Our favourite programmers are discussing wether to deprecate the ftpd in FreeBSD base or not.
What do you think? Keep it or toss it? Do you still use it?
What do you think? Keep it or toss it? Do you still use it?
cat somefile.txt | nc -l 1987
nc host1 1987 > somefile.txt
ftp
isn't what you normally use any more. Most people probably use scp
or sftp
instead, and both are present in base. ftp
service will find a matching port/package.I think that might be a bit too "radical". To give an example: I'd be pretty annoyed if cu(1) would vanish from base, although it would work perfectly as a package. The reason is, you need such a tool for administration of headless machines (well, short of a real-life serial terminal in hardware, I guess they are extinct, hehe).Everything that can be a package should be one, IMHO.
No SSH in base would be kind of a bummer.I think that might be a bit too "radical".
Incidentally, I build mine withNo SSH in base would be kind of a bummer.
WITHOUT_OPENSSH=yes
Don’t worry, ssh will stay in base (at least the client, but not necessarily the sshd daemon) because it may be required for certain ways of installing FreeBSD, e.g. to set up a tunnel for downloading the distribution sets and packages.No SSH in base would be kind of a bummer.
No SSH daemon in base would be a real bummerDon’t worry, ssh will stay in base (at least the client, but not necessarily the sshd daemon) because it may be required for certain ways of installing FreeBSD, e.g. to set up a tunnel for downloading the distribution sets and packages.
Why?No SSH daemon in base would be a real bummer
Most of my Freebsd machines are headless, many are remote. It would be a pain to have to install a port or package as part of the install.Why?
I’m not sure I understand. What is the problem with adding packages during installation? I do that all the time, including on remote servers. It doesn’t matter if they’re headless or not.Most of my Freebsd machines are headless, many are remote. It would be a pain to have to install a port or package as part of the install.
I guess it wouldn't matter if whatever install media you used had some packages on it. I often don't enable public networking while installing because I want to vet my firewall rules first. Maybe I'm scarred by the bad old days when the mean time to compromise of a fresh install of Windows was minutes even on some (large) private networks.I’m not sure I understand. What is the problem with adding packages during installation? I do that all the time, including on remote servers. It doesn’t matter if they’re headless or not.
Yes, that’s right – that’s what the pkg-base project is all about.Going along this path, which packages would you provide in the install media? Clearly not all of them, that would be too much, so some small subset of essential packages. But haven't you just redefined what "base" means?
There's no need to discuss it here anyways, but I'd expect this topic to come up again, so, still interesting.No need to discuss this any further.
Sorry, but this is hilarious. Why shouldn't we discuss about the discussion? This is a forum meant for discussion after all.No need to discuss this any further.
I personally don't like this "DIY Linux" approach. The base is there so that programs can be managed and maintained in a monolithic and unified way. Splitting it up achieves very little and just makes it a modular mess reducing consistency. I think it is a bad move. I don't believe it has worked particularly well with Xorg at all.There will probably be a “default base package set” that basically covers much of what is in the base system today.
I think sendmail & tcsh are there for historical reasons. And freebsd does not like to give up it's history even if it's became obsolete.I think the discussion about what belongs into base and what not will stay forever
I personally think it's outright weird to still have sendmail in base, and it's somewhat questionable to have tcsh (cause, all that's needed is a POSIX shell, and for something comfortable for interactive use, you pick whatever you like from ports/packages).
But then, going the "radical" way and removing everything not strictly needed during installation has other drawbacks.
If pkg-base is finally there and enabled by default, the discussion might shift a bit, towards only "what makes sense to maintain in base". Let's see where this leads
No, the initial install will not be much different by default. You will get the same things that you get today when you select “default install” in the installer.I personally don't like this "DIY Linux" approach. The base is there so that programs can be managed and maintained in a monolithic and unified way. Splitting it up achieves very little and just makes it a modular mess reducing consistency. I think it is a bad move. I don't believe it has worked particularly well with Xorg at all.
We will end up with a fairly useless initial install. Great for car set-top boxes probably but not UNIX-like and I am not sure it will even conform with POSIX / SUS etc.
I personally really like the approach Openbsd takes, which is installation = unpack some tarballs. Super simple and not error-prone.Yes, that’s right – that’s what the pkg-base project is all about.
Actually the desire to “package the base system” is rather old. The current way of installing FreeBSD with so-called “distribution sets” is old-fashioned and has some disadvantages.
I dunno. I believe Gentoo Linux pioneered this everything-is-a-package approach and their install was (is?) a hot mess. They still wound up with a package called "baselayout", BTW.It makes a lot of sense to convert it to the package format used by pkg, and make it more fine-grained. This will make the installation procedure simpler and more robust...
Do you need this crutch if you're sophisticated enough to be doing scripted installs on a large fleet of machines? Also, I find that Mfsbsd suits these needs quite nicely....and it will also make it easier to tailor it for your own needs, e.g. when you do scripted installs for a computing center or similar things. For example, if you don’t need tftp, then just drop the tftp package from the installation. There will probably be a “default base package set” that basically covers much of what is in the base system today.
But for how long until people start pecking at things.No, the initial install will not be much different by default. You will get the same things that you get today when you select “default install” in the installer.
I agree. I actually find it strange that so many other operating systems aren't seeing the elegance of that. I would also suggest that OpenBSD is the last remaining free operating system that is suitable for an entirely offline lab (No online-centric repo infrastructure, no 300+ packages just for a single package (Xorg). Site specific firmware clearly isolated, a responsible collection of default packages and servers like httpd, sshd).I personally really like the approach Openbsd takes, which is installation = unpack some tarballs. Super simple and not error-prone.