
FreeBSD 10.3-Release on AWS - eatonphil
https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B00KSS55FY
======
cperciva
FWIW, while this says "Sold by: Colin Percival", the FreeBSD 10.3-RELEASE
images were built and uploaded by the release engineering team; my only
involvement this time was to let the Marketplace team know that a new release
was available. The FreeBSD project takes the issue of "bus factors" seriously,
and while I started the FreeBSD/EC2 project the intention has always been that
it would get handed off to the FreeBSD release engineering team; with
11.0-RELEASE we should finally have the last bits sorted out and it will show
up in the Marketplace as "Sold by: The FreeBSD Project".

EDIT: Hijacking my own comment slightly, since it's at the top right now: I'm
not sure why 10.3-RELEASE being in the AWS Marketplace is a story when
10.2-RELEASE, 10.1-RELEASE, 10.0-RELEASE, 9.3-RELEASE, 9.2-RELEASE,
9.1-RELEASE, and 9.0-RELEASE being in the AWS Marketplace weren't. The hand-
off from me to the release engineering team has been gradual (made slower by
the fact that we only get to try something new once every 6 months!) but as
far as users are concerned FreeBSD has been in the AWS Marketplace for years.

~~~
vbit
How stable is FreeBSD on AWS?

Would you recommend it for production use?

Is there a suite of compatibility/performance tests that is run on AWS for
each release?

~~~
cperciva
_How stable is FreeBSD on AWS?_

The releases are completely stable. I'd go so far as to say that FreeBSD/EC2
is probably more stable than FreeBSD on native hardware, simply because you're
less likely to run into weird driver issues with obscure hardware.

 _Would you recommend it for production use?_

Absolutely. I've been using it for Tarsnap for years.

 _Is there a suite of compatibility /performance tests that is run on AWS for
each release?_

Not that I know of.

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swills
Putting this here just because it's something I often find people aren't aware
of and it's somewhat relevant:

If you want to run 10.3 on Google Compute engine, official images from the
release engineering team are available.

Quoting the release announcement:

% gcloud compute instances create INSTANCE --image freebsd-10-3-release-amd64
--image-project=freebsd-org-cloud-dev

% gcloud compute ssh INSTANCE

(See
[https://www.freebsd.org/releases/10.3R/announce.html](https://www.freebsd.org/releases/10.3R/announce.html))

~~~
vbit
Whoa - thanks! I did not know this.

Do you use this and can you say something about production
readiness/stability?

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jlgaddis
Looks like this doesn't have the Windows tax...

~~~
cperciva
The Windows tax went away when Amazon launched unix HVM, starting with
"cluster compute" instances over five years ago. It has never applied to the
FreeBSD images in the AWS Marketplace.

~~~
jlgaddis
That's interesting, I can recall getting charged although I don't remember the
details. I've never used the "official" AMIs, though, so perhaps it was
because we built our own. Either way, thanks!

------
tyingq
Vultr.com is FreeBSD friendly, and dirt cheap. They are different in that you
can upload an ISO of any OS you want. I was able, for example, to try out
DragonFlyBSD this way. No association other than being a customer.

~~~
vbit
DigitalOcean is FreeBSD friendly too.

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feylikurds
Was not FreeBSD already available as an image on Amazon?

~~~
MichaelBurge
It says: Available on AWS Marketplace Since: 06/06/2014

Maybe it's a new version?

~~~
cperciva
10.3-RELEASE is a new version, yes. (It was released last week, but it took a
week to get the new version into the AWS Marketplace. I'm still working out
the kinks in the process.)

The "since 06/06/2014" is for FreeBSD 10; there's a separate Marketplace
listing for FreeBSD 9, which shows "Available on AWS Marketplace Since:
11/20/2012":
[https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B00AA25MLK](https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B00AA25MLK)

------
1stbubblevet
Wow great news! I know that bringing FreeBSD to AWS was a HUGE PITA, so props
to everyone for making this happen!

