One of the most fundamental yet little-known features of FreeBSD is its ability to be used in read-only mode very easily. By installing the system on a UFS file system, you just need to modify the fstab file, change "rw" to "ro," and reboot. On the next boot, the system will automatically create mount points in RAM for the main directories (/tmp, log, etc.), and it will run perfectly.
This was the main reason why, many years ago, I chose FreeBSD for almost all my embedded systems. Even today, on my Raspberry Pies, I keep the SD cards in read-only mode and use external storage in read-write mode. This ensures that, in case of an unexpected poweroff, the system will come back up, and there will be no wear on the memory card.
I've been meaning to do this for a while, and tonight I finally supported @mwl for his new book: Run Your Own Mail Server: A Book for Independence & Privacy
Every book I've read by mwl has gifted me with smiles, laughter, knowledge, awareness, and a desire to experiment.
Can't wait to dive into this new work!
2024-06-15: CfP closes (BSDCan closes on 2024-06-01)
2024-06-22: PC finalizes speaker selection
2024-06-31: Early Bird closes
2024-07-15: Schedule published
2024-09-19—22: EuroBSDCon 2024 in Dublin
I will refrain from looking up who decided that #FreeBSD needed to lose a magic comment line from every init script and config file but didn’t need etcupdate (or whatever we're calling mergemaster now) to understand that change as a no-op, because if I were to identify that person I would feel compelled to find them and extract my wasted time from the front end of their remaining lifespan.
The #CVE count of the #Linux#kernel is not looking good these days compared to any other #OS is it. Maybe time to switch to #FreeBSD or some other system which doesn't claim to find hundreds of significant vulnerabilities every day
@jhx Thanks. I have some older stuff here also which I use for #freebsd also. Jails to the rescue. Only Bhyve bites me every time booting so a separate debian box would be better.