Two weeks ago, I was at EuroBSDcon and received a feature request for syslog-ng. The user wanted to collect FreeBSD audit logs together with other logs using syslog-ng. Writing a native driver in C is time consuming. However, creating an integration based on the program() source of syslog-ng is not that difficult. This blog shows you the current state of the FreeBSD audit source, how it works, and its limitations. It is also a request for feedback.

EuroBSDCon was fantastic, as always :-) I talked to many interesting people during the four days about sudo and syslog-ng, and of course also about many other topics. I gave a sudo tutorial, and it went well, with some “students” already planning which features to implement at home. There were many good talks, including one from Dr. Marshall Kirk McKusick, who was with the FreeBSD project right from the beginning, and worked on BSD even earlier.

Last week One Identity released version 4.8.0 of its open-source log management application. Learn about some of the new features and bug fixes: why upgrade to the latest syslog-ng version, not only on FreeBSD :-) Read more at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/version-4-8-0-of-syslog-ng-improves-freebsd-and-macos-support syslog-ng logo

Unless there is a serious problem, FreeBSD ports usually contains the latest stable syslog-ng release. However, sometimes people want to compile a git snapshot to test a new feature or bugfix. To do that, one way is to generate a syslog-ng release tgz on FreeBSD and edit the syslog-ng port files yourself. However, this needs some practice. As such, an easier solution is to use my weekly development snapshots. Learn how from my latest blog at: https://www.

Version 4.0.1 of syslog-ng was released a month ago. Unfortunately, the new release does not compile on FreeBSD. It was a temporary problem in the environment generating the source tgz. The next release is still almost a month away, but you can compile syslog-ng 4.0.1 yourself from my unofficial ports Makefile. Learn how from my latest blog at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/installing-syslog-ng-4-0-1-on-freebsd syslog-ng logo

Last weekend I was in Vienna for EuroBSDcon, an event where BSD users are gathering from Europe (and all around the world). And while you could follow the event online, to me, the greatest value of the conference was not in the talks themselves (not to lessen their value of course, as they were fantastic) but rather in meeting people during the hallway session. The line-up consisted of sudo and syslog-ng users, BSD users and developers, and even some people from history books :-)

Recently, I have posted blogs and articles about three operating systems (or rather OS families) I use, and now people ask which one is my “true” love. It’s not easy, but I guess, the best way to describe it is that both FreeBSD and openSUSE are true ones, and Fedora & Co. is a workplace affair :-) This is why I’m writing that it is a polyamorous relationship. Let me explain!

If you are a longtime FreeBSD user, you probably know everything I have to say, and, what’s more, you can probably add a few more points. But hopefully, there will be some Linux or even Windows users among readers who might learn something new! FreeBSD is not just a kernel but a complete operating system. It has everything to boot and use the system: networking utilities, text editors, development tools and more.

I wish I had BastilleBSD twenty years ago. I had a part-time sysadmin job - running web servers. PHP started to become popular by the turn of the century. Using jails on FreeBSD seemed to be a safe environment to run PHP-enabled web servers. However, there were no tools yet to work with jails. I had to write many scripts to build and update jails. A bit of history At first, I had a single server.

Why? Last week, when the latest version of Bastille, a jail (container) management system for FreeBSD was released, it also included experimental Linux support. Its author needed Ubuntu, so that was implemented. I prefer openSUSE, so with some ugly hacks I could get openSUSE up and running in Bastille. I was asked to document it in a blog. This topic does not fit the sudo or syslog-ng blogs, where I regularly contribute.