Full buildworlds again, as there’s more commits that make it necessary. If you’re running 2.7, you should probably just plan on using buildworld, and not quickworld for rebuilding.
Category: Heads Up!
08/30/2010
Another recompile
System data structures have changed again, so make sure your next rebuild is a full buildworld/buildkernel if you’re running 2.7. There’s been a lot of changes to pull more and more out from under the Giant Lock.
08/28/2010
Minor software hiccup possible
happened to notice that recent libkinfo changes broke sysutils/estd. It’s fixed by rebuilding the program, though this may affect a few other packages. This only affects people running bleeding-edge DragonFly 2.7.
08/24/2010
HEADS UP: structure changes, pkgsrc changes
Two things:
- If you are running DragonFly 2.7, Matthew Dillon has made some kernel changes, so updating your 2.7 machine will require a full buildworld cycle, not quickworld.
- The binary packages for 2.6 and 2.7 have been updated to pkgsrc-2010Q2. This means that pkg_radd will automatically pull down newer packages, and you should make sure your /usr/pkgsrc is using the pkgsrc-2010Q2 release if you want to be sure there’s no version mismatches.
I recently sent out a description of what built for pkgsrc-2010Q2 , though the section on not changing the stable link is no longer true.
07/19/2010
HEADS UP: many changes from kqueue and LVM2
Matthew Dillon posted a warning about both Samuel Greear’s kqueue work and Alex Hornung’s LVM2 work. Both are now committed to DragonFly 2.7. These are dramatic (and useful!) changes, so some instability may happen for bleeding-edge users. His post does include some minor detail on what was touched.
07/14/2010
Oh look, it’s LVM2!
Alex Hornung has imported LVM2 from NetBSD, along with cryptsetup and dm. (Not dm(8), but devicemapper) LVM(8) stands for Logical Volume Management, and it makes storage management much easier; you may have encountered it on NetBSD or Linux. Those additional tools make it possible to encrypt volumes. Alex has published details on how to use it.
Also: Alex’s not-really-related-but-I -mistakenly-linked-to-it udev/libdevattr work.
07/06/2010
HEADS UP: ehci.ko is always there
EHCI support is now always on, for 2.7 users, and will be for 2.8 when released. It’s possible to turn it off if it causes a problem, but it should generally just mean better USB performance.
06/26/2010
pkgsrc git repo changes
Matthew Dillon set up a git copy of the pkgsrc repository some time ago. However, it’s had syncing problems, and there’s an ‘official’ pkgsrc git repository now which does not have the problems. You can still pull from the same place, but it’s the ‘master’ branch now. His heads-up message describes how to switch.
06/09/2010
Recompile again, plus multiprocessing details
Matthew Dillon’s made changes again that require a full world and kernel rebuild, if you’re following the bleeding edge. There’s also discussion of the underlying principles of the token-based multiprocessor work he’s planning.
06/06/2010
Structure changes means recompilation
If you’re running DragonFly 2.7, you will need to do a full rebuild on your next update. Matthew Dillon has made some changes because of his lwkt_token work. Making parts of DragonFly subsystems multi-processor safe should be much easier now.
05/17/2010
Old release users: update pkg_radd
I’m removing the links for the old (DragonFly 2.3 and older) pkg_radd paths on avalon.dragonflybsd.org. If you have one of those older systems, you can update one line in pkg_radd if it’s useful to you.
05/06/2010
There goes BIND
As previously foreshadowed, BIND has been removed from the DragonFly base system. Instead, it’s installed from pkgsrc. Note that this includes tools like nslookup or host. Instructions after the jump.
05/05/2010
3 things for pkgsrc
From my email to users@:
- I almost have pkgsrc-2010Q1 builds done for every architecture, so I’ll point the default load location for pkg_radd to them within the next 24 hours.
- Are you still using a DragonFly system older than 2.4 and downloading binaries? If so, tell me.
- A project: enhancing pkg_search and pkg_radd to be able to tell when a package is missing because of license restrictions. Anyone want to try it?
05/01/2010
Apache options change in pkgsrc
If you use Apache, as many people do, some of the default building choices have changed in pkgsrc. Read Matthias Scheler’s post for details.
04/19/2010
2.6.2, 2.7.2 created; please update
Matthew Dillon identified a possible data corruption bug in Hammer with a nearly-full filesystem. It’s dramatic enough he’s tagged 2.6.2 and 2.7.2 so that people can update; his message about it describes how to check for corruption.
03/23/2010
Snapshot and mirror changes
The naming convention for the daily snapshots of DragonFly has changed, to make the file names more readable. This may lead to some confusion as the mirrors settle, but it’ll pan out. If you run a mirror, double-check your downloads.
03/18/2010
Summer of Code 2010: DragonFly BSD
We’ve got a third year in Summer of Code!
The timeline shows about a week and a half for planning, and then student applications begin on the 29th of March, and run to April 9th.
If you want to participate as a student, start planning now by talking with people on IRC (#dragonflybsd on EFNet) or on the mailing lists. You cannot be over-prepared.
03/17/2010
No chlamydia; change your mirror
Simon ‘corecode’ Schubert’s host for DragonFly, chlamydia.fs.ei.tum.de, is down for good. Since it had excellent bandwidth, it was frequently used as the source for a lot of the DragonFly mirror sites out there.
If you were using it for your own mirror, switch to mirror-master.dragonflybsd.org, and tell Matthew Dillon at @dragonflybsd.org your contact info so you can be notified of changes. (If you’re not mirroring, please download from the nearest site that is.)
02/21/2010
Get ready for 2.6
The next release, 2.6, is scheduled for mid-March. Please make sure things are running well, as there’s a lot of new features already ready for this release.
02/09/2010
Outage Wednesday
Most of the dragonflybsd.org machines will be down for a short period Wednesday; this is for an upgrade that includes an SSD for the recent swapcache work. Everyone should notice a speedup, since while crater.dragonflybsd.org is getting the SSD/swapcache, a lot of crater’s directories are mounted on other machines via NFS.
02/05/2010
Cache-data-as-swap project started
Matthew Dillon is setting up DragonFly to be able to use a fast disk (like a SSD) for disk cache, reducing the effect swap has on speed. This means very large amounts of data could be read into memory – greater than the available RAM in the system – without having the normal paging out problems that happen when memory is exhausted. It’ll work for any filesystem on the machine – HAMMER, UFS, or NFS. His inital notes have more. Other notes include details on the NFS benefits, and possibilities with SSDs. Wear-leveling may make SSDs last much longer.
Work has started, and there’s an update (with examples) that people can try, though it may destroy all your data at this point. Test results in that update show, if I’m reading it right, a better than doubling of speed on a repeated md5 test on a large file when using the new caching system. This should be a huge benefit.
01/23/2010
Watch out on the bleeding edge with UFS
If you’re running DragonFly 2.5 and updated in the past week or so, and have UFS disks, there’s some instability introduced by Matthew Dillon’s recent work. It ought to be better by next week.
Users of Hammer, or of UFS only as /boot, don’t have anything to worry about.
01/06/2010
Hammer downgrade and upgrade bug
Thomas Nikolajsen experienced firsthand a bug where downgrading a Hammer PFS master to a slave and then later making it a master again lost all data. Lucky him… The problem’s now fixed.
01/02/2010
Update for spamassassin
This has been bouncing around other news outlets, but I’ll mention it here: There’s an out of data SpamAssassin rule that can potentially mark mail as spam because of the 2010 date. A mail to tech-pkg@netbsd.org describes the various fixes.
The step of ‘sa-update && /etc/rc.d/spamd restart’ seems to have fixed it for me. Incidentally, if you are using SpamAssassin, sa-update is a good tool to run on a regular basis.
12/28/2009
Multiprocessor work so far
Matthew Dillon is working on moving more of DragonFly out from under the Giant Lock. This may mean some instability this week if you’re following the bleeding-edge. He’s already posted a warning and an explanation (with numbers!) of work already completed.
12/15/2009
Time for a buildkernel
If you’re running DragonFly 2.5, Matthew Dillon has changed thread and process structures, meaning that a full rebuild of kernel and modules is necessary on the next system update.
11/16/2009
Default SSH change
SSH, on DragonFly, now defaults to allowing root logins, but does not allow plaintext password logins. This is on new installs only, so any existing installations won’t be affected, even after upgrades. Plaintext passwords are under constant brute-force attack for some years now, so this is probably safer.
10/28/2009
dragonflybsd.org downtime
dragonflybsd.org will be going down for work somewhere in the next two weeks. The package archive at avalon.dragonflybsd.org is located elsewhere, so pkg_radd and similar programs will still work.
10/01/2009
DragonFly 2.4.1 released
DragonFly 2.4.1 has been released; this is recommended for any users of 2.4.0, as there’s a lot of little bugfixes. (Check the tag list to see all the fixes.) Next time, we may make a release candidate first.
09/27/2009
2.4.1 in a few days
DragonFly 2.4.1 is slated for release this Wednesday, 2009-09-30. This will have fixes for the installer and 64-bit DragonFly, among other things.
09/16/2009
2.4 released
The 2.4 release of DragonFly is out. This is a major release, with a lot of new features packed in, so read the release notes carefully. There’s a 64-bit experimental version, too
By the way, please use a mirror. Avalon is a good one, as is chlamydia.
Updating steps I used after the cut.
09/15/2009
Release imminent
The 2.4 release has been branched, and the release ISO should be available Wednesday.
09/08/2009
Watch your step until 2.4
The 2.4 release looks to be about a week and a half away; if you’re a committer, please plan to make drastic changes after the release, if possible,
08/30/2009
Update libtiff if it’s 3.9.0
The libtiff package has been found to write out incorrect TIFF files in version 3.9.0. If that’s what is installed on your system, please update now.
08/24/2009
GCC 3.4, kerberos 5 removed from base
Simon ‘corecode’ Schubert has removed GCC 3.4 and Kerberos 5/Heimdal from the base system. Kerberos hasn’t been building as part of base for a while, and is available in pkgsrc. It was also the last item that requires GCC 3.4, so buildworlds are little quicker now. (Cross your fingers that GCC 4.2 the current version doesn’t break somehow.)
08/12/2009
GCC 4.4. and NO_GCC44
As Hasso Tepper pointed out, having GCC 4.4 in DragonFly is unique to DragonFly. Systems like pkgsrc don’t work due to the changes in headers and etc. between gcc 4.2 and 4.4, and since no other BSD uses gcc 4.4, the fixes would all have to come from DragonFly (and be backward compatible). This is unlikely to change in the near term, since this newer version of gcc is being refused due to the V3 GNU Public License, not a technical issue. It’ll stay in DragonFly for now.
However, you can specifically exclude it and speed up buildworlds with the new NO_GCC44 option. It’s also possible to use NO_GCC34 in make.conf to keep the old version of gcc from building, for those who don’t like to wait.
08/06/2009
DevFS and vinum do not get along
DevFS breaks vinum. Will it be fixed? Yes, hopefully very soon.
08/04/2009
DevFS arrives
DevFS has been added. There’s some issues, each with a workaround. Please test, as it’s certain that a major change like this will cause new problems around video and sound. Once those are fixed, however, device management will be a lot easier.
07/30/2009
DevFS this weekend
The DevFS Summer of Code project is going into DragonFly this weekend; be ready for surprises if you update. It’s not complete yet; there’s a few more weeks for Summer of Code, but there’s other work that this code will enable.
07/19/2009
PCI_MAP_FIXUP removed
The kernel option PCI_MAP_FIXUP has been removed as of July 11th; if you’re upgrading past that point, make sure to remove that option.
07/13/2009
MPSAFE work requires rebuilds
There’s going to be a lot of kernel structure changes this week, as Matthew Dillon works on making more system parts multiprocessor-safe. Rebuild everything including your kernel, if you’re running bleeding edge DragonFly.
05/30/2009
Subversion update
Subversion isn’t being used for DragonFly, but it is available via pkgsrc. If you’re one of the people using it, the pkgsrc version has been updated to 1.6.2 which may have some upgrading issues.
05/27/2009
2 separate bugs: threading, Xorg
Hasso Tepper has a “BIG FAT WARNING” about two new issues: threaded programs are broken on bleeding-edge DragonFly because of a possible GCC bug that was only recently exposed, and Xorg in pkgsrc has issues with the Intel driver.
Simon ‘corecode’ Schubert already has one change in that may fix the issue with threaded programs, and is working on the Intel driver issue.
Update: more threading changes.
05/11/2009
Extra rebuild needed
If you’re running bleeding-edge DragonFly, you’ll need to rebuild world and kernel after this recent change to interrupt counting from Sepherosa Ziehau.
05/04/2009
2.2.2 very soon
Yonetani Tomokazu discovered a permissions problem under Hammer, so Matthew Dillon made a number of commits to fix this and other issues. An update for 2.2 will get them for you, and DragonFly 2.2.2 will be put together very soon so that there’s a release image with these fixed.
04/07/2009
Major libc changes
Peter Avalos has made major changes to DragonFly’s libc; you can look at the commits page or check out his git repo for details. If you are running 2.3, you will need to do a full buildworld on your next update.
You may also need to rebuild pkgsrc packages; I’m build a new binary set for 2.3 now.
04/06/2009
A Summer of Code reminder: subscribe
If you’re a student with a Summer of Code application, make sure to subscribe to it. Doing this will ensure you are automatically notified of any mentor requests for more information.
There’s also some recent stats published by Google on the applications so far; DragonFly is one of the surveyed orgs it mentions, and the results are the same – less applications, better quality.
04/01/2009
GSoC: Applications almost due
If you’re a potential student for Google’s Summer of Code, please get your application in ASAP. All student applications are due by 19:00 UTC April 3rd. You can revise a submitted application, even after the April 3rd cutoff, but it has to be in.
03/23/2009
Summer of Code: students apply now
If you’re a student, you have from now until the 3rd of April to apply for a Summer of Code slot.
03/18/2009
Summer of Code 2009: we’re in!
DragonFly BSD is a participating organization in Google’s Summer of Code 2009. (See the lists of participating organizations at the Google site.)
I have an announcement message with more details on the mailing lists; the next important date is the 23rd, when students can apply. If you’re a student, start putting your proposal together and talking with others. If you can mentor, sign yourself up on the Google site and request a mentoring spot.
03/10/2009
Less BGL in the network
Big news: Sepherosa Ziehau has managed to remove the Big Giant Lock from the ip and bridge forwarding path. This includes ipfw, though not yet pf. It is in fact possible to make the whole TCP/UDP code path BGL-free. Sepeherosa helpfully posted some benchmarks to show just how significant the improvements can be.
03/08/2009
Old wiki is now read-only
wiki.dragonflybsd.org has been set to be read-only, since the content has been moved to www.dragonflybsd.org. The site hasn’t been turned off yet, because I may have missed something in the move…
03/04/2009
iwi(4) update
The iwi(4) firmware has been updated, and there’s an announcement that tells you where to find it.
03/03/2009
Note SoC interest now!
If you are interested in the Google Summer of Code project, as a student, a mentor, or just want to suggest a project, write that down:
http://www.dragonflybsd.org/gsoc2009/
The application period starts for DragonFly (for the organization, not students) in a week, and it’ll help to see who wants to get in on the action.
03/02/2009
Attention source mirrors
Simon ‘corecode’ Schubert has some tips on how to mirror the git repo for DragonFly more exactly; there’s an additional command that can clean up spurious branches.
02/26/2009
em(4) updated; adds a module
Sepherosa Ziehau has updated em(4) to version 6.9.6, with some interesting improvements. It does possible require loading a module now. He also has more patches to test.
02/14/2009
telnetd vulnerability fixed
A vulnerability in telnetd code common to FreeBSD and DragonFly was just discovered; it’s been fixed in DragonFly using code from NetBSD in 1995, strangely enough. (via #dragonflybsd on EFNet)
02/03/2009
Feature Freeze is here
As Simon ‘corecode’ Schubert notes, DragonFly is now in a ‘Feature Freeze’ for two weeks. Please work on bug fixes in the intervening timeframe, and push them to the ‘master’ branch. Changes for the release will be pushed to the 2.2 release branch. Matthew Dillon has more details.
12/28/2008
DHCP changes
The ISC DHCP package in pkgsrc is changing as it moves from 4.0 to 4.1; the package names will be different, as will the rc flags. Keep an eye out for this if you use it for your internal network. (This may affect our install CD, too.)
12/02/2008
Size change means buildworld
Simon ‘corecode’ Schubert warns that a recent change in the size of struct thread is going to require a buildworld; this only affects people running DragonFly 2.1.
11/12/2008
Matthew Dillon noticed that it is possible to have files on a Hammer volume marked ‘nohistory’ even when the volume they are on is retaining history details. He’s fixed the cause, and it will be in 2.0.1 soon. Check for this if you have a Hammer-based /usr/obj.
09/29/2008
2.0.1 is out
Somehow I missed this commit, but DragonFly 2.0.1 is out, with many changes to Hammer and other miscellaneous updates.
09/14/2008
2.0.1 this Wednesday
DragonFly 2.0.1 is going to be rolled this Wednesday, so if there’s anything you need in there, speak up.
09/01/2008
HEADS UP: the kernel moved
As Matthew Dillon writes in a post to kernel@: “The kernel & modules are now being installed in /boot/kernel and /boot/modules instead of /kernel and /modules.”
This means do a full buildworld and installworld if you are using bleeding edge code; this is to clean up the correct files.
HEADS UP: intr_mpsafe is enabled
Sepherosa Ziehau has enabled intr_mpsafe for bleeding edge code; see his warning if this causes issues for you. Another step closer to removing the big lock from networking…
07/21/2008
2.0 released
Read and go! Please use a mirror if possible. If you’re feeling torrentish, Christian Sturm has a BitTorrent link.
07/20/2008
Release slightly delayed for mirrors
Do you run a mirror? Make sure you’re downloading the 2.0 release ISO. The release won’t officially happen until there’s enough ISOs floating around for people to actually reach it.
07/18/2008
Last chance for commits
If you want to commit something for 2.0, do it now!
If you are so inclined, test 2.0 building with a ‘cd /usr/src/nrelease; make installer release‘
07/16/2008
Happy 5th birthday, DragonFly
It’s been 5 years since Matthew Dillon announced DragonFly. Happy 5th birthday, us!
07/14/2008
2.0 is branched – one week countdown!
2.0 is going to be released on the 20th. If you’re committing, make sure to put it both in the 2.0 and 2.1 branches, please. And get it in quickly! If you’ve contributed changes to this release, please get them listed in the 2.0 release document that Matthias Schmidt has been conscientiously updating.
07/13/2008
2.0 on 20
The 2.0 release of DragonFly will be on the 20th of this month. I’ll be working on a new set of pkgsrc packages to match.
07/07/2008
MPLS support added
Nuno Antunes has added experimental MPLS over Ethernet support. Note that this will require a complete rebuild if you are running bleeding-edge code.
06/07/2008
HAMMER speedup and a warning
A recent commit from Matthew Dillon improves HAMMER’s write performance, but introduces some potential stability problems. They should be solved in the next few days.
06/01/2008
New calls require rebuild
Matthew Dillon’s new statvfs() calls in the kernel require a full build/install process for world and kernel, if you are running bleeding edge code.
04/22/2008
DragonFly 1.12.2 is out
The 1.12.2 release is out; check the download page and the errata page for details on the changes that went into this minor release.
04/06/2008
Fairq finds futher features
Matthew Dillon had another patch for his fairq code, adding changed prompted by Max Laier’s suggestion of WFQ, along with other ideas. There is one outstanding issue, however. The code causes an ABI change, so take extra steps if you aren’t doing a full buildworld/buildkernel.
03/25/2008
dragonflybsd.org network hiccups
The upstream network provider for dragonflybsd.org is going through some changes, so there may be occasional downtime for some weeks.
03/17/2008
Google Summer of Code – we’re in!
I’ll link to my mailing list post about it, as I’ve already summarized there. Student signup is the 24-31st of March, so start getting it together if you want to be involved as a student or mentor!
p.s. Yay!