LES BSD Thread!

AnthonySmith · October 14

Building a NetBSD template for TierHive because I found myself with a fairly free afternoon for a change.

AnthonySmith · October 14

@cmeerw said:
NetBSD may have found a new role: The AI-free FOSS OS

Good read; I should really visit the register more than I do.

Not_Oles · October 14

@AnthonySmith said:
Building a NetBSD template for TierHive because I found myself with a fairly free afternoon for a change.

I just checked the TierHive panel. The NetBSD template didn't yet seem to have arrived.

Please let us know when the NetBSD template becomes available so I can try it!

No rush, of course. Just really looking forward to trying the NetBSD TierHive template!

Thanks Ant!

Anagram · October 14

Has anyone tried out podman on FreeBSD? I am using https://daemonless.io/ containers. I moved some workloads over from Linux (docker).

Not_Oles · October 15

The releng.netbsd.org snapshot builds summary page looks kinda nice right now:

LowEndSpirit - VPS Hosting and tech forum

AnthonySmith · October 15

NetBSD 11.0 is now available on TierHive

Template runs with 128mb ram and 1GB disk:

pretty light weight:

london-netbsd-01# df -h
Filesystem     Size   Used  Avail %Cap Mounted on
/dev/ld0a      992M   411M   531M  44% /
kernfs         1.0K   1.0K     0B 100% /kern
ptyfs          1.0K   1.0K     0B 100% /dev/pts
procfs         4.0K   4.0K     0B 100% /proc
tmpfs           32M   4.0K    32M   1% /var/shm


load averages:  0.01,  0.02,  0.00;               up 0+00:03:31                                                                                                                                                                    16:19:56
11 processes: 10 sleeping, 1 on CPU
CPU states:  0.0% user,  0.0% nice,  0.3% system,  0.0% interrupt, 99.7% idle
Memory: 31M Act, 4980K Inact, 8652K Exec, 16M File, 21M Free
Swap: / Pools: 20M Used / Network: 1K In, 1K Out

  PID USERNAME PRI NICE   SIZE   RES STATE       TIME   WCPU    CPU COMMAND
  456 root      43    0    12M 2052K CPU         0:00  0.00%  0.00% top
    0 root     126    0     0K   16M pgdaemon    0:00  0.00%  0.00% [system]
 1122 root      85    0    24M 7804K poll        0:00  0.00%  0.00% sshd-session
 2426 root      85    0    24M 5568K poll        0:00  0.00%  0.00% sshd-session
  296 root      85    0    19M 3716K poll        0:00  0.00%  0.00% sshd
  448 root      85    0    12M 2108K wait        0:00  0.00%  0.00% sh
 2233 root      85    0    12M 1548K ttyraw      0:00  0.00%  0.00% getty
 2044 root      85    0    14M 1488K nanoslp     0:00  0.00%  0.00% cron
  734 root      85    0    20M 1468K kqueue      0:00  0.00%  0.00% syslogd
    1 root      85    0    12M 1388K wait        0:00  0.00%  0.00% init
 1268 root      85    0    12M  528K kqueue      0:00  0.00%  0.00% powerd

File system auto-resizes on first boot, which requires a reboot if you select anything over 1GB disk.

Cloud-init is installed, which means Python is also installed, so you can probably reclaim around 200MB if you want on the ultra light. I also stripped out the HW Firmware and shit it never needs on a VPS, like Wi-Fi, etc.

I am not terribly experienced with BSD to be fair so any feedback is welcome.

Enjoy!

Not_Oles · October 15

Thanks for adding NetBSD! That's great!

Maybe more people will try NetBSD now that it is easier to install.

Thanks again!

AnthonySmith · October 15

@Not_Oles said:
Thanks for adding NetBSD! That's great!

Maybe more people will try NetBSD now that it is easier to install.

Thanks again!

Cool, I will do Haiku next then

cmeerw · October 15

@AnthonySmith said:

@Not_Oles said:
Thanks for adding NetBSD! That's great!

Maybe more people will try NetBSD now that it is easier to install.

Thanks again!

Cool, I will do Haiku next then

Great. One thing to keep in mind there is that they currently still have the virtio block driver disabled in their default build: https://dev.haiku-os.org/ticket/18717

flips · October 15

Oh, BeOS reborn? Interesting.
Personally I'd also love to play around with both Gentoo and Void ...

Not_Oles · October 15

I can confirm that NetBSD new availability on TierHive seems to work from here!

NetBSD 11.0 (GENERIC) #0: Thu Jul 30 15:23:12 UTC 2026

Welcome to NetBSD!

We recommend that you create a non-root account and use su(1) for root access.
ams# date
Thu Oct 15 18:36:48 UTC 2026
ams# uptime
 6:36PM  up 6 mins, 1 user, load averages: 0.00, 0.04, 0.02
ams#

Creation was fast and easy from the TierHive Control Panel!

LowEndSpirit - VPS Hosting and tech forum

AnthonySmith · October 15

@flips said:
Oh, BeOS reborn? Interesting.
Personally I'd also love to play around with both Gentoo and Void ...

Have a look at action retro YouTube'z the guy absolutely loves Haiku and daily drives it.

AnthonySmith · October 16

I decided to overhaul the OpenBSD templates for TierHive as well and give them the same treatment, it was aparent that the existing ones had some bloat and kernel relinking was not reliable with only 256mb so I have split it in 2.

One template with kernel relinking disabled on boot (you can do it yourself if you want) and stripped to the bones so you can deploy with 128mb and the other less stripped with kernel relinking (debug excluded) that needs 384mb. I could not think of an ideal name, so went with minimal and KARL.

Both now also support disk resizing and password-only (if for some reason you want that instead of key-based)

Minimal:

load averages:  0.04,  0.03,  0.00                                                                                                                                                                   gravelines-openbsd-minimal-01 16:09:08
10 processes: 9 idle, 1 on processor                                                                                                                                                                                     up 0 days 00:02:34
CPU states:  0.0% user,  0.0% nice,  0.0% sys,  0.0% spin,  0.0% intr,  100% idle
Memory: Real: 11M/56M act/tot Free: 34M Cache: 4376K Swap: 0K/0K

  PID USERNAME PRI NICE  SIZE   RES STATE     WAIT      TIME    CPU COMMAND
85413 root       2    0 1888K 3692K sleep     kqread    0:00  0.00% sshd-session
34530 root       2    0 1592K 4136K idle      kqread    0:00  0.00% sshd-session
35854 root      28    0 2532K 4224K onproc    -         0:00  0.00% top
51623 root      18    0 1380K 1032K sleep     sigsusp   0:00  0.00% ksh
29219 root       3    0  796K 1336K idle      ttyin     0:00  0.00% getty
79390 _syslogd   2    0 1516K 1236K sleep     kqread    0:00  0.00% syslogd
76245 root       2    0 1012K  716K idle      sbwait    0:00  0.00% syslogd
52191 root       2    0 1092K 2644K idle      kqread    0:00  0.00% sshd
    1 root      10    0  952K  348K idle      wait      0:00  0.00% init
53645 root       2    0 1148K 1364K sleep     kqread    0:00  0.00% cron



Filesystem     Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/sd0a      1.9G    719M    1.1G    39%    /

KARL:

load averages:  0.07,  0.03,  0.00                                                                                                                                                                          london-openbsd-karl-01 16:06:11
10 processes: 9 idle, 1 on processor                                                                                                                                                                                     up 0 days 00:10:26
CPU states:  0.0% user,  0.0% nice,  0.2% sys,  0.0% spin,  0.2% intr, 99.6% idle
Memory: Real: 9772K/109M act/tot Free: 230M Cache: 17M Swap: 0K/0K

  PID USERNAME PRI NICE  SIZE   RES STATE     WAIT      TIME    CPU COMMAND
96071 root       2    0 1084K 1980K sleep     kqread    0:00  0.00% sshd
29487 root       2    0 1612K 3732K sleep     kqread    0:00  0.00% sshd-session
36854 root       2    0 1868K 3352K sleep     kqread    0:00  0.00% sshd-session
75724 _syslogd   2    0 1516K 1376K sleep     kqread    0:00  0.00% syslogd
75355 root      28    0 2524K 4216K onproc    -         0:00  0.00% top
 4921 root       2    0 1004K  752K idle      sbwait    0:00  0.00% syslogd
57361 root      18    0 1264K  868K sleep     sigsusp   0:00  0.00% ksh
14196 root       2    0 1136K  908K sleep     kqread    0:00  0.00% cron
71355 root       3    0  796K   24K idle      ttyin     0:00  0.00% getty
    1 root      10    0  952K  104K idle      wait      0:00  0.00% init



london-openbsd-karl-01# df -h
Filesystem     Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/sd0a      2.9G    1.4G    1.3G    52%    /

Hopefully a bit more usable for the BSD people! Again, feedback welcome; I am not a BSD expert, so I tend to apply or find a transferable Linux technique to everything.

angstrom · October 16

@angstrom said:

@cmeerw said:
And now we have NetBSD 10.2:

The blog entry appeared only yesterday (on 22 September):

https://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/netbsd_10_2_released

I plan to update soon!

I performed the big upgrade from 10.1 to 10.2 today (using sysupgrade), which succeeded well, as far as I can tell

Not_Oles · October 16

@angstrom Congrats!

cmeerw · October 20

OpenBSD 8.0

AnthonySmith · October 21

@cmeerw said:
OpenBSD 8.0

OpenBSD minimal (128MB ram) and KARL (384MB ram) templates released on TierHive now.

OpenBSD 8.0 (GENERIC.MP) #84: Tue Oct  6 23:13:49 MDT 2026

Welcome to OpenBSD: The proactively secure Unix-like operating system.

Please use the sendbug(1) utility to report bugs in the system.
Before reporting a bug, please try to reproduce it with the latest
version of the code.  With bug reports, please try to ensure that
enough information to reproduce the problem is enclosed, and if a
known fix for it exists, include that as well.

amsterdam-openbsd-minimal-01# df -h
Filesystem     Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/sd0a      1.9G    793M    1.1G    43%    /
amsterdam-openbsd-minimal-01# top -b -n1
load averages:  0.05,  0.05,  0.01    amsterdam-openbsd-minimal-01 20:35:19
10 processes: 9 idle, 1 on processor  up 0 days 00:04:04
1   CPUs:  4.9% user,  0.0% nice,  5.0% sys,  0.0% spin,  0.3% intr, 89.8% idle
Memory: Real: 9148K/51M act/tot Free: 39M Cache: 4360K Swap: 0K/0K

  PID USERNAME PRI NICE  SIZE   RES STATE     WAIT      TIME    CPU COMMAND
44981 root       2    0 2016K 3632K sleep     kqread    0:00  0.05% sshd-session
63446 root       2    0 1748K 4244K sleep     kqread    0:00  0.00% sshd-session
 4945 _syslogd   2    0 1456K 1336K sleep     kqread    0:00  0.00% syslogd
23906 root       3    0  788K 1384K idle      ttyin     0:00  0.00% getty
84463 root       2    0 1308K 2716K sleep     kqread    0:00  0.00% sshd
26802 root      18    0 1268K  904K sleep     sigsusp   0:00  0.00% ksh
    1 root      10    0  948K  372K idle      wait      0:00  0.00% init
81341 root      28    0  808K 1300K onproc    -         0:00  0.00% top
59379 root       2    0  784K  760K idle      sbwait    0:00  0.00% syslogd-parent
67025 root       2    0 1140K 1364K sleep     kqread    0:00  0.00% cron

As always, optimised for tierhive and all the extras cut out.

linveo · October 22

@cmeerw said:
And now we have NetBSD 10.2:

@linveo NetBSD 10.2 image

Added this one to the template rotation!

AnthonySmith · October 22

Updated freebsd 15.1 template added to TierHive massively reduced and improved, runs on 256mb ram and 1 GB disk now.

Will build the 14.5 tomorrow as I guess the previous version might be wanted too.

AnthonySmith · October 23

FreeBSD 14.5 now built and available.

As always stripped down to the (practical) bare bones, no extra crap eating your precious MB's of ram, tuned for TierHive and KVM.

FreeBSD 14.5-RELEASE-p2 (GENERIC) releng/14.5-n274894-872ce416b253

Welcome to FreeBSD!

Release Notes, Errata: https://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/
Security Advisories:   https://www.FreeBSD.org/security/
FreeBSD Handbook:      https://www.FreeBSD.org/handbook/
FreeBSD FAQ:           https://www.FreeBSD.org/faq/
Questions List:        https://www.FreeBSD.org/lists/questions/
FreeBSD Forums:        https://forums.FreeBSD.org/

Documents installed with the system are in the /usr/local/share/doc/freebsd/
directory, or can be installed later with:  pkg install en-freebsd-doc
For other languages, replace "en" with a language code like de or fr.

Show the version of FreeBSD installed:  freebsd-version ; uname -a
Please include that output and any error messages when posting questions.
Introduction to manual pages:  man man
FreeBSD directory layout:      man hier

To change this login announcement, see motd(5).

root@gravelines-freebsd-01:~ # df -h
Filesystem         Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/gpt/throot    1.9G    938M    885M    51%    /
devfs              1.0K      0B    1.0K     0%    /dev


  CPU[                                                                                                          0.0%] Tasks: 10, 0 thr, 16 kthr; 1 running
  Mem[|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||                                                                   42.3M/221M] Load average: 0.84 0.48 0.20 
  Swp[                                                                                                         0K/0K] Uptime: 00:01:40

  [Main]
  PID USER       PRI  NI  VIRT   RES S  CPU%▽MEM%   TIME+  Command
    1 root        11   0 12656  1180 S   0.0  0.5  0:00.00 /sbin/init
  445 root        11   0 15504  3984 S   0.0  1.8  0:00.00 /sbin/devd
  646 root        11   0 13896  2584 S   0.0  1.1  0:00.00 /usr/sbin/syslogd -ss
  716 root        11   0 13940  2524 S   0.0  1.1  0:00.00 /usr/sbin/cron -s
  746 root        28   0 23512  9036 S   0.0  4.0  0:00.01 sshd: /usr/sbin/sshd [listener] 0 of 10-100 startups
  760 root        70   0 13868  2268 S   0.0  1.0  0:00.00 /usr/libexec/getty Pc ttyv0
  761 root        34   0 24044  9872 S   0.0  4.4  0:00.03 sshd-session: root [priv]
  763 root        11   0 24044 10136 S   0.0  4.5  0:00.08 sshd-session: root@pts/0
  764 root        11   0 14404  3296 S   0.0  1.5  0:00.01 -sh
  767 root        11   0 18520  5792 R   0.0  2.6  0:00.03 htop

Not_Oles · October 23

Relative Disk Sizes Used by NetBSD, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD

From TierHive image sizes reported in this thread by @AnthonySmith.

NetBSD | Base = 411M (Including Cloud-init and Python)
> @AnthonySmith said:

london-netbsd-01# df -h
Filesystem     Size   Used  Avail %Cap Mounted on
/dev/ld0a      992M   411M   531M  44% /

As @AnthonySmith mentioned, "Cloud-init is installed, which means Python is also installed, so you can probably reclaim around 200MB if you want on the ultra light." Perhaps compare with @cmeerw's NetBSD Cloud Images, which are "kept small by re-implementing a cloud-init script in Lua instead of including the full cloud-init package."

OpenBSD Minimal | ~2 x Base
> @AnthonySmith said:

amsterdam-openbsd-minimal-01# df -h
Filesystem     Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/sd0a      1.9G    793M    1.1G    43%    /

FreeBSD | ~2.3 x Base
> @AnthonySmith said:

root@gravelines-freebsd-01:~ # df -h
Filesystem         Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/gpt/throot    1.9G    938M    885M    51%    /

OpenBSD KARL | ~3.5 x Base
> @AnthonySmith said:

london-openbsd-karl-01# df -h
Filesystem     Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/sd0a      2.9G    1.4G    1.3G    52%    /

AnthonySmith · October 24

@cmeerw said:

@AnthonySmith said:

@Not_Oles said:
Thanks for adding NetBSD! That's great!

Maybe more people will try NetBSD now that it is easier to install.

Thanks again!

Cool, I will do Haiku next then

Great. One thing to keep in mind there is that they currently still have the virtio block driver disabled in their default build: https://dev.haiku-os.org/ticket/18717

@flips said:
Oh, BeOS reborn? Interesting.
Personally I'd also love to play around with both Gentoo and Void ...

Sorry I know its not BSD but its done so thought I would update, more info in TierHive thread: https://lowendspirit.com/discussion/11337/tierhive-update-post-24th-october-2026-now-supporting-haiku-os#latest

LES BSD Thread!

Comments

Relative Disk Sizes Used by NetBSD, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD