the lesser known workhorse of the internet
Bas Bossink
2017-05-20

Introduction

FreeBSD?

Workhorse of the internet

What is FreeBSD?

  • a UNIX® like operating system
  • derived from BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution)
  • developed and maintained by a large community

History

By en:User:Toresbe [CC SA 1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sa/1.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

Genealogy

By Eraserhead1 CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL, via Wikimedia Commons

History FreeBSD

Copyright (C) 2010 Donjan Rodic
Copyright (C) 2016-2017 Fabio Loli
http://futurist.se/gldt/2010/09/20/bsd-timeline-up-for-grabs/
https://github.com/FabioLolix/BSD-timeline

License

By User:ZyMOS (Open Icon Library) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Small

Copyright 1992-2017 The FreeBSD Project. All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

  1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
  2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

The views and conclusions contained in the software and documentation are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing official policies, either expressed or implied, of the FreeBSD Project.

Simple

  • retain or reproduce the copyright notice
  • you can't sue us

Liberal

  • not required to give back
  • sharing still occurs

Community

Community lead

  • Democratic
  • Core team
  • Committers
  • Contributors

Conferences

  • BSDCan
  • AsiaBSDcon
  • EuroBSDcon
  • Cambridge Developer’s Summit

BSDnow.tv

FreeBSD Journal

BSD Magazine

Documentation

FreeBSD Documentation Project

man pages

  • extensive
  • good quality

Handbook

  • 742 pages
  • covers wide range of topics

Books

Features

Complete OS

  • BSD not a distribution
  • kernel and user land tools

Consistent

  • ABI stability
    • all binaries that run on 11.0 will run on 11.x
    • across major versions the ABI can be changed
  • easy administration
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

ZFS

By OpenZFS (http://open-zfs.org/OpenZFS%20Guidelines.pdf) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Dtrace

bhyve

  • Hypervisor

Jails

  • Operating system level virtualization
  • Since 2000

A modified port of OpenBSD's Packet Filter

  • firewall
  • traffic shaping

Linux emulation

Availability

Supported architectures

  • amd64, i386, ia64, pc98, powerpc, sparc64
  • ARM
    • Raspberry Pi 1&2
    • Beaglebone White & Black
    • Banana Pi, Cubieboard 1&2
  • ARM64
    • Rasberry Pi 3
  • MIPS
    • Ubiquity Networks Router-Station
  • MIPS64
    • Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite

Commercial support

Other peoples computers

Challenges

Hardware support

  • wireless
  • graphics
the somewhat known workhorse of the internet