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FreeBSD Handbook

The FreeBSD Documentation Project

Revision: 43126

Copyright © 1995-2013 The FreeBSD Documentation Project

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Last modified on 2013-11-07 by gabor.
Abstract

Welcome to FreeBSD! This handbook covers the installation and day to day use of FreeBSD 8.4-RELEASE and FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE. This manual is a work in progress and is the work of many individuals. As such, some sections may become dated and require updating. If you are interested in helping out with this project, send email to the FreeBSD documentation project mailing list. The latest version of this document is always available from the FreeBSD web site (previous versions of this handbook can be obtained from http://docs.FreeBSD.org/doc/). It may also be downloaded in a variety of formats and compression options from the FreeBSD FTP server or one of the numerous mirror sites. If you would prefer to have a hard copy of the handbook, you can purchase one at the FreeBSD Mall. You may also want to search the handbook.

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Table of Contents
Preface
I. Getting Started
1. Introduction
1.1. Synopsis
1.2. Welcome to FreeBSD!
1.3. About the FreeBSD Project
2. Installing FreeBSD 9.X and Later
2.1. Synopsis
2.2. Hardware Requirements
2.3. Pre-Installation Tasks
2.4. Starting the Installation
2.5. Introducing bsdinstall
2.6. Installing from the Network
2.7. Allocating Disk Space
2.8. Committing to the Installation
2.9. Post-Installation
2.10. Troubleshooting
2.11. Using the Live CD
3. Installing FreeBSD 8.X
3.1. Synopsis
3.2. Hardware Requirements
3.3. Pre-installation Tasks
3.4. Starting the Installation
3.5. Introducing sysinstall(8)
3.6. Allocating Disk Space
3.7. Choosing What to Install
3.8. Choosing the Installation Media
3.9. Committing to the Installation
3.10. Post-installation
3.11. Troubleshooting
3.12. Advanced Installation Guide
3.13. Preparing Custom Installation Media
4. UNIX Basics
4.1. Synopsis
4.2. Virtual Consoles and Terminals
4.3. Users and Basic Account Management
4.4. Permissions
4.5. Directory Structure
4.6. Disk Organization
4.7. Mounting and Unmounting File Systems
4.8. Processes and Daemons
4.9. Shells
4.10. Text Editors
4.11. Devices and Device Nodes
4.12. Manual Pages
5. Installing Applications: Packages and Ports
5.1. Synopsis
5.2. Overview of Software Installation
5.3. Finding Software
5.4. Using Binary Packages
5.5. Using pkgng for Binary Package Management
5.6. Using the Ports Collection
5.7. Post-Installation Considerations
5.8. Dealing with Broken Ports
6. The X Window System
6.1. Synopsis
6.2. Terminology
6.3. Installing Xorg
6.4. Xorg Configuration
6.5. Using Fonts in Xorg
6.6. The X Display Manager
6.7. Desktop Environments
6.8. Troubleshooting
II. Common Tasks
7. Desktop Applications
7.1. Synopsis
7.2. Browsers
7.3. Productivity
7.4. Document Viewers
7.5. Finance
8. Multimedia
8.1. Synopsis
8.2. Setting Up the Sound Card
8.3. MP3 Audio
8.4. Video Playback
8.5. TV Cards
8.6. MythTV
8.7. Image Scanners
9. Configuring the FreeBSD Kernel
9.1. Synopsis
9.2. Why Build a Custom Kernel?
9.3. Finding the System Hardware
9.4. The Configuration File
9.5. Building and Installing a Custom Kernel
9.6. If Something Goes Wrong
10. Printing
10.1. Synopsis
10.2. Introduction
10.3. Basic Setup
10.4. Advanced Printer Setup
10.5. Using Printers
10.6. Alternatives to the Standard Spooler
10.7. Troubleshooting
11. Linux® Binary Compatibility
11.1. Synopsis
11.2. Installation
11.3. Advanced Topics
III. System Administration
12. Configuration and Tuning
12.1. Synopsis
12.2. Initial Configuration
12.3. Core Configuration
12.4. Application Configuration
12.5. Starting Services
12.6. Configuring cron(8)
12.7. Using rc(8) Under FreeBSD
12.8. Setting Up Network Interface Cards
12.9. Virtual Hosts
12.10. Configuring the System Logger, syslogd
12.11. Configuration Files
12.12. Tuning with sysctl(8)
12.13. Tuning Disks
12.14. Tuning Kernel Limits
12.15. Adding Swap Space
12.16. Power and Resource Management
12.17. Using and Debugging FreeBSD ACPI
13. The FreeBSD Booting Process
13.1. Synopsis
13.2. The Booting Problem
13.3. The Boot Manager and Boot Stages
13.4. Kernel Interaction During Boot
13.5. Device Hints
13.6. Init: Process Control Initialization
13.7. Shutdown Sequence
14. Security
14.1. Synopsis
14.2. Introduction
14.3. Securing FreeBSD
14.4. DES, Blowfish, MD5, SHA256, SHA512, and Crypt
14.5. One-time Passwords
14.6. TCP Wrappers
14.7. Kerberos5
14.8. OpenSSL
14.9. VPN over IPsec
14.10. OpenSSH
14.11. Filesystem Access Control Lists (ACL)s
14.12. Monitoring Third Party Security Issues
14.13. FreeBSD Security Advisories
14.14. Process Accounting
14.15. Resource Limits
15. Jails
15.1. Synopsis
15.2. Terms Related to Jails
15.3. Introduction
15.4. Creating and Controlling Jails
15.5. Fine Tuning and Administration
15.6. Application of Jails
16. Mandatory Access Control
16.1. Synopsis
16.2. Key Terms in This Chapter
16.3. Explanation of MAC
16.4. Understanding MAC Labels
16.5. Planning the Security Configuration
16.6. Module Configuration
16.7. The MAC See Other UIDs Policy
16.8. The MAC BSD Extended Policy
16.9. The MAC Interface Silencing Policy
16.10. The MAC Port Access Control List Policy
16.11. The MAC Partition Policy
16.12. The MAC Multi-Level Security Module
16.13. The MAC Biba Module
16.14. The MAC LOMAC Module
16.15. Nagios in a MAC Jail
16.16. User Lock Down
16.17. Troubleshooting the MAC Framework
17. Security Event Auditing
17.1. Synopsis
17.2. Key Terms in This Chapter
17.3. Installing Audit Support
17.4. Audit Configuration
17.5. Administering the Audit Subsystem
18. Storage
18.1. Synopsis
18.2. Device Names
18.3. Adding Disks
18.4. USB Storage Devices
18.5. Creating and Using CD Media
18.6. Creating and Using DVD Media
18.7. Creating and Using Floppy Disks
18.8. Creating and Using Data Tapes
18.9. Backup Strategies
18.10. Backup Basics
18.11. Network, Memory, and File-Backed File Systems
18.12. File System Snapshots
18.13. File System Quotas
18.14. Encrypting Disk Partitions
18.15. Encrypting Swap Space
18.16. Highly Available Storage (HAST)
19. GEOM: Modular Disk Transformation Framework
19.1. Synopsis
19.2. GEOM Introduction
19.3. RAID0 - Striping
19.4. RAID1 - Mirroring
19.5. Software RAID Devices
19.6. RAID3 - Byte-level Striping with Dedicated Parity
19.7. GEOM Gate Network Devices
19.8. Labeling Disk Devices
19.9. UFS Journaling Through GEOM
20. File Systems Support
20.1. Synopsis
20.2. The Z File System (ZFS)
20.3. Linux® Filesystems
21. Virtualization
21.1. Synopsis
21.2. FreeBSD as a Guest OS
21.3. FreeBSD as a Host
22. Localization - i18n/L10n Usage and Setup
22.1. Synopsis
22.2. The Basics
22.3. Using Localization
22.4. Compiling i18n Programs
22.5. Localizing FreeBSD to Specific Languages
23. Updating and Upgrading FreeBSD
23.1. Synopsis
23.2. FreeBSD Update
23.3. Portsnap: a Ports Collection Update Tool
23.4. Updating the Documentation Set
23.5. Tracking a Development Branch
23.6. Synchronizing Source
23.7. Rebuilding “world”
23.8. Tracking for Multiple Machines
24. DTrace
24.1. Synopsis
24.2. Implementation Differences
24.3. Enabling DTrace Support
24.4. Using DTrace
24.5. The D Language
IV. Network Communication
25. Serial Communications
25.1. Synopsis
25.2. Serial Terminology and Hardware
25.3. Terminals
25.4. Dial-in Service
25.5. Dial-out Service
25.6. Setting Up the Serial Console
26. PPP
26.1. Synopsis
26.2. Configuring PPP
26.3. Troubleshooting PPP Connections
26.4. Using PPP over Ethernet (PPPoE)
26.5. Using PPP over ATM (PPPoA)
27. Electronic Mail
27.1. Synopsis
27.2. Using Electronic Mail
27.3. Sendmail Configuration
27.4. Changing the Mail Transfer Agent
27.5. Troubleshooting
27.6. Advanced Topics
27.7. Setting Up to Send Only
27.8. Using Mail with a Dialup Connection
27.9. SMTP Authentication
27.10. Mail User Agents
27.11. Using fetchmail
27.12. Using procmail
28. Network Servers
28.1. Synopsis
28.2. The inetd “Super-Server”
28.3. Network File System (NFS)
28.4. Network Information System (NIS)
28.5. FreeBSD and LDAP
28.6. Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
28.7. Domain Name System (DNS)
28.8. Apache HTTP Server
28.9. File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
28.10. File and Print Services for Microsoft® Windows® Clients (Samba)
28.11. Clock Synchronization with NTP
28.12. Remote Host Logging with syslogd
28.13. iSCSI Initiator and Target Configuration
29. Firewalls
29.1. Introduction
29.2. Firewall Concepts
29.3. Firewall Packages
29.4. PF and ALTQ
29.5. The IPFILTER (IPF) Firewall
29.6. IPFW
30. Advanced Networking
30.1. Synopsis
30.2. Gateways and Routes
30.3. Wireless Networking
30.4. Bluetooth
30.5. Bridging
30.6. Link Aggregation and Failover
30.7. Diskless Operation
30.8. PXE Booting with an NFS Root File System
30.9. Network Address Translation
30.10. IPv6
30.11. Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)
30.12. Common Address Redundancy Protocol (CARP)
V. Appendices
A. Obtaining FreeBSD
A.1. CDROM and DVD Publishers
A.2. FTP Sites
A.3. Anonymous CVS (Deprecated)
A.4. Using CTM
A.5. Using Subversion
A.6. Subversion Mirror Sites
A.7. Using CVSup (Deprecated)
A.8. CVS Tags
A.9. rsync Sites
B. Bibliography
B.1. Books & Magazines Specific to FreeBSD
B.2. Users' Guides
B.3. Administrators' Guides
B.4. Programmers' Guides
B.5. Operating System Internals
B.6. Security Reference
B.7. Hardware Reference
B.8. UNIX® History
B.9. Magazines and Journals
C. Resources on the Internet
C.1. Mailing Lists
C.2. Usenet Newsgroups
C.3. World Wide Web Servers
C.4. Email Addresses
D. PGP Keys
D.1. Officers
D.2. Core Team Members
D.3. Developers
D.4. Other Cluster Account Holders
FreeBSD Glossary
Index
List of Figures
2.1. FreeBSD Boot Loader Menu
2.2. Typical Device Probe Results
2.3. Selecting Installation Media Mode
2.4. Keymap Selection
2.5. Selecting Keyboard Menu
2.6. Setting the Hostname
2.7. Selecting Components to Install
2.8. Installing from the Network
2.9. Choosing a Mirror
2.10. Selecting Guided or Manual Partitioning
2.11. Selecting from Multiple Disks
2.12. Selecting Entire Disk or Partition
2.13. Review Created Partitions
2.14. Manually Create Partitions
2.15. Manually Create Partitions
2.16. Manually Create Partitions
2.17. Final Confirmation
2.18. Fetching Distribution Files
2.19. Verifying Distribution Files
2.20. Extracting Distribution Files
2.21. Setting the root Password
2.22. Choose a Network Interface
2.23. Scanning for Wireless Access Points
2.24. Choosing a Wireless Network
2.25. WPA2 Setup
2.26. Choose IPv4 Networking
2.27. Choose IPv4 DHCP Configuration
2.28. IPv4 Static Configuration
2.29. Choose IPv6 Networking
2.30. Choose IPv6 SLAAC Configuration
2.31. IPv6 Static Configuration
2.32. DNS Configuration
2.33. Select Local or UTC Clock
2.34. Select a Region
2.35. Select a Country
2.36. Select a Time Zone
2.37. Confirm Time Zone
2.38. Selecting Additional Services to Enable
2.39. Enabling Crash Dumps
2.40. Add User Accounts
2.41. Enter User Information
2.42. Exit User and Group Management
2.43. Final Configuration
2.44. Manual Configuration
2.45. Complete the Installation
3.1. FreeBSD Boot Loader Menu
3.2. Typical Device Probe Results
3.3. Selecting Country Menu
3.4. Selecting Keyboard Menu
3.5. Selecting Usage from Sysinstall Main Menu
3.6. Selecting Documentation Menu
3.7. Sysinstall Documentation Menu
3.8. Sysinstall Main Menu
3.9. Sysinstall Keymap Menu
3.10. Sysinstall Main Menu
3.11. Sysinstall Options
3.12. Begin Standard Installation
3.13. Select Drive for FDisk
3.14. Typical Default FDisk Partitions
3.15. Fdisk Partition Using Entire Disk
3.16. Sysinstall Boot Manager Menu
3.17. Exit Select Drive
3.18. Sysinstall Disklabel Editor
3.19. Sysinstall Disklabel Editor with Auto Defaults
3.20. Free Space for Root Partition
3.21. Edit Root Partition Size
3.22. Choose the Root Partition Type
3.23. Choose the Root Mount Point
3.24. Sysinstall Disklabel Editor
3.25. Choose Distributions
3.26. Confirm Distributions
3.27. Choose Installation Media
3.28. Selecting an Ethernet Device
3.29. Set Network Configuration for ed0
3.30. Editing inetd.conf
3.31. Default Anonymous FTP Configuration
3.32. Edit the FTP Welcome Message
3.33. Editing exports
3.34. System Console Configuration Options
3.35. Screen Saver Options
3.36. Screen Saver Timeout
3.37. System Console Configuration Exit
3.38. Select the Region
3.39. Select the Country
3.40. Select the Time Zone
3.41. Select Mouse Protocol Type
3.42. Set Mouse Protocol
3.43. Configure Mouse Port
3.44. Setting the Mouse Port
3.45. Enable the Mouse Daemon
3.46. Test the Mouse Daemon
3.47. Select Package Category
3.48. Select Packages
3.49. Install Packages
3.50. Confirm Package Installation
3.51. Select User
3.52. Add User Information
3.53. Exit User and Group Management
3.54. Exit Install
3.55. Network Configuration Upper-level
3.56. Select a Default MTA
3.57. Ntpdate Configuration
3.58. Network Configuration Lower-level
30.1. PXE Booting Process with NFS Root Mount
List of Tables
2.1. Partitioning Schemes
3.1. Sample Device Inventory
3.2. Partition Layout for First Disk
3.3. Partition Layout for Subsequent Disks
3.4. FreeBSD ISO Image Names and Meanings
4.1. Utilities for Managing User Accounts
4.2. UNIX® Permissions
4.3. Disk Device Codes
4.4. Common Environment Variables
8.1. Common Error Messages
18.1. Physical Disk Naming Conventions
25.1. DB-25 to DB-25 Null-Modem Cable
25.2. DB-9 to DB-9 Null-Modem Cable
25.3. DB-9 to DB-25 Null-Modem Cable
25.4. Signal Names
25.5. Case 1: Set the Flags to 0x10 for sio0
25.6. Case 2: Set the Flags to 0x30 for sio0
28.1. NIS Terminology
28.2. Additional Users
28.3. Additional Systems
28.4. DNS Terminology
30.1. Station Capability Codes
30.2. Reserved IPv6 Addresses
List of Examples
2.1. Using an Existing Partition
2.2. Shrinking an Existing Partition
2.3. Creating Traditional Split Filesystem Partitions
3.1. Using an Existing Partition Unchanged
3.2. Shrinking an Existing Partition
4.1. Install a Program As The Superuser
4.2. Adding a User on FreeBSD
4.3. rmuser Interactive Account Removal
4.4. Using chpass as Superuser
4.5. Using chpass as Regular User
4.6. Changing Your Password
4.7. Changing Another User's Password as the Superuser
4.8. Adding a Group Using pw(8)
4.9. Adding User Accounts to a New Group Using pw(8)
4.10. Adding a New Member to a Group Using pw(8)
4.11. Using id(1) to Determine Group Membership
4.12. Sample Disk, Slice, and Partition Names
4.13. Conceptual Model of a Disk
12.1. Creating a Swapfile on FreeBSD
13.1. boot0 Screenshot
13.2. boot2 Screenshot
13.3. An Insecure Console in /etc/ttys
14.1. Using ssh(1) to Create a Secure Tunnel for SMTP
18.1. Using dump over ssh
18.2. Using dump over ssh with RSH Set
18.3. Using mdconfig to Mount an Existing File System Image
18.4. Creating a New File-Backed Disk with mdconfig
18.5. Configure and Mount a File-Backed Disk with mdmfs
18.6. Creating a New Memory-Based Disk with mdconfig
18.7. Creating a New Memory-Based Disk with mdmfs
19.1. Labeling Partitions on the Boot Disk
25.1. Adding Terminal Entries to /etc/ttys
27.1. Configuring the Sendmail Access Database
27.2. Mail Aliases
27.3. Example Virtual Domain Mail Map
28.1. Reloading the inetd Configuration File
28.2. Mounting an Export with amd
28.3. Installing Django with Apache2, mod_python3, and PostgreSQL
28.4. Apache Configuration for Django/mod_python
30.1. LACP Aggregation with a Cisco® Switch
30.2. Failover Mode
30.3. Failover Mode Between Wired and Wireless Interfaces
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