BastilleBSD

BastilleBSD 15.1-RELEASE available

BastilleBSD is our FreeBSD-based distribution: vanilla FreeBSD 15.1-RELEASE, with Bastille and Rocinante pre-installed, secure defaults applied, and your container host configured automatically on first boot. It takes everything we’ve learned building the tools and packages it into a platform that’s secure and productive the moment it powers on.

Released to celebrate FreeBSD’s birthday, BastilleBSD 15.1-RELEASE images are available now.

Download the ISO Follow development

The BastilleBSD 15.1-RELEASE boot loader (EFI).

BastilleBSD is FreeBSD, plus

Everything you get from FreeBSD 15.1-RELEASE — the same kernel, the same ports and packages, the same rock-solid base — with the batteries included:

Pre-installed and configured

Bastille + Rocinante ready to use out of the box
Modern shells — zsh, fish, and bash
Common utilities — tmux, opendoas, git-lite, htop / btop
chrony configured for accurate time
dnscrypt-proxy configured for privacy-friendly, malware-filtering DNS-over-HTTPS via Quad9
CPU microcode updates auto-loaded

Secure by default

System hardening enabled by default, chosen right in the installer
SSH hardened out of the box
sysctl.conf hardening applied from first boot

The installer lets you confirm the FreeBSD security hardening options up front — hiding processes across users, groups, and jails; disabling the kernel message buffer and process debugging for unprivileged users; randomizing PIDs; clearing /tmp at boot; securing the console; and more.

The BastilleBSD installer System Hardening dialog with security options enabled — Security hardening options are presented — and enabled — during installation.

First boot does the work for you

On its very first boot, BastilleBSD runs the setup a new Bastille host normally needs — automatically:

BastilleBSD firstboot

bastille setup
bastille bootstrap 15.1-RELEASE update
bastille bootstrap https://github.com/bastillebsd/templates

By the time you log in for the first time, networking, the firewall, and storage are configured, a patched 15.1-RELEASE container base is bootstrapped, and the entire community template collection is ready. You can create your first container immediately:

root@bastillebsd ~

bastille create alcatraz 15.1-RELEASE 10.17.89.50/24

No manual host prep, no bootstrap wait — it’s already done.

Download

Grab the latest images from the official mirror:

download.bastillebsd.org

BastilleBSD also boots beautifully on legacy BIOS/console.

Who it’s for

The same people Bastille already serves — system administrators, DevOps engineers, developers, and security professionals — who want the power of FreeBSD jails without assembling the plumbing themselves. It’s equally at home as a developer’s containerized testing ground or a production container host.

Stay in the loop

BastilleBSD is evolving quickly. Follow along and help shape it:

Download — the latest 15.1-RELEASE images
GitHub organization — repositories and issues
Discord — discussion and announcements
Community Library — progress notes and guides

Prefer to build it yourself on a stock FreeBSD install? Everything BastilleBSD automates, you can do by hand with Bastille — our Getting Started guide walks you through it.