Disk space solved – ZFS snapshots – DRAFT

Finally resolved the diminishing lack of free disk space for future FreeBSD updates. It seems that since version xx.x each upgrade as made a ZFS snapshot taking 1-3Gb each for each successive version. As the hardware has been running since 2017 that’s an awful lot of major and point revision snapshots.

DU and DF hid those successive snapshots and I was blaming my ever expanding OneDrive offline sync for taking excessive amounts of disk space even though I was convinced I had move the sync folder to the slave disk some time ago.

As I have never needed to roll back a ZFS snapshot I had never needed to explore what amount of space they took, or even how to display their usage, even less so how to delete them. Necessity being the mother of all invention, or least the need for a proper Google session I finally found the commands and confidence to delete 12 previous incarnations of FreeBSD and give me back the free disk I need to apply the next edition of FreeBSD.

Treadmill Bashing – What speed for what time

I usually know what time I am capable of running a 5km on the treadmill, but there seems to be no easy way to program the machines at the gym for that target. So here is my shortened pace calculator for guide km/h to head my target time.

5k10kKilometers Per HourMinutes Per Kilometers
00:37:3001:15:008.00kph07:30
00:35:1701:10:358.50kph07:04
00:33:2001:06:409.00kph06:40
00:31:3401:03:099.50kph06:19
00:30:0001:00:0010.00kph06:00
00:28:3400:57:0810.50kph05:43
00:27:1600:54:3211.00kph05:27
00:26:0500:52:1011.50kph05:13
00:25:0000:50:0012.00kph05:00
00:24:0000:48:0012.50kph04:48
00:23:0400:46:0913.00kph04:37
00:22:1300:44:2613.50kph04:26
00:21:2500:42:5114.00kph04:17
00:20:4100:41:2214.50kph04:08
00:20:0000:40:0015.00kph04:00
00:19:2100:38:4215.50kph03:52
00:18:4500:37:3016.00kph03:45
00:17:3800:35:1717.00kph03:32
00:16:4000:33:2018.00kph03:20
00:15:4700:31:3419.00kph03:10
00:14:5900:29:5920.00kph03:00
target time for 5k/10k and km/h speed required

Rebuilding server

updates are quite slow as found some new hardware to migrate the existing server onto, but work has been quite busy so finding the time to set aside an evening or two to migrate all the config over and rebuild is a challenge.

Rust 1.78 will not build

Free disk space continues to be an issue, I’ve deleted 50Gb of backups but df -h has yet to recognise the new free space. This would not be an issue apart from Rust and Cargo-c appear to want to use up all available free disk space.

I also noted a discrepancy between the Pkg Info command to re-port out of date packages/ports and those that postmaster -da then tried to build as being out of date.

If I manage to resolve these issues I will update this post.

Disk space usage troubles

Whilst trying to update some common ports I keep running out of disk space, causing the Database to halt and then the website to fail. Struggling to find out which package is consuming excessive disk space and fear I need to drop down to single user mode to run fsck (but meaning I need to find a VGA cable and suitable monitor to hook up to ) so seeing which packages consume the most and may be able to go, so run.

pkg info -sa | sort -hk2

Windows 10 – the final curtain

It might seem odd that at work we are still in the final throes of migrating users to the latest version of Windows 10 and killing off the handful of Windows 7 devices that invariably turn up as you shutdown legacy domains and SCCM servers, but attention has now rapidly turned to Windows 11 now that the final support date for all versions of Windows 10 has been confirmed as 14th October 2025.

With over 30,000 devices to migrate in 18 months I dare say my project managers will be having a few sleepless nights as they calculate how many devices per week they need to cycle thru Win10 onto Win11 so we are ready.

Bulk Emailers and Spoofing email

Recent industry changes by Apple, Google and Yahoo have meant many queries at work as we have ramped up our SPF, DMARC and DKIM settings to prevent spammers spoofing our domains.

In short, 3rd party suppliers that provide web services for us are no longer able to just spoof our domains and need to register their email servers on our DNS SPDF record as an authorised sender. Many question why they need to do this, when its worked for years and trying to point out that was was ok in 2014 is not okay now in 2024 if we want to stop the spoofers and spammers trying to snare our users that rely on our services.

NCSC provide a service to report phishing emails to them as report@phishing.gov.uk and tools to check how secure a domain is when you want to see how likely it is to be spoofed, ie sent pretending to be someone else, available here.

FreeBSD – Updating Ruby

The default version of Ruby has been bumped to 3.2, which is fine, but /UPDATING no longer includes the steps needed to bump your installed version.

No problem, just scroll down to see what the instructions were for the last revision bump. And then you hit a problem. All the Ruby port bumps refer you to the 2019 entry, which is fab , stepping thru instructions of how to move from 2.4 to 2.5. , however, UPDATING no longer goes all the way back to 2019. It’s been trimmed. A bit of googling and a found the unedited version of UPGRADING which helpfully had the instructions, which for ease I have pasted below and for even easier usage, have amended the instructions for moving between 3.1 and 3.2

20190420:
  AFFECTS: users of lang/ruby24
  AUTHOR: mfechner@FreeBSD.org

The default ruby version has been updated from 2.4 to 2.5.

If you compile your own ports you may keep 2.4 as the default version by adding the following lines to your /etc/make.conf file:

#
  # Keep ruby 2.4 as default version
  #
  DEFAULT_VERSIONS+=ruby=2.4

If you wish to update to the new default version, you need to first stop any software that uses ruby. Then, you will need to follow these steps, depending upon how you manage your system.

If you use pkgng, simply upgrade:
  # pkg upgrade

If you use portmaster, install new ruby, then rebuild all ports that depend on ruby:
  # portmaster -o lang/ruby25 lang/ruby24
  # portmaster -R -r ruby-2.5

If you use portupgrade, install new ruby, then rebuild all ports that depend on ruby:

# pkg delete -f ruby portupgrade
  # make -C /usr/ports/ports-mgmt/portupgrade install clean
  # pkg set -o lang/ruby24:lang/ruby25
  # portupgrade -x ruby-2.5.\* -fr lang/ruby25

and upgraded version is

20240306:
  AFFECTS: users of lang/ruby31
  AUTHOR: me!

The default ruby version has been updated from 3.1 to 3.2.

If you compile your own ports you may keep 3.1 as the default version by  adding the following lines to your /etc/make.conf file:


  DEFAULT_VERSIONS+=ruby=3.1

If you wish to update to the new default version, you need to first stop any software that uses ruby. Then, you will need to follow these steps, depending upon how you manage your system.

If you use pkgng, simply upgrade:
  # pkg upgrade

If you use portmaster, install new ruby, then rebuild all ports that depend on ruby:
  # portmaster -o lang/ruby32 lang/ruby31
  # portmaster -R -r ruby-3.2

If you use portupgrade, install new ruby, then rebuild all ports that depend on ruby:

# pkg delete -f ruby portupgrade
  # make -C /usr/ports/ports-mgmt/portupgrade install clean
  # pkg set -o lang/ruby31:lang/ruby32
  # portupgrade -x ruby-3.2.\* -fr lang/ruby32

USB leads – What version

Stumbled on this and maybe useful in the run up to Christmas to make sure you have the rights leads or plugs in order to use what ever presents Santa leaves under the tree. Almost all new phones are USB-C these days, and smaller devices and gadgets , but there will be some stuff lingering on with Micro-USB until they refresh the designs.

The one exception will be slightly older Apple phones (iPhone 14 or below) that use the Lighting Port (not shown)