Category: freebsd

How FediMeteo uses HAProxy caching, static pages, and small FreeBSD jails to keep snac quiet and serve ActivityPub traffic efficiently.

A guide on how to set up LibreNMS inside a FreeBSD jail.

A personal reflection on my first encounter with FreeBSD in 2002, how it shaped the way I design and run systems, and why its philosophy, stability, and community still matter to me more than twenty years later.

A guide on how to set up Time Machine inside a FreeBSD jail.

Compare static web hosting performance on an Intel N150 using the same nginx.conf across FreeBSD jails, SmartOS zones, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Linux, focusing on HTTP vs HTTPS and TLS CPU usage.

A practical guide to boosting Mastodon performance by self-hosting your media with SeaweedFS. Configure a fast, S3-compatible storage backend to efficiently handle your instance's files and take full control of your data.

Which virtualization host performs better? I put FreeBSD and SmartOS in a head-to-head showdown. The performance of Jails, Zones, and bhyve VMs surprised me, forcing a second round of tests on different hardware to find the real winner.

Build a bulletproof backup server with FreeBSD, ZFS, and jails. Complete guide covering encryption, security hardening, and multiple backup strategies for enterprise-grade data protection.

A new article on running WordPress on FreeBSD with BastilleBSD has been published on the BSD Cafe Journal, plus a small update on future technical content.

A practical guide to installing FreeBSD on hosting providers that don't officially support it, using the powerful mfsBSD tool for rescue mode installations.

Announcing the public release of BSSG, a Bash Static Site Generator born from a personal journey away from complex dynamic CMS. Discover a simple, portable alternative for your blog.

The slides, the notes, and the text behind my presentation at OSDay 2025 in Florence, Italy - 'Why Choose to Use the BSDs in 2025.

How a simple idea turned into an international weather service on the Fediverse.

Using nginx to cache snac multimedia files to boost performance

A simple approach to prevent ZFS pools from getting stuck due to a lack of free space.

I share my experience migrating a client’s Windows BIOS VMs from Proxmox to FreeBSD/uefi, using bhyve and ZFS.

I share my experience migrating a client’s VMs from Proxmox to FreeBSD, using bhyve and ZFS.

The slides, the video, and the text behind my presentation at EuroBSDCon 2024 and BSDCan 2025 - Why and how we're migrating many of our servers from Linux to the BSDs.

A comprehensive guide on how to move a FreeBSD installation, including the operating system, from one host to another, with a focus on ZFS and bootloader configurations (UEFI and BIOS).

After revisiting my old Fediverse instances and helping friends set up new ones, I took the chance to update and evaluate several platforms. Here's my experience with Akkoma, GoToSocial, Mitra, Snac2, and Mastodon.

Learn how to build a self-hosted CDN using FreeBSD jails, Nginx, Varnish, WireGuard, and PowerDNS to improve media delivery for your website without relying on external providers.

Learn to automate ZFS snapshots using zfs-autobackup for effortless system protection and easy file recovery.

Explore the evolution of the BSD Cafe network setup using FreeBSD, showcasing how to leverage advanced routing techniques for improved scalability and security.

Monitor your services efficiently by installing Uptime-Kuma in a FreeBSD Jail.

Learn how to bridge networks across multiple VPS instances using Wireguard and VXLAN on FreeBSD, enabling secure and flexible service distribution.

A simple method to limit the priority of processes within a FreeBSD jail using the nice(1) command.

Experience a journey from Kubernetes to FreeBSD, achieving major cost savings and efficiency through real-world optimization.

ZFS checkpoints allow saving the entire state of a pool - including features and metadata - for reliable recovery. Here's how to use them on FreeBSD.

Learn how to block access from specific countries on your FreeBSD server using pf and ipdbtools to enhance security and manage traffic efficiently.

Comparative tests show FreeBSD's virtualization performance surpasses Proxmox, especially with NVMe drivers.

Learn how to create and use UFS snapshots on FreeBSD for reliable backups and system management, with practical examples using mksnap_ffs.

Many years ago, I needed to create some small servers using PCEngines Alix and had to choose the most suitable operating system. One of the...

As a systems administrator, I am deeply concerned about the consequences of the current widespread adoption of technologies like Docker. Having been...

Enhance your FreeBSD-based mail server by adding Nextcloud for webmail, contacts, calendars, and IMAP integration. A step-by-step guide to building a full-featured groupware solution.

Make your own E-Mail server - Part 1 - FreeBSD, OpenSMTPD, Rspamd and Dovecot included

I recently faced the task of moving an Alpine Linux-based VPS onto a FreeBSD host. I decided to use a jail.

How to Create a FreeBSD Jail Hosting XRDP and XFCE for Remote Desktop Access Introduction This tutorial guides you through the process of setting up...

A detailed walkthrough of migrating from FreeBSD VMs to a hierarchical jail setup using BastilleBSD, optimizing resource usage and simplifying management without sacrificing isolation.

Explore the seamless migration of an old Linux server (1690 days uptime!) to a new FreeBSD machine, detailing the use of mfsBSD, BastilleBSD, Borg Backup, and bhyve for improved efficiency and manageability

Set up your own secure VPN with FreeBSD, WireGuard, IPv6, and integrated ad-blocking using Unbound and Spamhaus. Get full control, enhanced privacy, and a performant solution.

In the world of FreeBSD, jails are a renowned feature that allows for system-level virtualization. As I was setting up the jails for BSDCafe, I...

While I love FreeBSD -based router solutions (OPNsense, PFsense, etc.), I also appreciate and use MikroTik devices and software. They produce and...

Part 3 of our migration series details the complex process of moving servers from Proxmox to FreeBSD, including overcoming challenges with old hardware, problematic LXC containers, and fine-tuning virtual machines for optimal performance on bhyve.

After Elon Musk’s Twitter deal , many users decided to “fly away” from the "traditional" commercial Social Networks . Some for good, some just...

Sometimes your filesystem gets stuck. No operations can be done and a “reboot” will just cause an indefinite waiting time for I/O. You could be able...

A comprehensive guide to installing Mastodon on a FreeBSD jail using BastilleBSD

Bhyve is great - and we’re using it with a lot of guest operating systems. One of my favourite Linux distributions is Alpine Linux - it’s great as a...

Caddy is a great web server. It is easier to configure than nginx and handles the SSL certificates requests and renewals so you don't need to mess...

Some details on how we're performing backups and disaster recovery of the migrated servers.

After my post on why we’re migrating (many of) our servers to FreeBSD , I’ve received a lot of feedback. Many questions, many comments. Many e-mails...

More about this in the article I wrote to accompany my talk at EuroBSDCon 2024 . Please note: This article was (unexpectedly) quite popular and many...

OVH (and Soyoustart, of course) network seem to be configured in a "strange" way and setting failover IPs isn’t always as straightforward as you...

I’ve been using Raspberry Pis since 2012, running both Linux and FreeBSD. A couple of Raspberry Pi 4 devices are running local services and are...

Watchdog devices are important to be sure our servers are working. Unfortunately, watchdog daemon seem to crash if enabled on Rasbperry PI. The...