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29: P.E.F.S.

March 19, 2014 1:54:44 82.61 MB Downloads: 0

We're back from AsiaBSDCon! This week we'll be chatting with Gleb Kurtsou about some a filesystem-level encryption utility called PEFS. After that, we'll give you a step by step guide on how to actually use it. There's also the usual round of your questions and we've got a lot of news to catch up on, so stay tuned to BSD Now - the place to B.. SD.

This episode was brought to you by

iXsystems - Enterprise Servers and Storage For Open Source


Headlines

Using OpenSSH Certificate Authentication

  • SSH has a not-so-often-talked-about authentication option in addition to passwords and keys: certificates - you can add certificates to any current authentication method you're using
  • They're not really that complex, there just isn't a lot of documentation on how to use them - this post tries to solve that
  • There's the benefit of not needing a known_hosts file or authorized_users file anymore
  • The post goes into a fair amount of detail about the differences, advantages and implications of using certificates for authentication ***

Back to FreeBSD, a new series

  • Similar to the "FreeBSD Challenge" blog series, one of our listeners will be writing about his switching BACK to FreeBSD journey
  • "So, a long time ago, I had a box which was running FreeBSD 4, running on a Pentium. 14 years later, I have decided to get back into FreeBSD, now at FreeBSD 10"
  • He's starting off with PCBSD since it's easy to get working with dual graphics
  • Should be a fun series to follow! ***

OpenBSD's recent experiments in package building

  • If you'll remember back to our poudriere tutorial, it lets you build FreeBSD binary packages in bulk - OpenBSD's version is called dpb
  • Marc Espie recently got some monster machines in russia to play with to help improve scaling of dpb on high end hardware
  • This article goes through some of his findings and plans for future versions that increase performance
  • We'll be showing a tutorial of dpb on the show in a few weeks ***

Securing FreeBSD with 2FA

  • So maybe you've set up two-factor authentication with gmail or twitter, but have you done it with your BSD box?
  • This post walks us through the process of locking down an ssh server with 2FA
  • With just a mobile phone and a few extra tools, you can enable two-factor auth on your BSD box and have just that little extra bit of protections ***

Interview - Gleb Kurtsou - gleb.kurtsou@gmail.com

PEFS (security audit results here)


Tutorial

Filesystem-based encryption with PEFS


News Roundup

BSDCan 2014 registration

  • Registration is finally open!
  • The prices are available along with a full list of presentations
  • Tutorial sessions for various topics as well
  • You have to go ***

Big changes for OpenBSD 5.6

  • Although 5.5 was just frozen and the release process has started, 5.6 is already looking promising
  • OpenBSD has, for a long time, included a heavily-patched version of Apache based on 1.3
  • They've also imported nginx into base a few years ago, but now have finally removed Apache
  • Sendmail is also no longer the default MTA, OpenSMTPD is the new default
  • Will BIND be removed next? Maybe so
  • They've also discontinued the hp300, mvme68k and mvme88k ports ***

Getting to know your portmgr lurkers

  • The "getting to know your portmgr" series makes its return
  • This time we get to talk with danfe@ (probably most known for being the nVidia driver maintainer, but he does a lot with ports)
  • How he got into FreeBSD? He "wanted a unix system that I could understand and that would not get bloated as time goes by"
  • Mentions why he's still heavily involved with the project and lots more ***

PCBSD weekly digest

  • Work has started to port Pulseaudio to PCBSD 10.0.1
  • There's a new "pc-mixer" utility being worked on for sound management as well
  • New PBIs, GNOME/Mate updates, Life Preserver fixes and a lot more
  • PCBSD 10.0.1 was released too ***

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