The third BETA build of the 12.2-RELEASE release cycle is now available.

Installation images are available for:

o 12.2-BETA3 amd64 GENERIC
o 12.2-BETA3 i386 GENERIC
o 12.2-BETA3 powerpc GENERIC
o 12.2-BETA3 powerpc64 GENERIC64
o 12.2-BETA3 powerpcspe MPC85XXSPE
o 12.2-BETA3 armv6 RPI-B
o 12.2-BETA3 armv7 BANANAPI
o 12.2-BETA3 armv7 BEAGLEBONE
o 12.2-BETA3 armv7 CUBIEBOARD
o 12.2-BETA3 armv7 CUBIEBOARD2
o 12.2-BETA3 armv7 CUBOX-HUMMINGBOARD
o 12.2-BETA3 armv7 RPI2
o 12.2-BETA3 armv7 WANDBOARD
o 12.2-BETA3 armv7 GENERICSD
o 12.2-BETA3 aarch64 GENERIC
o 12.2-BETA3 aarch64 RPI3
o 12.2-BETA3 aarch64 PINE64
o 12.2-BETA3 aarch64 PINE64-LTS

Note regarding arm SD card images: For convenience for those without
console access to the system, a freebsd user with a password of
freebsd is available by default for ssh(1) access.  Additionally,
the root user password is set to root.  It is strongly recommended
to change the password for both users after gaining access to the
system.

Installer images and memory stick images are available here:

    https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/ISO-IMAGES/12.2/

The image checksums follow at the end of this e-mail.

If you notice problems you can report them through the Bugzilla PR
system or on the -stable mailing list.

If you would like to use SVN to do a source based update of an existing
system, use the "releng/12.2" branch.

A summary of changes since 12.2-BETA2 includes:

o An installation issue with certctl(8) had been fixed.

o Read/write kstats for ZFS datasets had been added from OpenZFS.

o The default vm.max_user_wired value had been increased.

o The kern.geom.part.check_integrity sysctl(8) had been extended to work
  on GPT partitions.

o The cxgbe(4) firmware had been updated to version 1.25.0.0.

o Fixes for em(4) and igb(4) have been addressed.

o A fix for a potential NFS server crash had been addressed.

o A lock order reversal between NFS server and server-side krpc had been
  addressed.

A list of changes since 12.1-RELEASE is available in the releng/12.2
release notes:

    https://www.freebsd.org/releases/12.2R/relnotes.html

Please note, the release notes page is not yet complete, and will be
updated on an ongoing basis as the 12.2-RELEASE cycle progresses.

=== Virtual Machine Disk Images ===

VM disk images are available for the amd64, i386, and aarch64
architectures.  Disk images may be downloaded from the following URL
(or any of the FreeBSD download mirrors):

    https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/VM-IMAGES/12.2-BETA3/

The partition layout is:

    ~ 16 kB - freebsd-boot GPT partition type (bootfs GPT label)
    ~ 1 GB  - freebsd-swap GPT partition type (swapfs GPT label)
    ~ 20 GB - freebsd-ufs GPT partition type (rootfs GPT label)

The disk images are available in QCOW2, VHD, VMDK, and raw disk image
formats.  The image download size is approximately 135 MB and 165 MB
respectively (amd64/i386), decompressing to a 21 GB sparse image.

Note regarding arm64/aarch64 virtual machine images: a modified QEMU EFI
loader file is needed for qemu-system-aarch64 to be able to boot the
virtual machine images.  See this page for more information:

    https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm64/QEMU

To boot the VM image, run:

    % qemu-system-aarch64 -m 4096M -cpu cortex-a57 -M virt  \
	-bios QEMU_EFI.fd -serial telnet::4444,server -nographic \
	-drive if=none,file=VMDISK,id=hd0 \
	-device virtio-blk-device,drive=hd0 \
	-device virtio-net-device,netdev=net0 \
	-netdev user,id=net0

Be sure to replace "VMDISK" with the path to the virtual machine image.

=== Amazon EC2 AMI Images ===

FreeBSD/amd64 EC2 AMIs are available in the following regions:

  af-south-1 region: ami-085b7b5b76d8f88e1
  eu-north-1 region: ami-0d2aaf811cd455b5d
  ap-south-1 region: ami-0c85211fa78c701f5
  eu-west-3 region: ami-08c4c388a19042fb3
  eu-west-2 region: ami-030841f586c12d392
  eu-south-1 region: ami-035fcb9515104859e
  eu-west-1 region: ami-0d5e826250c10cd3a
  ap-northeast-2 region: ami-01adc51da511ea8fc
  me-south-1 region: ami-04b2ddbedee42d57a
  ap-northeast-1 region: ami-0e5b3fc6777cd037d
  sa-east-1 region: ami-08be6405809912e60
  ca-central-1 region: ami-0c954a7d72d7b483c
  ap-east-1 region: ami-04377808aeca208a7
  ap-southeast-1 region: ami-02e1e04501c308c0b
  ap-southeast-2 region: ami-0e9ae229b9ca55677
  eu-central-1 region: ami-002e88141d3b00ee2
  us-east-1 region: ami-0c678fade90df8f04
  us-east-2 region: ami-0967c088cbf208659
  us-west-1 region: ami-0dafae7edc2b2f376
  us-west-2 region: ami-07e4d062d094f5364

FreeBSD/aarch64 EC2 AMIs are available in the following regions:

  af-south-1 region: ami-07c05f6349125a1c7
  eu-north-1 region: ami-041e507b80cb59335
  ap-south-1 region: ami-064907659b94c4823
  eu-west-3 region: ami-000c4a31405be8e94
  eu-west-2 region: ami-0debbacd03a24e562
  eu-south-1 region: ami-0c358e05477cd8b6b
  eu-west-1 region: ami-0fc48c1fef0e255f0
  ap-northeast-2 region: ami-06bd715c00c4237b7
  me-south-1 region: ami-04a671aa9611f8a74
  ap-northeast-1 region: ami-008e0fa8be5e5c44c
  sa-east-1 region: ami-03c2f687354f086b4
  ca-central-1 region: ami-0647aa16bc62701a3
  ap-east-1 region: ami-08f54406159203762
  ap-southeast-1 region: ami-007e5e33e3e4d9152
  ap-southeast-2 region: ami-0a028a4f5beeed373
  eu-central-1 region: ami-072e09d78436cf375
  us-east-1 region: ami-0218fa187d85dc688
  us-east-2 region: ami-06e8312e95743ce1a
  us-west-1 region: ami-0211983509f75ee9b
  us-west-2 region: ami-038188157f971a711

=== Vagrant Images ===

FreeBSD/amd64 images are available on the Hashicorp Atlas site, and can
be installed by running:

    % vagrant init freebsd/FreeBSD-12.2-BETA3
    % vagrant up

=== Upgrading ===

The freebsd-update(8) utility supports binary upgrades of amd64 and i386
systems running earlier FreeBSD releases.  Systems running earlier
FreeBSD releases can upgrade as follows:

	# freebsd-update upgrade -r 12.2-BETA3

During this process, freebsd-update(8) may ask the user to help by
merging some configuration files or by confirming that the automatically
performed merging was done correctly.

	# freebsd-update install

The system must be rebooted with the newly installed kernel before
continuing.

	# shutdown -r now

After rebooting, freebsd-update needs to be run again to install the new
userland components:

	# freebsd-update install

It is recommended to rebuild and install all applications if possible,
especially if upgrading from an earlier FreeBSD release, for example,
FreeBSD 11.x.  Alternatively, the user can install misc/compat11x and
other compatibility libraries, afterwards the system must be rebooted
into the new userland:

	# shutdown -r now

Finally, after rebooting, freebsd-update needs to be run again to remove
stale files:

	# freebsd-update install

The second BETA build of the 12.2-RELEASE release cycle is now
available.

Installation images are available for:

o 12.2-BETA2 amd64 GENERIC
o 12.2-BETA2 i386 GENERIC
o 12.2-BETA2 powerpc GENERIC
o 12.2-BETA2 powerpc64 GENERIC64
o 12.2-BETA2 powerpcspe MPC85XXSPE
o 12.2-BETA2 sparc64 GENERIC
o 12.2-BETA2 armv6 RPI-B
o 12.2-BETA2 armv7 BANANAPI
o 12.2-BETA2 armv7 BEAGLEBONE
o 12.2-BETA2 armv7 CUBIEBOARD
o 12.2-BETA2 armv7 CUBIEBOARD2
o 12.2-BETA2 armv7 CUBOX-HUMMINGBOARD
o 12.2-BETA2 armv7 RPI2
o 12.2-BETA2 armv7 WANDBOARD
o 12.2-BETA2 armv7 GENERICSD
o 12.2-BETA2 aarch64 GENERIC
o 12.2-BETA2 aarch64 RPI3
o 12.2-BETA2 aarch64 PINE64
o 12.2-BETA2 aarch64 PINE64-LTS

Note regarding arm SD card images: For convenience for those without
console access to the system, a freebsd user with a password of
freebsd is available by default for ssh(1) access.  Additionally,
the root user password is set to root.  It is strongly recommended
to change the password for both users after gaining access to the
system.

Installer images and memory stick images are available here:

    https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/ISO-IMAGES/12.2/

The image checksums follow at the end of this e-mail.

If you notice problems you can report them through the Bugzilla PR
system or on the -stable mailing list.

If you would like to use SVN to do a source based update of an existing
system, use the "releng/12.2" branch.

A summary of changes since 12.1-BETA1 includes:

o A regression affecting the PowerPC architecture had been fixed.

o A race condition that could lead to a system crash when using jails
  with VIMAGE had been fixed.

o Several wireless driver updates, including an update to ath(4), as
  well as 802.11n support for run(4) and otus(4).

o Capsicum support had been added to rtsol(8) and rtsold(8).

o A fix to certctl(8) to prevent overwriting a file on rehash.

o TRIM support had been added to the bhyve(4) virtio-blk backend.

o Fixes to libcompiler_rt have been added.

o The ice(4) driver had been added, providing support for Intel 100Gb
  ethernet cards.

o Fixes to ixl(4) affecting the PowerPC64 architecture have been added.

o Support for the Novatel Wireless MiFi 8000 and 8800 have been added to
  the urndis(4) driver.

o Fixes to the ure(4) driver to prevent packet-in-packet attacks have
  been addressed.  [SA-20:27]

o Fixes to bhyve(4) to prevent privilege escalation via VMCS access have
  been addressed.  [SA-20:28, SA-20:29]

o A fix to the ftpd(8) daemon to prevent privilege escalation via
  ftpchroot(5) had been addressed.  [SA-20:30]

Please note, the release notes page is not yet complete, and will be
updated on an ongoing basis as the 12.2-RELEASE cycle progresses.

Also: FreeBSD 12.2 BETA2 Brings TRIM For Bhyve's VirtIO-BLK, Intel ICE Added

FuryBSD is a tool to test drive stock FreeBSD desktop images in read write mode to see if it will work for you before installing. In order to provide the most reliable experience possible while preserving the integrity of the system the LiveCD now leverages ZFS, compression, replication, a memory file system, and reroot (pivot root).

13.0 coming next year will build on this by allowing further enhancements to this solution with the added ztd compression support. Work is also underway with the GhostBSD development team to see if this new methodology is a good fit for that project, and can be integrated.FuryBSD 2020-Q3 The world’s first OpenZFS based live image

• FreeBSD 12.2-BETA1 Now Available

• FreeBSD 12.2 Beta Available For Testing

  While FreeBSD 13 is aiming for release around March of 2021, FreeBSD 12.2 is on the way for releasing next month as the next stable installment.

  FreeBSD 12.2 is geared for bringing bug fixes and expanded hardware support to current FreeBSD 12 users. This weekend marks the availability of the first beta release on the road to FreeBSD 12.2.

  There are the FreeBSD 12.2-BETA1 images available for testing while the change-log remains in progress.

• Benchmarking NetBSD, third evaluation report

  This blog post is in continuation of GSoC Reports: Benchmarking NetBSD, first evaluation report and GSoC Reports: Benchmarking NetBSD, second evaluation report blogs, and describes my progress in the final phase of GSoC 2020 under The NetBSD Foundation.

  In the third phase, I upgraded to the latest stable version Phoronix Test Suite (PTS) 9.8.0 in pkgsrc-wip, resolved the TODOs and created patches for more test-profiles to fix their installation and runtime errors on NetBSD-current.