Why We Run FreeBSD-current At Netflix – Drew Gallatin

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Why We Run FreeBSD-current At Netflix – Drew Gallatin


https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40096774
https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/
https://papers.freebsd.org/author/drew-gallatin/
https://openfest.org/

From PDF slides at https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/OpenFest2023.pdf :

Netflix formerly ran FreeBSD-stable

  • "Merge [Netflix'] FreeBSD from FreeBSD-stable every few weeks."
  • "Moved to a new -stable branch every few years"
    -- "This sometimes took months"
  • "Upstreaming patches required porting them to -current"

Now, Netflix runs FreeBSD-current

  • "Merge upstream from FreeBSD-current every 3 weeks"
    -- "We notice & resolve new upstream bugs that impact us immediately"
    -- "Much easier to upstream code and collaborate with upstream developers"

Netflix FreeBSD Performance Milestones

  • "2017 -- First 100 Gb/s CDN server"
  • "2020 -- First 200 Gb/s CDN server"
  • "2021 -- First 400 Gb/s CDN server"
  • "2022 -- First 800 Gb/s CDN server"
  • "2023 -- First 100 Gb/s CDN server consuming only 100W of power"

Watch the video to check out :) the story of the Magical Mystery Merge! :)

Thanks to abhinavk for suggesting this very fun video!

I hope everyone gets the servers they want!

Thanked by (8)linveo lapua dfroe vyas wankel Janevski someTom TrendyJack
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Comments

  • webcraftwebcraft

    This is amazing. FreeBSD is running super stable for me so I can understand you're running the current branche. To me it's like Debian in terms of stability but more current.

    Thanked by (1)Not_Oles
  • JosephJoseph

    FreeBSD has been around forever. Was popular long before Linux.

    Thanked by (1)Not_Oles
  • angstromangstrom OG
    edited April 21

    The early history of BSD and Linux is a fascinating and intricate topic, but [...] :)

    Thanked by (1)Not_Oles

    "A single swap file or partition may be up to 128 MB in size. [...] [I]f you need 256 MB of swap, you can create two 128-MB swap partitions." (M. Welsh & L. Kaufman, Running Linux, 2e, 1996, p. 49)

  • someTomsomeTom

    @Joseph said:
    FreeBSD has been around forever. Was popular long before Linux.

    according to Wiki FreeBSD started 2 years after Linux.....

  • angstromangstrom OG

    @someTom said:

    @Joseph said:
    FreeBSD has been around forever. Was popular long before Linux.

    according to Wiki FreeBSD started 2 years after Linux.....

    I'll continue what I started to write above (and was a reaction to what @Joseph said):

    The early history of BSD and Linux is a fascinating and intricate topic, but I'm not sure that it's quite accurate to say that FreeBSD "was popular long before Linux" :)

    In the early 90s, both BSD and Linux were both still very much niche-OSes, requiring a lot of know-how on the part of a prospective user to set up and use, and neither could have been said to be "popular" in anything like the ordinary sense of the word

    (Just to note that v1 of FreeBSD appeared in the fourth quarter of 1993, and v1 of the Linux kernel appeared in the first quarter of 1994)

    @someTom , where exactly do they say that FreeBSD started two years after Linux? This seems to me to be false

    (FreeBSD was more usable earlier than Linux, but they were both still very much niche-OSes)

    "A single swap file or partition may be up to 128 MB in size. [...] [I]f you need 256 MB of swap, you can create two 128-MB swap partitions." (M. Welsh & L. Kaufman, Running Linux, 2e, 1996, p. 49)

  • rcy026rcy026

    @someTom said:

    @Joseph said:
    FreeBSD has been around forever. Was popular long before Linux.

    according to Wiki FreeBSD started 2 years after Linux.....

    What wiki? That is just not correct.
    Also, FreeBSD is based on the original BSD that had it's first release in 1977 so trying to make it sound like Linux has been around longer then BSD is just absurd.

  • someTomsomeTom

    @rcy026 said:
    What wiki? That is just not correct.

    Well, what wiki could it possibly be....

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBSD
    Initial release 1 November 1993; 30 years ago

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
    Initial release September 17, 1991; 32 years ago

  • rcy026rcy026

    @someTom said:

    @rcy026 said:
    What wiki? That is just not correct.

    Well, what wiki could it possibly be....

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBSD
    Initial release 1 November 1993; 30 years ago

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
    Initial release September 17, 1991; 32 years ago

    So "initial release" for Linux is 0.02 but for FreeBSD it's 1.0.
    You have to love wikipedia sometimes. :smile:

  • angstromangstrom OG

    @rcy026 said:

    @someTom said:

    @rcy026 said:
    What wiki? That is just not correct.

    Well, what wiki could it possibly be....

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBSD
    Initial release 1 November 1993; 30 years ago

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
    Initial release September 17, 1991; 32 years ago

    So "initial release" for Linux is 0.02 but for FreeBSD it's 1.0.
    You have to love wikipedia sometimes. :smile:

    In my comment above, I pointed out that v1 of the Linux kernel appeared in the first quarter of 1994

    The fewest of the few were using Linux before v1 of the kernel

    "A single swap file or partition may be up to 128 MB in size. [...] [I]f you need 256 MB of swap, you can create two 128-MB swap partitions." (M. Welsh & L. Kaufman, Running Linux, 2e, 1996, p. 49)

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