Good morning, friends of #BSDCafe and the #Fediverse!

The #Matrix server for BSD Cafe is up and seems to be running smoothly. I'd like to begin with some testing - anyone from BSD Cafe interested in an account?
Send me a direct message, and I'll be happy to set one up.
The server is federating correctly and is operational. I've also installed the web version of #Element for easier access.

#ServerUpdate #Testing #JoinUs #BSDCafeUpdates #BSDCafeServices

Dear friends of #BSDCafe and the #Fediverse, ongoing tests with the #Matrix server at BSD Cafe.
Based on the poll results, I've chosen Synapse. It seems to be working... stay tuned!

#ServerTest #Synapse #StayTuned #MatrixServer #BSDCafeUpdates #BSDCafeServices

Dear friends of #BSDCafe and the #Fediverse, I had a few minutes and updated the Wiki page about the technical choices made for the BSD Cafe services (https://wiki.bsd.cafe/bsdcafe-technical-details).
As I mentioned before, I'd love to introduce more BSDs into the setup, either replacing or adding. In the coming days, time permitting, I'll evaluate this further.

In the meantime, the poll on Matrix software has concluded, and the majority of you suggested Synapse. I'm considering setting up a Matrix server for the BSD Cafe, and given the recommendations, I'll likely use Synapse. However, I'll first try it out on some test domains as I'm inexperienced in managing a Matrix server. Stay tuned!

#BSD #opensource #techupdate #Matrix #Synapse #technews #BSDCafeUpdates #BSDCafeServices #SysAdmin

Friends of #BSDCafe and #Fediverse, happy Sunday!

The article I published this morning on the old #NetBSD server is gaining some traction, which pleases me greatly.

#NetBSD is a top-notch operating system and deserves more recognition.

In the interest of fairness, I'd like to diversify the operating systems for the services of BSD Cafe, aiming to utilize them all. This will mean moving from using just jails to full-blown VMs. I'll ponder over this in the upcoming days.

Meanwhile, today we're touring our beautiful Ferrara, and it's the Ferrara Buskers Festival, the street performers' festival. It's still quite warm, but more bearable today. Wishing you a continued pleasant day!

#OpenSource #OSdiversity #VMs #FerraraBuskersFestival #StreetPerformers #SummerDay #BSDCafeUpdates

Good morning, friends of #BSDCafe and the #Fediverse!

I've finally launched the #wiki of BSD Cafe (https://wiki.bsd.cafe) - for now, it only contains some information about our Cafe, but it will become a repository for both internal (how BSD Cafe services work, etc.) and external (tutorials, etc.) information, available to BSD Cafe users who can publish and edit content.

At the same time, I've also brought the new #Miniflux online, with registration and access info in the wiki: https://wiki.bsd.cafe/miniflux-bsd-cafe

Have fun, have a great day, and stay tuned!

#NewWiki #ServiceUpdate #Community #BSDCafeUpdates #BSDCafeServices #RSS #WikiJS #PoweredByBSD

Friends of #BSDCafe, #Miniflux is ready, the #Wiki is not.

I don't want to wait any longer, so if you're a user of #BSDCafe and want an account on our Miniflux, feel free to send me a direct message, and I'll provide you with the access credentials.

Have a great day!

#NewService #AccessRequest #Community #BSDCafeUpdates

Friends of #BSDCafe and the #Fediverse,
today has been another fairly busy day, but fortunately, less so than yesterday. I managed to get some practice with the #drone and took a few videos.

Tomorrow, I'm planning to get back to work on the #Wiki and on #Miniflux (it's ready and functional), so we can finally have an additional service (Miniflux) and a hub for services and articles (Wiki).

Stay tuned!

#BSDCafeUpdates #NewProjects #Community

Dear friends from #BSDCafe and the #Fediverse, today marks one month since the public announcement of the beginning of the BSD Cafe project.
The results have exceeded my expectations: we now have around 80 active users (some signed up but deleted their accounts after a few days, and I had to handle a few problematic ones - otherwise we'd be more or less 90).

There are several bots up & running (also quite popular), and the poll for the #RSS reader just ended - #Miniflux won, but I suspected it and had already prepared everything in anticipation.

Soon, I'll be launching the #wiki, which will also include instructions and details about other services. BSD Cafe, in fact, won't just be this instance, but a series of services and tools (#BSD based).

Stay tuned, have a great #Sunday, and happy first month to the friends of BSD Cafe!

#Anniversary #BSDProjects #Community #BSDCafeUpdates

Dear friends from #BSDCafe and the entire #Fediverse,
I've just launched a new bot that will post a quote from #Futurama every hour. I've always loved Futurama, and even though it's not directly related to BSD systems, it can still be something enjoyable.

If you're interested, take a look at @futuramaquotes@bsd.cafe - more updates coming soon!

#FuturamaBot #NewBot #FunTimes #BSDCafeUpdates

Hello friends of #BSDCafe and the #Fediverse, good morning!

Yesterday, I decided to share the introductory post of the #Mastodon instance for BSD Cafe on #Reddit, and we've seen a new influx of users joining, to whom I want to extend a warm welcome.
The BSD Cafe community is constructive and open, with users who are passionate about #BSD systems, those who are simply curious, or just friends. It's not a single-topic forum, so feel free to share about other interests as well.

The instance is federated, meaning it will connect with other known instances (and, by correctly using #hashtags, your posts will gain even more visibility).

#WelcomeNewUsers #BSDCommunity #BSDCafeUpdates #BSDCommunity

Good morning, friends of #BSDCafe and the #Fediverse!

After yesterday's optimizations, this morning I was able to add, to the #Mastodon instance of BSD Cafe, #ElasticSearch and advanced search functionality.
With Mastodon 4.2, the search will be further enhanced and there will be more exciting features.

Stay tuned!

#BSDCafeUpdates

I encountered a bug with the virtio drivers and #FreeBSD, which could have affected the network performance of BSD Cafe.

I've written a short article about what happened and how I resolved it.

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2023/08/14/boosting-network-performance-in-freebsds-vnet-jails/

#NetworkPerformance #BugFix #FreeBSD #Infrastructure #BSDCafe #BSDCafeUpdates #Virtio #KVM #Proxmox #IT #SysAdmin

Friends of #BSDCafe and the #Fediverse, I stumbled upon a bug (which I was already aware of, but sometimes memory fails us...) with the virtio drivers and FreeBSD. This bug could have affected the network performance of BSD Cafe. I believe I've fixed it now.
More details coming shortly.

#NetworkPerformance #BugFix #FreeBSD #Infrastructure #BSDCafeUpdates

Friends of #BSDCafe and the #Fediverse, I had some time, so I went ahead and moved the jails immediately :-) Now the reverse proxy and the mail server are running on one VPS, while the rest is on another (more powerful) VPS hosted on a physical server I manage. I've allocated multiple cores and 16 gigabytes of RAM. If any issues arise, please let me know.
#ServerMigration #InfrastructureUpgrade #ServerManagement #VPS #BSDCafeUpdates

Friends of #BSDCafe and the #Fediverse, the BSD Cafe VPS is starting to show some signs of load. The average is low, but there are moments, especially during hourly backups, when RAM is under pressure. This morning, there seemed to be an OOM issue that killed Ruby. Since the services are managed by daemon(8) on #FreeBSD, everything returned to normal operation, but I believe it's time to give the system a little more power.

A user encountered some access issues, so I delved into the logs for further investigation. It appears that the increased RAM load during backups might be causing these intermittent problems. I will be proactive in addressing this and optimizing the system to ensure smooth access and operation.

For now, I've increased the RAM of the current VPS, but since I have available hardware, I will split the services. I don't want to change the IP address at this time, so the reverse proxy and mail server will stay on the current VPS, while the rest (PostgreSQL, Redis, #Mastodon itself) will run on another server - of course, in VPN with the current one.

The process will be straightforward, as I'll simply move (zfs-send / zfs-receive) the respective jails. There will be some brief downtimes during the service restarts (very short, restarting one service at a time). I'll likely proceed in the evening and will write something before to give a heads-up.

#ServerUpgrade #ServiceMigration #ServerManagement #Infrastructure #BSDCafeUpdates

I'm experimenting with wiki.js, and it seems like a great platform. I'm considering installing it as the homepage for the domain bsd.cafe. It would be easy to manage, and users could have their own space to share content, creating a shared and public knowledge base. Thanks again to @mark for the recommendation.

#BSDCafe #WikiJS #Wiki #BSDCafeUpdates #BSDCommunity

Good evening, friends of #BSDcafe and the #Fediverse!
@#
A user privately asked me why I increased the character limit to 5000.

In general, I believe brevity is a great skill, but reducing a text to "a few" characters can be limiting. The choice of 500 characters is purely from the Mastodon Devs, but other software in the Fediverse doesn't have this limitation. Even blogging platforms like Plume exceed this limit by far, and Mastodon easily supports much higher limits.

BSD Cafe aims to be a place of free expression, and I don't want to impose overly strict constraints.

With every Mastodon update, I'll make sure to check that the limit remains, and if necessary, I'll patch the relevant sources to maintain the current level.

#BSDCafeUpdates #FreeExpression #FediverseCommunity #OpenSourceLove