Category: FreeBSD

Posts and sites FreeBSD related

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Server Rebuild complete

After nearly 2 years in the planning, and endless delays / lack of inertia to break SSL/TLS or the MTA or the myriad of other things that I had spent ages trying to make work, I have finally managed to migrate the majority of the content from the old black box to a newer black box, replete with SSD’s and faster CPU.

There will still probably be a few broken links for the next week or two before I can say its finally complete, but at least I can now turn off one of the boxes and not shuffle between the two.

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rebuild

I messed up with DMA mail agent as automatically installed SSMTP as I have done for each server rebuild and did not trust the SSMTP delete to reset the everything its installation would have changed, so re-installed the base OS again from scratch.

At least using Packages now (also weaning myself of using ports as not using cutting edge versions or complex needs) its very quick to rebuild and once I have SUDO and WEBMIN installed its nice and easy to quickly build.

Samba was a bit of a pain as FreeBSD is lagging so far behind the main branches supported by Samba so even the latest version (4.20) is out of support. Anyway.. its installed and works so that will have to do.

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FreeBSD 15

I have been very slow to migrate content to the new replacement server, to the point I should already look at new low power spec hardware as so much has moved on in recent years. Given I had not yet promoted my replacement server to production ready, I took the plunge and wiped it back to a clean install of FreeBSD now that its been released so that future updates/upgrades are not degraded by trying to use ‘legacy’ versions of OpenSSL or PKG management.

The other key upgrade for me is DMA – the Dragonfly Mail Agent to replace SSMTP, this is more suited to a hobbyist install like myself and allows me to use GMAIL as my mail transport simplifying email setup.

I am also going to trying installing Lumina as the native desktop again as the new hardware has a dedicated Graphics Card and it maybe handy to be able to run some apps from the GUI rather than CLI only

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More SSL faux pas

Successful few weeks migrating content to the new server and re-wiring the house to re-locate the Primary Server to the garage as even its gentle hum is rather annoying in my soundproofed work cabin.

However, the latest update to Apache24 to 2.4.66 broke startup, with a SSL module not found. Various attempts at re-installing failed but this post https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/apache-cant-locate-ssl_module-undefined-symbol-ssl_module.89434/ had the answer and deleting the APR port and then rebuilding Apache fixed the start up issues and we are up again.

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SSL renewals fixed

Certbot was struggling to auto-renew my domain SSL cert due to changes in OpenSSL 3 support for legacy protocols. Something is clearly wrong with my my openssl config but fearful of breaking the whole set up I only want to address the Certbot renewal failures.

ChatGPT gave some fixes, but the only one that actually worked was setting the CSH variable setenv CRYPTOGRAPHY_OPENSSL_NO_LEGACY 1 which stops certbot trying to use the legacy protocols that are no longer there allowed CERTBOT renew to skip thru the steps happily and now the server is ok until February by which time I truly hope to have retired the current server.

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Busy with updates – FreeBSD 14.3

Finally found some time and upgraded both servers to 14.3 and trying to establish a stable baseline of installed apps like Apache, MySql, PHP, Perl, and Samba so I can easily port the remaining services over to the “new” server and retire the older one before it expires.

Setting up a new Wifi SSID for the older devices meant the Washing Machine, and cycle computer now connect easily and the Cameras appear to be more stable.

iOS 26 dropped last month but with no real massive technical changes, but now waiting for a new iPhone 17 to see Apple Intelligence live and in action as current iPad and iPhone are too old to benefit.

Its been quite a successful month with just the iKettle left to fix, but this seems to be an issue with the App or backend server as I can see its connected to the Wifi fine and can ping it fine, and I don’t seem to be the only one with issues with the smarter.io kettle range.

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New Home

No posts of activity in July as busy moving house and the server was in boxes. I have now built my new Home Office and set the server up in the corner while I decide how best to kit out and layout the office.

Looks like FreeBSD have been busy and there are new updates to install and a new SSL cert to apply asap before the server is safe on the web, so that is what I am currently doing.

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Perl updated to 5.40

so that means another forced updated of everything built with PERL. Not sure why /usr/ports/UPDATING keeps pointing us back to 2023 when they could just post the postmaster commands to update from the last default version to new default version… heyho.

portmaster -o lang/perl5.40 lang/perl5.36

portmaster -f `pkg shlib -qR libperl.so.5.36`

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Domain Name Mismatch – Your site is insecure

I don’t know if Apple, and Google upped the ante, or I had not noticed before, or the SSL tools on the server had not kept updated, but I started getting warnings that my site was not secure. Letsencrypt has done a pretty good job for the last 5 years so I was confused as to why suddenly now , the browsers no longer liked up. Even harder now that MS Edge do not let you easily view the full cert.

A quick test at SSLlabs confirmed that the SSL for farcorfe.org.uk was all ok, but the sub-domain of www.farcorfe.org,uk was the actual issue. The SSL cert had not been validated for the www redirect.

Some quick Googling found this page – https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41097696/letsencrypt-certificate-for-www-and-non-www-domain with the required Certbot commands to add the www to the cert and a restart of Apache got the issue fixed.

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New (old) Hardware coming along

Inherited a second hand PC that was too good in terms of size and much quieter than current server, so currently in the process of installing another copy of FreeBSD ready to migrate content across.

Hardest task so far is getting to the original drive bay to remove the existing HDD so I can properly mount the new SSD in its place, rather than just floating in the case.

Expect to see Farcorfe up and down over the new few weeks as I continue its migration.