Google Summer of Code Generic file system mounting project

Progress report of the generic file system mounting GSoC project. This project aims to remove the struct <fs>_args opaque container (the data argument in the mount(2) system call) so as to get a generic way to mount a file system whatever its type is.

[Read More] [0 comments]

 

XML tools update

My Google Summer of Code student, Nhat Minh Le, is working on a suite of simple, efficient, stream-oriented tools for processing XML on UNIX systems. Nhat Minh is making good progress on xmlgrep, a grep-alike program that understands XML syntax.

Read about Nhat Minh's progress on his blog.

Keep reading for my explanation of the niche where Nhat Minh's tools fit.

[Read More] [1 comment]

 

The recent outage of this blog

As you may be aware, this blog has been unexpectedly down 27 hours of the past 32 hours. We suspect this outage was due to a soft failure of the power supply but analysis of this problem is difficult and still ongoing.

Currently the blog is hosted in a different location than usual and does not have the benefit of the usual remote management infrastructure (nor is it in the care of the usual admins team, so there is no timezone diversity for its system management either).

The service will be moved to a TNF system in the near future (not as a reaction to the outage; the current housing is a stopgap measure fixing performance problems the blog experienced in its earlier incarnation until the new TNF owned system is deployed).

In the meantime please be patient should you experience any further outages.

[0 comments]

 

pkg_install update

The current version of pkg_install has been included in the latest NetBSD release branch. This post highlights some of the many changes and improvements made to pkg_install.

[Read More] [0 comments]

 

Google Summer of Code zfs-port project

Progress report of zfs-port Google Summer of Code project. This project aims to continue effort to port zfs file system to NetBSD. ZFS is a well known filesystem developed by Sun Microsystems, inc. for their Solaris operating system.

[Read More] [0 comments]

 

End of life for 3.x

In keeping with NetBSD's policy of supporting only the current (5.x) and next most recent (4.x) release branches, the release of 5.0 marks the end of life for the 3.x branches. We have provided an extra month of support for 3.x in order to give people time to migrate their machines to a newer release, and this one month period will be part of our support policy in the future.

The following branches will no longer be maintained:

• netbsd-3-0
• netbsd-3-1
• netbsd-3

This means:

• There will be no more pullups to the branches (even for security issues)
• There will be no security advisories made for any of the 3.x releases
• The existing 3.x releases on ftp.NetBSD.org will be moved into /pub/NetBSD-archive/

Here's hoping 5.0 serves you all as well (but preferably much better) as 3.0 did!

[0 comments]

 

BSDCan 2009: Kernel Development in Userspace - The Rump Approach

At BSDCan 2009 I gave a presentation about using rump for kernel development. The associated paper has two target audiences:

• regular users who wish to easily learn about how the kernel works without having to setup complex kernel development environments
• kernel developers who wish to learn how to use rump for kernel development and requesting more detailed information from users in problem reports

Downloads:

• paper
• slides

[0 comments]

 

pkgin, a tool to manage pkgsrc binary packages

From the day I began using NetBSD I felt that there was a need for a binary package manager. pkgsrc is great of course, I use it, love it and contribute to, but I'm not brave enough to build my entire environment with it. Of course the esteemed pkg_add(1) and pkg_delete(1) can handle binary packages installation, but when it comes to upgrades, binary packages manipulation is far from being straightforward.

[Read More] [0 comments]

 

netpgp

NetBSD-current has recently had a new addition - that of netpgp, a BSD-licensed library that can perform digital signature signing and verification, and also encryption and decryption of files. An email explaining netpgp was sent to the tech-security mailing list, but I thought I'd give a short summary of that email here...

[Read More] [0 comments]

 

Runnable Userspace Meta Programs in NetBSD 5.0

The rump (Runnable Userspace Meta Program) framework, unique to NetBSD, provides lightweight virtualization of kernel components such a file systems and networking. This short article explores the key ideas behind rump and gives examples on how to use rump on NetBSD 5.

[Read More] [0 comments]

 

Impromptu bugathon

Yesterday, prompted by the threat of reaching 5000 active bug reports several developers began fixing and closing.

As of this writing the count of active PRs has dropped from 4976 to 4893 -- that's 83 resolved -- and quite a few more have been placed in submitter feedback awaiting confirmation that they are in fact fixed.

This is a positive step, and a pretty big number for a single day that wasn't a previously scheduled bugathon. Unfortunately, to clear through the backlog we'd have to do this much every single day for two full months.

Despite all the cleanup work over the past year and a half, the database is still full of reports of already-fixed problems. These not only inflate the total counts; they get in the way and make it harder to find real problems to work on. Finding and closing them needs to be a group effort.

If you're a developer: when you fix a problem please include the PR number in the commit message so it gets pulled into the database; also, please close PRs that you fix, or leave a comment explaining what still needs to be done (e.g. pullups, real fixes vs. quick hacks, etc.)

If you're a user: if you have filed a bug report and it's been fixed, but the report is still open, please follow up to let us know it can be closed. And also, note that GNATS is particular about followups: they need to be sent to gnats-bugs AT netbsd.org (not gnats-admin) and the Subject: line needs to begin with "Re:" and the category and bug number in the form "port-eniac/12345". Other followups are likely to be dropped as spam, or may end up opening a new PR instead. In any event, if you send a followup and you don't get a copy back from GNATS, it probably got lost. If you can't figure out what's wrong, post to the netbsd-bugs mailing list.

And finally, if you are tired of the Gnats search interface you may find these lists helpful... but be aware that they often don't update very rapidly as there are manual steps involved.

[0 comments]

 

Bluetooth stack/sdp protocol update

NetBSD bluetooth stack was updated to properly support Service discovery protocol spec. SDP daemon sdpd(8) was rewritten to be much simpler, and finally updated the sdpquery(1) program to display complete service records in a meaningful manner.

[Read More] [0 comments]