internet connection)
* Determine what we want to do with portsnap. Love to know if you use it.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 12 Jan 2024
1:46 PM

perl is not correctly setting enabling man pages if a system uses mandoc. It kind of guesses if nroff is present. This causes many perl ports to not build man pages. Fixed in stable/3.1
We're now forcing man1dir/man3dir and man1ext/man3ext settings in build (missed)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

1:47 PM

mport package manager issue on 3.1.3 release
It seems that mport install doesn't work sometimes and gives no output.
Workaround:
mport download pkgname
/usr/libexec/mport.install /var/db/mport/downloads/pkgfilename.mport
where pkgname is something like gmake and pkgfilename.mport is something like gmake-3.8.1.mport

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 4 Feb 2024
4:42 PM

perl removed from base
We're in the process of migrating to perl in mports from base.Â  Perl went into midnightbsd many years ago (around 0.4 i think)Â 
There are a few reasons for the change but here are a few:
* Difficulty in updatingÂ 
* Delays between releases
* Security fixes are easier
* Less software requires Perl now than when we made the decision
The biggest downsides are with mports as a lot of it still uses Perl.Â  We're working on that.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 19 Mar 2024
2:37 PM

current focus
We're working on getting mports back in shape on 3.2-current.Â  At the moment, work is underway on the devel/llvm15 port so we can update mesa

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 28 Mar 2024
8:55 AM

Unbound CVEs
There's two security vulnerabilities in the base system unbound.
We've updated unbound to 1.19.1 in 3.2 CURRENT and 1.19.3 in mports.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 30 Mar 2024
10:11 AM

xz vulnerability
There is an xz vulnerability in 5.6.0 and 5.6.1 that was caused by a malicious payload added via a commit.Â Â "https://boehs.org/node/everything-i-know-about-the-xz-backdoor" (https://boehs.org/node/everything-i-know-about-the-xz-backdoor)
At this time, I am unaware of anything in libarchive that is considered dangerous as mentioned on that website.Â  MidnightBSD does not use the affected versions of xz in base. We have 5.2.9 right now.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:03 PM

mport 2.6.2
We just released mport 2.6.2; it fixes two bugs with mport list and mport list updates that would cause no output to display.
This has been imported into current and stable/3.1 branches

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 31 Mar 2024
3:06 PM

3.2 amd64 ISO snap available
I'm uploading a 3.2 amd64 snapshot to the primary FTP server for MidnightBSD

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 6 Apr 2024
12:02 AM

3.1.4 release pending
We've tagged 3.1.4 in git for the stable/3.1 branch and have an amd64 ISO on the FTP.Â  Still need to build i386.Â Â 
This includes updated timezone data and some major fixes to mport package manager.Â  There were a lot of issues in the 3.1.3 release of MidnightBSD with installing and using packages.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

12:10 AM

Update on xz
I've updated the xz version in 3.2-current to 5.4.x and avoided the known vulnerable releases. This aligns with recommendations from several sources.
As far as the calls to switch off xz for everything, that's unlikely in the short term. A lot of software distributed in mports uses tar.xz files. Further, package files generated by mport use it.Â  Early releases of mport used bzip2 but we migrated many years ago to tar.xz.Â  We're investigating the possibility of migrating to zstd and are working on updating libarchive to a newer release in base for this purpose.Â  It will likely not happen for the midnightbsd 3.2 release and will need to happen during a major release cycle.Â  (4.x? 3.3?)Â 
The long term risk is that xz isn't taken over or forked by a trustworthy source and CVEs start piling up.Â  The actual linux specific issues with 5.6.x are not a concern for BSD platforms aside from the real risk of something like this happening again.Â  (the supply chain attack piece is a danger)Â Â 
The harsh reality of open source is that there is a lot of code and it's difficult to review it all.Â  Companies have been bitten by issues like Amazon Music getting crypto mining node modules years ago or the recent attack on Notepad++ plugins.Â  It happens.Â  How we deal with it is what's important.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:11 PM

MidnightBSD 3.1.4 release
MidnightBSD 3.1.4 release
Fixes issues with mport and updates timezone data.
"https://github.com/MidnightBSD/src/releases/tag/3.1.4" (https://github.com/MidnightBSD/src/releases/tag/3.1.4)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 9 Apr 2024
11:55 AM

Unbound updated in stable/3.1 branch (will be part of 3.1.5)
I just updated unbound to 1.19.3 in the stable/3.1 branch.Â  This fixes a number of CVEs. Anyone using it on 3.1 should consider updating the base system or use the mports version.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 7 May 2024
10:53 AM

RavenPorts update
RavenPorts has done a big update with MidnightBSD packages. Highlights include: Xorg Server: 21.1.13 Mesa 24.0.6 Firefox 125.0.3 Thunderbird 115.9.0 LibreOffice 24.2.2.2 Gimp 28.10.38 LLVM 18.1.5 Rust 1.77.2 Go 1.22.2 There's also been a lot of progress on wayland support.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: