I started this smallish project to overcome coder’s block and original idea was to implement it in only one scripting language. I chose Python as I believed it had most clear API but then I decided to throw in Perl and Ruby as well. It was more exercise in building C extensions then in actual system programming but it was fun nonetheless. All three sub-projects lack proper documentation but there are examples that should be enough to get started.

Sources available on github.

Greetings! With EasyPBI 2.0 now available in the FreeBSD ports tree and as a PBI in the AppCafe, I was asked to highlight some of the new features in EasyPBI 2.0, and why you should want to start using it now.

The first new feature that comes to mind is relatively minor, but saves a fair amount of time if you use EasyPBI with any regularity. This is the ability to check when the last time you updated your system ports tree was, and to use portsnap (or svn if appropriate) to update it to the current version. This is easily available from the “System → Get FreeBSD Ports� menu option.

The second new feature is more of a significant overhaul rather than a brand new feature, and that is making the module editor a complete front-end to editing PBI modules. Previously, the editor allowed the user to view and change the most common options for PBI’s, and trying to use smart defaults for the rest. Now, while still recommending smart defaults, it makes all the settings and options for the module available to the user. The is extremely useful for loading modules from other people, as you can now see everything that the module has inside it, with nothing being “hiddenâ€? from EasyPBI inside any of the configuration files. This is easily shown with the new “Scriptsâ€? tab in the module editor that lets you read through or edit any custom installation scripts that might be in the module. Another example of this is the new functionality in the “XDG Entriesâ€? tab that lets you view/edit any of the desktop/menu entries without having to guess what is inside based upon the file name as with the previous versions. Oh, EasyPBI is also able to set up MIME type file associations for menu entries now, making that whole process very simple and no longer requiring that the user know how to write XML files for the different MIME types.

The last new feature that I want to highlight is one that will not be used very often, but has some very powerful possibilities associated with it. This feature is the ability to package non-port programs in the PBI format. What this option does is basically shift the burden of compiling the program and all its dependencies onto the user instead of using the FreeBSD ports framework. To make this work, the user will first have to setup a directory on his system in the exact format that he wants it to have inside the PBI (with lib/ bin/ share/ etc/ sub-directories as appropriate), as if the program got installed into this directory instead of on the base system. Once that is ready, you can then point EasyPBI at that directory, give it a version number and other program information, then have it all be packaged up as a PBI. This will require a bit more “advanced� usage since you will have to setup external-links and desktop/menu entries for the application yourself (since EasyPBI relies on the FreeBSD ports framework for recommendations), but this ability has a lot of very powerful implications. For instance, it should now allow program developers who wish to distribute special closed-source versions of their software to still make use of the PBI format for simple installations and consistent runtime dependencies by their clients. While this next example was not what the PBI format was originally designed for, I could also see this also being used by device manufacturers to release additional closed-source drivers or FreeBSD kernel modules for their devices. This would provide a simple way to distribute and install these drivers without requiring the system users to have extensive knowledge of the FreeBSD system structure or go through the pain of compiling and loading kernel modules on their own.

These are just some of the new features of EasyPBI 2.0 that I think users will appreciate the most. If you have some “killer� feature that you would like to see in the upcoming versions of EasyPBI, please let me know! I can be found on the PC-BSD PBI developers mailing list[1], or you can send me an email directly[2].

[1] http://lists.pcbsd.org/mailman/listinfo

[2] ken (at) pcbsd (dot) org

User Group Connect is a relaxed one day unconference for meeting and interacting with the many technical User Groups in Ottawa. The event runs on Saturday, February 9 from 10:00-17:00 at Shopify in the Byward Market.

The Foundation will be represented at a FreeBSD booth and will be accepting donations. If you're in the Ottawa area, drop by and visit at this free event.

Update 1: Add -DDB_FROM_SRC to install targets
Update 2: Add user “pi” with password “raspberry”

It’s been a while since I posted original build instruction and a lot has change. Here is new version of it with some explanations:

All code has been moved to HEAD. freebsd-pi repository on github serves only historical purpose and I guess will be removed at some point in future. So in order to build image you need sources for -head

svn co svn://svn.freebsd.org/base/head

TARGET_CPUTYPE is dropped to in favor of TARGET_ARCH=armv6. U-Boot, firmware files and boot process were upgraded too. Current boot chain is as follows:

• Pi is powered up and loads firmware files
• Firmware loads FDT blob defined in config.txt as device_tree variable at address defined as device_tree_address and fixes up fields like memory size, clock frequency and MAC address
• Firmware loads u-boot and passes control to it
• U-boot loads boot.scr and executes it
• Default boot.scr loads ubldr(loader(8)-compatible implementation built over U-Boot API) and passes control
• ubldr checks FreeBSD partition for /boot/loader.rc, loads it, the loads /boot/kernel/kernel and passes control to it
• loader.rc should contain “fdt addr 0×100″ command. It will pass FDT blob filled in step #2 to kernel

So updated build script will look something like this:

#!/bin/sh
set -e

# Change this
export GPU_MEM=128
export PI_USER=pi
export PI_USER_PASSWORD=raspberry
export SRCROOT=/src/FreeBSD/head
export MNTDIR=/mnt
export MAKEOBJDIRPREFIX=/src/FreeBSD/obj
export IMG=/src/FreeBSD/obj/bsd-pi.img

export TARGET_ARCH=armv6
export MAKESYSPATH=$SRCROOT/share/mk
export KERNCONF=RPI-B

if [ -z "$MNTDIR" ]; then
        echo "MNTDIR is not set properly"
        exit 1
fi

KERNEL=`realpath $MAKEOBJDIRPREFIX`/arm.armv6/`realpath $SRCROOT`/sys/$KERNCONF/kernel
UBLDR=`realpath $MAKEOBJDIRPREFIX`/arm.armv6/`realpath $SRCROOT`/sys/boot/arm/uboot/ubldr
DTB=`realpath $MAKEOBJDIRPREFIX`/arm.armv6/`realpath $SRCROOT`/sys/$KERNCONF/bcm2835-rpi-b.dtb

make -C $SRCROOT kernel-toolchain
make -C $SRCROOT KERNCONF=$KERNCONF WITH_FDT=yes buildkernel
make -C $SRCROOT MALLOC_PRODUCTION=yes buildworld

buildenv=`make -C $SRCROOT buildenvvars`

eval $buildenv make -C $SRCROOT/sys/boot clean
eval $buildenv make -C $SRCROOT/sys/boot obj
eval $buildenv make -C $SRCROOT/sys/boot UBLDR_LOADADDR=0x2000000 all

rm -f $IMG
dd if=/dev/zero of=$IMG bs=128M count=8
MDFILE=`mdconfig -a -f $IMG`
gpart create -s MBR ${MDFILE}

# Boot partition
gpart add -s 32m -t '!12' ${MDFILE}
gpart set -a active -i 1 ${MDFILE}
newfs_msdos -L boot -F 16 /dev/${MDFILE}s1
mount_msdosfs /dev/${MDFILE}s1 $MNTDIR
fetch -q -o - http://people.freebsd.org/~gonzo/arm/rpi/freebsd-uboot-20130201.tar.gz | tar -x -v -z -C $MNTDIR -f -

cat >> $MNTDIR/config.txt <<__EOC__
gpu_mem=$GPU_MEM
device_tree=devtree.dat
device_tree_address=0x100
disable_commandline_tags=1
__EOC__
cp $UBLDR $MNTDIR
cp $DTB $MNTDIR/devtree.dat
umount $MNTDIR

# FreeBSD partition
gpart add -t freebsd ${MDFILE}
gpart create -s BSD ${MDFILE}s2
gpart add -t freebsd-ufs ${MDFILE}s2
newfs /dev/${MDFILE}s2a

# Turn on Softupdates
tunefs -n enable /dev/${MDFILE}s2a
# Turn on SUJ with a minimally-sized journal.
# This makes reboots tolerable if you just pull power on the BB
# Note:  A slow SDHC reads about 1MB/s, so a 30MB
# journal can delay boot by 30s.
tunefs -j enable -S 4194304 /dev/${MDFILE}s2a
# Turn on NFSv4 ACLs
tunefs -N enable /dev/${MDFILE}s2a

mount /dev/${MDFILE}s2a $MNTDIR

make -C $SRCROOT DESTDIR=$MNTDIR -DDB_FROM_SRC installkernel
make -C $SRCROOT DESTDIR=$MNTDIR -DDB_FROM_SRC installworld
make -C $SRCROOT DESTDIR=$MNTDIR -DDB_FROM_SRC distribution

echo 'fdt addr 0x100' > $MNTDIR/boot/loader.rc

echo '/dev/mmcsd0s2a / ufs rw,noatime 1 1' > $MNTDIR/etc/fstab

cat > $MNTDIR/etc/rc.conf <<__EORC__
hostname="raspberry-pi"
ifconfig_ue0="DHCP"
sshd_enable="YES"

devd_enable="YES"
sendmail_submit_enable="NO"
sendmail_outbound_enable="NO"
sendmail_msp_queue_enable="NO"
__EORC__

cat > $MNTDIR/etc/ttys <<__EOTTYS__
ttyv0 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" xterm on secure
ttyv1 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" xterm on secure
ttyv2 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" xterm on secure
ttyv3 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" xterm on secure
ttyv4 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" xterm on secure
ttyv5 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" xterm on secure
ttyv6 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" xterm on secure
ttyu0 "/usr/libexec/getty 3wire.115200" dialup on secure
__EOTTYS__

echo $PI_USER_PASSWORD | pw -V $MNTDIR/etc useradd -h 0 -n $PI_USER -c "Raspberry Pi User" -s /bin/csh -m
pw -V $MNTDIR/etc groupmod wheel -m $PI_USER
PI_USER_UID=`pw -V $MNTDIR/etc usershow $PI_USER | cut -f 3 -d :`
PI_USER_GID=`pw -V $MNTDIR/etc usershow $PI_USER | cut -f 4 -d :`
mkdir -p $MNTDIR/home/$PI_USER
chown $PI_USER_UID:$PI_USER_GID $MNTDIR/home/$PI_USER

umount $MNTDIR
mdconfig -d -u $MDFILE

Just a short blurb about FreeBSD on the Raspberry Pi followed by some wise words from Peter Salus at BSDCan2011.

File Info: 8Min, 4MB.

Ogg Link: http://cis01.uma.edu/~wbackman/bsdtalk/bsdtalk222.ogg

To discuss operating system security is to marvel at the diversity of deployed access-control models.

The April-June, 2012 Status Report is now available with 17 entries.