Why We Run FreeBSD current at Netflix – Drew Gallatin

We run FreeBSD-current on our CDN at Netflix. By running FreeBSD-current, we can find and fix bugs far more effectively than by running an older FreeBSD-stable branch. This talk describes our team, how we track FreeBSD-current, our contributions to FreeBSD, and some of the performance milestones we've hit. It will end with a description of a finding and fixing very interesting bug in upstream FreeBSD that caused a 20% performance regression.

#OpenFest 2023 I Share Therefore I Am

[LuizPessol]

very good, thank you for sharing this presentation.

[IVI-I]

Thanks for the detailed presentation. Compelling reasons to track current. Will need to look into the size of ARC performance hit with ZFS.

[Felix-vehs]

Pretty amazing to think that almost all that runs on Netflix' servers is FreeBSD, Nginx and Bird.

[petem]

What fascinates me as an example of how the group approaches their job is Netflix's willingness to let disks fail as opposed to investing in RAID. Focus on the customers' needs, not on sexy (expensive) technology--supports a very successful company. Lots of learning to do here.

[billv]

Is it possible to watch Netflix content at 1080p using FreeBSD?

[faraday]

great video, but doesn't really explain why they choose freebsd and not linux

[hughoxford]

Doesn't tracking current present a security risk?

[intreal]

I love FreeBSD so much, and I stuck with Linux on my home server because of a single piece of software which only runs in docker.