FreeBSD

I have a small server running in my flat that serves files locally via NFS and remotely via Nextcloud. This post documents the slightly overpowered upgrade of the hardware and subsequent performance / efficiency optimisations.

In this article I will outline the setup of my (not so) new firewall at home. I explain how I decided which hardware to get and which software to choose, and I cover the entire process of assembling the machine and installing the operating system. Hopefully this will be helpful to poeple in similar situations.

… or why using Linux can be a pain, when you come from the BSD-world. On BSD (and MacOSX and probable other UNIXes), if you want to track a program’s memory usage, you can simply issue the following in a CSHELL set time= ( 0 "%D KB avg / %K KB total / %M KB max" ) or just use /usr/bin/time’s l-parameter. On GNU/Linux on the other hand, rusage as defined by POSIX is not completely implemented, so you cannot do this.

Here are the general components of the setup, as well as planned components. Fear not, most of everything that follows does not imply this setup and is generally usable. You don’t even need a server for the most part. Server · acts as storage for local and remote access · handles maintenance jobs · plays music directly, remote controlled [planned] · runs FreeBSD and ZFS · more details in separate article