Appendix C. Resources on the Internet

The rapid pace of FreeBSD progress makes print media impractical as a means of following the latest developments. Electronic resources are the best, if not often the only, way to stay informed of the latest advances. Since FreeBSD is a volunteer effort, the user community itself also generally serves as a "technical support department" of sorts, with electronic mail, web forums, and USENET news being the most effective way of reaching that community.

The most important points of contact with the FreeBSD user community are outlined below. Please send other resources not mentioned here to the FreeBSD documentation project mailing list so that they may also be included.

C.1. Websites

  • The FreeBSD Forums provide a web based discussion forum for FreeBSD questions and technical discussion.

  • The BSDConferences YouTube Channel provides a collection of high quality videos from BSD conferences around the world. This is a great way to watch key developers give presentations about new work in FreeBSD.

C.2. Mailing Lists

The mailing lists are the most direct way of addressing questions or opening a technical discussion to a concentrated FreeBSD audience. There are a wide variety of lists on a number of different FreeBSD topics. Sending questions to the most appropriate mailing list will invariably assure a faster and more accurate response.

The charters for the various lists are given at the bottom of this document. Please read the charter before joining or sending mail to any list. Most list subscribers receive many hundreds of FreeBSD related messages every day, and the charters and rules for use are meant to keep the signal-to-noise ratio of the lists high. To do less would see the mailing lists ultimately fail as an effective communications medium for the Project.

To test the ability to send email to FreeBSD lists, send a test message to FreeBSD test mailing list. Please do not send test messages to any other list.

When in doubt about what list to post a question to, see How to get best results from the FreeBSD-questions mailing list.

Before posting to any list, please learn about how to best use the mailing lists, such as how to help avoid frequently-repeated discussions, by reading the Mailing List Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document.

Archives are kept for all of the mailing lists and can be searched using the FreeBSD World Wide Web server. The keyword searchable archive offers an excellent way of finding answers to frequently asked questions and should be consulted before posting a question. Note that this also means that messages sent to FreeBSD mailing lists are archived in perpetuity. When protecting privacy is a concern, consider using a disposable secondary email address and posting only public information.

C.2.1. List Summary

General lists: The following are general lists which anyone is free (and encouraged) to join:

ListPurpose

freebsd-advocacy

FreeBSD Evangelism

freebsd-announce

Important events and Project milestones (moderated)

freebsd-arch

Architecture and design discussions

freebsd-bugbusters

Discussions pertaining to the maintenance of the FreeBSD problem report database and related tools

freebsd-bugs

Bug reports

freebsd-chat

Non-technical items related to the FreeBSD community

freebsd-chromium

FreeBSD-specific Chromium issues

freebsd-current

Discussion concerning the use of FreeBSD-CURRENT

freebsd-isp

Issues for Internet Service Providers using FreeBSD

freebsd-jobs

FreeBSD employment and consulting opportunities

freebsd-quarterly-calls

Calls for quarterly status reports (moderated)

freebsd-questions

User questions and technical support

freebsd-security-notifications

Security notifications (moderated)

freebsd-stable

Discussion concerning the use of FreeBSD-STABLE

freebsd-test

Where to send test messages instead of to one of the actual lists

freebsd-women

FreeBSD advocacy for women

Technical lists: The following lists are for technical discussion. Read the charter for each list carefully before joining or sending mail to one as there are firm guidelines for their use and content.

ListPurpose

freebsd-acpi

ACPI and power management development

freebsd-amd64

Porting FreeBSD to AMD64 systems (moderated)

freebsd-apache

Discussion about Apache related ports

freebsd-arm

Porting FreeBSD to ARM® processors

freebsd-atm

Using ATM networking with FreeBSD

freebsd-bluetooth

Using Bluetooth® technology in FreeBSD

freebsd-cloud

FreeBSD on cloud platforms (EC2, GCE, Azure, etc.)

freebsd-cluster

Using FreeBSD in a clustered environment

freebsd-database

Discussing database use and development under FreeBSD

freebsd-desktop

Using and improving FreeBSD on the desktop

dev-ci

Build and test reports from the Continuous Integration servers

dev-reviews

Notifications of the FreeBSD review system

freebsd-doc

Creating FreeBSD related documents

freebsd-drivers

Writing device drivers for FreeBSD

freebsd-dtrace

Using and working on DTrace in FreeBSD

freebsd-eclipse

FreeBSD users of Eclipse IDE, tools, rich client applications and ports.

freebsd-elastic

FreeBSD-specific ElasticSearch discussions

freebsd-embedded

Using FreeBSD in embedded applications

freebsd-eol

Peer support of FreeBSD-related software that is no longer supported by the FreeBSD Project.

freebsd-emulation

Emulation of other systems such as Linux/MS-DOS®/Windows®

freebsd-enlightenment

Porting Enlightenment and Enlightenment applications

freebsd-erlang

FreeBSD-specific Erlang discussions

freebsd-firewire

FreeBSD FireWire® (iLink, IEEE 1394) technical discussion

freebsd-fortran

Fortran on FreeBSD

freebsd-fs

File systems

freebsd-games

Support for Games on FreeBSD

freebsd-gecko

Gecko Rendering Engine issues

freebsd-geom

GEOM-specific discussions and implementations

freebsd-git

Discussion of git use in the FreeBSD project

freebsd-gnome

Porting GNOME and GNOME applications

freebsd-hackers

General technical discussion

freebsd-haskell

FreeBSD-specific Haskell issues and discussions

freebsd-hardware

General discussion of hardware for running FreeBSD

freebsd-i18n

FreeBSD Internationalization

freebsd-infiniband

Infiniband on FreeBSD

freebsd-ipfw

Technical discussion concerning the redesign of the IP firewall code

freebsd-isdn

ISDN developers

freebsd-jail

Discussion about the jail(8) facility

freebsd-java

Java™ developers and people porting JDK™s to FreeBSD

freebsd-kde

Porting KDE and KDE applications

freebsd-lfs

Porting LFS to FreeBSD

freebsd-mips

Porting FreeBSD to MIPS®

freebsd-mono

Mono and C# applications on FreeBSD

freebsd-multimedia

Multimedia applications

freebsd-new-bus

Technical discussions about bus architecture

freebsd-net

Networking discussion and TCP/IP source code

freebsd-numerics

Discussions of high quality implementation of libm functions

freebsd-ocaml

FreeBSD-specific OCaml discussions

freebsd-office

Office applications on FreeBSD

freebsd-performance

Performance tuning questions for high performance/load installations

freebsd-perl

Maintenance of a number of Perl-related ports

freebsd-pf

Discussion and questions about the packet filter firewall system

freebsd-pkg

Binary package management and package tools discussion

freebsd-pkg-fallout

Fallout logs from package building

freebsd-pkgbase

Packaging the FreeBSD base system

freebsd-platforms

Concerning ports to non Intel® architecture platforms

freebsd-ports

Discussion of the Ports Collection

freebsd-ports-announce

Important news and instructions about the Ports Collection (moderated)

freebsd-ports-bugs

Discussion of the ports bugs/PRs

freebsd-ppc

Porting FreeBSD to the PowerPC®

freebsd-proliant

Technical discussion of FreeBSD on HP ProLiant server platforms

freebsd-python

FreeBSD-specific Python issues

freebsd-rc

Discussion related to the rc.d system and its development

freebsd-realtime

Development of realtime extensions to FreeBSD

freebsd-risc

Porting FreeBSD to RISC-V® systems

freebsd-ruby

FreeBSD-specific Ruby discussions

freebsd-scsi

The SCSI subsystem

freebsd-security

Security issues affecting FreeBSD

freebsd-snapshots

FreeBSD Development Snapshot Announcements

freebsd-sparc64

Porting FreeBSD to SPARC® based systems

freebsd-standards

FreeBSD’s conformance to the C99 and the POSIX® standards

freebsd-sysinstall

sysinstall(8) development

freebsd-tcltk

FreeBSD-specific Tcl/Tk discussions

freebsd-testing

Testing on FreeBSD

freebsd-tex

Porting TeX and its applications to FreeBSD

freebsd-threads

Threading in FreeBSD

freebsd-tilera

Porting FreeBSD to the Tilera family of CPUs

freebsd-tokenring

Support Token Ring in FreeBSD

freebsd-toolchain

Maintenance of FreeBSD’s integrated toolchain

freebsd-translators

Translating FreeBSD documents and programs

freebsd-transport

Discussions of transport level network protocols in FreeBSD

freebsd-usb

Discussing FreeBSD support for USB

freebsd-virtualization

Discussion of various virtualization techniques supported by FreeBSD

freebsd-vuxml

Discussion on VuXML infrastructure

freebsd-x11

Maintenance and support of X11 on FreeBSD

freebsd-xen

Discussion of the FreeBSD port to Xen™ - implementation and usage

freebsd-xfce

XFCE for FreeBSD - porting and maintaining

freebsd-zope

Zope for FreeBSD - porting and maintaining

Limited lists: The following lists are for more specialized (and demanding) audiences and are probably not of interest to the general public. It is also a good idea to establish a presence in the technical lists before joining one of these limited lists in order to understand the communications etiquette involved.

ListPurpose

freebsd-hubs

People running mirror sites (infrastructural support)

freebsd-user-groups

User group coordination

freebsd-wip-status

FreeBSD Work-In-Progress Status

freebsd-wireless

Discussions of 802.11 stack, tools, device driver development

Digest lists: All of the above lists are available in a digest format. Once subscribed to a list, the digest options can be changed in the account options section.

Commit message lists: The following lists are for people interested in seeing the log messages for changes to various areas of the source tree.

SVN log messages are sent to SVN lists.

ListSource areaArea Description (source for)

dev-commits-doc-all

/usr/doc

All changes to the doc repository

dev-commits-ports-all

/usr/ports

All changes to the ports repository

dev-commits-ports-main

/usr/ports

All changes to the "main" branch of the ports repository

dev-commits-ports-branches

/usr/ports

All changes to the quarterly branches of the ports repository

dev-commits-src-all

/usr/src

All changes to the src repository

dev-commits-src-main

/usr/src

All changes to the "main" branch of the src repository (the FreeBSD-CURRENT branch)

dev-commits-src-branches

/usr/src

All changes to all stable branches of the src repository

SVN lists: The following lists are for people interested in seeing the SVN log messages for changes to various areas of the source tree.

Only SVN log messages are sent to SVN lists. After the SVN to Git Migration, the following lists no longer receives new commit messages.

ListSource areaArea Description (source for)

svn-doc-all

/usr/doc

All changes to the doc Subversion repository (except for user, projects and translations)

svn-doc-head

/usr/doc

All changes to the "head" branch of the doc Subversion repository

svn-doc-projects

/usr/doc/projects

All changes to the projects area of the doc Subversion repository

svn-doc-svnadmin

/usr/doc

All changes to the administrative scripts, hooks, and other configuration data of the doc Subversion repository

svn-ports-all

/usr/ports

All changes to the ports Subversion repository

svn-ports-head

/usr/ports

All changes to the "head" branch of the ports Subversion repository

svn-ports-svnadmin

/usr/ports

All changes to the administrative scripts, hooks, and other configuration data of the ports Subversion repository

svn-src-all

/usr/src

All changes to the src Subversion repository (except for user and projects)

svn-src-head

/usr/src

All changes to the "head" branch of the src Subversion repository (the FreeBSD-CURRENT branch)

svn-src-projects

/usr/projects

All changes to the projects area of the src Subversion repository

svn-src-release

/usr/src

All changes to the releases area of the src Subversion repository

svn-src-releng

/usr/src

All changes to the releng branches of the src Subversion repository (the security / release engineering branches)

svn-src-stable

/usr/src

All changes to the all stable branches of the src Subversion repository

svn-src-stable-6

/usr/src

All changes to the stable/6 branch of the src Subversion repository

svn-src-stable-7

/usr/src

All changes to the stable/7 branch of the src Subversion repository

svn-src-stable-8

/usr/src

All changes to the stable/8 branch of the src Subversion repository

svn-src-stable-9

/usr/src

All changes to the stable/9 branch of the src Subversion repository

svn-src-stable-10

/usr/src

All changes to the stable/10 branch of the src Subversion repository

svn-src-stable-11

/usr/src

All changes to the stable/11 branch of the src Subversion repository

svn-src-stable-12

/usr/src

All changes to the stable/12 branch of the src Subversion repository

svn-src-stable-other

/usr/src

All changes to the older stable branches of the src Subversion repository

svn-src-svnadmin

/usr/src

All changes to the administrative scripts, hooks, and other configuration data of the src Subversion repository

svn-src-user

/usr/src

All changes to the experimental user area of the src Subversion repository

svn-src-vendor

/usr/src

All changes to the vendor work area of the src Subversion repository

C.2.2. How to Subscribe

To subscribe to a list, click the list name at http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo. The page that is displayed should contain all of the necessary subscription instructions for that list.

To actually post to a given list, send mail to listname@FreeBSD.org. It will then be redistributed to mailing list members world-wide.

To unsubscribe from a list, click on the URL found at the bottom of every email received from the list. It is also possible to send an email to listname-unsubscribe@FreeBSD.org to unsubscribe.

It is important to keep discussion in the technical mailing lists on a technical track. To only receive important announcements, instead join the FreeBSD announcements mailing list, which is intended for infrequent traffic.

C.2.3. List Charters

All FreeBSD mailing lists have certain basic rules which must be adhered to by anyone using them. Failure to comply with these guidelines will result in two (2) written warnings from the FreeBSD Postmaster postmaster@FreeBSD.org, after which, on a third offense, the poster will removed from all FreeBSD mailing lists and filtered from further posting to them. We regret that such rules and measures are necessary at all, but today’s Internet is a pretty harsh environment, it would seem, and many fail to appreciate just how fragile some of its mechanisms are.

Rules of the road:

  • The topic of any posting should adhere to the basic charter of the list it is posted to. If the list is about technical issues, the posting should contain technical discussion. Ongoing irrelevant chatter or flaming only detracts from the value of the mailing list for everyone on it and will not be tolerated. For free-form discussion on no particular topic, the FreeBSD chat mailing list is freely available and should be used instead.

  • No posting should be made to more than 2 mailing lists, and only to 2 when a clear and obvious need to post to both lists exists. For most lists, there is already a great deal of subscriber overlap and except for the most esoteric mixes (say "-stable & -scsi"), there really is no reason to post to more than one list at a time. If a message is received with multiple mailing lists on the Cc line, trim the Cc line before replying. The person who replies is still responsible for cross-posting, no matter who the originator might have been.

  • Personal attacks and profanity (in the context of an argument) are not allowed, and that includes users and developers alike. Gross breaches of netiquette, like excerpting or reposting private mail when permission to do so was not and would not be forthcoming, are frowned upon but not specifically enforced. However, there are also very few cases where such content would fit within the charter of a list and it would therefore probably rate a warning (or ban) on that basis alone.

  • Advertising of non-FreeBSD related products or services is strictly prohibited and will result in an immediate ban if it is clear that the offender is advertising by spam.

Individual list charters:

freebsd-acpi

ACPI and power management development

freebsd-announce

Important events / milestones

This is the mailing list for people interested only in occasional announcements of significant FreeBSD events. This includes announcements about snapshots and other releases. It contains announcements of new FreeBSD capabilities. It may contain calls for volunteers etc. This is a low volume, strictly moderated mailing list.

freebsd-arch

Architecture and design discussions

This list is for discussion of the FreeBSD architecture. Messages will mostly be kept strictly technical in nature. Examples of suitable topics are:

  • How to re-vamp the build system to have several customized builds running at the same time.

  • What needs to be fixed with VFS to make Heidemann layers work.

  • How do we change the device driver interface to be able to use the same drivers cleanly on many buses and architectures.

  • How to write a network driver.

freebsd-bluetooth

Bluetooth® in FreeBSD

This is the forum where FreeBSD’s Bluetooth® users congregate. Design issues, implementation details, patches, bug reports, status reports, feature requests, and all matters related to Bluetooth® are fair game.

freebsd-bugbusters

Coordination of the Problem Report handling effort

The purpose of this list is to serve as a coordination and discussion forum for the Bugmeister, his Bugbusters, and any other parties who have a genuine interest in the PR database. This list is not for discussions about specific bugs, patches or PRs.

freebsd-bugs

Bug reports

This is the mailing list for reporting bugs in FreeBSD. Whenever possible, bugs should be submitted using the web interface to it.

freebsd-chat

Non technical items related to the FreeBSD community

This list contains the overflow from the other lists about non-technical, social information. It includes discussion about whether Jordan looks like a toon ferret or not, whether or not to type in capitals, who is drinking too much coffee, where the best beer is brewed, who is brewing beer in their basement, and so on. Occasional announcements of important events (such as upcoming parties, weddings, births, new jobs, etc) can be made to the technical lists, but the follow ups should be directed to this -chat list.

freebsd-chromium

FreeBSD-specific Chromium issues

This is a list for the discussion of Chromium support for FreeBSD. This is a technical list to discuss development and installation of Chromium.

freebsd-cloud

Running FreeBSD on various cloud platforms

This list discusses running FreeBSD on Amazon EC2, Google Compute Engine, Microsoft Azure, and other cloud computing platforms.

FreeBSD core team

This is an internal mailing list for use by the core members. Messages can be sent to it when a serious FreeBSD-related matter requires arbitration or high-level scrutiny.

freebsd-current

Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-CURRENT

This is the mailing list for users of FreeBSD-CURRENT. It includes warnings about new features coming out in -CURRENT that will affect the users, and instructions on steps that must be taken to remain -CURRENT. Anyone running "CURRENT" must subscribe to this list. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected.

freebsd-desktop

Using and improving FreeBSD on the desktop

This is a forum for discussion of FreeBSD on the desktop. It is primarily a place for desktop porters and users to discuss issues and improve FreeBSD’s desktop support.

dev-ci

Continuous Integration reports of build and test results

All Continuous Integration reports of build and test results

dev-reviews

Notifications of work in progress in FreeBSD’s review tool

Automated notifications of work in progress for review in FreeBSD’s review tools, including patches.

freebsd-doc

Documentation Project

This mailing list is for the discussion of issues and projects related to the creation of documentation for FreeBSD. The members of this mailing list are collectively referred to as "The FreeBSD Documentation Project". It is an open list; feel free to join and contribute!

freebsd-drivers

Writing device drivers for FreeBSD

This is a forum for technical discussions related to device drivers on FreeBSD. It is primarily a place for device driver writers to ask questions about how to write device drivers using the APIs in the FreeBSD kernel.

freebsd-dtrace

Using and working on DTrace in FreeBSD

DTrace is an integrated component of FreeBSD that provides a framework for understanding the kernel as well as user space programs at run time. The mailing list is an archived discussion for developers of the code as well as those using it.

freebsd-eclipse

FreeBSD users of Eclipse IDE, tools, rich client applications and ports.

The intention of this list is to provide mutual support for everything to do with choosing, installing, using, developing and maintaining the Eclipse IDE, tools, rich client applications on the FreeBSD platform and assisting with the porting of Eclipse IDE and plugins to the FreeBSD environment.

The intention is also to facilitate exchange of information between the Eclipse community and the FreeBSD community to the mutual benefit of both.

Although this list is focused primarily on the needs of Eclipse users it will also provide a forum for those who would like to develop FreeBSD specific applications using the Eclipse framework.

freebsd-embedded

Using FreeBSD in embedded applications

This list discusses topics related to using FreeBSD in embedded systems. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected. For the purpose of this list, embedded systems are those computing devices which are not desktops and which usually serve a single purpose as opposed to being general computing environments. Examples include, but are not limited to, all kinds of phone handsets, network equipment such as routers, switches and PBXs, remote measuring equipment, PDAs, Point Of Sale systems, and so on.

freebsd-emulation

Emulation of other systems such as Linux/MS-DOS®/Windows®

This is a forum for technical discussions related to running programs written for other operating systems on FreeBSD.

freebsd-enlightenment

Enlightenment

Discussions concerning the Enlightenment Desktop Environment for FreeBSD systems. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected.

freebsd-eol

Peer support of FreeBSD-related software that is no longer supported by the FreeBSD Project.

This list is for those interested in providing or making use of peer support of FreeBSD-related software for which the FreeBSD Project no longer provides official support in the form of security advisories and patches.

freebsd-firewire

FireWire® (iLink, IEEE 1394)

This is a mailing list for discussion of the design and implementation of a FireWire® (aka IEEE 1394 aka iLink) subsystem for FreeBSD. Relevant topics specifically include the standards, bus devices and their protocols, adapter boards/cards/chips sets, and the architecture and implementation of code for their proper support.

freebsd-fortran

Fortran on FreeBSD

This is the mailing list for discussion of Fortran related ports on FreeBSD: compilers, libraries, scientific and engineering applications from laptops to HPC clusters.

freebsd-fs

File systems

Discussions concerning FreeBSD filesystems. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected.

freebsd-games

Games on FreeBSD

This is a technical list for discussions related to bringing games to FreeBSD. It is for individuals actively working on porting games to FreeBSD, to bring up problems or discuss alternative solutions. Individuals interested in following the technical discussion are also welcome.

freebsd-gecko

Gecko Rendering Engine

This is a forum about Gecko applications using FreeBSD.

Discussion centers around Gecko Ports applications, their installation, their development and their support within FreeBSD.

freebsd-geom

GEOM

Discussions specific to GEOM and related implementations. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected.

freebsd-git

Use of git in the FreeBSD project

Discussions of how to use git in FreeBSD infrastructure including the github mirror and other uses of git for project collaboration. Discussion area for people using git against the FreeBSD github mirror. People wanting to get started with the mirror or git in general on FreeBSD can ask here.

freebsd-gnome

GNOME

Discussions concerning The GNOME Desktop Environment for FreeBSD systems. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected.

freebsd-infiniband

Infiniband on FreeBSD

Technical mailing list discussing Infiniband, OFED, and OpenSM on FreeBSD.

freebsd-ipfw

IP Firewall

This is the forum for technical discussions concerning the redesign of the IP firewall code in FreeBSD. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected.

freebsd-isdn

ISDN Communications

This is the mailing list for people discussing the development of ISDN support for FreeBSD.

freebsd-java

Java™ Development

This is the mailing list for people discussing the development of significant Java™ applications for FreeBSD and the porting and maintenance of JDK™s.

freebsd-jobs

Jobs offered and sought

This is a forum for posting employment notices specifically related to FreeBSD and resumes from those seeking FreeBSD-related employment. This is not a mailing list for general employment issues since adequate forums for that already exist elsewhere.

Note that this list, like other FreeBSD.org mailing lists, is distributed worldwide. Be clear about the geographic location and the extent to which telecommuting or assistance with relocation is available.

Email should use open formats only - preferably plain text, but basic Portable Document Format (PDF), HTML, and a few others are acceptable to many readers. Closed formats such as Microsoft® Word (.doc) will be rejected by the mailing list server.

freebsd-kde

KDE

Discussions concerning KDE on FreeBSD systems. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected.

freebsd-hackers

Technical discussions

This is a forum for technical discussions related to FreeBSD. This is the primary technical mailing list. It is for individuals actively working on FreeBSD, to bring up problems or discuss alternative solutions. Individuals interested in following the technical discussion are also welcome. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected.

freebsd-hardware

General discussion of FreeBSD hardware

General discussion about the types of hardware that FreeBSD runs on, various problems and suggestions concerning what to buy or avoid.

freebsd-hubs

Mirror sites

Announcements and discussion for people who run FreeBSD mirror sites.

freebsd-isp

Issues for Internet Service Providers

This mailing list is for discussing topics relevant to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) using FreeBSD. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected.

freebsd-mono

Mono and C# applications on FreeBSD

This is a list for discussions related to the Mono development framework on FreeBSD. This is a technical mailing list. It is for individuals actively working on porting Mono or C# applications to FreeBSD, to bring up problems or discuss alternative solutions. Individuals interested in following the technical discussion are also welcome.

freebsd-ocaml

FreeBSD-specific OCaml discussions

This is a list for discussions related to the OCaml support on FreeBSD. This is a technical mailing list. It is for individuals working on OCaml ports, 3rd party libraries and frameworks. Individuals interested in the technical discussion are also welcome.

freebsd-office

Office applications on FreeBSD

Discussion centers around office applications, their installation, their development and their support within FreeBSD.

freebsd-ops-announce

Project Infrastructure Announcements

This is the mailing list for people interested in changes and issues related to the FreeBSD.org Project infrastructure.

This moderated list is strictly for announcements: no replies, requests, discussions, or opinions.

freebsd-performance

Discussions about tuning or speeding up FreeBSD

This mailing list exists to provide a place for hackers, administrators, and/or concerned parties to discuss performance related topics pertaining to FreeBSD. Acceptable topics includes talking about FreeBSD installations that are either under high load, are experiencing performance problems, or are pushing the limits of FreeBSD. Concerned parties that are willing to work toward improving the performance of FreeBSD are highly encouraged to subscribe to this list. This is a highly technical list ideally suited for experienced FreeBSD users, hackers, or administrators interested in keeping FreeBSD fast, robust, and scalable. This list is not a question-and-answer list that replaces reading through documentation, but it is a place to make contributions or inquire about unanswered performance related topics.

freebsd-pf

Discussion and questions about the packet filter firewall system

Discussion concerning the packet filter (pf) firewall system in terms of FreeBSD. Technical discussion and user questions are both welcome. This list is also a place to discuss the ALTQ QoS framework.

freebsd-pkg

Binary package management and package tools discussion

Discussion of all aspects of managing FreeBSD systems by using binary packages to install software, including binary package toolkits and formats, their development and support within FreeBSD, package repository management, and third party packages.

Note that discussion of ports which fail to generate packages correctly should generally be considered as ports problems, and so inappropriate for this list.

freebsd-pkg-fallout

Fallout logs from package building

All packages building failures logs from the package building clusters

freebsd-pkgbase

Packaging the FreeBSD base system.

Discussions surrounding implementation and issues regarding packaging the FreeBSD base system.

freebsd-platforms

Porting to Non Intel® platforms

Cross-platform FreeBSD issues, general discussion and proposals for non Intel® FreeBSD ports. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected.

freebsd-ports

Discussion of "ports"

Discussions concerning FreeBSD’s "ports collection" (/usr/ports), ports infrastructure, and general ports coordination efforts. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected.

freebsd-ports-announce

Important news and instructions about the FreeBSD "Ports Collection"

Important news for developers, porters, and users of the "Ports Collection" (/usr/ports), including architecture/infrastructure changes, new capabilities, critical upgrade instructions, and release engineering information. This is a low-volume mailing list, intended for announcements.

freebsd-ports-bugs

Discussion of "ports" bugs

Discussions concerning problem reports for FreeBSD’s "ports collection" (/usr/ports), proposed ports, or modifications to ports. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected.

freebsd-proliant

Technical discussion of FreeBSD on HP ProLiant server platforms

This mailing list is to be used for the technical discussion of the usage of FreeBSD on HP ProLiant servers, including the discussion of ProLiant-specific drivers, management software, configuration tools, and BIOS updates. As such, this is the primary place to discuss the hpasmd, hpasmcli, and hpacucli modules.

freebsd-python

Python on FreeBSD

This is a list for discussions related to improving Python-support on FreeBSD. This is a technical mailing list. It is for individuals working on porting Python, its third party modules and Zope stuff to FreeBSD. Individuals interested in following the technical discussion are also welcome.

freebsd-questions

User questions

This is the mailing list for questions about FreeBSD. Do not send "how to" questions to the technical lists unless the question is quite technical.

freebsd-ruby

FreeBSD-specific Ruby discussions

This is a list for discussions related to the Ruby support on FreeBSD. This is a technical mailing list. It is for individuals working on Ruby ports, third party libraries and frameworks.

Individuals interested in the technical discussion are also welcome.

freebsd-scsi

SCSI subsystem

This is the mailing list for people working on the SCSI subsystem for FreeBSD. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected.

freebsd-security

Security issues

FreeBSD computer security issues (DES, Kerberos, known security holes and fixes, etc). This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical discussion is expected. Note that this is not a question-and-answer list, but that contributions (BOTH question AND answer) to the FAQ are welcome.

freebsd-security-notifications

Security Notifications

Notifications of FreeBSD security problems and fixes. This is not a discussion list. The discussion list is FreeBSD-security.

freebsd-snapshots

FreeBSD Development Snapshot Announcements

This list provides notifications about the availability of new FreeBSD development snapshots for the head/ and stable/ branches.

freebsd-stable

Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-STABLE

This is the mailing list for users of FreeBSD-STABLE. "STABLE" is the branch where development continues after a RELEASE, including bug fixes and new features. The ABI is kept stable for binary compatibility. It includes warnings about new features coming out in -STABLE that will affect the users, and instructions on steps that must be taken to remain -STABLE. Anyone running "STABLE" should subscribe to this list. This is a technical mailing list for which strictly technical content is expected.

freebsd-standards

C99 POSIX Conformance

This is a forum for technical discussions related to FreeBSD Conformance to the C99 and the POSIX standards.

freebsd-teaching

Teaching with FreeBSD

Non technical mailing list discussing teaching with FreeBSD.

freebsd-testing

Testing on FreeBSD

Technical mailing list discussing testing on FreeBSD, including ATF/Kyua, test build infrastructure, port tests to FreeBSD from other operating systems (NetBSD, …​), etc.

freebsd-tex

Porting TeX and its applications to FreeBSD

This is a technical mailing list for discussions related to TeX and its applications on FreeBSD. It is for individuals actively working on porting TeX to FreeBSD, to bring up problems or discuss alternative solutions. Individuals interested in following the technical discussion are also welcome.

freebsd-toolchain

Maintenance of FreeBSD’s integrated toolchain

This is the mailing list for discussions related to the maintenance of the toolchain shipped with FreeBSD. This could include the state of Clang and GCC, but also pieces of software such as assemblers, linkers and debuggers.

freebsd-transport

Discussions of transport level network protocols in FreeBSD

The transport mailing list exists for the discussion of issues and designs around the transport level protocols in the FreeBSD network stack, including TCP, SCTP and UDP. Other networking topics, including driver specific and network protocol issues should be discussed on the FreeBSD networking mailing list.

freebsd-translators

Translating FreeBSD documents and programs

A discussion list where translators of FreeBSD documents from English into other languages can talk about translation methods and tools. New members are asked to introduce themselves and mention the languages they are interested in translating.

freebsd-usb

Discussing FreeBSD support for USB

This is a mailing list for technical discussions related to FreeBSD support for USB.

freebsd-user-groups

User Group Coordination List

This is the mailing list for the coordinators from each of the local area Users Groups to discuss matters with each other and a designated individual from the Core Team. This mail list should be limited to meeting synopsis and coordination of projects that span User Groups.

freebsd-virtualization

Discussion of various virtualization techniques supported by FreeBSD

A list to discuss the various virtualization techniques supported by FreeBSD. On one hand the focus will be on the implementation of the basic functionality as well as adding new features. On the other hand users will have a forum to ask for help in case of problems or to discuss their use cases.

freebsd-wip-status

FreeBSD Work-In-Progress Status

This mailing list can be used by developers to announce the creation and progress of FreeBSD related work. Messages will be moderated. It is suggested to send the message "To:" a more topical FreeBSD list and only "BCC:" this list. This way the WIP can also be discussed on the topical list, as no discussion is allowed on this list.

Look inside the archives for examples of suitable messages.

An editorial digest of the messages to this list might be posted to the FreeBSD website every few months as part of the Status Reports [1]. Past reports are archived.

freebsd-wireless

Discussions of 802.11 stack, tools device driver development

The FreeBSD-wireless list focuses on 802.11 stack (sys/net80211), device driver and tools development. This includes bugs, new features and maintenance.

freebsd-xen

Discussion of the FreeBSD port to Xen™ - implementation and usage

A list that focuses on the FreeBSD Xen™ port. The anticipated traffic level is small enough that it is intended as a forum for both technical discussions of the implementation and design details as well as administrative deployment issues.

freebsd-xfce

XFCE

This is a forum for discussions related to bring the XFCE environment to FreeBSD. This is a technical mailing list. It is for individuals actively working on porting XFCE to FreeBSD, to bring up problems or discuss alternative solutions. Individuals interested in following the technical discussion are also welcome.

freebsd-zope

Zope

This is a forum for discussions related to bring the Zope environment to FreeBSD. This is a technical mailing list. It is for individuals actively working on porting Zope to FreeBSD, to bring up problems or discuss alternative solutions. Individuals interested in following the technical discussion are also welcome.

C.2.4. Filtering on the Mailing Lists

The FreeBSD mailing lists are filtered in multiple ways to avoid the distribution of spam, viruses, and other unwanted emails. The filtering actions described in this section do not include all those used to protect the mailing lists.

Only certain types of attachments are allowed on the mailing lists. All attachments with a MIME content type not found in the list below will be stripped before an email is distributed on the mailing lists.

  • application/octet-stream

  • application/pdf

  • application/pgp-signature

  • application/x-pkcs7-signature

  • message/rfc822

  • multipart/alternative

  • multipart/related

  • multipart/signed

  • text/html

  • text/plain

  • text/x-diff

  • text/x-patch

Some of the mailing lists might allow attachments of other MIME content types, but the above list should be applicable for most of the mailing lists.

If an email contains both an HTML and a plain text version, the HTML version will be removed. If an email contains only an HTML version, it will be converted to plain text.

C.3. Usenet Newsgroups

In addition to two FreeBSD specific newsgroups, there are many others in which FreeBSD is discussed or are otherwise relevant to FreeBSD users.

C.3.3. X Window System


All FreeBSD documents are available for download at https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/doc/

Questions that are not answered by the documentation may be sent to <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org>.
Send questions about this document to <freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org>.