Research: which BSD/appliance platforms matter for enterprise (prioritisation)

kayg commented

2026-10-07 09:41:35 +00:00

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D156: research which BSD and appliance platforms matter most to enterprise customers before prioritising: FreeBSD (servers), OpenBSD/NetBSD (niche), TrueNAS CORE/SCALE (storage), pfSense/OPNsense (firewalls). For each: enterprise install base and evidence, whether it is managed by SSH shell or API, what customers would expect infraternal to do with it, and the effort. Output a ranked recommendation for the owner. Inputs: research/discovery/REPORT.md.

D156: research which BSD and appliance platforms matter most to **enterprise** customers before prioritising: FreeBSD (servers), OpenBSD/NetBSD (niche), TrueNAS CORE/SCALE (storage), pfSense/OPNsense (firewalls). For each: enterprise install base and evidence, whether it is managed by SSH shell or API, what customers would expect infraternal to do with it, and the effort. Output a ranked recommendation for the owner. Inputs: research/discovery/REPORT.md.

kayg commented

2026-10-07 09:42:45 +00:00

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Started on branch research-bsd from main at aa32027b0e. Read the full #71 history (no prior comments) and upstream #64 history, plus CLAUDE.md, DECISIONS.md, docs/ARCHITECTURE.md and docs/PROCESS.md.

Started on branch research-bsd from main at aa32027b0ef727fa0916e075b2ea408da809642b. Read the full #71 history (no prior comments) and upstream #64 history, plus CLAUDE.md, DECISIONS.md, docs/ARCHITECTURE.md and docs/PROCESS.md.

kayg commented

2026-10-07 09:49:36 +00:00

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Finding (enterprise evidence): the 2025 FreeBSD Foundation community survey had 2,127 substantially complete responses; 27% self-identified as professional users, and 65% of that respondent subgroup primarily used FreeBSD on servers. This is a community sample, not market share. The Foundation's Netflix case study quotes thousands of FreeBSD Open Connect servers/appliances. Rust's x86_64 and aarch64 FreeBSD targets are Tier 2 with host tools. Sources: https://freebsdfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/FreeBSD-2025-Community-Survey-Report-Final.pdf ; https://freebsdfoundation.org/end-user-stories/netflix-case-study/ ; https://doc.rust-lang.org/rustc/platform-support/freebsd.html

kayg commented

2026-10-07 09:49:37 +00:00

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Finding (appliance/API evidence): TrueNAS reports 500,000 active systems in 2025 and says SCALE was renamed TrueNAS in 25.10; CORE is maintenance-only/discontinued for future products. Current TrueNAS uses versioned JSON-RPC over WebSocket, with its REST API removed in 26. Netgate claims 13 million cumulative pfSense installs; Plus has Nexus multi-instance API, while pfSense SSH is disabled by default. OPNsense has a core API and Business Edition's OPNcentral already supplies fleet health/provisioning. These counts are not a measured enterprise share. Sources: https://www.truenas.com/history/ ; https://www.truenas.com/docs/scale/api/ ; https://www.netgate.com/pfsense-plus-software ; https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/nexus/index.html ; https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/recipes/ssh-access.html ; https://docs.opnsense.org/development/api.html ; https://docs.opnsense.org/vendor/deciso/opncentral.html

kayg commented

2026-10-07 09:51:37 +00:00

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Decision alignment: DECISIONS.md D156 D8 explicitly supersedes D145. This recommendation follows the current flow: a tiny pre-install sniff, install the infraternal agent on supported hosts, then collect facts; use a product API or defer shell-less appliances. D156 D9 keeps the first collection scope read-only.

kayg commented

2026-10-07 09:58:51 +00:00

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Finding (market-share limits): Dell'Oro tracks firewall vendor revenue share across hardware, virtual and SaaS segments; Gartner reports a .1B 2024 external-controller storage market, but its public summary does not publish a TrueNAS share. The public sources do not support comparable pfSense/OPNsense/TrueNAS market-share percentages, so the report keeps vendor install claims separate from share estimates. Sources: https://www.delloro.com/market-research/security-enterprise-network-infrastructure/network-security-data-center-appliance/ ; https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/6549702 ; https://www.gartner.com/reviews/market/enterprise-storage-platforms

kayg commented

2026-10-07 10:01:08 +00:00

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Finished: added research/bsd/REPORT.md and committed as ad12e3d21c26322e18da5e1dc8ed3b5ed1699c2a. Recommendation ranks current TrueNAS API integration first and FreeBSD servers as the first BSD agent candidate; vendor-reported TrueNAS 500,000 active systems and pfSense 13 million installations are labeled as non-market-share figures, and the FreeBSD survey evidence is labeled as respondent data. scripts/verify fast was attempted but the script is absent. Gate output verbatim: zsh:1: no such file or directory: scripts/verify (exit 127).

kayg commented

2026-10-07 10:01:46 +00:00

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Correction to the finish note: the report commit metadata was amended to format the required Refs footer. Final HEAD: 99b11fe1f1; report content is unchanged. scripts/verify fast remains unavailable. Gate output verbatim: zsh:1: no such file or directory: scripts/verify (exit 127).

Correction to the finish note: the report commit metadata was amended to format the required Refs footer. Final HEAD: 99b11fe1f13b8af94d353141a0710cc4c7d399f3; report content is unchanged. scripts/verify fast remains unavailable. Gate output verbatim: zsh:1: no such file or directory: scripts/verify (exit 127).

kayg commented

2026-10-07 10:07:22 +00:00

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Deferred by owner decision D161 (2026-10-07): BSD and BSD-based appliances wait. The enterprise OS set (enterprise Linux incl. PVE, macOS, Windows) comes first. The ranking above stays as the starting point when this is picked up.

kayg referenced this issue from a commit

2026-10-10 09:20:38 +00:00

research(bsd): keep the BSD and appliance enterprise ranking on main (#71)

kayg referenced this issue from a commit

2026-10-10 09:20:57 +00:00

research: rank BSD and appliance enterprise paths (#71)

~~kayg referenced this issue 2026-10-28 17:53:56 +00:00~~

Orchestrator handover 2026-10-28: moving to a new machine #254

kayg referenced this issue

2026-10-28 18:00:45 +00:00

Orchestrator handover 2026-10-28: moving to a new machine #254