Free LES Community Server from Hosteroid via MetalVPS!

Not_Oles · July 23

I went to check the httpd setting in /etc/rc.conf before running sysmerge and was surprised to find that httpd already had been set to NO. I had been imagining that this change happened with sysmerge. But apparently the change happens earlier.

So what I did was follow the advice at the top of /etc/rc.conf to make rc.conf.local. Thus, we now have in /etc:

hlcs# ls -l rc.conf*
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  3237 Jul 23 07:18 rc.conf
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    15 Jul 23 16:02 rc.conf.local
hlcs# cat rc.conf.local
httpd_flags=""
hlcs#

Next, I ran sysmerge and refreshed the devices.

hlcs# sysmerge
===> Updating /etc/login.conf
hlcs# cd /dev 
hlcs# /dev/MAKEDEV all     
hlcs#

Now hoping to see what sysmerge changed in login.conf before rebooting. . . .

Not_Oles · July 23

Here's the story on the change to login.conf by sysmerge. The change seems reminiscent of an issue we hit earlier in this thread.

hlcs# cd /var/sysmerge
hlcs# ls
backups   backups.0 backups.1 backups.2 backups.3 etc.tgz   etcsum    xetc.tgz  xetcsum
hlcs# ls -l
total 648
drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel     512 Jul 23 15:53 backups
drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel     512 Jul  4 20:44 backups.0
drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel     512 Jul  1 21:28 backups.1
drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel     512 Jun 19 04:14 backups.2
drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel     512 May 29 12:40 backups.3
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  282252 Jul 23 07:18 etc.tgz
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    7602 Jul 23 07:18 etcsum
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    8408 Jul 10 00:07 xetc.tgz
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    4336 Jul 10 00:07 xetcsum
hlcs# cd backups                                                                        
hlcs# ls
etc
hlcs# cd etc/                                                                           
hlcs# ls
login.conf
hlcs# ls -l
total 8
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  2817 May 29 12:40 login.conf 
hlcs# diff login.conf /etc/login.conf                                                   
1c1
< # $OpenBSD: login.conf,v 1.26 2025/02/28 20:21:07 sthen Exp $
---
> # $OpenBSD: login.conf,v 1.27 2025/07/17 14:44:42 landry Exp $
102c102
<       :datasize-cur=8192M:\
---
>       :datasize-cur=12G:\
hlcs#

It seems okay to reboot, so

hlcs# reboot
Connection to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx closed by remote host.
Connection to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx closed.
chronos@penguin:~/servers/hosteroid$ sleep 60
chronos@penguin:~/servers/hosteroid$ ssh [email protected] 
Last login: Wed Jul 23 15:47:39 2025 from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
OpenBSD 7.7-current (GENERIC.MP) #3: Wed Jul 23 04:36:50 UTC 2025

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

  [ . . . ]

hlcs# date
Wed Jul 23 16:31:59 UTC 2025
hlcs# uptime
 4:32PM  up 3 mins, 1 user, load averages: 0.05, 0.06, 0.02
hlcs# ls -l /bin | head
total 22704
-r-xr-xr-x  2 root  bin  154064 Jul 23 07:16 [
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  bin  158128 Jul 23 07:16 cat
-r-xr-xr-x  3 root  bin  268864 Jul 23 07:16 chgrp
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  bin  178608 Jul 23 07:16 chio
-r-xr-xr-x  3 root  bin  268864 Jul 23 07:16 chmod
-r-xr-xr-x  5 root  bin  215480 Jul 23 07:16 cksum
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  bin  186984 Jul 23 07:16 cp
-r-xr-xr-x  3 root  bin  457480 Jul 23 07:16 cpio
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  bin  441080 Jul 23 07:16 csh
hlcs#

Last, but not least, I can see https://hlcs.cmeerw.net/europe/ ! Yaaay!!!

Thanks to @Hosteroid for our lovely LES Community Server! Thanks to @cmeerw for awesome help!

Anybody else want to join @cmeerw and @Not_Oles (me)? It's free! Please check "How To Apply" in the OP. Thanks again!

cmeerw · July 23

@Not_Oles said: So what I did was follow the advice at the top of /etc/rc.conf to make rc.conf.local.

Good point - completely missed that!

ExAjiMag · July 23

hi @Not_Oles
long time no see
btw how are you, are you fine?

Not_Oles · July 23

Hi @ExAjiMag! All good here! How are you?

ExAjiMag · July 24

@Not_Oles said:
Hi @ExAjiMag! All good here! How are you?

i'm fine

Not_Oles · July 24

@ExAjiMag What have you been doing recently?

ExAjiMag · July 24

@Not_Oles said:
@ExAjiMag What have you been doing recently?

managing my proxmox

Not_Oles · July 25

Sounds good! Hope you have a good time with Proxmox!

Not_Oles · July 25

@cmeerw @ExAjiMag

Hope you both are doing great!

I updated the sources and have been following the build steps at https://lowendspirit.com/discussion/comment/216000/#Comment_216000.

We already rebooted and seem to be running on a new kernel.

The userland build now is proceeding in a tmux session. @cmeerw If you want to or need to, please feel free to hop into the tmux session. Otherwise I will continue tomorrow.

BTW, I came from a different IP tonight.

I'm now going to sleep with @cmeerw's map of Europe in my mind. Yes, the map is still being served after the reboot.

Thanks to @Hosteroid for our lovely server!

Best!

Tom

Not_Oles · July 25

Good morning!

hlcs# date
Fri Jul 25 15:17:42 UTC 2025
hlcs# sysmerge
hlcs# cd /dev
hlcs# ./MAKEDEV all                                                                     
hlcs# reboot

OpenBSD 7.7-current (GENERIC.MP) #4: Fri Jul 25 04:33:47 UTC 2025

hlcs# date
Fri Jul 25 15:20:51 UTC 2025
hlcs# uptime
 3:20PM  53 secs, 1 user, load averages: 0.18, 0.06, 0.02
hlcs#

So here we have our fine Hosteroid Low End Spirit Free Community Server ("hlcs"). Thanks so much to @Hosteroid for the donation!

It would be great if a few more LESbianz wanted to join @cmeerw and me! Please review the How To Apply section of the OP!

ExAjiMag · July 27

@Not_Oles said:
Sounds good! Hope you have a good time with Proxmox!

hosting free vps on discord (node is mine, but not my hosting)

Not_Oles · July 27

We ought to make a new thread for this, I guess?

What's the difference between the VPSes with 3 digit numbers and the VPSes with 8 digit numbers?

How come so many VPSes and only 2% CPU usage?

ExAjiMag · July 27

@Not_Oles said: What's the difference between the VPSes with 3 digit numbers and the VPSes with 8 digit numbers?

3 digits is proxmox and 8 digits is convoy

ExAjiMag · July 27

@Not_Oles said: We ought to make a new thread for this, I guess?

maybe

Not_Oles · July 28

@ExAjiMag said:

@Not_Oles said: What's the difference between the VPSes with 3 digit numbers and the VPSes with 8 digit numbers?

3 digits is proxmox and 8 digits is convoy

TIL https://github.com/ConvoyPanel/panel

@ExAjiMag said:

@Not_Oles said: We ought to make a new thread for this, I guess?

maybe

Okay, if you want to talk more, that's great. How about if you please start the new thread with a link to this post? Thanks!

Not_Oles · July 30

@cmeerw root is running make -j 4 build now in /usr/src inside tmux.

Tom is going to be sleeping. Zzzzz!

Thanks to @Hosteroid for better sleep because of not worrying about the nice server's reliability!

Anybody want to join @cmeerw and me on OpenBSD-current? Love to have you!

Not_Oles · July 30

Looks like the build successfully completed while I was sleeping!

  [ . . . ]
chown root:wheel /tmp/_etcdir.aHDVzOa8xF/var/sysmerge/etc.tgz
chmod 644 /tmp/_etcdir.aHDVzOa8xF/var/sysmerge/etc.tgz
hlcs#

Later today I will try running sysmerge and MAKEDEV and rebooting.

Not_Oles · July 30

OpenBSD 7.7-current (GENERIC.MP) #5: Wed Jul 30 03:38:31 UTC 2025

  [ . . . ]

hlcs# date
Wed Jul 30 18:19:11 UTC 2025
hlcs# uptime
 6:19PM  up 2 mins, 1 user, load averages: 0.13, 0.08, 0.03
hlcs# ps aux | grep httpd | grep -v grep
root     21801  0.0  0.0  2112  2640 ??  Ip      6:17PM    0:00.01 /usr/sbin/httpd
www      43324  0.0  0.0  1832  4496 ??  Ipc     6:17PM    0:00.01 httpd: server (httpd)
www      76877  0.0  0.0  1820  4472 ??  Ipc     6:17PM    0:00.01 httpd: server (httpd)
www      46957  0.0  0.0  1808  4472 ??  Ipc     6:17PM    0:00.01 httpd: server (httpd)
www      54637  0.0  0.0  1696  3104 ??  Ipc     6:17PM    0:00.01 httpd: logger (httpd)
hlcs#

How do you guys write the grep command in a shorter way, but with the same result? In other words, how do you get rid of the first call to grep showing in the output without needing to call grep a second time?

@cmeerw I'm thinking to clean up a little, get rid of etc-revert if it's still there, some extra backups in /etc/ssh/ and so on. Maybe something I might have dumped in the root directory. I will go ahead with this in a day or two, unless you ask me to wait.

Thanks to @Hosteroid!

Anybody else want to hop on? Please check the How To Apply section in the OP.

Maybe there might be an OpenBSD developer who would want to join @cmeerw and me here?

cmeerw · July 30

@Not_Oles said: How do you guys write the grep command in a shorter way, but with the same result? In other words, how do you get rid of the first call to grep showing in the output without needing to call grep a second time?

I don't, I just ignore it myself - I am not sure there is a way other than using a script, shell function, or alias to do that.

@cmeerw I'm thinking to clean up a little, get rid of etc-revert if it's still there, some extra backups in /etc/ssh/ and so on. Maybe something I might have dumped in the root directory. I will go ahead with this in a day or two, unless you ask me to wait.

Sure, go ahead whenever you have time.

Not_Oles · July 30

hlcs# ps aux | grep http[d]
root     21801  0.0  0.0  2112  2640 ??  Ip      6:17PM    0:00.01 /usr/sbin/httpd
www      43324  0.0  0.0  4944  8040 ??  Ipc     6:17PM    0:00.20 httpd: server (httpd)
www      76877  0.0  0.0  4964  8056 ??  Ipc     6:17PM    0:00.13 httpd: server (httpd)
www      46957  0.0  0.0  4576  7664 ??  Ipc     6:17PM    0:00.14 httpd: server (httpd)
www      54637  0.0  0.0  1696  3216 ??  Ipc     6:17PM    0:00.01 httpd: logger (httpd)
hlcs#

"Using a small trick can filter out the grep command itself: ps -ef | grep fo[o]. Look at the last symbol, instead of simple "o", we are using "[o]", which is considered a regular expression. This way the "grep foo" is not included in the results."
Nikolay Ivanov Commented Jan 25, 2022 at 13:46

In the daze of yore I seem to remember seeing a solution on . . . was it comp.os.unix? I seem to remember the guy who posted being called a genius. But sadly, I don't remember the solution. I failed to find it on Google's Usenet archive.

Not_Oles · August 4

Thanks to @Hosteroid for this nice server! Thanks to @cmeerw for lots of sysadmin and other help!

Does anybody else want to hop on? Please read "How To Apply" in the OP.

I haven't yet gone ahead and mentioned the availability of this server to any of the OpenBSD developers. I guess, if one or more of the OpenBSD developers wanted to join LES and hop aboard, that might be okay.

If nobody comments, I will go ahead and ask.

Thanks everyone!

Not_Oles · August 5

@Not_Oles said: I haven't yet gone ahead and mentioned the availability of this server to any of the OpenBSD developers. I guess, if one or more of the OpenBSD developers wanted to join LES and hop aboard, that might be okay.

Perhaps FreeBSD attracts many people, OpenBSD less, and NetBSD least of the three.

I'm not at all an expert, but, to me, NetBSD seems to offer simplicity, versatility, and a polite and welcoming community.

@cmeerw Does it seem too crazy to change hlcs to NetBSD and, if not many people here want to jump on, ask NetBSD people to join both LES and you and me on hlcs?

Would anyone here at LES want to join @cmeerw and me on hlcs if we reinstalled hlcs with some other OS? We have tried Debian and we have tried OpenBSD. Maybe there is another OS that would be magic? If we could get even two or three more people. . . .

Since hlcs is wide open inside, I prefer not to change the requirements from the How To Apply section of the OP.

"Every so often I think about random things, and today's random thing was how our environment might look if it was rebuilt from scratch as a modern style greenfield development. One of the obvious assumptions is that it'd involve a lot of use of containers, which led me to wondering how you handle traditional Unix style login servers. This is a relevant issue for us because we have such traditional login servers and somewhat to our surprise, they still see plenty of use." -- Chris Siebenmann, please see also https://lobste.rs/s/ktd0ss/people_still_use_our_old_fashioned_unix

Thanks to Hosteroid for our nice LES community server! Really! Thanks also to @cmeerw for helping so much!

cmeerw · August 5

@Not_Oles said: @cmeerw Does it seem too crazy to change hlcs to NetBSD and, if not many people here want to jump on, ask NetBSD people to join both LES and you and me on hlcs?

The only thing here is that I wasn't successful when I tried NetBSD on hlcs. But we can certainly try again.

Not_Oles · August 6

@cmeerw said:

@Not_Oles said: @cmeerw Does it seem too crazy to change hlcs to NetBSD and, if not many people here want to jump on, ask NetBSD people to join both LES and you and me on hlcs?

The only thing here is that I wasn't successful when I tried NetBSD on hlcs. But we can certainly try again.

Thanks @cmeerw!

Oh, yeah, I had forgotten, but now I reviewed https://lowendspirit.com/discussion/comment/214223/#Comment_214223.

What about just reinstalling NetBSD across the entire disk?

We still could go back to Debian or or OpenBSD or whatever else any time by wiping the NetBSD install.

Or maybe you know of another approach you want to try? Whatever you want is fine with me. Of I could try the NetBSD install if that's your preference. If you want to do it, okay to go ahead any time, without further notice.

Thanks to @Hosteroid for our nice LES Community Server! Which might be about to get NetBSD!

cmeerw · August 6

@Not_Oles said:

@cmeerw said:

@Not_Oles said: @cmeerw Does it seem too crazy to change hlcs to NetBSD and, if not many people here want to jump on, ask NetBSD people to join both LES and you and me on hlcs?

The only thing here is that I wasn't successful when I tried NetBSD on hlcs. But we can certainly try again.

Thanks @cmeerw!

Oh, yeah, I had forgotten, but now I reviewed https://lowendspirit.com/discussion/comment/214223/#Comment_214223.

What about just reinstalling NetBSD across the entire disk?

I can try again in the next few days to see if I have more luck this time.

Not_Oles · August 6

Whenever you have time, no rush!

cmeerw · August 10

@Not_Oles said:
Whenever you have time, no rush!

I am going to briefly switch back to Debian to prepare for NetBSD.

cmeerw · August 10

@cmeerw said:

@Not_Oles said:
Whenever you have time, no rush!

I am going to briefly switch back to Debian to prepare for NetBSD.

Finally managed to get NetBSD installed. Main issue was that the keyboard didn't work in the IPMI console - it looks like NetBSD found a PC keyboard device and tried to only use that for the console, but the console viewer used a USB keyboard device to send the keystrokes ("American Megatrends Inc. (0x046b) Virtual Keyboard and Mouse (0xff10), rev 1.10/1.00, addr 2, iclass 3/1"). So I compiled a new kernel with the PC keyboard device disabled and tried again. This then resulted in a kernel panic in the ukbd_set_leds_task - that's just a small task to flash the keyboard leds. After disabling that, the keyboard started working. It was then just a matter of figuring out what the partition is named in NetBSD to set the correct root device (it's ld0g for the fourth primary partition).

BTW, I have incremented the port for sshd again, and copied the SSH authorized keys from OpenBSD.

Thanks to @Hosteroid for the lovely server.

NetBSD hlcs 11.0_BETA NetBSD 11.0_BETA (GENERIC) #0: Fri Aug  8 16:37:51 UTC 2025  [email protected]:/usr/src/sys/arch/amd64/compile/GENERIC amd64

Not_Oles · August 10

@cmeerw Wow! Amazing! Awesome!

NetBSD 11.0_BETA (GENERIC) #0: Fri Aug  8 16:37:51 UTC 2025

Welcome to NetBSD!

This is a beta release of NetBSD for testing.

Bug reports: https://www.NetBSD.org/support/send-pr.html
Donations to the NetBSD Foundation: https://www.NetBSD.org/donations/
We recommend that you create a non-root account and use su(1) for root access.
hlcs#

Free LES Community Server from Hosteroid via MetalVPS!

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