@thomasadam I submitted a Pull Request to update MacPorts' Got to got-portable 0.103 here:
https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/25701
GitHub Actions CI checks look OK.
I don't have commit access, so it's up to someone else to merge it.
#Got #GameOfTrees #VersionControl #OpenSource #MacPorts #OpenBSD #Git
I've released got-portable 0.103.
I strongly encourage you to read the upstream got changelog for the detail of what's in the -portable release:
https://gameoftrees.org/releases/CHANGES
-portable details are here as always:
Game of Trees 0.103 released https://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20240910053909 #openbsd #gameoftrees #got #git #development #versioncontrol #freesoftware
Version 0.103 of the #gameoftrees version control system has been released.
🔑 gotd HTTP commit notifications can now be signed using HMAC (feature suggested by @dch, who at the same time provided some financial support to the project, thanks!)
🤐 Authentication credentials used for gotd notifications are now stored in a dedicated file which only root can read, rather than in /etc/gotd.conf which must be publicly readable for use by the gitwrapper tool (thanks to @op for doing the legwork on this feature)
💾 It is now possible to save diffs to files directly from the tog diff view (thanks to Mark Jamsek)
A bug in pack file cache handling was fixed, which had the symptom of performance degrading over time as more and more pack files appear in repositories. This issue was visible with gotwebd in particular.
See https://gameoftrees.org for more information.
#gameoftrees discussion between @stsp and tb@. I now understand why there's ``game'' in the name.
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@thomasadam Awesome, thank you!
I submitted a PR to update MacPorts' Got to -portable-0.102 here:
https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/25359
GitHub Actions CI checks completed OK!
I don't have commit access, so it's up to someone else to merge it.
#GameOfTrees #Got #MacPorts #VersionControl #Git #OpenBSD #OpenSource
I've released the -portable version of GoT, version 0.102
This includes got-0.102 -- there's no notable -portable changes to mention in this release.
When people ask me how I can provide such a service, they mostly inly think about the hardware and the costs. Trust me, that’s the least of the problems! Running such a service is more about avoiding and handling service abuses. Free services tend to be abused by people and this is the most difficult part - protection!
But let’s have a short look at the things…
Passion (why?):
The passion and idea behind this project is probably the most interesting part. I can clearly remember the time back in the days when I started in tech and had even then an outdated, slow and rarely working system. It was pure pain to work with it, but luckily it did somehow its job. However, doing more difficult thinks were mostly impossible: Higher loads led into shutdowns - I had to undervolt the system, write kernel modules for undervolting support (which were really appreciated in the community) but also all other resources didn’t gave me the possibility to run more exiting things. Renting a „cheap“ server (back in that day virtual server were not really known and the first implementations based on chroots like OpenVZ were coming years later) was impossible to me. So, learning in real-life scenarios was mostly impossible to me and made everything more difficult. I really know and remember these times where I had to deal somehow with limitations. This is good but also bad. The good thing is, you become really creative into finding solutions and get really nit picky about improving things. The other thing is, it makes your life really hard. With BoxyBSD I want to provide passionated and interested people the opportunity to get at least a system where they can learn and educate. They get a fully usable VM where they can configure, run and use the system how they like (unless they’re not violating the ToS). They have a public IPv6 address (and even a whole additional /64 network) to also learn and practice more complex network solutions. They can run servers, learn how things for their future. Often they quickly find out why a PTR is needed for sending mails (sure, you can also define your reverse DNS at BoxyBSD) but also why firewalling ICMP6 isn’t a great idea (at least you want to have RA & ND active). Things you mostly learn the hard wary in real life setups. But BoxyBSD is also about more - it’s also about supporting the #opensource community. BoxyBSD also sponsors opensource projects like #Freeway, #Telescope & #GameOfTrees. And everything at zero costs!
Resources (how?):
Resources are probably the thing that mostly pops up in the mind of people when hearing about this service and yes - it of course requires a lot of resources since I’m providing full VMs for each user without any over provisioning in memory or disk which are too volatile in this project. But the resources are often already present. In this case, I already have my own labs based on #Proxmox and #bhyve which are built in a fully productional way. This gives me the possibility to provide resource left overs to this project. Also, there are sponsors like Moritz from @nerdscavehosting@mastodon.social who sponsors nodes which are dedicated used to this project. Next to this, the question is about another resource - time! The whole infrastructure if fully automated by simply choosing the desired OS and pressing „create VM“ everything else in handled fully automatically. A desired node is obtained by my side project (ProxLB - in a customised version to also support bhyve hosts), the VM created and a the IP address returned. That’s it - easy!
Protection (the real issue):
The real issue is about people that’s going to abuse the service. This was something I had to learn the hard way. In the first iteration it was simply fully #FreeBSD #Jails based with a very simple interface where you just inserted your SSH pub key and immediately got returned an address of a Jail (if you’re interested, that was the first version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geOS4LTCwok). This was a way too easy and people immediately used it for sending spam mails. I had to take some actions but also didn’t want to block whole ports to make services unusable. Therefore, I had some other ideas which worked out very well, like forcing to use a relay with rate limiting. Today, BoxyBSD grew up, is running ob full fledged VMs providing users and developers the possibility to modify kernel and to have more deep possibilities to learn and test. By only providing images for #FreeBSD, #OpenBSD and #NetBSD (and #illumos / #OpenSolaris) the community and targeted people is smaller than usual. Also software that is written by Scriptkiddies often does not work out of the box on BSD based systems and needs (honestly only small) adjustments. But that’s also often already a reason not to abuse such services. It still may occur that someone is unintentionally doing bad things, generating a lot of traffic (like two weeks ago where someone made 2Gbps traffic for over 12 hours) but usually, this isn’t any problem. Proactive monitoring already notifies me (that’s the only thing where I need to step in) and validate to take actions if someone might be harmed or services affected.
In the end, I like to see that the community is more like a family where things are being used like their own ones. People even come in touch with me and letting me know that they don’t need the VM anymore and to free up the resources for other ones - that’s something I really love to see! Sometimes they come simply back when they need something again and get their new VM. I really love the BSD community and especially the #BSDCafe (https://bsd.cafe) and #BSDNetwork (https://bsd.network). Things can be simple!
PS: At the #FrOSCon you can grab some #BoxyBSD stickers. Just poke me when you see me :)
Ressources:
Call Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEHL4skVq3U&t
BoxyBSD Jail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geOS4LTCwok
Papers: https://cdn.gyptazy.ch/tech-talks/BoxyBSD-A_free_VM_hosting_service_for_education_and_research/BoxyBSD-A_free_VM_hosting_service_for_education_and_research.html
Website: https://boxybsd.com
I've released got-portable version 0.101
This release matches upstream got-0.101 -- there's no specific portable changes as such, but got-portable now correctly compiles on OpenBSD. ;)
Well, here it is... thanks to #tmux use of synchronised-panes, this is gameoftrees -portable compiling on {Free,Net,Open}BSD.
This is going to be very helpful!
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@BoxyBSD @stsp @gyptazy My thanks to @gyptazy for going out of his way to help. I can’t stress enough just how friendly and informative he’s been as we’ve been provisioning these machines.
This will really help #gameoftrees out, as I plan on having a manual CI system in place to compile changes across the three core BSDs ({Free,Net,Open}BSD).
Currently we’re relying on the infrastructure CirrusCI provides. This is still excellent, but it has been in contention of late with how much we’re able to use those servers. #boxybsd is going to help massively here.
I plan on writing up the process of how I’m going to use these machines.
Thanks again, @gyptazy
#BoxyBSD is now sponsoring the open-source project: Game of Trees
#GameofTrees (Got) is a version control system which prioritizes ease of use and simplicity over flexibility and mainly targeting #OpenBSD users.
Project: https://gameoftrees.org
CC: @thomasadam @stsp @gyptazy
Tags: #opensource #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #GoT #gameOfTrees #VCS
We are building the Game of Trees Hub, a #Git repository hosting service based on #gameoftrees and #OpenBSD, funded via an open collective.
Our Git repository server implementation can already be self-hosted on OpenBSD and Linux, but:
1) Not everyone can or wants to self-host.
2) Most people don't need yet another Git hosting service, though some people might appreciate a financially transparent and independent service that supports both public and private repositories, has no intentions of abusing user data, and is not striving for infinite growth.
3) Ever since the Game of Trees project started as a side project in 2017 it has received zero financial support. And with developers growing up and having families with children to support, unpaid work on Game of Trees has been eating its way into working hours. Which is not sustainable in the long term.
Can we make a win-win situation out of this dilemma? 
You can now support us here:
https://opencollective.com/gothub
For now, this is an early-bird crowd-funding effort to support the initial work on getting the service up and running. Git repository service tiers will appear once the hosting infrastructure is ready. The more initial funds we can collect the faster we will get there.
All software developed will be released under the ISC license, the same open source license terms as used by OpenBSD.