Running nodes on FreeBSD

[crossposted from the dev forum by @Dimitar’s recommendation]

I’m ready to build something neat I have planned for the network except one problem: I need FreeBSD support for building and running nodes.

I tried building the node code on FreeBSD but I ran into some issues. Before I proceed, are the devs even interested in supporting FreeBSD? I’m experienced with both FreeBSD and Rust, and could do much or all of the work to add support, however it’d be pointless if a PR would languish.

Ideally, one or more devs would be willing to act as points-of-contact and shepherd the work through.

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tl;dr There may well be performance and security gains for large installs but whether these gains would prove significant is debatable. And in any case the devs are too busy for the foreseeable - I think you will be on your own

But a carefully thought out PR could work wonders…

FreeBSD is for those who are determined to wring the last drop of performance, stability and security out of a large fleet of nodes.
With the emphasis on “run what you brung from home” FreeBSD is not likely to be high on the devs list.
And while I have been calling for a move away from datacentre nodes, it has to be recognised that they will probably live on a lot longer than many predict. So they might as well run at max efficiency even though a couple of years from now, datacentre-type nodes may only account for 10-20% of the total.

Have you tried running the current code with Linux Binary Compatability?
I must admit to only very minor dabbling with nginx on FreeBSD some years ago so maybe its all moved on.

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