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]>
Frequently Asked Questions for FreeBSD 2.X, 3.X and 4.XThe FreeBSD Documentation Project$FreeBSD$199519961997199819992000200120022003The FreeBSD Documentation Project
&bookinfo.legalnotice;
This is the FAQ for FreeBSD versions 2.X, 3.X, and 4.X.
All entries are assumed to be relevant to FreeBSD 2.0.5 and later,
unless otherwise noted.
If you are interested in helping with this project,
send email to the &a.doc;. The latest version of this
document is always available from the FreeBSD World Wide Web
server. It may also be downloaded as one large HTML file with HTTP or as plain text,
PostScript, PDF, etc. from the FreeBSD FTP
server. You may also want to Search the
FAQ.IntroductionWelcome to the FreeBSD 2.X-4.X FAQ!As is usual with Usenet FAQs, this document aims to cover the
most frequently asked questions concerning the FreeBSD operating
system (and of course answer them!). Although originally intended
to reduce bandwidth and avoid the same old questions being asked
over and over again, FAQs have become recognized as valuable
information resources.Every effort has been made to make this FAQ as informative as
possible; if you have any suggestions as to how it may be improved,
please feel free to mail them to the &a.doc;.What is FreeBSD?Briefly, FreeBSD is a UN*X-like operating system for
the i386, IA-64, PC-98, Alpha/AXP, and UltraSPARC platforms based on U.C. Berkeley's
4.4BSD-Lite release, with some
4.4BSD-Lite2 enhancements. It is also based
indirectly on William Jolitz's port of U.C. Berkeley's
Net/2 to the i386, known as
386BSD, though very little of the 386BSD
code remains. A fuller description of what FreeBSD is and
how it can work for you may be found on the FreeBSD home
page.FreeBSD is used by companies, Internet Service Providers,
researchers, computer professionals, students and home users
all over the world in their work, education and recreation.
See some of them in the FreeBSD
Gallery.For more detailed information on FreeBSD, please see the
FreeBSD
Handbook.What is the goal of the FreeBSD Project?The goal of the FreeBSD Project is to provide software
that may be used for any purpose and without strings attached.
Many of us have a significant investment in the code (and
project) and would certainly not mind a little financial
compensation now and then, but we definitely do not
insist on it. We believe that our first and foremost
mission is to provide code to any and all
comers, and for whatever purpose, so that the code gets the
widest possible use and provides the widest possible benefit.
This is, we believe, one of the most fundamental goals of Free
Software and one that we enthusiastically support.That code in our source tree which falls under the
GNU
General Public License (GPL) or GNU
Library General Public License (LGPL) comes with
slightly more strings attached, though at least on the
side of enforced access rather than the usual opposite.
Due to the additional complexities that can evolve in the
commercial use of GPL software, we do, however, endeavor
to replace such software with submissions under the more
relaxed
FreeBSD license whenever possible.Does the FreeBSD license have any restrictions?Yes. Those restrictions do not control how you use
the code, merely how you treat the FreeBSD Project itself.
If you have serious license concerns, read the actual
license. For the simply curious, the license can
be summarized like this.Do not claim that you wrote this.Do not sue us if it breaks.Can FreeBSD replace my current operating system?For most people, yes. But this question is not quite
that cut-and-dried.Most people do not actually use an operating system.
They use applications. The applications are what really
use the operating system. FreeBSD is designed to provide
a robust and full-featured environment for applications.
It supports a wide variety of web browsers, office suites,
email readers, graphics programs, programming
environments, network servers, and just about everything
else you might want. Most of these applications can be
managed through the Ports
Collection.If you need to use an application that is only
available on one operating system, you simply cannot
replace that operating system. Chances are there is a very
similar application on FreeBSD, however. If you want a
solid office or Internet server, a reliable workstation,
or just the ability to do your job without interruptions,
FreeBSD will almost certainly do everything you need.
Many computer users across the world, including both
novices and experienced &unix; administrators, use FreeBSD
as their only desktop operating system.If you are migrating to FreeBSD from some other &unix;
environment, you already know most of what you need to.
If your background is in graphic-driven operating systems
such as Windows and older versions of Mac OS, expect to
invest additional time learning the &unix; way of doing
things. This FAQ and the FreeBSD Handbook are
excellent places to start.Why is it called FreeBSD?It may be used free of charge, even by commercial
users.Full source for the operating system is freely
available, and the minimum possible restrictions have
been placed upon its use, distribution and incorporation
into other work (commercial or non-commercial).Anyone who has an improvement or bug fix is free
to submit their code and have it added to the source tree
(subject to one or two obvious provisions).It is worth pointing out that the word
free is being used in two ways here, one meaning
at no cost, the other meaning you can do
whatever you like. Apart from one or two things you
cannot do with the FreeBSD code, for
example pretending you wrote it, you can really do whatever you
like with it.What is the latest version of FreeBSD?At this point in FreeBSD's development, there are two
parallel development branches; releases are being made from
both branches. The 4.X series of releases
is being made from the -STABLE branch
and the 5.X series of releases is being made from
-CURRENT.Version &rel.current;
is the latest release from the
-CURRENT branch; it was
released in &rel.current.date;.
Version &rel2.current;
is the latest release from the
-STABLE branch; it was
released in &rel2.current.date;.Briefly, -STABLE is aimed
at the ISP, corporate user, or any user who wants stability and a
minimal number of changes compared to the new (and possibly unstable) features of the latest
-CURRENT snapshot. Releases can come
from either branch, but -CURRENT
should only be used if you are prepared for its increased volatility (relative to
-STABLE, that is).Releases are made every
few months. While many people stay more up-to-date with
the FreeBSD sources (see the questions on FreeBSD-CURRENT and FreeBSD-STABLE) than that, doing so
is more of a commitment, as the sources are a moving
target.More information on FreeBSD releases can be found on
the Release
Engineering page on the FreeBSD Web site.What is FreeBSD-CURRENT?FreeBSD-CURRENT
is the development version of the operating system, which
will in due course become 5.0-RELEASE. As such, it is
really only of interest to developers working on the
system and die-hard hobbyists. See the relevant
section in the handbook for details
on running -CURRENT.If you are not familiar with the operating system or are
not capable of identifying the difference between a real
problem and a temporary problem, you should not use
FreeBSD-CURRENT. This branch sometimes evolves quite quickly
and can be un-buildable for a number of days at a time.
People that use FreeBSD-CURRENT are expected to be able to
analyze any problems and only report them if they are deemed
to be mistakes rather than glitches. Questions
such as make world produces some error about
groups on the -CURRENT mailing list may be
treated with contempt.Every day, snapshot
releases are made based on the current state of the
-CURRENT and -STABLE branches. Distributions of the
occasional snapshot are made available. The goals
behind each snapshot release are:To test the latest version of the installation
software.To give people who would like to run -CURRENT or
-STABLE but who do not have the time or bandwidth to
follow it on a day-to-day basis an easy way of
bootstrapping it onto their systems.To preserve a fixed reference point for the code in
question, just in case we break something really badly
later. (Although CVS normally prevents anything horrible
like this happening :)To ensure that all new features and fixes in need of testing
have the greatest possible number of potential
testers.No claims are made that any -CURRENT snapshot can be
considered production quality for any purpose.
If you want to run a stable and fully tested system, you will
have to stick to full releases, or use the -STABLE
snapshots.Snapshot releases are directly available from
ftp://current.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ for 5.0-CURRENT
and
releng4.FreeBSD.org for 4-STABLE snapshots.
3-STABLE snapshots are not being produced at the time of
this writing (May 2000).Snapshots are generated, on the average, daily for
all actively developed branches.What is the FreeBSD-STABLE concept?Back when FreeBSD 2.0.5 was released, FreeBSD
development branched in two. One branch was named -STABLE,
one -CURRENT.
FreeBSD-STABLE is intended for Internet Service Providers
and other commercial enterprises for whom sudden shifts or
experimental features are quite undesirable. It receives
only well-tested bug fixes and other small incremental
enhancements. FreeBSD-CURRENT, on the other hand, has
been one unbroken line leading towards 5.0-RELEASE (and
beyond) since 2.0 was released. If a little ASCII art
would help, this is how it looks: 2.0
|
|
| [2.1-STABLE]
*BRANCH* 2.0.5 -> 2.1 -> 2.1.5 -> 2.1.6 -> 2.1.7.1 [2.1-STABLE ends]
| (Mar 1997)
|
|
| [2.2-STABLE]
*BRANCH* 2.2.1 -> 2.2.2-RELEASE -> 2.2.5 -> 2.2.6 -> 2.2.7 -> 2.2.8 [end]
| (Mar 1997) (Oct 97) (Apr 98) (Jul 98) (Dec 98)
|
|
3.0-SNAPs (started Q1 1997)
|
|
3.0-RELEASE (Oct 1998)
|
| [3.0-STABLE]
*BRANCH* 3.1-RELEASE (Feb 1999) -> 3.2 -> 3.3 -> 3.4 -> 3.5 -> 3.5.1
| (May 1999) (Sep 1999) (Dec 1999) (June 2000) (July 2000)
|
| [4.0-STABLE]
*BRANCH* 4.0 (Mar 2000) -> 4.1 -> 4.1.1 -> 4.2 -> 4.3 -> 4.4 -> ... future 4.X releases ...
|
| (July 2000) (Sep 2000) (Nov 2000)
\|/
+
[5.0-CURRENT continues]The 2.2-STABLE branch was retired with the release of 2.2.8.
The 3-STABLE branch has ended with the release of 3.5.1, the
final 3.X release. The only changes made to either of these
branches will be, for the most part, security-related bug
fixes.4-STABLE is the actively developed -STABLE branch.
The latest release on the 4-STABLE is
&rel.current;-RELEASE, which was released in
&rel.current.date;.The 5-CURRENT branch is slowly progressing toward
5.0-RELEASE and beyond. See What
is FreeBSD-CURRENT? for more information on this
branch.When are FreeBSD releases made?The &a.re; releases a new version of FreeBSD about every
four months, on average. Release dates are announced well in
advance, so that the people working on the system know
when their projects need to be finished and tested.
A testing period precedes each release, in order to ensure
that the addition of new features does not compromise the
stability of the release.
Many users regard this caution as one of the best things about
FreeBSD, even though waiting for all the latest goodies to reach
-STABLE can be a little frustrating.More information on the release engineering process
(including a schedule of upcoming releases) can be found
on the release
engineering pages on the FreeBSD Web site.For people who need or want a little more excitement,
binary snapshots are made daily as discussed above.Who is responsible for FreeBSD?The key decisions concerning the FreeBSD project, such
as the overall direction of the project and who is allowed
to add code to the source tree, are made by a core
team of 9 people. There is a much larger team of
more than 200 committers
who are authorized to make changes directly to the FreeBSD
source tree.However, most non-trivial changes are discussed in advance
in the mailing lists, and there
are no restrictions on who may take part in the
discussion.Where can I get FreeBSD?Every significant release of FreeBSD is available via
anonymous FTP from the
FreeBSD FTP site:For the current 3.X-STABLE release, 3.5.1-RELEASE, see
the 3.5.1-RELEASE directory.The latest 5.X release, &rel.current;-RELEASE can be
found in the &rel.current;-RELEASE directory.The latest 4-STABLE release, &rel2.current;-RELEASE can be
found in the &rel2.current;-RELEASE directory.4.X
snapshots are usually made daily.
5.0 Snapshot releases are made daily for the
-CURRENT branch, these being
of service purely to bleeding-edge testers and
developers.Information about obtaining FreeBSD on CD, DVD, and other
media can be found in the
Handbook.How do I set up a FreeBSD mirror?Information on setting up a FreeBSD mirror can be found in the
Mirroring FreeBSD
article.How do I access the Problem Report database?The Problem Report database of all user change requests
may be queried (or submitted to) by using our web-based PR
submission
and
query
interfaces. The &man.send-pr.1; command can
also be used to submit problem reports and change requests via
electronic mail.Before submitting a problem report, please read Writing
FreeBSD Problem Reports, an article on how to write
good problem reports.How do I become a FreeBSD Web mirror?There are multiple ways to mirror the Web pages.You can retrieve the formatted files from a
FreeBSD CVSup server using the application
net/cvsup. The file
/usr/share/examples/cvsup/www-supfile
contains an example CVSup configuration file for web
mirrors.You can download the web site source code from any
FreeBSD FTP server using your favorite ftp mirror
tool. Keep in mind that you have to build these
sources before publishing them. Start mirroring at
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/FreeBSD-current/www.What other sources of information are there?Please check the Documentation
list on the main FreeBSD web
site.Documentation and SupportWhat good books are there about FreeBSD?The project produces a wide range of documentation, available
online from this link:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/docs.html.
The same documents are available as packages, that you can easily
install on your FreeBSD system. More details on documentation
packages can be found in the next paragraphs.In addition, the Bibliography at the end of this FAQ, and the
one in the Handbook reference other recommended books.Is the documentation available in other formats, such as plain
text (ASCII), or PostScript?Yes. The documentation is available in a number of
different formats and compression schemes on the FreeBSD
FTP site, in the /pub/FreeBSD/doc/
directory.The documentation is categorized in a number of different
ways. These include:The document's name, such as faq, or
handbook.The document's language and encoding. These are based on
the locale names you will find under
/usr/share/locale on your FreeBSD
system. The current languages and encodings that we have for
documentation are as follows:NameMeaningen_US.ISO8859-1US Englishde_DE.ISO8859-1Germanes_ES.ISO8859-1Spanishfr_FR.ISO8859-1Frenchja_JP.eucJPJapanese (EUC encoding)ru_RU.KOI8-RRussian (KOI8-R encoding)zh_TW.Big5Chinese (Big5 encoding)Some documents may not be available in all
languages.The document's format. We produce the documentation in a
number of different output formats. Each format has its own
advantages and disadvantages. Some formats are better suited
for online reading, while others are meant to be aesthetically
pleasing when printed on paper. Having the documentation
available in any of these formats ensures that our readers
will be able to read the parts they are interested in, either
on their monitor, or on paper after printing the documents.
The currently available formats are:FormatMeaninghtml-splitA collection of small, linked, HTML
files.htmlOne large HTML file containing the entire
documentpdbPalm Pilot database format, for use with the
iSilo
reader.pdfAdobe's Portable Document FormatpsPostScriptrtfMicrosoft's Rich Text FormatPage numbers are not automatically updated
when loading this format into Word. Press
CTRLA,
CTRLEND,
F9 after loading the document, to
update the page numbers.txtPlain textThe compression and packaging scheme. There are three of
these currently in use.Where the format is html-split, the
files are bundled up using &man.tar.1;. The resulting
.tar file is then compressed using
the compression schemes detailed in the next point.All the other formats generate one file, called
book.format
(i.e., book.pdb,
book.html, and so on).These files are then compressed using three
compression schemes.SchemeDescriptionzipThe Zip format. If you want to uncompress
this on FreeBSD you will need to install the
archivers/unzip port
first.gzThe GNU Zip format. Use &man.gunzip.1; to
uncompress these files, which is part of
FreeBSD.bz2The BZip2 format. Less widespread than the
others, but generally gives smaller files.
Install the archivers/bzip2
port to uncompress these files.So the PostScript version of the Handbook, compressed
using BZip2 will be stored in a file called
book.ps.bz2 in the
handbook/ directory.After choosing the format and compression mechanism that you
want to download, you must then decide whether or not you want to
download the document as a FreeBSD
package.The advantage of downloading and installing the package is
that the documentation can then be managed using the normal
FreeBSD package management comments, such as &man.pkg.add.1; and
&man.pkg.delete.1;.If you decide to download and install the package then you
must know the filename to download. The documentation-as-packages
files are stored in a directory called
packages. Each package file looks like
document-name.lang.encoding.format.tgz.For example, the FAQ, in English, formatted as PDF, is in the
package called
faq.en_US.ISO8859-1.pdf.tgz.Knowing this, you can use the following command to install the
English PDF FAQ package.&prompt.root; pkg_add ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/packages/faq.en_US.ISO8859-1.pdf.tgzHaving done that, you can use &man.pkg.info.1; to determine
where the file has been installed.&prompt.root; pkg_info -f faq.en_US.ISO8859-1.pdf
Information for faq.en_US.ISO8859-1.pdf:
Packing list:
Package name: faq.en_US.ISO8859-1.pdf
CWD to /usr/share/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq
File: book.pdf
CWD to .
File: +COMMENT (ignored)
File: +DESC (ignored)As you can see, book.pdf will have been
installed into
/usr/share/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq.If you do not want to use the packages then you will have to
download the compressed files yourself, uncompress them, and then
copy the appropriate documents into place.For example, the split HTML version of the FAQ, compressed
using &man.gzip.1;, can be found in the
doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.html-split.tar.gz
file. To download and uncompress that file you would have to do
this.&prompt.root; fetch ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.html-split.tar.gz
&prompt.root; gzip -d book.html-split.tar.gz
&prompt.root; tar xvf book.html-split.tarYou will be left with a collection of
.html files. The main one is called
index.html, which will contain the table of
contents, introductory material, and links to the other parts of
the document. You can then copy or move these to their final
location as necessary.Where do I find info on the FreeBSD mailing lists?You can find full information in the Handbook
entry on mailing-lists.Where do I find the FreeBSD Y2K info?You can find full information in the FreeBSD Y2K page.What FreeBSD news groups are available?You can find full information in the Handbook entry on
newsgroups.Are there FreeBSD IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
channels?Yes, most major IRC networks host a FreeBSD chat
channel:Channel #FreeBSD on
EFNet
is a FreeBSD forum, but do not go there for tech
support or try to get folks there to help you avoid
the pain of reading manual pages or doing your own research.
It is a chat channel, first and foremost, and topics there
are just as likely to involve sex, sports or nuclear
weapons as they are FreeBSD. You Have Been Warned!
Available at server irc.chat.org.Channel #FreeBSDhelp on
EFNet
is a channel dedicated to helping FreeBSD users. They
are much more sympathetic to questions than
#FreeBSD is.Channel #FreeBSD on
DALNET
is available at irc.dal.net in the
US and irc.eu.dal.net in Europe.Channel #FreeBSD on
UNDERNET
is available at us.undernet.org
in the US and eu.undernet.org in Europe.
Since it is a help channel, be prepared to read the
documents you are referred to.Channel #FreeBSD on HybNet. This channel
is a help channel. A list of servers
can be found on the HybNet web site.Each of these channels are distinct and are not
connected to each other. Their chat styles also differ,
so you may need to try each to find one suited to your
chat style. As with all types of IRC
traffic, if you are easily offended or cannot deal with
lots of young people (and more than a few older ones)
doing the verbal equivalent of jello wrestling, do not
even bother with it.Where can I get commercial FreeBSD training and support?DaemonNews provides commercial training and support for
FreeBSD. More information can be found at their
BSD Mall
site.FreeBSD Services Ltd provide commercial support for FreeBSD
in the UK (as well as selling FreeBSD on DVD). See their
web site
for more information.The FreeBSD Mall provides commercial FreeBSD support.
You can get more information at their web site.Any other organizations providing training and support should
contact the project in order to be listed here.NikClaytonnik@FreeBSD.orgInstallationWhich file do I download to get FreeBSD?Prior to release 3.1, you only needed one floppy image to
install FreeBSD, namely floppies/boot.flp.
However, since release 3.1 the Project has added out-of-the-box
support for a wide variety of hardware, which takes up more
space. For 3.X and later you need two floppy images:
floppies/kernel.flp and
floppies/mfsroot.flp. These images need to
be copied onto floppies by tools like
fdimage or &man.dd.1;.If you need to download the distributions yourself (for a
DOS filesystem install, for instance), below are some
recommendations for distributions to grab:bin/manpages/compat*/doc/src/ssys.*Full instructions on this procedure and a little bit more
about installation issues in general can be found in the
Handbook entry on
installing FreeBSD.What do I do if the floppy images does not fit on a single
floppy?A 3.5 inch (1.44MB) floppy can accommodate 1474560 bytes
of data. The boot image is exactly 1474560 bytes in size.Common mistakes when preparing the boot floppy are:Not downloading the floppy image in
binary mode when using
FTP.Some FTP clients default their transfer mode to
ascii and attempt to change any
end-of-line characters received to match the conventions
used by the client's system. This will almost invariably
corrupt the boot image. Check the size of the downloaded
boot image: if it is not exactly that
on the server, then the download process is suspect.To workaround: type binary at the
FTP command prompt after getting connected to the server
and before starting the download of the image.Using the DOS copy command (or
equivalent GUI tool) to transfer the boot image to
floppy.Programs like copy will not work as
the boot image has been created to be booted into directly.
The image has the complete content of the floppy, track for
track, and is not meant to be placed on the floppy as a
regular file. You have to transfer it to the floppy
raw, using the low-level tools (e.g.
fdimage or rawrite)
described in the installation guide to
FreeBSD.Where are the instructions for installing FreeBSD?Installation instructions can be found in the
Handbook entry on installing FreeBSD.What do I need in order to run FreeBSD?You will need a 386 or better PC, with 5 MB or more of RAM
and at least 60 MB of hard disk space. It can run with a low
end MDA graphics card but to run X11R6, a VGA or better video
card is needed.See also .I have only 4 MB of RAM. Can I install FreeBSD?FreeBSD 2.1.7 was the last version of FreeBSD that
could be installed on a 4MB system. FreeBSD 2.2 and later
needs at least 5MB to install on a new system.All versions of FreeBSD will run
in 4MB of RAM, they just cannot run the installation
program in 4MB. You can add extra memory for the install
process, if you like, and then after the system is up and
running, go back to 4MB. Or you could swap your disk into
a system which has >4MB, install onto the disk and then
swap it back.FreeBSD 2.1.7 will not install with 640 kB base + 3 MB
extended memory. If your motherboard can remap some of the
lost memory out of the 640kB to 1MB region,
then you may still be able to get FreeBSD 2.1.7 up. Try
to go into your BIOS setup and look for a
remap option. Enable it. You may also
have to disable ROM shadowing. It may be easier to get 4
more MB just for the install. Build a custom kernel with
only the options you need and then remove the 4MB out.
You can also install 2.0.5 and then upgrade your system to
2.1.7 with the upgrade option of the 2.1.7
installation program.After the installation, if you build a custom kernel,
it will run in 4 MB. Someone has even successfully booted
with 2 MB, although the system was almost unusable.How can I make my own custom install floppy?Currently there is no way to just
make a custom install floppy. You have to cut a whole new
release, which will include your install floppy.To make a custom release, follow the instructions in the
Release
Engineering article.Can I have more than one operating system on my PC?Have a look at
the multi-OS page.Can Windows 95/98 co-exist with FreeBSD?Install Windows 95/98 first, after that FreeBSD.
FreeBSD's boot manager will then manage to boot Win95/98 and
FreeBSD. If you install Windows 95/98 second, it will boorishly
overwrite your boot manager without even asking. If that
happens, see the next section.Windows 95/98 killed my boot manager!
How do I get it back?You can reinstall the boot manager FreeBSD comes with in
one of three ways:Running DOS, go into the tools/ directory of your
FreeBSD distribution and look for
bootinst.exe. You run it like
so:...\TOOLS>bootinst.exe boot.binand the boot manager will be reinstalled.Boot the FreeBSD boot floppy again and go to the
Custom installation menu item. Choose Partition. Select the
drive which used to contain your boot manager (likely the
first one) and when you come to the partition editor for
it, as the very first thing (e.g. do not make any changes)
select (W)rite. This will ask for confirmation, say yes,
and when you get the Boot Manager selection prompt, be
sure to select Boot Manager. This will
re-write the boot manager to disk. Now quit out of the
installation menu and reboot off the hard disk as
normal.Boot the FreeBSD boot floppy (or CDROM) and choose the
Fixit menu item. Select either the Fixit
floppy or CDROM #2 (the live filesystem
option) as appropriate and enter the fixit shell. Then
execute the following command:Fixit#fdisk -B -b /boot/boot0 bootdevicesubstituting bootdevice for
your real
boot device such as ad0 (first IDE
disk), ad4 (first IDE disk on
auxiliary controller), da0 (first
SCSI disk), etc.My A, T, or X series IBM Thinkpad locks up when I first
booted up my FreeBSD installation. How can I solve this?A bug in early revisions of IBM's BIOS on these machines
mistakenly identifies the FreeBSD partition as a potential FAT
suspend-to-disk partition. When the BIOS tries to parse the
FreeBSD partition it hangs.According to IBMIn an e-mail from Keith
Frechette
kfrechet@us.ibm.com., the
following model/BIOS release numbers incorporate the fix.ModelBIOS revisionT20IYET49WW or laterT21KZET22WW or laterA20pIVET62WW or laterA20mIWET54WW or laterA21pKYET27WW or laterA21mKXET24WW or laterA21eKUET30WWIt has been reported that later IBM BIOS revisions may have
reintroduced the bug. This message
from Jacques Vidrine to the &a.mobile; describes a procedure
which may work if your newer IBM laptop does not boot FreeBSD
properly, and you can upgrade or downgrade the BIOS.If you have an earlier BIOS, and upgrading is not an option a
workaround is to install FreeBSD, change the partition ID FreeBSD
uses, and install new boot blocks that can handle the different
partition ID.First, you will need to restore the machine to a state where
it can get through its self-test screen. Doing this requires
powering up the machine without letting it find a FreeBSD
partition on its primary disk. One way is to remove the hard disk
and temporarily move it to an older ThinkPad (such as a ThinkPad
600) or a desktop PC with an appropriate conversion cable. Once
it is there, you can delete the FreeBSD partition and move the hard
disk back. The ThinkPad should now be in a bootable state
again.With the machine functional again, you can use the workaround
procedure described here to get a working FreeBSD
installation.Download boot1 and
boot2 from http://people.FreeBSD.org/~bmah/ThinkPad/.
Put these files somewhere you will be able to retrieve them
later.Install FreeBSD as normal on to the ThinkPad.
Do not use Dangerously
Dedicated mode. Do not
reboot when the install has finished.Either switch to the Emergency Holographic
Shell (ALTF4) or start a
fixit shell.Use &man.fdisk.8; to change the FreeBSD partition ID from
165 to 166 (this is the
type used by OpenBSD).Bring the boot1 and
boot2 files to the local
filesystem.Use &man.disklabel.8; to write boot1
and boot2 to your FreeBSD slice.&prompt.root; disklabel -B -b boot1 -s boot2 ad0snn is the number of the slice
where you installed FreeBSD.Reboot. At the boot prompt you will be given the option
of booting OpenBSD. This will actually
boot FreeBSD.Getting this to work in the case where you want to dual boot
OpenBSD and FreeBSD on the same laptop is left as an exercise for
the reader.Can I install on a disk with bad blocks?Prior to 3.0, FreeBSD included a utility known as
bad144, which automatically remapped bad
blocks. Because modern IDE drives perform this function
themselves, bad144 has been removed from the
FreeBSD source tree. If you wish to install FreeBSD 3.0 or
later, we strongly suggest you purchase a newer disk drive. If
you do not wish to do this, you must run FreeBSD 2.X.If you are seeing bad block errors with a modern IDE
drive, chances are the drive is going to die very soon (the
drive's internal remapping functions are no longer sufficient
to fix the bad blocks, which means the disk is heavily
corrupted); we suggest you buy a new hard drive.If you have a SCSI drive with bad blocks, see
this answer.I have just upgraded from 3.X to 4.X, and my first boot
failed with bad sector table not
supportedFreeBSD 3.X and earlier supported
bad144, which automatically remapped
bad blocks. FreeBSD 4.X and later do not support this, as
modern IDE drives include this functionality. See this question for
more information.To fix this after an upgrade, you need to physically
place the drive in a working system and use
&man.disklabel.8; as discussed in the following
questions.How do I tell if a drive has bad144
information on it before I try to upgrade to FreeBSD 4.0
and it fails?Use &man.disklabel.8; for this. disklabel -r
drive device will
give you the contents of your disk label. Look for a
flags field. If you see
flags: badsect, this drive is using
bad144. For example, the following drive has
bad144 enabled.:&prompt.root; disklabel -r wd0
# /dev/rwd0c:
type: ESDI
disk: wd0s1
label:
flags: badsect
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 63How do I remove bad144 from my
pre-4.X system so I can upgrade safely?Use disklabel -e -rwd0 to edit the
disklabel in place. Just remove the word
badsect from the flags field, save, and
exit. The bad144 file will still take up some space on
your drive, but the disk itself will be usable.We still recommend you purchase a new disk if you have
a large number of bad blocks.Strange things happen when I boot the install floppy!
What is happening?If you are seeing things like the machine grinding to a halt
or spontaneously rebooting when you try to boot the install
floppy, here are three questions to ask yourself:-Did you use a new, freshly-formatted, error-free floppy
(preferably a brand-new one straight out of the box, as
opposed to the magazine cover disk that has been lying under
the bed for the last three years)?Did you download the floppy image in binary (or image)
mode? (do not be embarrassed, even the best of us have
accidentally downloaded a binary file in ASCII mode at
least once!)If you are using Windows95 or Win98 did you run
fdimage or rawrite in
pure DOS mode? These operating systems can interfere with programs that
write directly to hardware, which the disk creation program
does; even running it inside a DOS shell in the GUI can
cause this problem.There have also been reports of Netscape causing problems
when downloading the boot floppy, so it is probably best to use
a different FTP client if you can.I booted from my ATAPI CDROM, but the install program says no
CDROM is found. Where did it go?The usual cause of this problem is a mis-configured CDROM
drive. Many PCs now ship with the CDROM as the slave device on
the secondary IDE controller, with no master device on that
controller. This is illegal according to the ATAPI specification,
but Windows plays fast and loose with the specification, and the
BIOS ignores it when booting. This is why the BIOS was able to
see the CDROM to boot from it, but why FreeBSD cannot see it to
complete the install.Reconfigure your system so that the CDROM is either the
master device on the IDE controller it is attached to, or make
sure that it is the slave on an IDE controller that also has a
master device.Can I install on my laptop over PLIP (Parallel Line
IP)?Yes. Use a standard Laplink cable. If necessary, you
can check out the PLIP
section of the Handbook for details on parallel
port networking.If you are running FreeBSD 3.X or earlier, also look at
the Mobile
Computing page.Which geometry should I use for a disk drive?By the geometry of a disk, we mean
the number of cylinders, heads and sectors/track on a
disk. We will refer to this as C/H/S for
convenience. This is how the PC's BIOS works out which
area on a disk to read/write from.This causes a lot of confusion among new system
administrators. First of all, the
physical geometry of a SCSI drive is
totally irrelevant, as FreeBSD works in term of disk
blocks. In fact, there is no such thing as
the physical geometry, as the sector
density varies across the disk. What manufacturers claim
is the physical geometry is usually the
geometry that they have determined wastes the least
space. For IDE disks, FreeBSD does work in terms of C/H/S,
but all modern drives internally convert this into block
references.All that matters is the logical
geometry. This is the answer that the BIOS gets when it
asks the drive what is your geometry? It
then uses this geometry to access the disk. As FreeBSD
uses the BIOS when booting, it is very important to get
this right. In particular, if you have more than one
operating system on a disk, they must all agree on the
geometry. Otherwise you will have serious problems
booting!For SCSI disks, the geometry to use depends on whether
extended translation support is turned on in your
controller (this is often referred to as support for
DOS disks >1GB or something similar). If it is
turned off, then use N
cylinders, 64 heads and 32 sectors/track, where
N is the capacity of the disk in
MB. For example, a 2GB disk should pretend to have 2048
cylinders, 64 heads and 32 sectors/track.If it is turned on (it is often
supplied this way to get around certain limitations in
MSDOS) and the disk capacity is more than 1GB, use M
cylinders, 63 sectors per track (not
64), and 255 heads, where 'M' is the disk capacity in MB
divided by 7.844238 (!). So our example 2GB drive would
have 261 cylinders, 63 sectors per track and 255
heads.If you are not sure about this, or FreeBSD fails to
detect the geometry correctly during installation, the
simplest way around this is usually to create a small DOS
partition on the disk. The BIOS should then detect the
correct geometry, and you can always remove the DOS
partition in the partition editor if you do not want to
keep it. You might want to leave it around for
programming network cards and the like, however.Alternatively, there is a freely available utility
distributed with FreeBSD called
pfdisk.exe. You can find it in the
tools subdirectory on the FreeBSD
CDROM or on the various FreeBSD FTP sites. This program
can be used to work out what geometry the other operating
systems on the disk are using. You can then enter this
geometry in the partition editor.Are there any restrictions on how I divide the disk up?Yes. You must make sure that your root partition is below 1024
cylinders so the BIOS can boot the kernel from it. (Note that
this is a limitation in the PC's BIOS, not FreeBSD).For a SCSI drive, this will normally imply that the root
partition will be in the first 1024MB (or in the first 4096MB
if extended translation is turned on - see previous question).
For IDE, the corresponding figure is 504MB.Is FreeBSD compatible with any disk managers?FreeBSD recognizes the Ontrack Disk Manager and makes
allowances for it. Other disk managers are not supported.If you just want to use the disk with FreeBSD you do not
need a disk manager. Just configure the disk for as much space
as the BIOS can deal with (usually 504 megabytes), and FreeBSD
should figure out how much space you really have. If you are
using an old disk with an MFM controller, you may need to
explicitly tell FreeBSD how many cylinders to use.If you want to use the disk with FreeBSD and another
operating system, you may be able to do without a disk manager:
just make sure the FreeBSD boot partition and the slice for
the other operating system are in the first 1024 cylinders. If
you are reasonably careful, a 20 megabyte boot partition should
be plenty.When I boot FreeBSD I get Missing Operating
System. What is happening?This is classically a case of FreeBSD and DOS or some other
OS conflicting over their ideas of disk geometry. You will have to reinstall
FreeBSD, but obeying the instructions given above will almost
always get you going.Why can I not get past the boot manager's F?
prompt?This is another symptom of the problem described in the
preceding question. Your BIOS geometry and FreeBSD geometry
settings do not agree! If your controller or BIOS supports
cylinder translation (often marked as >1GB drive
support), try toggling its setting and reinstalling
FreeBSD.Do I need to install the complete sources?In general, no. However, we would strongly recommend that
you install, at a minimum, the base source
kit, which includes several of the files mentioned here, and
the sys (kernel) source kit, which includes
sources for the kernel. There is nothing in the system which
requires the presence of the sources to operate, however,
except for the kernel-configuration program &man.config.8;.
With the exception of the kernel sources, our build structure
is set up so that you can read-only mount the sources from
elsewhere via NFS and still be able to make new binaries
(due to the kernel-source restriction, we recommend that
you not mount this on /usr/src directly,
but rather in some other location with appropriate symbolic
links to duplicate the top-level structure of the source
tree).Having the sources on-line and knowing how to build a
system with them will make it much easier for you to upgrade
to future releases of FreeBSD.To actually select a subset of the sources, use the Custom
menu item when you are in the Distributions menu of the
system installation tool.Do I need to build a kernel?Building a new kernel was originally pretty much a required
step in a FreeBSD installation, but more recent releases have
benefited from the introduction of a much friendlier kernel
configuration tool. When at the FreeBSD boot prompt (boot:),
use the flag and you will be dropped into a
visual configuration screen which allows you to configure the
kernel's settings for most common ISA cards.It is still recommended that you eventually build a new
kernel containing just the drivers that you need, just to save a
bit of RAM, but it is no longer a strict requirement for most
systems.Should I use DES, Blowfish, or MD5 passwords and how do I specify
which form my users receive?The default password format on FreeBSD is to use
MD5-based passwords. These are believed to
be more secure than the traditional Unix password format, which
used a scheme based on the DES algorithm.
DES passwords are still available if you need to share your
password file with legacy operating systems which still use the
less secure password format (they are available if you choose
to install the crypto distribution in
sysinstall, or by installing the crypto sources if building
from source). Installing the crypto libraries will also allow you
to use the Blowfish password format, which is more secure.
Which password format to use for new passwords is
controlled by the passwd_format login capability
in /etc/login.conf, which takes values of
des, blf (if these are available) or md5.
See the &man.login.conf.5; manual page for more information about login
capabilities.Why does the boot floppy start, but hang at the
Probing Devices... screen?If you have a IDE Zip or Jaz drive installed, remove it
and try again. The boot floppy can get confused by the drives.
After the system is installed you can reconnect the drive.
Hopefully this will be fixed in a later release.Why do I get a panic: can't mount root
error when rebooting the system after installation?This error comes from confusion between the boot block's
and the kernel's understanding of the disk devices. The error
usually manifests on two-disk IDE systems, with the hard disks
arranged as the master or single device on separate IDE
controllers, with FreeBSD installed on the secondary IDE
controller. The boot blocks think the system is installed on
wd1 (the second BIOS disk) while the kernel assigns the first
disk on the secondary controller device wd2. After the device
probing, the kernel tries to mount what the boot blocks think
is the boot disk, wd1, while it is really wd2, and
fails.To fix the problem, do one of the following:For FreeBSD 3.3 and later, reboot the system and hit
Enter at the Booting kernel
in 10 seconds; hit [Enter] to interrupt prompt.
This will drop you into the boot loader.Then type
set root_disk_unit="disk_number"
. disk_number
will be 0 if FreeBSD is installed on
the master drive on the first IDE controller,
1 if it is installed on the slave on
the first IDE controller, 2 if it is
installed on the master of the second IDE controller, and
3 if it is installed on the slave of
the second IDE controller.Then type boot, and your system
should boot correctly.To make this change permanent (ie so you do not have to
do this every time you reboot or turn on your FreeBSD
machine), put the line
root_disk_unit="disk_number" in /boot/loader.conf.local
.If using FreeBSD 3.2 or earlier, at the Boot: prompt,
enter 1:wd(2,a)kernel and press Enter.
If the system starts, then run the command
echo "1:wd(2,a)kernel" > /boot.config
to make it the default boot string.Move the FreeBSD disk onto the primary IDE controller,
so the hard disks are consecutive.Rebuild
your kernel, modify the wd configuration lines to
read:controller wdc0 at isa? port "IO_WD1" bio irq 14 vector wdintr
disk wd0 at wdc0 drive 0
# disk wd1 at wdc0 drive 1 # comment out this line
controller wdc1 at isa? port "IO_WD2" bio irq 15 vector wdintr
disk wd1 at wdc1 drive 0 # change from wd2 to wd1
disk wd2 at wdc1 drive 1 # change from wd3 to wd2Install the new kernel. If you moved your disks and
wish to restore the previous configuration, replace the
disks in the desired configuration and reboot. Your
system should boot successfully.What are the limits for memory?For memory, the limit is 4 gigabytes. If you plan to install
this much memory into a machine, you need to be careful. You will
probably want to use ECC memory and to reduce capacitive
loading use 9 chip memory modules versus 18 chip memory
modules.What are the limits for ffs filesystems?For ffs filesystems, the maximum theoretical limit is 8
terabytes (2G blocks), or 16TB for the default block size of
8K. In practice, there is a soft limit of 1 terabyte, but with
modifications filesystems with 4 terabytes are possible (and
exist).The maximum size of a single ffs file is approximately 1G
blocks, or 4TB with a block size of 4K.
Maximum file sizesfs block size2.2.7-stable3.0-currentworksshould work4K4T-14T-14T-1>4T8K>32G8T-1>32G32T-116K>128G16T-1>128G32T-132K>512G32T-1>512G64T-164K>2048G64T-1>2048G128T-1
When the fs block size is 4K, triple indirect blocks work
and everything should be limited by the maximum fs block number
that can be represented using triple indirect blocks (approx.
1K^3 + 1K^2 + 1K), but everything is limited by a (wrong) limit
of 1G-1 on fs block numbers. The limit on fs block numbers
should be 2G-1. There are some bugs for fs block numbers near
2G-1, but such block numbers are unreachable when the fs block
size is 4K.For block sizes of 8K and larger, everything should be
limited by the 2G-1 limit on fs block numbers, but is actually
limited by the 1G-1 limit on fs block numbers, except under
-STABLE triple indirect blocks are unreachable, so the limit is
the maximum fs block number that can be represented using
double indirect blocks (approx. (blocksize/4)^2 +
(blocksize/4)), and under -CURRENT exceeding this limit may
cause problems. Using the correct limit of 2G-1 blocks does
cause problems.Why do I get an error message,
archsw.readin.failed after compiling
and booting a new kernel?You can boot by specifying the kernel directly at the second
stage, pressing any key when the | shows up before loader is
started. More specifically, you have upgraded the source for
your kernel, and installed a new kernel builtin from them
without making world. This is not
supported. Make world.How do I upgrade from 3.X -> 4.X?We strongly recommend that you use
binary snapshots to do this. 4-STABLE snapshots are available at
ftp://releng4.FreeBSD.org/.Because of the many changes between 3.X and 4-STABLE,
a direct upgrade from source will probably fail. A source
upgrade can be done, but only in stages. First, upgrade
to the latest 3-STABLE (RELENG_3).
Then upgrade to 4.1.1-RELEASE
(RELENG_4_1_1_RELEASE). Finally,
upgrade to 4-STABLE (RELENG_4).If you wish to upgrade using source, please see the FreeBSD
Handbook for more information.Upgrading via source is never recommended for new
users, and upgrading from 3.X to 4.X is even less so; make sure
you have read the instructions carefully before attempting to
upgrade via source.What are these security profiles?A security profile is a set of configuration
options that attempts to achieve the desired ratio of security
to convenience by enabling and disabling certain programs and
other settings. For full details, see the Security
Profile section of the Handbook's post-install
chapter.Hardware compatibilityDoes FreeBSD support architectures other than the x86?Yes. FreeBSD currently runs on Intel x86 and
DEC (now Compaq) Alpha architectures. As of FreeBSD 5.0, the
SPARC-64 architecture will also be supported.
Most recent additions to the list of upcoming platforms are
IA-64, MIPS and PowerPC, join the &a.ia64;, the &a.ppc; or the &a.mips; respectively for more
information about ongoing work on these platforms. For general discussion on new architectures, join
the &a.platforms;.If your machine has a different architecture and you need
something right now, we suggest you look at NetBSD or OpenBSD.I want to get a piece of hardware for my FreeBSD
system. Which model/brand/type is best?This is discussed continually on the FreeBSD mailing
lists. Since hardware changes so quickly, however, we
expect this. We still strongly
recommend that you read through the
Hardware Notes
and search the mailing list
archives before asking about the latest and
greatest hardware. Chances are a discussion about the
type of hardware you are looking for took place just last
week.If you are looking for a laptop, check the
FreeBSD-mobile mailing list archives. Otherwise, you
probably want the archives for FreeBSD-questions, or
possibly a specific mailing list for a particular hardware
type.What kind of hard drives does FreeBSD support?FreeBSD supports EIDE and SCSI drives (with a compatible
controller; see the next section), and all drives using the
original Western Digital interface (MFM, RLL,
ESDI, and of course IDE). A few ESDI controllers that use
proprietary interfaces may not work: stick to WD1002/3/6/7
interfaces and clones.Which SCSI controllers are supported?See the complete list in the current Hardware Notes.Which CDROM drives are supported by FreeBSD?Any SCSI drive connected to a supported controller is
supported.The following proprietary CDROM interfaces are also
supported:Mitsumi LU002 (8bit), LU005 (16bit) and FX001D
(16bit 2x Speed).Sony CDU 31/33ASound Blaster Non-SCSI CDROMMatsushita/Panasonic CDROMATAPI compatible IDE CDROMsAll non-SCSI cards are known to be extremely slow compared
to SCSI drives, and some ATAPI CDROMs may not work.As of 2.2 the FreeBSD CDROM from the FreeBSD Mall supports
booting directly from the CD.Which CD-RW drives are supported by FreeBSD?FreeBSD supports any ATAPI-compatible IDE CD-R or CD-RW
drive. For FreeBSD versions 4.0 and later, see the manual page for
&man.burncd.8;. For earlier FreeBSD versions, see the examples
in /usr/share/examples/atapi.FreeBSD also supports any SCSI CD-R or CD-RW drives.
Install and use the cdrecord command from the
ports or packages system, and make sure that you have the
pass device compiled in your
kernel.Does FreeBSD support ZIP drives?FreeBSD supports the SCSI ZIP drive out of the box, of
course. The ZIP drive can only be set to run at SCSI target IDs
5 or 6, but if your SCSI host adapter's BIOS supports it you
can even boot from it. It is not clear which host
adapters support booting from targets other than 0 or 1,
so you will have to consult your adapter's documentation
if you would like to use this feature.ATAPI (IDE) Zip drives are supported in FreeBSD 2.2.6 and
later releases.FreeBSD has contained support for Parallel Port Zip Drives
since version 3.0. If you are using a sufficiently up to date
version, then you should check that your kernel contains the
scbus0, da0,
ppbus0, and
vp0 drivers (the GENERIC kernel
contains everything except vp0). With
all these drivers present, the Parallel Port drive should be
available as /dev/da0s4. Disks can be
mounted using mount /dev/da0s4 /mnt OR (for
dos disks) mount_msdos /dev/da0s4 /mnt as
appropriate.Also check out the FAQ on removable
drives later in this chapter, and the note on
formattingin the Administration chapter.Does FreeBSD support JAZ, EZ and other removable drives?Apart from the IDE version of the EZ drive, these are all
SCSI devices, so they should all look like SCSI disks to
FreeBSD, and the IDE EZ should look like an IDE drive.I am not sure how well FreeBSD supports
changing the media out while running. You will of course need
to dismount the drive before swapping media, and make sure that
any external units are powered on when you boot the system so
FreeBSD can see them.See this note on
formatting.Which multi-port serial cards are supported by
FreeBSD?There is a list of these in the Miscellaneous
devices section of the handbook.Some unnamed clone cards have also been known to work,
especially those that claim to be AST compatible.Check the &man.sio.4;
manual page to get more information on configuring such cards.Does FreeBSD support my USB keyboard?USB device support was added to FreeBSD 3.1. However, it
is still in preliminary state and may not always work as of
version 3.2. If you want to experiment with the USB keyboard
support, follow the procedure described below.Use FreeBSD 3.2 or later.Add the following lines to your kernel configuration
file, and rebuild the kernel.device uhci
device ohci
device usb
device ukbd
options KBD_INSTALL_CDEVIn versions of FreeBSD before 4.0, use this
instead:controller uhci0
controller ohci0
controller usb0
controller ukbd0
options KBD_INSTALL_CDEVGo to the /dev directory and create
device nodes as follows:&prompt.root; cd /dev
&prompt.root; ./MAKEDEV kbd0 kbd1You can omit this step if you are running FreeBSD
5.0-RELEASE or newer with &man.devfs.5; enabled,
since the proper device nodes will be created automatically
under /dev.Edit /etc/rc.conf and add the
following lines:usbd_enable="YES"
usbd_flags=""After the system is rebooted, the AT keyboard becomes
/dev/kbd0 and the USB keyboard becomes
/dev/kbd1, if both are connected to the
system. If there is the USB keyboard only, it will be
/dev/ukbd0.If you want to use the USB keyboard in the console, you
have to explicitly tell the console driver to use the existing
USB keyboard. This can be done by running the following
command as a part of system initialization.&prompt.root; kbdcontrol -k /dev/kbd1 < /dev/ttyv0 > /dev/nullNote that if the USB keyboard is the only keyboard, it is
accessed as /dev/kbd0, thus, the command
should look like:&prompt.root; kbdcontrol -k /dev/kbd0 < /dev/ttyv0 > /dev/null/etc/rc.i386 is a good place to add the
above command.Once this is done, the USB keyboard should work in the X
environment as well without any special settings.Hot-plugging and unplugging of the USB keyboard may not
work quite right yet. It is a good idea to connect the keyboard
before you start the system and leave it connected until the
system is shutdown to avoid troubles.See the &man.ukbd.4; manual page for more information.I have an unusual bus mouse. How do I set it up?FreeBSD supports the bus mouse and the InPort bus mouse
from such manufactures as Microsoft, Logitech and ATI. The bus
device driver is compiled in the GENERIC kernel by default in
FreeBSD versions 2.X, but not included in version 3.0 or later.
If you are building a custom kernel with the bus mouse driver,
make sure to add the following line to the kernel config
fileIn FreeBSD 3.0 or before, add:device mse0 at isa? port 0x23c tty irq5 vector mseintrIn FreeBSD 3.X, the line should be:device mse0 at isa? port 0x23c tty irq5And in FreeBSD 4.X and later, the line should read:device mse0 at isa? port 0x23c irq5Bus mice usually comes with dedicated interface cards.
These cards may allow you to set the port address and the IRQ
number other than shown above. Refer to the manual of your
mouse and the &man.mse.4; manual page for more information.How do I use my PS/2 (mouse port or
keyboard) mouse?If you are running a post-2.2.5 version of FreeBSD, the
necessary driver, psm, is included and
enabled in the kernel. The kernel should detect your PS/2 mouse
at boot time.If you are running a previous but relatively recent version
of FreeBSD (2.1.X or better) then you can simply enable it in
the kernel configuration menu at installation time, otherwise
later with at the boot:
prompt. It is disabled by default, so you will need to enable
it explicitly.If you are running an older version of FreeBSD then you will
have to add the following lines to your kernel configuration
file and compile a new kernel.In FreeBSD 3.0 or earlier, the line should be:device psm0 at isa? port "IO_KBD" conflicts tty irq 12 vector psmintrIn FreeBSD 3.1 or later, the line should be:device psm0 at isa? tty irq 12In FreeBSD 4.0 or later, the line should be:device psm0 at atkbdc? irq 12See the Handbook entry on
configuring the kernel if you have no experience with
building kernels.Once you have a kernel detecting
psm0 correctly at boot time, make sure
that an entry for psm0 exists in
/dev. You can do this by typing:&prompt.root; cd /dev; sh MAKEDEV psm0when logged in as root.You can omit this step if you are running FreeBSD
5.0-RELEASE or newer with &man.devfs.5; enabled,
since the proper device nodes will be created automatically
under /dev.Is it possible to make use of a mouse in any way outside
the X Window system?If you are using the default console driver, syscons, you
can use a mouse pointer in text consoles to cut & paste
text. Run the mouse daemon, moused, and turn on the mouse
pointer in the virtual console:&prompt.root; moused -p /dev/xxxx -t yyyy
&prompt.root; vidcontrol -m onWhere xxxx is the mouse device
name and yyyy is a protocol type for
the mouse. See the &man.moused.8; manual page for supported
protocol types.You may wish to run the mouse daemon automatically when the
system starts. In version 2.2.1, set the following variables in
/etc/sysconfig.mousedtype="yyyy"
mousedport="xxxx"
mousedflags=""In versions 2.2.2 to 3.0, set the following variables in
/etc/rc.conf.moused_type="yyyy"
moused_port="xxxx"
moused_flags=""In 3.1 and later, assuming you have a PS/2 mouse, all you
need to is add moused_enable="YES" to
/etc/rc.conf.In addition, if you would like to be able to use the mouse
daemon on all virtual terminals instead of just console at
boot-time, add the following to
/etc/rc.conf.allscreens_flags="-m on"Starting from FreeBSD 2.2.6, the mouse daemon is capable of
determining the correct protocol type automatically unless the
mouse is a relatively old serial mouse model. Specify
auto the protocol to invoke automatic
detection.When the mouse daemon is running, access to the mouse
needs to be coordinated between the mouse daemon and other
programs such as the X Window. Refer to another section on this
issue.How do I cut and paste text with a mouse in the text
console?Once you get the mouse daemon running (see
previous section), hold down the
button 1 (left button) and move the mouse to select a region of
text. Then, press the button 2 (middle button) or the button 3
(right button) to paste it at the text cursor.In versions 2.2.6 and later, pressing the button 2 will
paste the text. Pressing the button 3 will
extend the selected region of text. If your
mouse does not have the middle button, you may wish to emulate
it or remap buttons using moused options. See the
&man.moused.8; manual page for details.Does FreeBSD support any USB mice?Preliminary USB device support was added to FreeBSD
3.1. It did not always work through early versions of
3.X. As of FreeBSD 4.0, USB devices should work out of
the box. If you want to experiment with the USB mouse
support under FreeBSD 3.X, follow the procedure described
below.Use FreeBSD 3.2 or later.Add the following lines to your kernel configuration
file, and rebuild the kernel.device uhci
device ohci
device usb
device umsIn versions of FreeBSD before 4.0, use this
instead:controller uhci0
controller ohci0
controller usb0
device ums0Go to the /dev directory and
create a device node as follows:&prompt.root; cd /dev
&prompt.root; ./MAKEDEV ums0You can omit this step if you are running FreeBSD
5.0-RELEASE or newer with &man.devfs.5; enabled,
since the proper device nodes will be created automatically
under /dev.Edit /etc/rc.conf and add the
following lines:moused_enable="YES"
moused_type="auto"
moused_port="/dev/ums0"
moused_flags=""
usbd_enable="YES"
usbd_flags=""See the previous section
for more detailed discussion on moused.In order to use the USB mouse in the X session, edit
XF86Config. If you are using XFree86
3.3.2 or later, be sure to have the following lines in the
Pointer section:Device "/dev/sysmouse"
Protocol "Auto"If you are using earlier versions of XFree86, be sure to
have the following lines in the Pointer
section:Device "/dev/sysmouse"
Protocol "SysMouse"Refer to another section
on the mouse support in the X environment.Hot-plugging and unplugging of the USB mouse may not work
quite right yet. It is a good idea connect the mouse before you
start the system and leave it connected until the system is
shutdown to avoid trouble.My mouse has a fancy wheel and buttons. Can I use them in
FreeBSD?The answer is, unfortunately, It depends.
These mice with additional features require specialized driver
in most cases. Unless the mouse device driver or the user
program has specific support for the mouse, it will act just
like a standard two, or three button mouse.For the possible usage of wheels in the X Window
environment, refer to that
section.Why does my wheel-equipped PS/2 mouse cause my mouse cursor
to jump around the screen?The PS/2 mouse driver psm in FreeBSD versions 3.2 or
earlier has difficulty with some wheel mice, including Logitech
model M-S48 and its OEM siblings. Apply the following patch to
/sys/i386/isa/psm.c and rebuild the
kernel.Index: psm.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /src/CVS/src/sys/i386/isa/Attic/psm.c,v
retrieving revision 1.60.2.1
retrieving revision 1.60.2.2
diff -u -r1.60.2.1 -r1.60.2.2
--- psm.c 1999/06/03 12:41:13 1.60.2.1
+++ psm.c 1999/07/12 13:40:52 1.60.2.2
@@ -959,14 +959,28 @@
sc->mode.packetsize = vendortype[i].packetsize;
/* set mouse parameters */
+#if 0
+ /*
+ * A version of Logitech FirstMouse+ won't report wheel movement,
+ * if SET_DEFAULTS is sent... Don't use this command.
+ * This fix was found by Takashi Nishida.
+ */
i = send_aux_command(sc->kbdc, PSMC_SET_DEFAULTS);
if (verbose >= 2)
printf("psm%d: SET_DEFAULTS return code:%04x\n", unit, i);
+#endif
if (sc->config & PSM_CONFIG_RESOLUTION) {
sc->mode.resolution
= set_mouse_resolution(sc->kbdc,
- (sc->config & PSM_CONFIG_RESOLUTION) - 1);
+ (sc->config & PSM_CONFIG_RESOLUTION) - 1);
+ } else if (sc->mode.resolution >= 0) {
+ sc->mode.resolution
+ = set_mouse_resolution(sc->kbdc, sc->dflt_mode.resolution);
+ }
+ if (sc->mode.rate > 0) {
+ sc->mode.rate = set_mouse_sampling_rate(sc->kbdc, sc->dflt_mode.rate);
}
+ set_mouse_scaling(sc->kbdc, 1);
/* request a data packet and extract sync. bits */
if (get_mouse_status(sc->kbdc, stat, 1, 3) < 3) {Versions later than 3.2 should be all right.How do I use the mouse/trackball/touchpad on my laptop?Please refer to the answer to
the previous question. Also check out the Mobile
Computing page.What types of tape drives are supported?FreeBSD supports SCSI and QIC-36 (with a QIC-02 interface).
This includes 8-mm (aka Exabyte) and DAT drives.Some of the early 8-mm drives are not quite compatible
with SCSI-2, and may not work well with FreeBSD.Does FreeBSD support tape changers?FreeBSD 2.2 supports SCSI changers using the &man.ch.4;
device and the &man.chio.1; command. The details of how you
actually control the changer can be found in the &man.chio.1;
manual page.If you are not using AMANDA
or some other product that already understands changers,
remember that they only know how to move a tape from one
point to another, so you need to keep track of which slot a
tape is in, and which slot the tape currently in the drive
needs to go back to.Which sound cards are supported by FreeBSD?FreeBSD supports the SoundBlaster, SoundBlaster Pro,
SoundBlaster 16, Pro Audio Spectrum 16, AdLib and Gravis
UltraSound sound cards. There is also limited support for
MPU-401 and compatible MIDI cards. Cards conforming to the
Microsoft Sound System specification are also supported through
the pcm driver.This is only for sound! This driver does not support
CDROMs, SCSI or joysticks on these cards, except for the
SoundBlaster. The SoundBlaster SCSI interface and some
non-SCSI CDROMs are supported, but you cannot boot off this
device.Workarounds for no sound from es1370 with pcm driver?You can run the following command every time the machine
booted up:&prompt.root; mixer pcm 100 vol 100 cd 100Which network cards does FreeBSD support?See the Hardware Notes supplied with each release of
FreeBSD for a more
complete list.I do not have a math co-processor - is that bad?This will only affect 386/486SX/486SLC owners - other
machines will have one built into the CPU.In general this will not cause any problems, but there are
circumstances where you will take a hit, either in performance
or accuracy of the math emulation code (see the section on FP emulation). In particular, drawing
arcs in X will be VERY slow. It is highly recommended that you
buy a math co-processor; it is well worth it.Some math co-processors are better than others. It
pains us to say it, but nobody ever got fired for buying
Intel. Unless you are sure it works with FreeBSD, beware of
clones.What other devices does FreeBSD support?See the Handbook
for the list of other devices supported.Does FreeBSD support power management on my laptop?FreeBSD supports APM on certain machines.
Please look in the LINT kernel config file,
searching for the APM keyword. Further
information can be found in &man.apm.4;.Why does my Micron system hang at boot time?Certain Micron motherboards have a non-conforming PCI BIOS
implementation that causes grief when FreeBSD boots because PCI
devices do not get configured at their reported addresses.Disable the Plug and Play Operating System
flag in the BIOS to work around this problem. More information
can be found at
http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/vortex.html#micronWhy does FreeBSD not recognize my Adaptec SCSI
controller card?The newer AIC789x series Adaptec chips are supported under
the CAM SCSI framework which made its debut in 3.0. Patches
against 2.2-STABLE are in
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/development/cam/.
A CAM-enhanced boot floppy is available at
http://people.FreeBSD.org/~abial/cam-boot/.
In both cases read the README before beginning.Why is FreeBSD not finding my internal Plug & Play
modem?You will need to add the modem's PnP ID to the PnP ID
list in the serial driver. To enable Plug & Play support,
compile a new kernel with controller pnp0 in
the configuration file, then reboot the system. The kernel will
print the PnP IDs of all the devices it finds. Copy the PnP ID
from the modem to the table in
/sys/i386/isa/sio.c, at about line 2777.
Look for the string SUP1310 in the structure
siopnp_ids[] to find the table. Build the
kernel again, install, reboot, and your modem should be
found.You may have to manually configure the PnP devices using
the pnp command in the boot-time
configuration with a command likepnp 1 0 enable os irq0 3 drq0 0 port0 0x2f8to make the modem show.Does FreeBSD support software modems, such as Winmodems?FreeBSD supports many software modems via add-on
software. The comms/ltmdm port adds
support for modems based on the very popular Lucent LT
chipset. The comms/mwavem port
supports the modem in IBM Thinkpad 600 and 700
laptops.You cannot install FreeBSD via a software modem; this
software must be installed after the OS is
installed.How do I get the boot: prompt to show on the serial
console?Build a kernel with
options COMCONSOLE.Create /boot.config and place
as the only text in the file.Unplug the keyboard from the system.See
/usr/src/sys/i386/boot/biosboot/README.serial
for information.Why does my 3Com PCI network card not work with my Micron
computer?Certain Micron motherboards have a non-conforming PCI BIOS
implementation that does not configure PCI devices at the
addresses reported. This causes grief when FreeBSD
boots.To work around this problem, disable the
Plug and Play Operating System flag in the
BIOS.More information on this problem is available at URL:
http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/vortex.html#micronDoes FreeBSD support Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP)?SMP is supported in 3.0-STABLE and later releases only.
SMP is not enabled in the GENERIC kernel,
so you will have to recompile your kernel to enable SMP. Take a
look at /sys/i386/conf/LINT to figure out
what options to put in your kernel config file.The boot floppy hangs on a system with an ASUS K7V
motherboard. How do I fix this?Go into the BIOS setup and disable the boot virus
protection.TroubleshootingWhat do I do when I have bad blocks on my hard drive?With SCSI drives, the drive should be capable of re-mapping
these automatically. However, many drives are shipped with
this feature disabled, for some mysterious reason...To enable this, you will need to edit the first device page
mode, which can be done on FreeBSD by giving the command
(as root)&prompt.root; scsi -f /dev/rsd0c -m 1 -e -P 3and changing the values of AWRE and ARRE from 0 to 1:-AWRE (Auto Write Reallocation Enbld): 1
ARRE (Auto Read Reallocation Enbld): 1The following paragraphs were submitted by Ted Mittelstaedt
tedm@toybox.placo.com:For IDE drives, any bad block is usually a sign of
potential trouble. All modern IDE drives come with internal
bad-block remapping turned on. All IDE hard drive manufacturers
today offer extensive warranties and will replace drives with
bad blocks on them.If you still want to attempt to rescue an IDE drive with
bad blocks, you can attempt to download the IDE drive
manufacturer's IDE diagnostic program, and run this against the
drive. Sometimes these programs can be set to force the drive
electronics to rescan the drive for bad blocks and lock them
out.For ESDI, RLL and MFM drives, bad blocks are a normal part
of the drive and are no sign of trouble, generally. With a PC,
the disk drive controller card and BIOS handle the task of
locking out bad sectors. This is fine for operating systems
like DOS that use BIOS code to access the disk. However,
FreeBSD's disk driver does not go through BIOS, therefore a
mechanism, bad144, exists that replaces this functionality.
bad144 only works with the wd driver (which means it is not
supported in FreeBSD 4.0), it is NOT able to be used with SCSI.
bad144 works by entering all bad sectors found into a special
file.One caveat with bad144 - the bad block special file is
placed on the last track of the disk. As this file may possibly
contain a listing for a bad sector that would occur near the
beginning of the disk, where the /kernel file might be located,
it therefore must be accessible to the bootstrap program that
uses BIOS calls to read the kernel file. This means that the
disk with bad144 used on it must not exceed 1024 cylinders, 16
heads, and 63 sectors. This places an effective limit of 500MB
on a disk that is mapped with bad144.To use bad144, simply set the Bad Block
scanning to ON in the FreeBSD fdisk screen during the initial
install. This works up through FreeBSD 2.2.7. The disk must
have less than 1024 cylinders. It is generally recommended that
the disk drive has been in operation for at least 4 hours prior
to this to allow for thermal expansion and track
wandering.If the disk has more than 1024 cylinders (such as a large
ESDI drive) the ESDI controller uses a special translation mode
to make it work under DOS. The wd driver understands about
these translation modes, IF you enter the
translated geometry with the set
geometry command in fdisk. You must also NOT use the
dangerously dedicated mode of creating the
FreeBSD partition, as this ignores the geometry. Also, even
though fdisk will use your overridden geometry, it still knows
the true size of the disk, and will attempt to create a too
large FreeBSD partition. If the disk geometry is changed to the
translated geometry, the partition MUST be manually created
with the number of blocks.A quick trick to use is to set up the large ESDI disk with
the ESDI controller, boot it with a DOS disk and format it with
a DOS partition. Then, boot the FreeBSD install and in the
fdisk screen, read off and write down the blocksize and block
numbers for the DOS partition. Then, reset the geometry to the
same that DOS uses, delete the DOS partition, and create a
cooperative FreeBSD partition using the
blocksize you recorded earlier. Then, set the partition
bootable and turn on bad block scanning. During the actual
install, bad144 will run first, before any filesystems are
created (you can view this with an
AltF2).
If it has any trouble creating the badsector file, you have set
too large a disk geometry - reboot the system and start all over
again (including repartitioning and reformatting with DOS).If remapping is enabled and you are seeing bad blocks,
consider replacing the drive. The bad blocks will only get
worse as time goes on.Why does FreeBSD not recognize my Bustek 742a EISA
SCSI controller?This info is specific to the 742a but may also cover
other Buslogic cards. (Bustek = Buslogic)There are 2 general versions of the 742a
card. They are hardware revisions A-G, and revisions H -
onwards. The revision letter is located after the Assembly
number on the edge of the card. The 742a has 2 ROM chips on it,
one is the BIOS chip and the other is the Firmware chip.
FreeBSD does not care what version of BIOS chip you have but it
does care about what version of firmware chip. Buslogic will
send upgrade ROMs out if you call their tech support dept. The
BIOS and Firmware chips are shipped as a matched pair. You must
have the most current Firmware ROM in your adapter card for
your hardware revision.The REV A-G cards can only accept BIOS/Firmware sets up to
2.41/2.21. The REV H- up cards can accept the most current
BIOS/Firmware sets of 4.70/3.37. The difference between the
firmware sets is that the 3.37 firmware supports round
robin.The Buslogic cards also have a serial number on them. If
you have an old hardware revision card you can call the Buslogic
RMA department and give them the serial number and attempt to
exchange the card for a newer hardware revision. If the card is
young enough they will do so.FreeBSD 2.1 only supports Firmware revisions 2.21 onward.
If you have a Firmware revision older than this your card will
not be recognized as a Buslogic card. It may be recognized as
an Adaptec 1540, however. The early Buslogic firmware contains
an AHA1540 emulation mode. This is not a good
thing for an EISA card, however.If you have an old hardware revision card and you obtain
the 2.21 firmware for it, you will need to check the position
of jumper W1 to B-C, the default is A-B.Why does FreeBSD not detect my HP Netserver's SCSI
controller?This is basically a known problem. The EISA on-board SCSI
controller in the HP Netserver machines occupies EISA slot
number 11, so all the true EISA slots are in
front of it. Alas, the address space for EISA slots >= 10
collides with the address space assigned to PCI, and FreeBSD's
auto-configuration currently cannot handle this situation very
well.So now, the best you can do is to pretend there is no
address range clash :), by bumping the kernel option
EISA_SLOTS to a value of 12. Configure and
compile a kernel, as described in the Handbook entry on
configuring the kernel.Of course, this does present you with a chicken-and-egg
problem when installing on such a machine. In order to work
around this problem, a special hack is available inside
UserConfig. Do not use the
visual interface, but the plain command-line
interface there. Simply typeeisa 12
quitat the prompt, and install your system as usual. While
it is recommended you compile and install a custom kernel
anyway.Hopefully, future versions will have a proper fix for
this problem.You cannot use a
dangerously dedicated disk
with an HP Netserver. See this
note for more info.What is going on with my CMD640 IDE controller?It is broken. It cannot handle commands on both channels
simultaneously.There is a workaround available now and it is enabled
automatically if your system uses this chip. For the details
refer to the manual page of the disk driver (&man.wd.4;).If you are already running FreeBSD 2.2.1 or 2.2.2 with a
CMD640 IDE controller and you want to use the second channel,
build a new kernel with options "CMD640"
enabled. This is the default for 2.2.5 and later.I keep seeing messages like
ed1: timeout. What do these messages
mean?This is usually caused by an interrupt conflict (e.g.,
two boards using the same IRQ). FreeBSD prior to 2.0.5R used to
be tolerant of this, and the network driver would still
function in the presence of IRQ conflicts. However, with 2.0.5R
and later, IRQ conflicts are no longer tolerated. Boot with the
-c option and change the ed0/de0/... entry to match your
board.If you are using the BNC connector on your network card,
you may also see device timeouts because of bad termination. To
check this, attach a terminator directly to the NIC (with no
cable) and see if the error messages go away.Some NE2000 compatible cards will give this error if there
is no link on the UTP port or if the cable is disconnected.Why did my 3COM 3C509 card stop working for no
apparent reason?This card has a bad habit of losing its configuration
information. Refresh your card's settings with the DOS
utility 3c5x9.exe.My parallel printer is ridiculously slow. What can I do?If the only problem is that the printer is terribly
slow, try changing your printer
port mode as discussed in the Printer
Setup section of the Handbook.Why do my programs occasionally die with
Signal 11 errors?Signal 11 errors are caused when your process has attempted
to access memory which the operating system has not granted it
access to. If something like this is happening at seemingly
random intervals then you need to start investigating things
very carefully.These problems can usually be attributed to either:If the problem is occurring only in a specific
application that you are developing yourself it is probably
a bug in your code.If it is a problem with part of the base FreeBSD system,
it may also be buggy code, but more often than not these
problems are found and fixed long before us general FAQ
readers get to use these bits of code (that is what -current
is for).In particular, a dead giveaway that this is not a FreeBSD
bug is if you see the problem when you are compiling a program,
but the activity that the compiler is carrying out changes
each time.For example, suppose you are running make
buildworld, and the compile fails while trying to
compile ls.c into
ls.o. If you then run make
buildworld again, and the compile fails in the same
place then this is a broken build -- try updating your sources
and try again. If the compile fails elsewhere then this is
almost certainly hardware.What you should do:In the first case you can use a debugger e.g. gdb to find
the point in the program which is attempting to access a bogus
address and then fix it.In the second case you need to verify that it is not your
hardware at fault.Common causes of this include:Your hard disks might be overheating: Check the fans in
your case are still working, as your disk (and perhaps
other hardware might be overheating).The processor running is overheating: This might be
because the processor has been overclocked, or the fan on
the processor might have died. In either case you need to
ensure that you have hardware running at what it is
specified to run at, at least while trying to solve this
problem. i.e. Clock it back to the default settings.If you are overclocking then note that it is far cheaper
to have a slow system than a fried system that needs
replacing! Also the wider community is not often
sympathetic to problems on overclocked systems, whether you
believe it is safe or not.Dodgy memory: If you have multiple memory SIMMS/DIMMS
installed then pull them all out and try running the
machine with each SIMM or DIMM individually and narrow the
problem down to either the problematic DIMM/SIMM or perhaps
even a combination.Over-optimistic Motherboard settings: In your BIOS
settings, and some motherboard jumpers you have options to
set various timings, mostly the defaults will be
sufficient, but sometimes, setting the wait states on RAM
too low, or setting the RAM Speed: Turbo option, or
similar in the BIOS will cause strange behavior. A
possible idea is to set to BIOS defaults, but it might be
worth noting down your settings first!Unclean or insufficient power to the motherboard. If you
have any unused I/O boards, hard disks, or CDROMs in your
system, try temporarily removing them or disconnecting the
power cable from them, to see if your power supply can
manage a smaller load. Or try another power supply,
preferably one with a little more power (for instance, if
your current power supply is rated at 250 Watts try one
rated at 300 Watts).You should also read the SIG11 FAQ (listed below) which has
excellent explanations of all these problems, albeit from a
Linux viewpoint. It also discusses how memory testing software
or hardware can still pass faulty memory.Finally, if none of this has helped it is possible that
you have just found a bug in FreeBSD, and you should follow the
instructions to send a problem report.There is an extensive FAQ on this at
the SIG11 problem FAQMy system crashes with either Fatal
trap 12: page fault in kernel mode, or
panic:, and spits out a
bunch of information. What should I do?The FreeBSD developers are very interested in these
errors, but need some more information than just the
error you see. Copy your full crash message. Then
consult the FAQ section on kernel panics,
build a debugging kernel, and get a backtrace. This
might sound difficult, but you do not need any
programming skills; you just have to follow the
instructions.Why does the screen go black and lose sync when I
boot?This is a known problem with the ATI Mach 64 video card.
The problem is that this card uses address
2e8, and the fourth serial port does too.
Due to a bug (feature?) in the &man.sio.4;
driver it will touch this port even if you do not have the
fourth serial port, and even if
you disable sio3 (the fourth port) which normally uses this
address.Until the bug has been fixed, you can use this
workaround:Enter at the boot prompt.
(This will put the kernel into configuration mode).Disable sio0,
sio1,
sio2 and
sio3 (all of them). This way
the sio driver does not get activated -> no
problems.Type exit to continue booting.If you want to be able to use your serial ports, you will
have to build a new kernel with the following modification: in
/usr/src/sys/i386/isa/sio.c find the one
occurrence of the string 0x2e8 and remove
that string and the preceding comma (keep the trailing comma).
Now follow the normal procedure of building a new
kernel.Even after applying these workarounds, you may still find
that the X Window System does not work properly. If this is the
case, make sure that the XFree86 version you are using is at
least XFree86 3.3.3 or higher. This version and upwards has
built-in support for the Mach64 cards and even a dedicated X
server for those cards.Why does FreeBSD only use 64 MB of RAM when my system has
128 MB of RAM installed?Due to the manner in which FreeBSD gets the memory size
from the BIOS, it can only detect 16 bits worth of Kbytes in
size (65535 Kbytes = 64MB) (or less... some BIOSes peg the
memory size to 16M). If you have more than 64MB, FreeBSD will
attempt to detect it; however, the attempt may fail.To work around this problem, you need to use the kernel
option specified below. There is a way to get complete memory
information from the BIOS, but we do not have room in the
bootblocks to do it. Someday when lack of room in the
bootblocks is fixed, we will use the extended BIOS functions to
get the full memory information...but for now we are stuck with
the kernel option.options "MAXMEM=n"Where n is your memory in
Kilobytes. For a 128 MB machine, you would want to use
131072.Why does FreeBSD 2.0 panic with
kmem_map too small!?The message may also be
mb_map too small!The panic indicates that the system ran out of virtual
memory for network buffers (specifically, mbuf clusters). You
can increase the amount of VM available for mbuf clusters by
adding:options "NMBCLUSTERS=n"to your kernel config file, where
n is a number in the range 512-4096,
depending on the number of concurrent TCP connections you need
to support. I would recommend trying 2048 - this should get rid of
the panic completely. You can monitor the number of mbuf
clusters allocated/in use on the system with
netstat
-m (see &man.netstat.1;). The default value for NMBCLUSTERS is 512 +
MAXUSERS * 16.Why do I get the error /kernel: proc: table
is full?The FreeBSD kernel will only allow a certain number of
processes to exist at one time. The number is based on
the MAXUSERS option in the kernel
configuration. MAXUSERS also affects
various other in-kernel limits, such as network buffers
(see this
earlier question). If your machine is heavily loaded, you
probably want to increase MAXUSERS.
This will increase these other system limits in addition
to the maximum number of processes.After FreeBSD 4.4, MAXUSERS became
a tunable value that could be set with
kern.maxusers in
/boot/loader.conf. In earlier
versions of FreeBSD, you need to adjust
MAXUSERS in your kernel
configuration.If your machine is lightly loaded, and you are simply
running a very large number of processes, you can adjust
this with the kern.maxproc sysctl. If
these processes are being run by a single user, you will
also need to adjust kern.maxprocperuid
to be one less than your new
kern.maxproc value. (It must be at
least one less because one system program, &man.init.8;,
must always be running.)To make a sysctl permanent across reboots, set this in
/etc/sysctl.conf in recent versions
of FreeBSD, or /etc/rc.local in older
versions.Why do I get an error reading CMAP
busy when rebooting with a new
kernel?The logic that attempts to detect an out of date
/var/db/kvm_*.db files sometimes fails
and using a mismatched file can sometimes lead to panics.If this happens, reboot single-user and do:&prompt.root; rm /var/db/kvm_*.dbWhat does the message ahc0: brkadrint,
Illegal Host Access at seqaddr 0x0
mean?This is a conflict with an Ultrastor SCSI Host Adapter.During the boot process enter the kernel configuration
menu and disable
uha0,
which is causing the problem.When I boot my system, I get the error
ahc0: illegal cable configuration.
My cabling is correct. What is going on?Your motherboard lacks the external logic to support
automatic termination. Switch your SCSI BIOS to specify
the correct termination for your configuration rather
than automatic termination. The AIC7XXX driver cannot
determine if the external logic for cable detection (and
thus auto-termination) is available. The driver simply
assumes that this support must exist if the configuration
contained in the serial EEPROM is set to "automatic
termination". Without the external cable detection logic
the driver will often configure termination incorrectly,
which can compromise the reliability of the SCSI
bus.Why does Sendmail give me an error reading
mail loops back to
myself?This is answered in the sendmail FAQ as follows:- * I'm getting "Local configuration error" messages, such as:
553 relay.domain.net config error: mail loops back to myself
554 <user@domain.net>... Local configuration error
How can I solve this problem?
You have asked mail to the domain (e.g., domain.net) to be
forwarded to a specific host (in this case, relay.domain.net)
by using an MX record, but the relay machine does not recognize
itself as domain.net. Add domain.net to /etc/mail/local-host-names
(if you are using FEATURE(use_cw_file)) or add "Cw domain.net"
to /etc/mail/sendmail.cf.
The current version of the sendmail
FAQ is no longer maintained with the sendmail release.
It is however regularly posted to comp.mail.sendmail,
comp.mail.misc, comp.mail.smail, comp.answers, and news.answers. You can also
receive a copy via email by sending a message to
mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the command
send usenet/news.answers/mail/sendmail-faq
as the body of the message.Why do full screen applications on remote machines
misbehave?The remote machine may be setting your terminal type
to something other than the cons25 terminal
type required by the FreeBSD console.There are a number of possible work-arounds for this
problem:After logging on to the remote machine, set your
TERM shell variable to ansi or
sco if the remote machine knows
about these terminal types.Use a VT100 emulator like
screen at the FreeBSD console.
screen offers you the ability
to run multiple concurrent sessions from one terminal,
and is a neat program in its own right. Each
screen window behaves like a
VT100 terminal, so the TERM variable at the remote end
should be set to vt100.Install the cons25 terminal
database entry on the remote machine. The way to do this
depends on the operating system on the remote machine.
The system administration manuals for the remote system
should be able to help you here.Fire up an X server at the FreeBSD end and login to
the remote machine using an X based terminal emulator
such as xterm or
rxvt. The TERM variable at the remote
host should be set to xterm or
vt100.Why does my machine print
calcru: negative time...?This can be caused by various hardware or software
ailments relating to interrupts. It may be due to bugs but can
also happen by nature of certain devices. Running TCP/IP over
the parallel port using a large MTU is one good way to provoke
this problem. Graphics accelerators can also get you here, in
which case you should check the interrupt setting of the card
first.A side effect of this problem are dying processes with the
message SIGXCPU exceeded cpu time limit.For FreeBSD 3.0 and later from Nov 29, 1998 forward: If the
problem cannot be fixed otherwise the solution is to set
this sysctl variable:&prompt.root; sysctl -w kern.timecounter.method=1This means a performance impact, but considering the cause
of this problem, you probably will not notice. If the problem
persists, keep the sysctl set to one and set the
NTIMECOUNTER option in your kernel to
increasingly large values. If by the time you have reached
NTIMECOUNTER=20 the problem is not solved,
interrupts are too hosed on your machine for reliable
time keeping.I see pcm0 not found or my sound card is
found as pcm1 but I have
device pcm0 in my kernel config file. What is
going on?This occurs in FreeBSD 3.X with PCI sound cards. The
pcm0 device is reserved exclusively for
ISA-based cards so, if you have a PCI card, then you will see
this error, and your card will appear as pcm1.
You cannot remove the warning by simply changing the
line in the kernel config file to device
pcm1 as this will result in
pcm1 being reserved for ISA cards and
your PCI card being found as pcm2 (along
with the warning pcm1 not found).
If you have a PCI sound card you will also have to make the
snd1 device rather than
snd0:&prompt.root; cd /dev
&prompt.root; ./MAKEDEV snd1You can omit this step if you are running FreeBSD
5.0-RELEASE or newer with &man.devfs.5; enabled,
since the proper device nodes will be created automatically
under /dev.This situation does not arise in FreeBSD 4.X as a lot
of work has been done to make it more
PnP-centric and the
pcm0 device is no longer reserved
exclusively for ISA cardsWhy is my PnP card no longer found (or found as
unknown) since upgrading to FreeBSD 4.X?FreeBSD 4.X is now much more PnP-centric
and this has had the side effect of some PnP devices (e.g. sound
cards and internal modems) not working even though they worked
under FreeBSD 3.X.The reasons for this behavior are explained by the following
e-mail, posted to the freebsd-questions mailing list by Peter
Wemm, in answer to a question about an internal modem that was
no longer found after an upgrade to FreeBSD 4.X (the comments
in [] have been added to clarify the
context.The contents of this quotation has been updated from
its original text.
The PNP bios preconfigured it [the modem] and left it
laying around in port space, so [in 3.X] the old-style ISA
probes found it there.Under 4.0, the ISA code is much more PnP-centric. It was
possible [in 3.X] for an ISA probe to find a
stray device and then for the PNP device id to
match and then fail due to resource conflicts. So, it
disables the programmable cards first so this double probing
cannot happen. It also means that it needs to know the PnP
id's for supported PnP hardware. Making this more user
tweakable is on the TODO list.
To get the device working again requires finding its PnP id
and adding it to the list that the ISA probes use to identify
PnP devices. This is obtained using &man.pnpinfo.8; to probe the
device, for example this is the output from &man.pnpinfo.8; for
an internal modem:&prompt.root; pnpinfo
Checking for Plug-n-Play devices...
Card assigned CSN #1
Vendor ID PMC2430 (0x3024a341), Serial Number 0xffffffff
PnP Version 1.0, Vendor Version 0
Device Description: Pace 56 Voice Internal Plug & Play Modem
Logical Device ID: PMC2430 0x3024a341 #0
Device supports I/O Range Check
TAG Start DF
I/O Range 0x3f8 .. 0x3f8, alignment 0x8, len 0x8
[16-bit addr]
IRQ: 4 - only one type (true/edge)[more TAG lines elided]TAG End DF
End Tag
Successfully got 31 resources, 1 logical fdevs
-- card select # 0x0001
CSN PMC2430 (0x3024a341), Serial Number 0xffffffff
Logical device #0
IO: 0x03e8 0x03e8 0x03e8 0x03e8 0x03e8 0x03e8 0x03e8 0x03e8
IRQ 5 0
DMA 4 0
IO range check 0x00 activate 0x01The information you require is in the
Vendor ID line at the start of the output. The
hexadecimal number in parentheses (0x3024a341 in this example)
is the PnP id and the string immediately before this (PMC2430)
is a unique ASCII id.Alternatively, if &man.pnpinfo.8; does not list the card in
question, &man.pciconf.8; can be used instead. This is part of
the output from pciconf -vl for an onboard
sound chip:&prompt.root; pciconf -vl
chip1@pci0:31:5: class=0x040100 card=0x00931028 chip=0x24158086 rev=0x02 hdr=0x00
vendor = 'Intel Corporation'
device = '82801AA 8xx Chipset AC'97 Audio Controller'
class = multimedia
subclass = audioHere, you would use the chip value,
0x24158086.This information (Vendor ID or chip value) needs adding
to the file
/usr/src/sys/isa/sio.c.You should first make a backup of sio.c
just in case things go wrong. You will also need it to make the
patch to submit with your PR (you are going to submit a PR,
are you not?) then edit sio.c and search
for the linestatic struct isa_pnp_id sio_ids[] = {then scroll down to find the correct place to add the entry
for your device. The entries look like this, and are sorted on
the ASCII Vendor ID string which should be included in the
comment to the right of the line of code along with all (if it
will fit) or part of the Device Description
from the output of &man.pnpinfo.8;:{0x0f804f3f, NULL}, /* OZO800f - Zoom 2812 (56k Modem) */
{0x39804f3f, NULL}, /* OZO8039 - Zoom 56k flex */
{0x3024a341, NULL}, /* PMC2430 - Pace 56 Voice Internal Modem */
{0x1000eb49, NULL}, /* ROK0010 - Rockwell ? */
{0x5002734a, NULL}, /* RSS0250 - 5614Jx3(G) Internal Modem */Add the hexadecimal Vendor ID for your device in the
correct place, save the file, rebuild your kernel, and reboot.
Your device should now be found as an sio
device as it was under FreeBSD 3.XWhy do I get the error nlist failed when
running, for example, top or
systat?The problem is that the application you are trying to run is
looking for a specific kernel symbol, but, for whatever reason,
cannot find it; this error stems from one of two problems:Your kernel and userland are not synchronized (i.e., you
built a new kernel but did not do an
installworld, or vice versa), and
thus the symbol table is different from what the user
application thinks it is. If this is the case, simply
complete the upgrade process (see
/usr/src/UPDATING for the correct
sequence).You are not using /boot/loader to load
your kernel, but doing it directly from boot2 (see
&man.boot.8;). While there is nothing wrong with bypassing
/boot/loader, it generally does a better
job of making the kernel symbols available to user
applications.Why does it take so long to connect to my computer via
ssh or telnet?The symptom: there is a long delay between the time the TCP
connection is established and the time when the client software
asks for a password (or, in &man.telnet.1;'s case, when a login
prompt appears).The problem: more likely than not, the delay is caused by
the server software trying to resolve the client's IP address
into a hostname. Many servers, including the Telnet and SSH
servers that come with FreeBSD, do this in order to, among
other things, store the hostname in a log file for future
reference by the administrator.The remedy: if the problem occurs whenever you connect from
your computer (the client) to any server, the problem is with
the client; likewise, if the problem only occurs when someone
connects to your computer (the server) the problem is with the
server.If the problem is with the client, the only remedy is to
fix the DNS so the server can resolve it. If this is on a
local network, consider it a server problem and keep reading;
conversely, if this is on the global Internet, you will most
likely need to contact your ISP and ask them to fix it for
you.If the problem is with the server, and this is on a local
network, you need to configure the server to be able to resolve
address-to-hostname queries for your local address range. See
the &man.hosts.5; and &man.named.8; manual pages for more
information. If this is on the global Internet, the problem
may be that your server's resolver is not functioning
correctly. To check, try to look up another host--say,
www.yahoo.com. If it does not work, that is
your problem.What does stray IRQ mean?Stray IRQs are indications of hardware IRQ glitches,
mostly from hardware that removes its interrupt request in
the middle of the interrupt request acknowledge
cycle.One has three options for dealing with this:Live with the warnings. All except the first 5
per irq are suppressed anyway.Break the warnings by changing 5 to 0 in
isa_strayintr() so that all the
warnings are suppressed.Break the warnings by installing parallel port
hardware that uses irq 7 and the PPP driver for it (this
happens on most systems), and install an ide drive or
other hardware that uses irq 15 and a suitable driver
for it.Why does file: table is full show up
repeatedly in dmesg?
This error message indicates you have exhausted the number
of available file descriptors on your system. Please see
the kern.maxfiles
section of the Tuning
Kernel Limits section of the Handbook for a
discussion and solution.Why does the clock on my laptop keep incorrect time?Your laptop has two or more clocks, and FreeBSD has chosen to
use the wrong one.Run &man.dmesg.8;, and check for lines that contain
Timecounter. The last line printed is the one
that FreeBSD chose, and will almost certainly be
TSC.&prompt.root; dmesg | grep Timecounter
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz
Timecounter "TSC" frequency 595573479 HzYou can confirm this by checking the
kern.timecounter.hardware
&man.sysctl.3;.&prompt.root; sysctl kern.timecounter.hardware
kern.timecounter.hardware: TSCThe BIOS may modify the TSC clock—perhaps to change the
speed of the processor when running from batteries, or going into
a power saving mode, but FreeBSD is unaware of these adjustments,
and appears to gain or lose time.In this example, the i8254 clock is also
available, and can be selected by writing its name to the
kern.timecounter.hardware
&man.sysctl.3;.&prompt.root; sysctl -w kern.timecounter.hardware=i8254
kern.timecounter.hardware: TSC -> i8254Your laptop should now start keeping more accurate
time.To have this change automatically run at boot time, add the
following line to /etc/sysctl.conf.kern.timecounter.hardware=i8254Why did my laptop fail to correctly probe PC cards?This problem is common on laptops that boot more than
one operating system. Some non-BSD operating systems
leave PC card hardware in an inconsistent state.
pccardd will detect the card as
"(null)""(null)" instead of its
actual model.You must remove all power from the PC card slot to
fully reset the hardware. Completely power off the
laptop. (Don't suspend it, don't let it go into standby;
the power needs to be completely off.) Wait a few
moments, and reboot. Your PC card should work now.Some laptop hardware lies when it claims to be off.
If the above does not work shut down, remove the battery,
wait a moment, replace the battery, and reboot.Why does FreeBSD's boot loader display
Read error and stop after the BIOS
screen?FreeBSD's boot loader is incorrectly recognizing the hard
drive's geometry. This must be manually set within fdisk when
creating or modifying FreeBSD's slice.
The correct drive geometry values can be found within the
machine's BIOS. Look for the number of cylinders, heads and
sectors for the particular drive.
Within &man.sysinstall.8;'s fdisk, hit
G to set the drive geometry.A dialog will pop up requesting the number of cylinders, heads
and sectors. Type the numbers found from the BIOS separates by
forward slashes.
5000 cylinders, 250 sectors and 60 sectors would be entered as
5000/250/60Press enter to set the values, and hit
W to write the
new partition table to the drive.
Another operating system destroyed my Boot Manager. How do I
get it back?
Enter &man.sysinstall.8; and choose Configure,
then Fdisk. Select the disk the Boot Manager resided on
with the space key. Press
W to write changes to the drive. A prompt
will appear asking which boot loader to install. Select this,
and it will be restored.
What does the error swap_pager: indefinite
wait buffer: mean?This means that a process is trying to page memory to
disk, and the page attempt has hung trying to access the
disk for more than 20 seconds. It might be caused by bad
blocks on the disk drive, disk wiring, cables, or any
other disk I/O-related hardware. If the drive itself is
actually bad, you will also see disk errors in
/var/log/messages and in the output
of dmesg. Otherwise, check your cables
and connections.What are UDMA ICRC errors, and how do I
fix them?The &man.ata.4; driver reports UDMA ICRC
errors when a DMA transfer to or from a drive is corrupted.
The driver will retry the operation a few times. Should
the retries fail, it will switch from DMA to the slower PIO
mode of communication with the device.The problem can be caused by many factors, although
perhaps the most common cause is faulty or incorrect
cabling. Check that the ATA cables are undamaged and rated
for the Ultra DMA mode in use. If you're using removable
drive trays, they must also be compatible. Be sure that
all connections are making good contact. Problems have
also been noticed when an old drive is installed on the
same ATA channel as an Ultra DMA 66 (or faster) drive.
Lastly, these errors can indicate that the drive is
failing. Most drive vendors provide testing software for
their drives, so test your drive, and, if necessary, back
up your data and replace it.The &man.atacontrol.8; utility can be used to show and
select the DMA or PIO modes used for each ATA device. In
particular, atacontrol mode
channel will show the
modes in use on a particular ATA channel, where the primary
channel is numbered 0, and so on.Commercial ApplicationsThis section is still very sparse, though we are hoping, of
course, that companies will add to it! :) The FreeBSD group has
no financial interest in any of the companies listed here but
simply lists them as a public service (and feels that commercial
interest in FreeBSD can have very positive effects on FreeBSD's
long-term viability). We encourage commercial software vendors to
send their entries here for inclusion. See the
Vendors page for a longer list.Where can I get an Office Suite for FreeBSD?The FreeBSD Mall
offers a FreeBSD native version of VistaSource
ApplixWare 5.ApplixWare is a rich full-featured, commercial
Office Suite for FreeBSD containing a word processor,
spreadsheet, presentation program, vector drawing
package, and other applications.
ApplixWare is offered as part of the FreeBSD Mall's BSD
Desktop Edition.The Linux version of StarOffice
works flawlessly on FreeBSD. The easiest way to
install the Linux version of StarOffice is through the
FreeBSD
Ports collection. Future versions of the
open-source OpenOffice
suite should work as well.Where can I get Motif for FreeBSD?The Open Group has released the source code to Motif 2.1.30.
You can install the open-motif package, or
compile it from ports. Refer to
the ports section of the
Handbook for more information on how to do this.
The Open Motif distribution only allows redistribution
if it is running on an
open source operating system.In addition, there are commercial distributions of the Motif
software available. These, however, are not for free, but their
license allows them to be used in closed-source software.
Contact Apps2go for the
least expensive ELF Motif 2.1.20 distribution for FreeBSD
(either i386 or Alpha).There are two distributions, the development
edition and the runtime edition (for
much less). These distributions includes:OSF/Motif manager, xmbind, panner, wsm.Development kit with uil, mrm, xm, xmcxx, include
and Imake files.Static and dynamic ELF libraries (for use with
FreeBSD 3.0 and above).Demonstration applets.Be sure to specify that you want the FreeBSD version of
Motif when ordering (do not forget to mention the architecture
you want too)! Versions for NetBSD and OpenBSD are also sold by
Apps2go. This is currently a FTP only
download.More info
Apps2go WWW pageorsales@apps2go.com or
support@apps2go.comorphone (817) 431 8775 or +1 817 431-8775Contact Metro Link
for an either ELF or a.out Motif 2.1 distribution for
FreeBSD.This distribution includes:OSF/Motif manager, xmbind, panner, wsm.Development kit with uil, mrm, xm, xmcxx, include
and Imake files.Static and dynamic libraries (specify ELF for use
with FreeBSD 3.0 and later; or a.out for use with FreeBSD
2.2.8 and earlier).Demonstration applets.Preformatted manual pages.Be sure to specify that you want the FreeBSD version
of Motif when ordering! Versions for Linux are also sold by
Metro Link. This is available on either a
CDROM or for FTP download.Contact Xi Graphics for an
a.out Motif 2.0 distribution for FreeBSD.This distribution includes:OSF/Motif manager, xmbind, panner, wsm.Development kit with uil, mrm, xm, xmcxx, include
and Imake files.Static and dynamic libraries (for use with FreeBSD
2.2.8 and earlier).Demonstration applets.Preformatted manual pages.Be sure to specify that you want the FreeBSD version
of Motif when ordering! Versions for BSDI and Linux are also
sold by Xi Graphics. This is currently a 4
diskette set... in the future this will change to a unified CD
distribution like their CDE.Where can I get CDE for FreeBSD?Xi Graphics used to sell CDE
for FreeBSD, but no longer do.KDE is an open
source X11 desktop which is similar to CDE in many respects.
You might also like the look and feel of xfce. KDE and xfce are both
in the ports
system.Are there any commercial high-performance X servers?Yes, Xi Graphics
and Metro Link
sell Accelerated-X product for FreeBSD and other Intel based
systems.The Metro Link offering is a high performance X Server
that offers easy configuration using the FreeBSD Package suite
of tools, support for multiple concurrent video boards and is
distributed in binary form only, in a convenient FTP download.
Not to mention the Metro Link offering is available at the very
reasonable price of $39. Metro Link also sells both ELF and a.out Motif for
FreeBSD (see above).More info
Metro Link WWW pageorsales@metrolink.com
or tech@metrolink.comorphone (954) 938-0283 or +1 954 938-0283The Xi Graphics offering is a high performance X Server
that offers easy configuration, support for multiple concurrent
video boards and is distributed in binary form only, in a
unified diskette distribution for FreeBSD and Linux. Xi
Graphics also offers a high performance X Server tailored for
laptop support.There is a free compatibility demo of
version 5.0 available.Xi Graphics also sells Motif and CDE for FreeBSD (see
above).More info
Xi Graphics WWW pageorsales@xig.com
or support@xig.comorphone (800) 946 7433 or +1 303 298-7478.Are there any Database systems for FreeBSD?Yes! See the
Commercial Vendors section of FreeBSD's Web site.Also see the
Databases section of the Ports collection.Can I run Oracle on FreeBSD?Yes. The following pages tell you exactly how to setup
Linux-Oracle on FreeBSD:
http://www.scc.nl/~marcel/howto-oracle.html
http://www.lf.net/lf/pi/oracle/install-linux-oracle-on-freebsdUser ApplicationsSo, where are all the user applications?Please take a look at
the ports
page for info on software packages ported to FreeBSD.
The list currently tops &os.numports; and is growing daily, so come back
to check often or subscribe to the
freebsd-announce mailing list for periodic updates on
new entries.Most ports should be available for the 2.2, 3.X and 4.X
branches, and many of them should work on 2.1.X systems as
well. Each time a FreeBSD release is made, a snapshot of the
ports tree at the time of release in also included in the
ports/ directory.We also support the concept of a package,
essentially no more than a gzipped binary distribution with a
little extra intelligence embedded in it for doing whatever
custom installation work is required. A package can be
installed and uninstalled again easily without having to know
the gory details of which files it includes.Use the package installation menu in
/stand/sysinstall (under the
post-configuration menu item) or invoke the
&man.pkg.add.1; command on the specific package
files you are interested in installing. Package files can
usually be identified by their .tgz suffix
and CDROM distribution people will have a
packages/All directory on their CD which
contains such files. They can also be downloaded over the net
for various versions of FreeBSD at the following
locations:for 2.2.8-RELEASE/2.2.8-STABLE
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-2.2.8/for 3.X-RELEASE/3.X-STABLE
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-3-stable/for 4.X-RELEASE/4-STABLE
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-4-stable/for 5.X-CURRENT
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-5-currentor your nearest local mirror site.Note that all ports may not be available as packages since
new ones are constantly being added. It is always a good idea
to check back periodically to see which packages are available
at the ftp.FreeBSD.org
master site.Where do I find libc.so.3.0?You are trying to run a package built on 2.2 and later on
a 2.1.X system. Please take a look at the previous section and
get the correct port/package for your system.Why do I get a message reading Error: can't find
libc.so.4.0?You accidently downloaded packages meant for 4.X and 5.X
systems and attempted to install them on your 2.X or 3.X
FreeBSD system. Please download the correct version of the
packages.Why does ghostscript give lots of errors with my
386/486SX?You do not have a math co-processor, right?
You will need to add the alternative math emulator to your
kernel; you do this by adding the following to your kernel
config file and it will be compiled in.options GPL_MATH_EMULATEYou will need to remove the
MATH_EMULATE option when you do
this.Why do SCO/iBCS2 applications bomb on
socksys? (FreeBSD 3.0 and older only).You first need to edit the
/etc/sysconfig (or
/etc/rc.conf, see &man.rc.conf.5;) file in the last section to change the
following variable to YES:# Set to YES if you want ibcs2 (SCO) emulation loaded at startup
ibcs2=NOIt will load the ibcs2 kernel module at startup.You will then need to set up /compat/ibcs2/dev to look
like:lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 9 Oct 15 22:20 X0R@ -> /dev/null
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 7 Oct 15 22:20 nfsd@ -> socksys
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root wheel 0 Oct 28 12:02 null
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 9 Oct 15 22:20 socksys@ -> /dev/null
crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 41, 1 Oct 15 22:14 spxYou just need socksys to go to
/dev/null (see &man.null.4;)
to fake the open & close. The code in -CURRENT will handle
the rest. This is much cleaner than the way it was done before.
If you want the spx driver for a local
socket X connection, define SPX_HACK when
you compile the system.How do I configure INN (Internet News) for my machine?After installing the news/inn package or port, an excellent
place to start is Dave Barr's
INN Page where you will find the INN FAQ.What version of Microsoft FrontPage should I get?Use the Port, Luke! A pre-patched version of Apache,
apache13-fp, is available in the ports
tree.Does FreeBSD support Java?Yes. Please see
http://www.FreeBSD.org/java/.Why can I not build this port on my 3.X-STABLE machine?If you are running a FreeBSD version that lags
significantly behind -CURRENT or -STABLE, you may need a ports
upgrade kit from
http://www.FreeBSD.org/ports/. If you are up to date,
then someone might have committed a change to the port which
works for -CURRENT but which broke the port for -STABLE. Please
submit a bug report on this with the
&man.send-pr.1; command, since the ports
collection is supposed to work for both the -CURRENT and
-STABLE branches.Where do I find ld.so?a.out applications like Netscape Navigator require
a.out libraries. A version of FreeBSD built with ELF
libraries does not install them by default. You will get
complaints about not having
/usr/libexec/ld.so if this is the
case on your system. These libraries are available as an
add-on in the compat22 distribution. Use
&man.sysinstall.8; to install them. You can
also install them from the FreeBSD source code:&prompt.root; cd /usr/src/lib/compat/compat22
&prompt.root; make install cleanIf you want to install the latest compat22 libraries
whenever you run make world, edit
/etc/make.conf to include
COMPAT22=YES. Old compatibility
libraries change rarely, if ever, so this is not generally
needed.Also see the ERRATAs for 3.1-RELEASE and
3.2-RELEASE.I updated the sources, now how do I update my installed
ports?FreeBSD does not include a port upgrading tool, but it
does have some tools to make the upgrade process somewhat
easier. You can also install additional tools to simplify
port handling.The &man.pkg.version.1; command can generate a script
that will update installed ports to the latest version in
the ports tree.&prompt.root; pkg_version -c > /tmp/myscriptThe output script must be edited by
hand before you use it. Recent versions of
&man.pkg.version.1; force this by inserting an
&man.exit.1; at the beginning of the script.You should save the output of the script, as it will note
packages that depend on the one that has been updated. These
may or may not need to be updated as well. The usual case where
they need to be updated is that a shared library has changed
version numbers, so the ports that used that library need to be
rebuilt to use the new version.Beginning with FreeBSD 5.0 (and higher revisions),
&man.pkg.version.1; no longer supports the
option.If you have the disk space, you can use the
portupgrade tool to automate all of
this. portupgrade includes various
tools to simplify package handling. It is available under
sysutils/portupgrade.
Since it is written in Ruby,
portupgrade is an unlikely candidate for
integration with the main FreeBSD tree. That should not
stop anyone from using it, however.If your system is up full time, the &man.periodic.8; system
can be used to generate a weekly list of ports that might need
updating by setting
weekly_status_pkg_enable="YES" in
/etc/periodic.conf.Why is /bin/sh so minimal? Why does
FreeBSD not use bash or another shell?Because POSIX says that there shall be such a shell.The more complicated answer: many people need to write shell
scripts which will be portable across many systems. That is why
POSIX specifies the shell and utility commands in great detail.
Most scripts are written in Bourne shell, and because several
important programming interfaces (&man.make.1;, &man.system.3;,
&man.popen.3;, and analogues in higher-level scripting
languages like Perl and Tcl) are specified to use the Bourne
shell to interpret commands. Because the Bourne shell is so
often and widely used, it is important for it to be quick to
start, be deterministic in its behavior, and have a small
memory footprint.The existing implementation is our best effort at meeting as
many of these requirements simultaneously as we can. In order to
keep /bin/sh small, we have not provided many
of the convenience features that other shells have. That is why the
Ports Collection includes more featureful shells like bash, scsh,
tcsh, and zsh. (You can compare for yourself the memory
utilization of all these shells by looking at the
VSZ and RSS columns in a ps
-u listing.)Why do Netscape and Opera take so long to
start?The usual answer is that DNS on your system is
misconfigured. Both Netscape and Opera perform DNS checks
when starting up. The browser will not appear on your
desktop until the program either gets a response or
determines that the system has no network
connection.
+
+
+
+ I updated parts of the Ports Collection using CVSup, and
+ now many ports fail to build with mysterious error messages!
+ What happened? Is the Ports Collection broken in some major
+ way?
+
+
+
+ If you only update parts of the Ports Collection, using
+ one of its CVSup subcollections and not the
+ ports-all CVSup collection, you should
+ always update the
+ ports-base subcollection too! The reasons
+ are described in the
+ Handbook.
+
+ Kernel ConfigurationI would like to customize my kernel. Is it difficult?Not at all! Check out the
kernel config section of the Handbook.We recommend that you make a dated snapshot of
your new /kernel called
/kernel.YYMMDD after you get it
working properly. Also back up your new
/modules directory to
/modules.YYMMDD. That way, if
you make a mistake the next time you play with your
configuration you can boot the backup kernel instead
of having to fall back to
kernel.GENERIC. This is
particularly important if you are now booting from a
controller that GENERIC does not support.My kernel compiles fail because
_hw_float is missing. How do I solve
this problem?Let me guess. You removed
npx0 (see &man.npx.4;)
from your kernel configuration file because you do not have a
math co-processor, right? Wrong! :-) The
npx0 is
MANDATORY. Even if you do not have a
mathematic co-processor, you must
include the npx0 device.Why is my kernel so big (over 10MB)?Chances are, you compiled your kernel in
debug mode. Kernels built in debug
mode contain many symbols that are used for debugging, thus
greatly increasing the size of the kernel. Note that if you
running a FreeBSD 3.0 or later system, there will be little
or no performance decrease from running a debug kernel,
and it is useful to keep one around in case of a system
panic.However, if you are running low on disk space, or
you simply do not want to run a debug kernel, make sure
that both of the following are true:You do not have a line in your kernel
configuration file that reads:makeoptions DEBUG=-gYou are not running &man.config.8; with
the option.Both of the above situations will cause your kernel to
be built in debug mode. As long as you make sure you follow
the steps above, you can build your kernel normally, and you
should notice a fairly large size decrease; most kernels
tend to be around 1.5MB to 2MB.Why do I get interrupt conflicts with multi-port serial
code?When I compile a kernel
with multi-port serial code, it tells me that only the first
port is probed and the rest skipped due to interrupt conflicts.
How do I fix this?The problem here is that
FreeBSD has code built-in to keep the kernel from getting
trashed due to hardware or software conflicts. The way to fix
this is to leave out the IRQ settings on all but one port. Here
is an example:#
# Multiport high-speed serial line - 16550 UARTS
#
device sio2 at isa? port 0x2a0 tty irq 5 flags 0x501 vector siointr
device sio3 at isa? port 0x2a8 tty flags 0x501 vector siointr
device sio4 at isa? port 0x2b0 tty flags 0x501 vector siointr
device sio5 at isa? port 0x2b8 tty flags 0x501 vector siointrWhy does every kernel I try to build fail to compile, even
GENERIC?There are a number of possible causes for this problem.
They are, in no particular order:You are not using the new make
buildkernel and make
installkernel targets, and your source tree is
different from the one used to build the currently running
system (e.g., you are compiling 4.3-RELEASE on a 4.0-RELEASE
system). If you are attempting an upgrade, please read the
/usr/src/UPDATING file, paying
particular attention to the COMMON ITEMS
section at the end.You are using the new make
buildkernel and make
installkernel targets, but you failed to assert
the completion of the make buildworld
target. The make buildkernel target
relies on files generated by the make
buildworld target to complete its job
correctly.Even if you are trying to build FreeBSD-STABLE, it is possible that
you fetched the source tree at a time when it was either
being modified, or broken for other reasons; only releases
are absolutely guaranteed to be buildable, although FreeBSD-STABLE builds fine the
majority of the time. If you have not already done so, try
re-fetching the source tree and see if the problem goes
away. Try using a different server in case the one you are
using is having problems.Disks, Filesystems, and Boot LoadersHow can I add my new hard disk to my FreeBSD system?See the Disk Formatting Tutorial at
www.FreeBSD.org.How do I move my system over to my huge new disk?The best way is to reinstall the OS on the new
disk, then move the user data over. This is highly
recommended if you have been tracking -STABLE for more
than one release, or have updated a release instead of
installing a new one. You can install booteasy on both
disks with &man.boot0cfg.8;, and dual boot them until
you are happy with the new configuration. Skip the
next paragraph to find out how to move the data after
doing this.Should you decide not to do a fresh install, you
need to partition and label the new disk with either
/stand/sysinstall, or &man.fdisk.8;
and &man.disklabel.8;. You should also install booteasy
on both disks with &man.boot0cfg.8;, so that you can
dual boot to the old or new system after the copying
is done. See the
formatting-media article for details on this
process.Now you have the new disk set up, and are ready
to move the data. Unfortunately, you cannot just blindly
copy the data. Things like device files (in
/dev), flags, and links tend to
screw that up. You need to use tools that understand
these things, which means &man.dump.8;.
Although it is suggested that you move the data in single user
mode, it is not required.You should never use anything but &man.dump.8; and
&man.restore.8; to move the root filesystem. The
&man.tar.1; command may work - then again, it may not.
You should also use &man.dump.8; and &man.restore.8;
if you are moving a single partition to another empty
partition. The sequence of steps to use dump to move
a partitions data to a new partition is:newfs the new partition.mount it on a temporary mount point.cd to that directory.dump the old partition, piping output to the
new one.For example, if you are going to move root to
/dev/ad1s1a, with
/mnt as the temporary mount point,
it is:&prompt.root; newfs /dev/ad1s1a
&prompt.root; mount /dev/ad1s1a /mnt
&prompt.root; cd /mnt
&prompt.root; dump 0af - / | restore xf -Rearranging your partitions with dump takes a bit more
work. To merge a partition like /var
into its parent, create the new partition large enough
for both, move the parent partition as described above,
then move the child partition into the empty directory
that the first move created:&prompt.root; newfs /dev/ad1s1a
&prompt.root; mount /dev/ad1s1a /mnt
&prompt.root; cd /mnt
&prompt.root; dump 0af - / | restore xf -
&prompt.root; cd var
&prompt.root; dump 0af - /var | restore xf -To split a directory from its parent, say putting
/var on its own partition when it was not
before, create both partitions, then mount the child partition
on the appropriate directory in the temporary mount point, then
move the old single partition:&prompt.root; newfs /dev/ad1s1a
&prompt.root; newfs /dev/ad1s1d
&prompt.root; mount /dev/ad1s1a /mnt
&prompt.root; mkdir /mnt/var
&prompt.root; mount /dev/ad1s1d /mnt/var
&prompt.root; cd /mnt
&prompt.root; dump 0af - / | restore xf -You might prefer &man.cpio.1;, &man.pax.1;,
&man.tar.1; to &man.dump.8; for user data. At the time of
this writing, these are known to lose file flag information,
so use them with caution.Will a dangerously dedicated disk endanger
my health?The installation procedure allows
you to chose two different methods in partitioning your
hard disk(s). The default way makes it compatible with other
operating systems on the same machine, by using fdisk table
entries (called slices in FreeBSD), with a
FreeBSD slice that employs partitions of its own. Optionally,
one can chose to install a boot-selector to switch between the
possible operating systems on the disk(s). The alternative uses
the entire disk for FreeBSD, and makes no attempt to be
compatible with other operating systems.So why it is called dangerous? A disk in
this mode does not contain what normal PC utilities would
consider a valid fdisk table. Depending on how well they have
been designed, they might complain at you once they are getting
in contact with such a disk, or even worse, they might damage
the BSD bootstrap without even asking or notifying you. In
addition, the dangerously dedicated disk's
layout is known to confuse many BIOSes, including those from
AWARD (e.g. as found in HP Netserver and Micronics systems as
well as many others) and Symbios/NCR (for the popular 53C8xx
range of SCSI controllers). This is not a complete list, there
are more. Symptoms of this confusion include the read
error message printed by the FreeBSD bootstrap when it
cannot find itself, as well as system lockups when
booting.Why have this mode at all then? It only saves a few kbytes
of disk space, and it can cause real problems for a new
installation. Dangerously dedicated mode's
origins lie in a desire to avoid one of the most common
problems plaguing new FreeBSD installers - matching the BIOS
geometry numbers for a disk to the disk
itself.Geometry is an outdated concept, but one
still at the heart of the PC's BIOS and its interaction with
disks. When the FreeBSD installer creates slices, it has to
record the location of these slices on the disk in a fashion
that corresponds with the way the BIOS expects to find them. If
it gets it wrong, you will not be able to boot.Dangerously dedicated mode tries to work
around this by making the problem simpler. In some cases, it
gets it right. But it is meant to be used as a last-ditch
alternative - there are better ways to solve the problem 99
times out of 100.So, how do you avoid the need for DD mode
when you are installing? Start by making a note of the geometry
that your BIOS claims to be using for your disks. You can
arrange to have the kernel print this as it boots by specifying
at the boot: prompt, or
using boot -v in the loader. Just before the
installer starts, the kernel will print a list of BIOS
geometries. Do not panic - wait for the installer to start and
then use scrollback to read the numbers. Typically the BIOS
disk units will be in the same order that FreeBSD lists your
disks, first IDE, then SCSI.When you are slicing up your disk, check that the disk
geometry displayed in the FDISK screen is correct (ie. it
matches the BIOS numbers); if it is wrong, use the
g key to fix it. You may have to do this if
there is absolutely nothing on the disk, or if the disk has been
moved from another system. Note that this is only an issue with
the disk that you are going to boot from; FreeBSD will sort
itself out just fine with any other disks you may have.Once you have got the BIOS and FreeBSD agreeing about the
geometry of the disk, your problems are almost guaranteed to be
over, and with no need for DD mode at all. If,
however, you are still greeted with the dreaded read
error message when you try to boot, it is time to cross
your fingers and go for it - there is nothing left to
lose.To return a dangerously dedicated disk
for normal PC use, there are basically two options. The first
is, you write enough NULL bytes over the MBR to make any
subsequent installation believe this to be a blank disk. You
can do this for example with&prompt.root; dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rda0 count=15Alternatively, the undocumented DOS
featureC:\>fdisk /mbrwill to install a new master boot record as well, thus
clobbering the BSD bootstrap.Which partitions can safely use Soft Updates? I have
heard that Soft Updates on / can cause
problems.Short answer: you can usually use Soft Updates safely
on all partitions.Long answer: There used to be some concern over using
Soft Updates on the root partition. Soft Updates has two
characteristics that caused this. First, a Soft Updates
partition has a small chance of losing data during a
system crash. (The partition will not be corrupted; the
data will simply be lost.) Also, Soft Updates can cause
temporary space shortages.When using Soft Updates, the kernel can take up to
thirty seconds to actually write changes to the physical
disk. If you delete a large file, the file still resides
on disk until the kernel actually performs the deletion.
This can cause a very simple race condition. Suppose you
delete one large file and immediately create another large
file. The first large file is not yet actually removed
from the physical disk, so the disk might not have enough
room for the second large file. You get an error that the
partition does not have enough space, although you know
perfectly well that you just released a large chunk of
space! When you try again mere seconds later, the file
creation works as you expect. This has left more than one
user scratching his head and doubting his sanity, the
FreeBSD filesystem, or both.If a system should crash after the kernel accepts a
chunk of data for writing to disk, but before that data is
actually written out, data could be lost or corrupted.
This risk is extremely small, but generally manageable.
Use of IDE write caching greatly increases this risk; it
is strongly recommended that you disable IDE write caching
when using Soft Updates.These issues affect all partitions using Soft Updates.
So, what does this mean for the root partition?Vital information on the root partition changes very
rarely. Files such as /kernel and
the contents of /etc only change
during system maintenance, or when users change their
passwords. If the system crashed during the
thirty-second window after such a change is made, it is
possible that data could be lost. This risk is negligible
for most applications, but you should be aware that it
exists. If your system cannot tolerate this much risk,
do not use Soft Updates on the root filesystem!/ is traditionally one of the
smallest partitions. By default, FreeBSD puts the
/tmp directory on
/. If you have a busy
/tmp, you might see intermittent
space problems. Symlinking /tmp to
/var/tmp will solve this
problem.What is inappropriate about my ccd?The symptom of this is:&prompt.root; ccdconfig -C
ccdconfig: ioctl (CCDIOCSET): /dev/ccd0c: Inappropriate file type or formatThis usually happens when you are trying to concatenate
the c partitions, which default to type
unused. The ccd driver requires the
underlying partition type to be FS_BSDFFS. Edit the disklabel
of the disks you are trying to concatenate and change the types
of partitions to 4.2BSD.Why can I not edit the disklabel on my ccd?The symptom of this is:&prompt.root; disklabel ccd0
(it prints something sensible here, so let us try to edit it)
&prompt.root; disklabel -e ccd0
(edit, save, quit)
disklabel: ioctl DIOCWDINFO: No disk label on disk;
use "disklabel -r" to install initial labelThis is because the disklabel returned by ccd is actually
a fake one that is not really on the disk.
You can solve this problem by writing it back explicitly,
as in:&prompt.root; disklabel ccd0 > /tmp/disklabel.tmp
&prompt.root; disklabel -Rr ccd0 /tmp/disklabel.tmp
&prompt.root; disklabel -e ccd0
(this will work now)Can I mount other foreign filesystems under FreeBSD?Digital UNIXUFS CDROMs can be mounted directly on FreeBSD.
Mounting disk partitions from Digital UNIX and other
systems that support UFS may be more complex, depending
on the details of the disk partitioning for the operating
system in question.LinuxAs of 2.2, FreeBSD supports ext2fs
partitions. See &man.mount.ext2fs.8; for more
information.NTA read-only NTFS driver was introduced in FreeBSD 3.0. For
more information, see &man.mount.ntfs.8;. For older versions
of FreeBSD, see the tutorial by Mark Ovens at
http://ukug.uk.FreeBSD.org/~mark/ntfs_install.html.
Any other information on this subject would be
appreciated.How do I mount a secondary DOS partition?The secondary DOS partitions are found after ALL the primary
partitions. For example, if you have an E
partition as the second DOS partition on the second SCSI drive,
you need to create the special files for slice 5
in /dev, then mount /dev/da1s5:&prompt.root; cd /dev
&prompt.root; sh MAKEDEV da1s5
&prompt.root; mount -t msdos /dev/da1s5 /dos/eYou can omit this step if you are running FreeBSD
5.0-RELEASE or newer with &man.devfs.5;
enabled.Is there a cryptographic filesystem for &os;?Yes; see the security/cfs port.How can I use the NT loader to boot FreeBSD?This procedure is slightly different for 2.2.X and 3.X
(with the 3-stage boot) systems.The general idea is that you copy the first sector of your
native root FreeBSD partition into a file in the DOS/NT
partition. Assuming you name that file something like
c:\bootsect.bsd (inspired by
c:\bootsect.dos), you can then edit the
c:\boot.ini file to come up with something
like this:[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows NT"
C:\BOOTSECT.BSD="FreeBSD"
C:\="DOS"For 2.2.X systems this procedure assumes that DOS, NT,
FreeBSD, or whatever have been installed into their respective
fdisk partitions on the same
disk. This example was tested on a system where DOS & NT
were on the first fdisk partition, and FreeBSD on the second.
FreeBSD was also set up to boot from its native partition, not
the disk's MBR.Mount a DOS-formatted floppy (if you have converted to NTFS)
or the FAT partition, under, say,
/mnt.&prompt.root; dd if=/dev/rda0a of=/mnt/bootsect.bsd bs=512 count=1Reboot into DOS or NT. NTFS users copy the
bootsect.bsd or the
bootsect.lnx file from the floppy to
C:\. Modify the attributes (permissions)
on boot.ini with:C:\>attrib -s -r c:\boot.iniEdit to add the appropriate entries from the example
boot.ini above, and restore the
attributes:C:\>attrib +s +r c:\boot.iniIf FreeBSD is booting from the MBR, restore it with the DOS
fdisk command after you reconfigure them to
boot from their native partitions.For FreeBSD 3.X systems the procedure is somewhat
simpler.If FreeBSD is installed on the same disk as the NT boot
partition simply copy /boot/boot1 to
C:\BOOTSECT.BSD However, if FreeBSD is
installed on a different disk /boot/boot1
will not work, /boot/boot0 is needed.
DO NOT SIMPLY COPY /boot/boot0
INSTEAD OF /boot/boot1, YOU WILL
OVERWRITE YOUR PARTITION TABLE AND RENDER YOUR COMPUTER
UN-BOOTABLE!/boot/boot0 needs to be installed using
sysinstall by selecting the FreeBSD boot manager on the
screen which asks if you wish to use a boot manager. This is
because /boot/boot0 has the partition
table area filled with NULL characters but sysinstall copies
the partition table before copying
/boot/boot0 to the MBR.When the FreeBSD boot manager runs it records the last
OS booted by setting the active flag on the partition table
entry for that OS and then writes the whole 512-bytes of itself
back to the MBR so if you just copy
/boot/boot0 to
C:\BOOTSECT.BSD then it writes an empty
partition table, with the active flag set on one entry, to the
MBR.How do I boot FreeBSD and Linux from LILO?If you have FreeBSD and Linux on the same disk, just follow
LILO's installation instructions for booting a non-Linux
operating system. Very briefly, these are:Boot Linux, and add the following lines to
/etc/lilo.conf:other=/dev/hda2
table=/dev/hda
label=FreeBSD(the above assumes that your FreeBSD slice is known to Linux
as /dev/hda2; tailor to suit your setup).
Then, run lilo as root and you should be
done.If FreeBSD resides on another disk, you need to add
loader=/boot/chain.b to the LILO entry.
For example:other=/dev/dab4
table=/dev/dab
loader=/boot/chain.b
label=FreeBSDIn some cases you may need to specify the BIOS drive number
to the FreeBSD boot loader to successfully boot off the second
disk. For example, if your FreeBSD SCSI disk is probed by BIOS
as BIOS disk 1, at the FreeBSD boot loader prompt you need to
specify:Boot: 1:da(0,a)/kernelOn FreeBSD 2.2.5 and later, you can configure
&man.boot.8;
to automatically do this for you at boot time.The
Linux+FreeBSD mini-HOWTO is a good reference for
FreeBSD and Linux interoperability issues.How do I boot FreeBSD and Linux using BootEasy?Install LILO at the start of your Linux boot partition
instead of in the Master Boot Record. You can then boot LILO
from BootEasy.If you are running Windows 95 and Linux this is recommended
anyway, to make it simpler to get Linux booting again if you
should need to reinstall Windows 95 (which is a Jealous
Operating System, and will bear no other Operating Systems in
the Master Boot Record).How do I change the boot prompt from ??? to
something more meaningful?You can not do that with the standard boot manager without
rewriting it. There are a number of other boot managers
in the sysutils ports category that
provide this functionality.I have a new removable drive, how do I use it?Whether it is a removable drive like a ZIP or an EZ drive
(or even a floppy, if you want to use it that way), or a new
hard disk, once it is installed and recognized by the system,
and you have your cartridge/floppy/whatever slotted in, things
are pretty much the same for all devices.(this section is based on
Mark Mayo's ZIP FAQ)If it is a ZIP drive or a floppy, you have already got a DOS
filesystem on it, you can use a command like this:&prompt.root; mount -t msdos /dev/fd0c /floppyif it is a floppy, or this:&prompt.root; mount -t msdos /dev/da2s4 /zipfor a ZIP disk with the factory configuration.For other disks, see how they are laid out using
&man.fdisk.8; or
&man.sysinstall.8;.The rest of the examples will be for a ZIP drive on da2,
the third SCSI disk.Unless it is a floppy, or a removable you plan on sharing
with other people, it is probably a better idea to stick a BSD
filesystem on it. You will get long filename support, at least a
2X improvement in performance, and a lot more stability. First,
you need to redo the DOS-level partitions/filesystems. You can
either use &man.fdisk.8; or
/stand/sysinstall, or for a small drive
that you do not want to bother with multiple operating system
support on, just blow away the whole FAT partition table
(slices) and just use the BSD partitioning:&prompt.root; dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rda2 count=2
&prompt.root; disklabel -Brw da2 autoYou can use disklabel or
/stand/sysinstall to create multiple BSD
partitions. You will certainly want to do this if you are adding
swap space on a fixed disk, but it is probably irrelevant on a
removable drive like a ZIP.Finally, create a new filesystem, this one is on our ZIP
drive using the whole disk:&prompt.root; newfs /dev/rda2cand mount it:&prompt.root; mount /dev/da2c /zipand it is probably a good idea to add a line like this to
/etc/fstab (see &man.fstab.5;) so you can just type
mount /zip in the future:/dev/da2c /zip ffs rw,noauto 0 0Why do I get Incorrect super block when
mounting a CDROM?You have to tell &man.mount.8; the type of the device
that you want to mount. This is described in the Handbook section on
optical media, specifically the section Using Data
CDs.Why do I get Device not configured when
mounting a CDROM?This generally means that there is no CDROM in the
CDROM drive, or the drive is not visible on the
bus. Please see the Using Data
CDs section of the Handbook for a detailed
discussion of this issue.Why do all non-English characters in filenames show up as
? on my CDs when mounted in FreeBSD?Your CDROM probably uses the Joliet
extension for storing information about files and
directories. This is discussed in the Handbook chapter on
creating and
using CDROMs, specifically the section on Using Data
CDROMs.I burned a CD under FreeBSD and now I can not read it
under any other operating system. Why?You most likely burned a raw file to your CD, rather
than creating an ISO 9660 filesystem. Take a look at the
Handbook
chapter on creating CDROMs, particularly the
section on burning raw
data CDs.How can I create an image of a data CD?This is discussed in the Handbook section on duplicating
data CDs. For more on working with CDROMs, see the
Creating CDs
Section in the Storage chapter in the
Handbook.Why can I not mount an audio
CD?If you try to mount an audio CD, you will get an error
like cd9660: /dev/acd0c: Invalid
argument. This is because
mount only works on filesystems. Audio
CDs do not have filesystems; they just have data. You
need a program that reads audio CDs, such as the
audio/xmcd port.How do I mount a multi-session CD?By default, &man.mount.8; will attempt to mount the
last data track (session) of a CD. If you would like to
load an earlier session, you must use the
command line argument. Please see
&man.mount.cd9660.8; for specific examples.How do I let ordinary users mount floppies, CDROMs and
other removable media?Ordinary users can be permitted to mount devices. Here is
how:As root set the sysctl variable
vfs.usermount to
1.&prompt.root; sysctl -w vfs.usermount=1As root assign the appropriate
permissions to the block device associated with the
removable media.For example, to allow users to mount the first floppy
drive, use:&prompt.root; chmod 666 /dev/fd0To allow users in the group
operator to mount the CDROM drive,
use:&prompt.root; chgrp operator /dev/cd0c
&prompt.root; chmod 640 /dev/cd0cFinally, add the line
vfs.usermount=1 to the file
/etc/sysctl.conf so that it is reset
at system boot time.All users can now mount the floppy
/dev/fd0 onto a directory that they
own:&prompt.user; mkdir ~/my-mount-point
&prompt.user; mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 ~/my-mount-pointUsers in group operator can now
mount the CDROM /dev/cd0c onto a
directory that they own:&prompt.user; mkdir ~/my-mount-point
&prompt.user; mount -t cd9660 /dev/cd0c ~/my-mount-pointUnmounting the device is simple:&prompt.user; umount ~/my-mount-pointEnabling vfs.usermount, however, has
negative security implications. A better way to access MSDOS
formatted media is to use the mtools package in the ports collection.The du and df
commands show different amounts of disk space available.
What is going on?You need to understand what du and
df really do. du
goes through the directory tree, measures how large each
file is, and presents the totals. df
just asks the filesystem how much space it has left. They
seem to be the same thing, but a file without a directory
entry will affect df but not
du.When a program is using a file, and you delete the
file, the file is not really removed from the filesystem
until the program stops using it. The file is immediately
deleted from the directory listing, however. You can see
this easily enough with a program such as
more. Assume you have a file large
enough that its presence affects the output of
du and df. (Since
disks can be so large today, this might be a
very large file!) If you delete this
file while using more on it,
more does not immediately choke and
complain that it cannot view the file. The entry is
simply removed from the directory so no other program or
user can access it. du shows that it
is gone — it has walked the directory tree and the file
is not listed. df shows that it is
still there, as the filesystem knows that
more is still using that space. Once
you end the more session,
du and df will
agree.Note that Soft Updates can delay the freeing of disk
space; you might need to wait up to 30 seconds for the
change to be visible!This situation is common on web servers. Many people
set up a FreeBSD web server and forget to rotate the log
files. The access log fills up /var.
The new administrator deletes the file, but the system
still complains that the partition is full. Stopping and
restarting the web server program would free the file,
allowing the system to release the disk space. To prevent
this from happening, set up &man.newsyslog.8;.How can I add more swap space?In the Configuration and
Tuning section of the Handbook, you will find a
section
describing how to do this.How is it possible for a partition to be more than 100%
full?A portion of each UFS partition (8%, by default) is
reserved for use by the operating system and the
root user.
&man.df.1; does not count that space when
calculating the Capacity column, so it can
exceed 100%. Also, you'll notice that the
Blocks column is always greater than the
sum of the Used and
Avail columns, usually by a factor of
8%.For more details, look up the option
in &man.tunefs.8;.System AdministrationWhere are the system start-up configuration files?From 2.0.5R to 2.2.1R, the primary configuration file is
/etc/sysconfig. All the options are to be
specified in this file and other files such as
/etc/rc (see &man.rc.8;)
and /etc/netstart just include it.Look in the /etc/sysconfig file and
change the value to match your system. This file is filled with
comments to show what to put in there.In post-2.2.1 and 3.0, /etc/sysconfig
was renamed to a more self-describing &man.rc.conf.5;
file and the syntax cleaned up a bit in the process.
/etc/netstart was also renamed to
/etc/rc.network so that all files could be
copied with a
cp
/usr/src/etc/rc* /etc command.And, in 3.1 and later, /etc/rc.conf
has been moved to /etc/defaults/rc.conf.
Do not edit this file! Instead, if there
is any entry in /etc/defaults/rc.conf that
you want to change, you should copy the line into
/etc/rc.conf and change it there.For example, if you wish to start named, the DNS server
included with FreeBSD in FreeBSD 3.1 or later, all you need to
do is:&prompt.root; echo named_enable="YES" >> /etc/rc.confTo start up local services in FreeBSD 3.1 or later, place
shell scripts in the /usr/local/etc/rc.d
directory. These shell scripts should be set executable, and
end with a .sh. In FreeBSD 3.0 and earlier releases, you should
edit the /etc/rc.local file.The /etc/rc.serial is for serial port
initialization (e.g. locking the port characteristics, and so
on.).The /etc/rc.i386 is for Intel-specifics
settings, such as iBCS2 emulation or the PC system console
configuration.How do I add a user easily?Use the &man.adduser.8;
command. For more complicated usage, the &man.pw.8;
command.To remove the user again, use the &man.rmuser.8;
command. Once again, &man.pw.8; will work as
well.Why do I keep getting messages like root: not
found after editing my crontab file?This is normally caused by editing the system crontab
(/etc/crontab) and then using
&man.crontab.1; to install it:&prompt.root; crontab /etc/crontabThis is not the correct way to do things. The system
crontab has a different format to the per-user crontabs
which &man.crontab.1; updates (the &man.crontab.5; manual
page explains the differences in more detail).If this is what you did, the extra crontab is simply a
copy of /etc/crontab in the wrong
format it. Delete it with the command:&prompt.root; crontab -rNext time, when you edit
/etc/crontab, you should not do
anything to inform &man.cron.8; of the changes, since it
will notice them automatically.If you want something to be run once per day, week, or
month, it is probably better to add shell scripts
/usr/local/etc/periodic, and let the
&man.periodic.8; command run from the system cron schedule
it with the other periodic system tasks.The actual reason for the error is that the system
crontab has an extra field, specifying which user to run the
command as. In the default system crontab provided with
FreeBSD, this is root for all entries.
When this crontab is used as the root
user's crontab (which is not the
same as the system crontab), &man.cron.8; assumes the string
root is the first word of the command to
execute, but no such command exists.Why do I get the error, you are not in the correct
group to su root when I try to su to
root?This is a security feature. In order to su to
root (or any other account with superuser
privileges), you must be in the wheel
group. If this feature were not there, anybody with an account
on a system who also found out root's
password would be able to gain superuser level access to the
system. With this feature, this is not strictly true;
&man.su.1; will prevent them from even trying to enter the
password if they are not in wheel.To allow someone to su to root, simply
put them in the wheel group.I made a mistake in rc.conf,
or another startup file, and
now I cannot edit it because the filesystem is read-only.
What should I do?When you get the prompt to enter the shell
pathname, simply press ENTER, and run
mount / to re-mount the root filesystem in
read/write mode. You may also need to run mount -a -t
ufs to mount the filesystem where your favourite
editor is defined. If your favourite editor is on a network
filesystem, you will need to either configure the network
manually before you can mount network filesystems, or use an
editor which resides on a local filesystem, such as
&man.ed.1;.If you intend to use a full screen editor such
as &man.vi.1; or &man.emacs.1;, you may also need to
run export TERM=cons25 so that these
editors can load the correct data from the &man.termcap.5;
database.Once you have performed these steps, you can edit
/etc/rc.conf as you usually would
to fix the syntax error. The error message displayed
immediately after the kernel boot messages should tell you
the number of the line in the file which is at fault.Why am I having trouble setting up my printer?Please have a look at the Handbook entry on printing. It
should cover most of your problem. See the
Handbook entry on printing.Some printers require a host-based driver to do any kind of
printing. These so-called WinPrinters are not
natively supported by FreeBSD. If your printer does not work
in DOS or Windows NT 4.0, it is probably a WinPrinter. Your
only hope of getting one of these to work is to check if the
print/pnm2ppa port supports it.How can I correct the keyboard mappings for my system?Please see the Handbook section on using
localization, specifically the section on console
setup.Why do I get messages like: unknown: <PNP0303>
can't assign resources on boot?The following is an excerpt from a post to the
freebsd-current mailing list.
&a.wollman;, 24 April 2001The can't assign resources messages
indicate that the devices are legacy ISA devices for which a
non-PnP-aware driver is compiled into the kernel. These
include devices such as keyboard controllers, the
programmable interrupt controller chip, and several other
bits of standard infrastructure. The resources cannot be
assigned because there is already a driver using those
addresses.
Why can I not get user quotas to work properly?Do not turn on quotas on /,Put the quota file on the filesystem that the quotas
are to be enforced on. ie:FilesystemQuota file/usr/usr/admin/quotas/home/home/admin/quotas……Does FreeBSD support System V IPC primitives?Yes, FreeBSD supports System V-style IPC. This includes
shared memory, messages and semaphores. You need to add the
following lines to your kernel config to enable them.options SYSVSHM # enable shared memory
options SYSVSEM # enable for semaphores
options SYSVMSG # enable for messagingIn FreeBSD 3.2 and later, these options are already
part of the GENERIC kernel, which
means they should already be compiled into your
system.Recompile and install your kernel.How do I use sendmail for mail delivery with UUCP?The sendmail configuration that ships with FreeBSD is
suited for sites that connect directly to the Internet.
Sites that wish to exchange their mail via UUCP must install
another sendmail configuration file.Tweaking /etc/mail/sendmail.cf manually is
considered something for purists. Sendmail version 8 comes with
a new approach of generating config files via some
&man.m4.1;
preprocessing, where the actual hand-crafted configuration is
on a higher abstraction level. You should use the configuration
files under
/usr/src/usr.sbin/sendmail/cf.If you did not install your system with full sources,
the sendmail config stuff has been broken out into a separate
source distribution tarball just for you. Assuming you have got
your CDROM mounted, do:&prompt.root; cd /cdrom/src
&prompt.root; cat scontrib.?? | tar xzf - -C /usr/src contrib/sendmailDo not panic, this is only a few hundred kilobytes in size.
The file README in the
cf directory can serve as a basic
introduction to m4 configuration.For UUCP delivery, you are best advised to use the
mailertable feature. This constitutes a
database that sendmail can use to base its routing decision
upon.First, you have to create your .mc
file. The directory
/usr/src/usr.sbin/sendmail/cf/cf is the
home of these files. Look around, there are already a few
examples. Assuming you have named your file
foo.mc, all you need to do in order to
convert it into a valid sendmail.cf
is:&prompt.root; cd /usr/src/usr.sbin/sendmail/cf/cf
&prompt.root; make foo.cf
&prompt.root; cp foo.cf /etc/mail/sendmail.cfA typical .mc file might look
like:VERSIONID(`Your version number')
OSTYPE(bsd4.4)
FEATURE(accept_unresolvable_domains)
FEATURE(nocanonify)
FEATURE(mailertable, `hash -o /etc/mail/mailertable')
define(`UUCP_RELAY', your.uucp.relay)
define(`UUCP_MAX_SIZE', 200000)
define(`confDONT_PROBE_INTERFACES')
MAILER(local)
MAILER(smtp)
MAILER(uucp)
Cw your.alias.host.name
Cw youruucpnodename.UUCPThe lines containing accept_unresolvable_domains,
nocanonify, and confDONT_PROBE_INTERFACES features will prevent any usage
of the DNS during mail delivery. The
UUCP_RELAY clause is needed for bizarre
reasons, do not ask. Simply put an Internet hostname there that
is able to handle .UUCP pseudo-domain addresses; most likely,
you will enter the mail relay of your ISP there.Once you have got this, you need this file called
/etc/mail/mailertable. If you have only
one link to the outside that is used for all your mails,
the following file will be enough:#
# makemap hash /etc/mail/mailertable.db < /etc/mail/mailertable
. uucp-dom:your.uucp.relayA more complex example might look like this:#
# makemap hash /etc/mail/mailertable.db < /etc/mail/mailertable
#
horus.interface-business.de uucp-dom:horus
.interface-business.de uucp-dom:if-bus
interface-business.de uucp-dom:if-bus
.heep.sax.de smtp8:%1
horus.UUCP uucp-dom:horus
if-bus.UUCP uucp-dom:if-bus
. uucp-dom:As you can see, this is part of a real-life file. The
first three lines handle special cases where domain-addressed
mail should not be sent out to the default route, but instead
to some UUCP neighbor in order to shortcut the
delivery path. The next line handles mail to the local Ethernet
domain that can be delivered using SMTP. Finally, the UUCP
neighbors are mentioned in the .UUCP pseudo-domain notation, to
allow for a uucp-neighbor
!recipient
override of the default rules. The last line is always a single
dot, matching everything else, with UUCP delivery to a UUCP
neighbor that serves as your universal mail gateway to the
world. All of the node names behind the
uucp-dom: keyword must be valid UUCP
neighbors, as you can verify using the command
uuname.As a reminder that this file needs to be converted into a
DBM database file before being usable, the command line to
accomplish this is best placed as a comment at the top of
the mailertable. You always have to execute this command
each time you change your mailertable.Final hint: if you are uncertain whether some particular
mail routing would work, remember the
option to sendmail. It starts sendmail in address
test mode; simply enter 3,0,
followed by the address you wish to test for the mail routing.
The last line tells you the used internal mail agent, the
destination host this agent will be called with, and the
(possibly translated) address. Leave this mode by typing
Control-D.&prompt.user; sendmail -bt
ADDRESS TEST MODE (ruleset 3 NOT automatically invoked)
Enter <ruleset> <address>
>3,0 foo@example.com
canonify input: foo @ example . com
...
parse returns: $# uucp-dom $@ your.uucp.relay $: foo < @ example . com . >
>^DHow do I set up mail with a dialup connection to the
'net?If you have got a statically assigned IP number, you
should not need to adjust anything from the default. Set
your host name up as your assigned Internet name and
sendmail will do the rest.If you have got a dynamically assigned IP number and
use a dialup PPP connection to the Internet, you will
probably be given a mailbox on your ISPs mail server. Lets
assume your ISPs domain is example.net, and that your user
name is user. Lets also assume you
have called your machine bsd.home and that your ISP has told
you that you may use relay.example.net as a mail
relay.In order to retrieve mail from your mailbox, you will
need to install a retrieval
agent. Fetchmail is a good
choice as it supports many different protocols. Usually,
POP3 will be provided by your ISP. If you have chosen to
use user-PPP, you can automatically fetch your mail when a
connection to the 'net is established with the following
entry in /etc/ppp/ppp.linkup:MYADDR:
!bg su user -c fetchmailIf you are using sendmail
(as shown below) to deliver mail to non-local accounts,
put the command !bg su user -c "sendmail -q"after the above shown entry. This forces
sendmail to process your
mailqueue as soon as the connection to the 'net is
established.I am assuming that you have an account for
user on bsd.home. In the home directory of
user on bsd.home, create a
.fetchmailrc file:poll example.net protocol pop3 fetchall pass MySecretThis file should not be readable by anyone except
user as it contains the password
MySecret.In order to send mail with the correct
from: header, you must tell
sendmail to use
user@example.net rather than
user@bsd.home. You may also wish to
tell sendmail to send all mail
via relay.example.net, allowing
quicker mail transmission.The following .mc file should
suffice:VERSIONID(`bsd.home.mc version 1.0')
OSTYPE(bsd4.4)dnl
FEATURE(nouucp)dnl
MAILER(local)dnl
MAILER(smtp)dnl
Cwlocalhost
Cwbsd.home
MASQUERADE_AS(`example.net')dnl
FEATURE(allmasquerade)dnl
FEATURE(masquerade_envelope)dnl
FEATURE(nocanonify)dnl
FEATURE(nodns)dnl
define(`SMART_HOST', `relay.example.net')
Dmbsd.home
define(`confDOMAIN_NAME',`bsd.home')dnl
define(`confDELIVERY_MODE',`deferred')dnlRefer to the previous section for details of how to
turn this .mc file into a
sendmail.cf file. Also, do not
forget to restart sendmail
after updating sendmail.cf.What other mail-server software can I use, instead of
Sendmail?Sendmail is
the default mail-server software for FreeBSD, but you can
easily replace it with one of the other MTA (for instance,
an MTA installed from the ports).There are various alternative MTA's in the ports tree
already, with mail/exim,
mail/postfix, mail/qmail,
mail/zmailer, being some of the most popular
choices.Diversity is nice, and the fact that you have many
different mail-servers to chose from is considered a
good thing; therefore try to avoid
asking questions like Is Sendmail better than
Qmail? in the mailing lists. If you do feel like
asking, first check the mailing list archives. The
advantages and disadvantages of each and every one of the
available MTA's have already been discussed a few
times.I have forgotten the root password! What
do I do?Do not Panic! Simply restart the system, type
boot -s at the Boot: prompt (just
-s for FreeBSD releases before 3.2) to
enter Single User mode. At the question about the shell to use,
hit ENTER. You will be dropped to a &prompt.root; prompt. Enter
mount -u / to remount your root filesystem
read/write, then run mount -a to remount all
the filesystems. Run passwd root to change
the root password then run &man.exit.1; to
continue booting.How do I keep ControlAltDelete from rebooting the
system?If you are using syscons (the default console driver)
in FreeBSD 2.2.7-RELEASE or later,
build and install a new kernel with the lineoptions SC_DISABLE_REBOOTin the configuration file. If you use the PCVT console
driver in FreeBSD 2.2.5-RELEASE or later, use the following
kernel configuration line instead:options PCVT_CTRL_ALT_DELFor older versions of FreeBSD, edit the keymap you are
using for the console and replace the boot
keywords with nop. The default keymap is
/usr/share/syscons/keymaps/us.iso.kbd. You
may have to instruct /etc/rc.conf to load
this keymap explicitly for the change to take effect. Of course
if you are using an alternate keymap for your country, you
should edit that one instead.How do I reformat DOS text files to Unix ones?Simply use this perl command:&prompt.user; perl -i.bak -npe 's/\r\n/\n/g' file ...file is the file(s) to process. The modification is done
in-place, with the original file stored with a .bak
extension.Alternatively you can use the
&man.tr.1;
command:&prompt.user; tr -d '\r' < dos-text-file > unix-filedos-text-file is the file
containing DOS text while unix-file
will contain the converted output. This can be quite a bit
faster than using perl.How do I kill processes by name?Use &man.killall.1;.Why is su bugging me about not being in
root's ACL?The error comes from the Kerberos distributed
authentication system. The problem is not fatal but annoying.
You can either run su with the -K option, or uninstall
Kerberos as described in the next question.How do I uninstall Kerberos?To remove Kerberos from the system, reinstall the bin
distribution for the release you are running. If you have
the CDROM, you can mount the cd (we will assume on /cdrom)
and run&prompt.root; cd /cdrom/bin
&prompt.root; ./install.shAlternately, you can remove all MAKE_KERBEROS
options from /etc/make.conf and rebuild
world.How do I add pseudoterminals to the system?If you have lots of telnet, ssh, X, or screen users,
you will probably run out of pseudoterminals. Here is how to
add more:Build and install a new kernel with the linepseudo-device pty 256in the configuration file.Run the commands&prompt.root; cd /dev
&prompt.root; sh MAKEDEV pty{1,2,3,4,5,6,7}to make 256 device nodes for the new terminals.Edit /etc/ttys and add lines
for each of the 256 terminals. They should match the form
of the existing entries, i.e. they look likettyqc none networkThe order of the letter designations is
tty[pqrsPQRS][0-9a-v], using a
regular expression. Reboot the system with the new kernel and you are
ready to go.Why can I not create the snd0 device?There is no snd device. The name
is used as a shorthand for the various devices that make up the
FreeBSD sound driver, such as mixer,
sequencer, and
dsp.To create these devices you should&prompt.root; cd /dev
&prompt.root; sh MAKEDEV snd0You can omit this step if you are running FreeBSD
5.0-RELEASE or newer with &man.devfs.5;
enabled.How do I re-read /etc/rc.conf and re-start /etc/rc without
a reboot?Go into single user mode and then back to multi user
mode.On the console do:&prompt.root; shutdown now
(Note: without -r or -h)
&prompt.root; return
&prompt.root; exitWhat is a sandbox?Sandbox is a security term. It can mean
two things:A process which is placed inside a set of virtual
walls that are designed to prevent someone who breaks
into the process from being able to break into the wider
system.The process is said to be able to
play inside the walls. That is,
nothing the process does in regards to executing code is
supposed to be able to breech the walls so you do not
have to do a detailed audit of its code to be able to
say certain things about its security.The walls might be a userid, for example. This is
the definition used in the security and named man
pages.Take the ntalk service, for
example (see /etc/inetd.conf). This service used to run
as userid root. Now it runs as userid
tty. The tty user
is a sandbox designed to make it more difficult for
someone who has successfully hacked into the system via
ntalk from being able to hack beyond that user id.A process which is placed inside a simulation of the
machine. This is more hard-core. Basically it means that
someone who is able to break into the process may believe
that he can break into the wider machine but is, in fact,
only breaking into a simulation of that machine and not
modifying any real data.The most common way to accomplish this is to build a
simulated environment in a subdirectory and then run the
processes in that directory chroot'd (i.e.
/ for that process is this
directory, not the real / of the
system).Another common use is to mount an underlying
filesystem read-only and then create a filesystem layer
on top of it that gives a process a seemingly writeable
view into that filesystem. The process may believe it is
able to write to those files, but only the process sees
the effects - other processes in the system do not,
necessarily.An attempt is made to make this sort of sandbox so
transparent that the user (or hacker) does not realize
that he is sitting in it.Unix implements two core sandboxes. One is at the
process level, and one is at the userid level.Every Unix process is completely firewalled off from every
other Unix process. One process cannot modify the address
space of another. This is unlike Windows where a process
can easily overwrite the address space of any other, leading
to a crash.A Unix process is owned by a particular userid. If the
userid is not the root user, it serves to firewall the process
off from processes owned by other users. The userid is also
used to firewall off on-disk data.What is securelevel?The securelevel is a security mechanism implemented in the
kernel. Basically, when the securelevel is positive, the
kernel restricts certain tasks; not even the superuser (i.e.,
root) is allowed to do them. At the time
of this writing, the securelevel mechanism is capable of, among
other things, limiting the ability to,unset certain file flags, such as
schg (the system immutable flag),write to kernel memory via
/dev/mem and
/dev/kmem,load kernel modules, andalter &man.ipfirewall.4; rules.To check the status of the securelevel on a running system,
simply execute the following command:&prompt.root; sysctl kern.securelevelThe output will contain the name of the &man.sysctl.8;
variable (in this case, kern.securelevel)
and a number. The latter is the current value of the
securelevel. If it is positive (i.e., greater than 0), at
least some of the securelevel's protections are enabled.You cannot lower the securelevel of a running system; being
able to do that would defeat its purpose. If you need to do a
task that requires that the securelevel be non-positive (e.g.,
an installworld or changing the date),
you will have to change the securelevel setting in
/etc/rc.conf (you want to look for the
kern_securelevel and
kern_securelevel_enable variables) and
reboot.For more information on securelevel and the specific things
all the levels do, please consult the &man.init.8; manual
page.Securelevel is not a silver bullet; it has many known
deficiencies. More often than not, it provides a false
sense of security.One of its biggest problems is that in order for it to
be at all effective, all files used in the boot process up
until the securelevel is set must be protected. If an
attacker can get the system to execute their code prior to
the securelevel being set (which happens quite late in the
boot process since some things the system must do at
start-up cannot be done at an elevated securelevel), its
protections are invalidated. While this task of protecting
all files used in the boot process is not technically
impossible, if it is achieved, system maintenance will
become a nightmare since one would have to take the system
down, at least to single-user mode, to modify a
configuration file.This point and others are often discussed on the
mailing lists, particularly freebsd-security. Please search
the archives here for an
extensive discussion. Some people are hopeful that
securelevel will soon go away in favor of a more
fine-grained mechanism, but things are still hazy in this
respect.Consider yourself warned.I tried to update my system to the latest -STABLE, but
got -RC or -PRERELEASE! What is going on?Short answer: it is just a name. RC stands for
Release Candidate. It signifies that a
release is imminent. In FreeBSD, -PRERELEASE is typically synonymous
with the code freeze before a release. (For some
releases, the -BETA label was used in the same way as
-PRERELEASE.)Long answer: FreeBSD derives its releases from one of
two places. Major, dot-zero, releases, such as
3.0-RELEASE and 4.0-RELEASE, are branched from the head of
the development stream, commonly referred to as -CURRENT. Minor releases, such
as 3.1-RELEASE or 4.2-RELEASE, have been snapshots of the active
-STABLE branch. Starting with
4.3-RELEASE, each release also now has its own branch which can be
tracked by people requiring an extremely conservative rate
of development (typically only security advisories).When a release is about to be made, the branch from
which it will be derived from has to undergo a certain
process. Part of this process is a code freeze. When a
code freeze is initiated, the name of the branch is
changed to reflect that it is about to become a release.
For example, if the branch used to be called 4.5-STABLE,
its name will be changed to 4.6-PRERELEASE to signify the code
freeze and signify that extra pre-release testing should
be happening. Bug fixes can still be committed to be part
of the release. When the source code is in shape for the
release the name will be changed to 4.6-RC to signify that a
release is about to be made from it. Once in the RC stage,
only the most critical bugs found can be fixed.
Once the release (4.6-RELEASE in this example) and release branch have been made,
the branch will be renamed to 4.6-STABLE.For more information on version numbers and the
various CVS branches, refer to the
Release
Engineering article.I tried to install a new kernel, and the chflags failed.
How do I get around this?Short answer: You are probably at security level
greater than 0. Reboot directly to single user mode to
install the kernel.Long answer: FreeBSD disallows changing system flags
at security levels greater than 0. You can check your
security level with the command:&prompt.root; sysctl kern.securelevelYou cannot lower the security level; you have to boot to
single mode to install the kernel, or change the security
level in /etc/rc.conf then reboot. See
the &man.init.8; manual page for details on securelevel, and see
/etc/defaults/rc.conf and the
&man.rc.conf.5; manual page for more information on
rc.conf.I cannot change the time on my system by more than one second!
How do I get around this?Short answer: You are probably at security level
greater than 1. Reboot directly to single user mode to
change the date.Long answer: FreeBSD disallows changing the time by
more that one second at security levels greater than 1. You
can check your security level with the command:&prompt.root; sysctl kern.securelevelYou cannot lower the security level; you have to boot
to single mode to change the date, or change the security
level in /etc/rc.conf then reboot. See
the &man.init.8; manual page for details on securelevel, and
see /etc/defaults/rc.conf and the
&man.rc.conf.5; manual page for more information on rc.conf.Why is rpc.statd using 256 megabytes of
memory?No, there is no memory leak, and it is not using 256 Mbytes
of memory. It simply likes to (i.e., always does) map an
obscene amount of memory into its address space for convenience.
There is nothing terribly wrong with this from a technical
standpoint; it just throws off things like &man.top.1; and
&man.ps.1;.&man.rpc.statd.8; maps its status file (resident on
/var) into its address space; to save
worrying about remapping it later when it needs to grow, it maps
it with a generous size. This is very evident from the source
code, where one can see that the length argument to &man.mmap.2;
is 0x10000000, or one sixteenth of the
address space on an IA32, or exactly 256MB.Why can I not unset the schg file
flag?You are running at an elevated (i.e., greater than 0)
securelevel. Lower the securelevel and try again. For more
information, see the FAQ entry on
securelevel and the &man.init.8; manual page.Why does SSH authentication through
.shosts not work by default in recent
versions of FreeBSD?The reason why .shosts
authentication does not work by default in more recent
versions of FreeBSD is because &man.ssh.1;
is not installed suid root by default. To
fix this, you can do one of the
following:As a permanent fix, set
ENABLE_SUID_SSH to true
in /etc/make.conf and rebuild ssh
(or run make world).As a temporary fix, change the mode on
/usr/bin/ssh to 4555
by running chmod 4555 /usr/bin/ssh as
root. Then add
ENABLE_SUID_SSH= true to
/etc/make.conf so the change takes
effect the next time make world is
run.What is vnlru?vnlru flushes and frees vnodes when
the system hits the kern.maxvnodes
limit. This kernel thread sits mostly idle, and only
activates if you have a huge amount of RAM and are
accessing tens of thousands of tiny files.The X Window System and Virtual ConsolesI want to run X, how do I go about it?The easiest way is to simply specify that you want to
run X during the installation process.Then read and follow the documentation on the
xf86config tool, which assists you in configuring
XFree86 for your particular graphics card/mouse/etc.You may also wish to investigate the Xaccel server.
See the section on Xi Graphics or
Metro Link for more details.I tried to run X, but I get an
KDENABIO failed (Operation not permitted)
error when I type startx. What do I do
now?Your system is running at a raised securelevel, is not
it? It is, indeed, impossible to start X at a raised
securelevel. To see why, look at the &man.init.8; man
page.So the question is what else you should do instead,
and you basically have two choices: set your securelevel
back down to zero (usually from /etc/rc.conf),
or run &man.xdm.1; at boot time (before the securelevel is
raised).See for more information about
running &man.xdm.1; at boot time.Why does my mouse not work with X?If you are using syscons (the default console driver),
you can configure FreeBSD to support a mouse pointer on each
virtual screen. In order to avoid conflicting with X, syscons
supports a virtual device called
/dev/sysmouse. All mouse events received
from the real mouse device are written to the sysmouse device
via moused. If you wish to use your mouse on one or more
virtual consoles, and use X, see
and set up
moused.Then edit /etc/XF86Config and make
sure you have the following lines.Section Pointer
Protocol "SysMouse"
Device "/dev/sysmouse"
.....The above example is for XFree86 3.3.2 or later. For
earlier versions, the Protocol should be
MouseSystems.Some people prefer to use /dev/mouse
under X. To make this work, /dev/mouse
should be linked to
/dev/sysmouse (see &man.sysmouse.4;):&prompt.root; cd /dev
&prompt.root; rm -f mouse
&prompt.root; ln -s sysmouse mouseMy mouse has a fancy wheel. Can I use it in X?Yes. But you need to customize X client programs. See
Colas Nahaboo's web page
(http://www.inria.fr/koala/colas/mouse-wheel-scroll/)
.If you want to use the imwheel
program, just follow these simple steps.Translate the Wheel EventsThe imwheel program
works by translating mouse button 4 and mouse button 5
events into key events. Thus, you have to get the
mouse driver to translate mouse wheel events to button
4 and 5 events. There are two ways of doing this, the
first way is to have &man.moused.8; do the
translation. The second way is for the X server
itself to do the event translation.Using &man.moused.8; to Translate Wheel
EventsTo have &man.moused.8; perform the event
translations, simply add to
the command line used to start &man.moused.8;.
For example, if you normally start &man.moused.8;
via moused -p /dev/psm0 you
would start it by entering moused -p
/dev/psm0 -z 4 instead. If you start
&man.moused.8; automatically during bootup via
/etc/rc.conf, you can simply
add to the
moused_flags variable in
/etc/rc.conf.You now need to tell X that you have a 5
button mouse. To do this, simply add the line
Buttons 5 to the
Pointer section of
/etc/XF86Config. For
example, you might have the following
Pointer section in
/etc/XF86Config.Pointer Section for Wheeled
Mouse in XFree86 3.3.x series XF86Config with moused
TranslationSection "Pointer"
Protocol "SysMouse"
Device "/dev/sysmouse"
Buttons 5
EndSectionInputDevice Section for Wheeled
Mouse in XFree86 4.x series XF86Config with X Server
TranslationSection "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/sysmouse"
Option "Buttons" "5"
EndSection.emacs example for naive
page scrolling with Wheeled Mouse;; wheel mouse
(global-set-key [mouse-4] 'scroll-down)
(global-set-key [mouse-5] 'scroll-up)Using Your X Server to Translate the Wheel
EventsIf you are not running &man.moused.8;, or if
you do not want &man.moused.8; to translate your
wheel events, you can have the X server do the
event translation instead. This requires a couple
of modifications to your
/etc/XF86Config file. First,
you need to choose the proper protocol for your
mouse. Most wheeled mice use the
IntelliMouse protocol. However,
XFree86 does support other protocols, such as
MouseManPlusPS/2 for the Logitech
MouseMan+ mice. Once you have chosen the protocol
you will use, you need to add a
Protocol line to the
Pointer section.Secondly, you need to tell the X server to
remap wheel scroll events to mouse buttons 4 and
5. This is done with the
ZAxisMapping option.For example, if you are not using
&man.moused.8;, and you have an IntelliMouse
attached to the PS/2 mouse port you would use
the following in
/etc/XF86Config.Pointer Section for Wheeled
Mouse in XF86Config with X
Server TranslationSection "Pointer"
Protocol "IntelliMouse"
Device "/dev/psm0"
ZAxisMapping 4 5
EndSectionInputDevice Section for Wheeled
Mouse in XFree86 4.x series XF86Config with X Server
TranslationSection "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psm0"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection.emacs example for naive
page scrolling with Wheeled Mouse;; wheel mouse
(global-set-key [mouse-4] 'scroll-down)
(global-set-key [mouse-5] 'scroll-up)Install imwheelNext, install imwheel
from the Ports collection. It can be found in the
x11 category. This program will
map the wheel events from your mouse into keyboard
events. For example, it might send Page
Up to a program when you scroll the wheel
forwards. Imwheel uses a
configuration file to map the wheel events to
key presses so that it can send different keys to
different applications. The default
imwheel configuration file
is installed in
/usr/X11R6/etc/imwheelrc. You
can copy it to ~/.imwheelrc and
then edit it if you wish to customize
imwheel's configuration.
The format of the configuration file is documented in
&man.imwheel.1;.Configure Emacs to Work
with Imwheel
(optional)If you use emacs or
XEmacs, then you need to
add a small section to your
~/.emacs file. For
emacs, add the
following:Emacs Configuration
for Imwheel;;; For imwheel
(setq imwheel-scroll-interval 3)
(defun imwheel-scroll-down-some-lines ()
(interactive)
(scroll-down imwheel-scroll-interval))
(defun imwheel-scroll-up-some-lines ()
(interactive)
(scroll-up imwheel-scroll-interval))
(global-set-key [?\M-\C-\)] 'imwheel-scroll-up-some-lines)
(global-set-key [?\M-\C-\(] 'imwheel-scroll-down-some-lines)
;;; end imwheel sectionFor XEmacs, add the
following to your ~/.emacs file
instead:XEmacs Configuration
for Imwheel;;; For imwheel
(mwheel-install)
(setq mwheel-follow-mouse t)
;;; end imwheel sectionRun ImwheelYou can just type imwheel
in an xterm to start it up once it is installed. It
will background itself and take effect immediately.
If you want to always use
imwheel, simply add it to
your .xinitrc or
.xsession file. You can safely
ignore any warnings imwheel
displays about PID files. Those warnings only apply
to the Linux version of
imwheel.Why do X Window menus and dialog boxes not work right?Try turning off the Num Lock key.If your Num Lock key is on by default at boot-time, you
may add the following line in the Keyboard
section of the XF86Config file.# Let the server do the NumLock processing. This should only be
# required when using pre-R6 clients
ServerNumLockWhat is a virtual console and how do I make more?Virtual consoles, put simply, enable you to have several
simultaneous sessions on the same machine without doing anything
complicated like setting up a network or running X.When the system starts, it will display a login prompt on
the monitor after displaying all the boot messages. You can
then type in your login name and password and start working (or
playing!) on the first virtual console.At some point, you will probably wish to start another
session, perhaps to look at documentation for a program
you are running or to read your mail while waiting for an
FTP transfer to finish. Just do AltF2 (hold down the Alt
key and press the F2 key), and you will find a login prompt
waiting for you on the second virtual console!
When you want to go back to the original session, do
AltF1.The default FreeBSD installation has three virtual consoles
enabled (8 starting with 3.3-RELEASE), and AltF1, AltF2, and
AltF3 will switch between these virtual consoles.To enable more of them, edit
/etc/ttys (see &man.ttys.5;)
and add entries for ttyv4
to ttyvc after the comment on
Virtual terminals:# Edit the existing entry for ttyv3 in /etc/ttys and change
# "off" to "on".
ttyv3 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure
ttyv4 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure
ttyv5 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure
ttyv6 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure
ttyv7 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure
ttyv8 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure
ttyv9 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure
ttyva "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure
ttyvb "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secureUse as many or as few as you want. The more virtual
terminals you have, the more resources that are used; this
can be important if you have 8MB RAM or less. You may also
want to change the secure
to insecure.If you want to run an X server you
must leave at least one virtual
terminal unused (or turned off) for it to use. That is to
say that if you want to have a login prompt pop up for all
twelve of your Alt-function keys, you are out of luck - you
can only do this for eleven of them if you also want to run
an X server on the same machine.The easiest way to disable a console is by turning it off.
For example, if you had the full 12 terminal allocation
mentioned above and you wanted to run X, you would change
settings for virtual terminal 12 from:ttyvb "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secureto:ttyvb "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 off secureIf your keyboard has only ten function keys, you would
end up with:ttyv9 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 off secure
ttyva "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 off secure
ttyvb "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 off secure(You could also just delete these lines.)Once you have edited
/etc/ttys, the next step is to make sure that you
have enough virtual terminal devices. The easiest way to do
this is:&prompt.root; cd /dev
&prompt.root; sh MAKEDEV vty12On FreeBSD 5.x you do not have to create devices manually if
you are using DEVFS, since the proper device
nodes will be automatically created under
/dev.Next, the easiest (and cleanest) way to activate the
virtual consoles is to reboot. However, if you really do not
want to reboot, you can just shut down the X Window system
and execute (as root):&prompt.root; kill -HUP 1It is imperative that you completely shut down X Window if
it is running, before running this command. If you do not,
your system will probably appear to hang/lock up after
executing the kill command.How do I access the virtual consoles from X?Use CtrlAltFn to switch back to a virtual console.
CtrlAltF1 would return you to the first virtual console.Once you are back to a text console, you can then use
AltFn as normal to move between them.To return to the X session, you must switch to the virtual
console running X. If you invoked X from the command line, (e.g.,
using startx) then the X session will attach to
the next unused virtual console, not the text console from which
it was invoked. If you have eight active virtual terminals then X
will be running on the ninth, and you would use
AltF9 to return.How do I start XDM on boot?There are two schools of thought on how to start
xdm. One school starts xdm from
/etc/ttys (see &man.ttys.5;)
using the supplied example, while the other simply runs xdm
from
rc.local (see &man.rc.8;)
or from a X.sh script in
/usr/local/etc/rc.d. Both are equally
valid, and one may work in situations where the other does not.
In both cases the result is the same: X will pop up a graphical
login: prompt.The ttys method has the advantage of documenting which
vty X will start on and passing the responsibility of
restarting the X server on logout to init. The rc.local
method makes it easy to kill xdm if there is a problem
starting the X server.If loaded from rc.local, xdm should
be started without any arguments (i.e., as a daemon). xdm must
start AFTER getty runs, or else getty and xdm will conflict,
locking out the console. The best way around this is to have
the script sleep 10 seconds or so then launch xdm.If you are to start xdm from
/etc/ttys, there still is a chance of
conflict between xdm and
&man.getty.8;. One way to avoid this is to add the
vt number in the
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/Xservers
file.:0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X vt4The above example will direct the X server to run in
/dev/ttyv3. Note the number is offset by
one. The X server counts the vty from one, whereas the FreeBSD
kernel numbers the vty from zero.Why do I get Couldn't open console
when I run xconsole?If you start X
with
startx, the permissions on
/dev/console will
not get changed, resulting in
things like
xterm -C and
xconsole not working.This is because of the way console permissions are set
by default. On a multi-user system, one does not necessarily
want just any user to be able to write on the system console.
For users who are logging directly onto a machine with a VTY,
the &man.fbtab.5;
file exists to solve such problems.In a nutshell, make sure an uncommented line of the
form/dev/ttyv0 0600 /dev/consoleis in
/etc/fbtab (see &man.fbtab.5;) and it will ensure that whomever logs in on
/dev/ttyv0 will own the console.Before, I was able to run XFree86 as a regular user. Why does
it now say that I must be root?All X servers need to be run as root in order to get direct
access to your video hardware. Older versions of XFree86
(<= 3.3.6) installed all bundled servers to be automatically
run as root (setuid to root).
This is obviously a security hazard because X servers are large, complicated
programs. Newer versions of XFree86 do not install the servers setuid to
root for just this reason.Obviously, running an X server as the root user is not
acceptable, nor a good idea security-wise. There are two ways
to be able to use X as a regular user. The first is to use
xdm or another display manager
(e.g., kdm); the second is to use the
Xwrapper.xdm is a daemon that handles graphical
logins. It is usually started at boot time, and is responsible
for authenticating users and starting their sessions; it is
essentially the graphical counterpart of
&man.getty.8; and &man.login.1;. For
more information on xdm see
the XFree86
documentation, and the the FAQ
entry on it.Xwrapper is the X server wrapper; it is
a small utility to enable one to manually run an X server while
maintaining reasonable safety. It performs some sanity checks
on the command line arguments given, and if they pass, runs the
appropriate X server. If you do not want to run a display
manger for whatever reason, this is for you. If you have
installed the complete ports collection, you can find the port in
/usr/ports/x11/wrapper.Why does my PS/2 mouse misbehave under X?Your mouse and the mouse driver may have somewhat become
out of synchronization.In versions 2.2.5 and earlier, switching away from X to a
virtual terminal and getting back to X again may make them
re-synchronized. If the problem occurs often, you may add the
following option in your kernel configuration file and
recompile it.options PSM_CHECKSYNCSee the section on building
a kernel if you have no experience with building
kernels.With this option, there should be less chance of
synchronization problems between the mouse and the driver.
If, however, you still see the problem, click any mouse
button while holding the mouse still to re-synchronize the
mouse and the driver.Note that unfortunately this option may not work with all
the systems and voids the tap feature of the
ALPS GlidePoint device attached to the PS/2 mouse port.In versions 2.2.6 and later, synchronization check is done
in a slightly better way and is standard in the PS/2 mouse
driver. It should even work with GlidePoint. (As the check code
has become a standard feature, PSM_CHECKSYNC option is not
available in these versions.) However, in rare cases the driver
may erroneously report synchronization problem and you may see
the kernel message:psmintr: out of sync (xxxx != yyyy)and notice that your mouse does not work properly.If this happens, disable the synchronization check code
by setting the driver flags for the PS/2 mouse driver to 0x100.
Enter UserConfig by giving the
option at the boot prompt:boot: -cThen, in the UserConfig command
line, type:UserConfig> flags psm0 0x100
UserConfig> quitWhy does my PS/2 mouse from MouseSystems not
work?There have been some reports that certain model of PS/2
mouse from MouseSystems works only if it is put into the
high resolution mode. Otherwise, the mouse
cursor may jump to the upper-left corner of the screen every
so often.Unfortunately there is no workaround for versions 2.0.X
and 2.1.X. In versions 2.2 through 2.2.5, apply the following
patch to /sys/i386/isa/psm.c and rebuild
the kernel. See the section on building a kernel if you have no
experience with building kernels.@@ -766,6 +766,8 @@
if (verbose >= 2)
log(LOG_DEBUG, "psm%d: SET_DEFAULTS return code:%04x\n",
unit, i);
+ set_mouse_resolution(sc->kbdc, PSMD_RES_HIGH);
+
#if 0
set_mouse_scaling(sc->kbdc); /* 1:1 scaling */
set_mouse_mode(sc->kbdc); /* stream mode */In versions 2.2.6 or later, specify the flags 0x04 to
the PS/2 mouse driver to put the mouse into the high
resolution mode. Enter UserConfig by
giving the option at the boot prompt:boot: -cThen, in the UserConfig command line,
type:UserConfig> flags psm0 0x04
UserConfig> quitSee the previous section for another possible cause of mouse
problems.When building an X app, imake cannot
find Imake.tmpl. Where is it?Imake.tmpl is part of the Imake package, a standard X
application building tool. Imake.tmpl, as well as several
header files that are required to build X apps, is contained
in the X prog distribution. You can install this from sysinstall
or manually from the X distribution files.An X app I am building depends on XFree86 3.3.X, but I
have XFree86 4.X installed. What should I do?To tell the port build to link to the XFree86 4.X libraries,
add the following to /etc/make.conf, (if you
do not have this file, create it):XFREE86_VERSION= 4How do I reverse the mouse buttons?Run the command
xmodmap -e "pointer = 3 2 1" from your
.xinitrc or .xsession.How do I install a splash screen and where do I find
them?Just prior to the release of FreeBSD 3.1, a new
feature was added to allow the display of
splash screens during the boot
messages. The splash screens currently must be a 256 color
bitmap (*.BMP) or ZSoft PCX
(*.PCX) file. In addition, they must
have a resolution of 320x200 or less to work on standard
VGA adapters. If you compile VESA support into your
kernel, then you can use larger bitmaps up to 1024x768.
The actual VESA support can either be compiled directly
into the kernel with the VESA kernel
config option or by loading the VESA kld module during
bootup.To use a splash screen, you need to modify the startup
files that control the boot process for FreeBSD. The files for
this changed prior to the release of FreeBSD 3.2, so there are
now two ways of loading a splash screen:FreeBSD 3.1The first step is to find a bitmap version of your
splash screen. Release 3.1 only supports Windows bitmap
splash screens. Once you have found your splash screen of
choice copy it to /boot/splash.bmp.
Next, you need to have a
/boot/loader.rc file that contains
the following lines:load kernel
load -t splash_image_data /boot/splash.bmp
load splash_bmp
autobootFreeBSD 3.2+In addition to adding support for PCX splash screens,
FreeBSD 3.2 includes a nicer way of configuring the boot
process. If you wish, you can use the method listed above
for FreeBSD 3.1. If you do and you want to use PCX,
replace splash_bmp with
splash_pcx. If, on the other hand, you
want to use the newer boot configuration, you need to
create a /boot/loader.rc file that
contains the following lines:include /boot/loader.4th
startand a /boot/loader.conf that
contains the following:splash_bmp_load="YES"
bitmap_load="YES"This assumes you are using
/boot/splash.bmp for your splash
screen. If you would rather use a PCX file, copy it to
/boot/splash.pcx, create a
/boot/loader.rc as instructed
above, and create a
/boot/loader.conf that
contains:splash_pcx_load="YES"
bitmap_load="YES"
bitmap_name="/boot/splash.pcx"Now all you need is a splash screen. For that you can
surf on over to the gallery at http://www.baldwin.cx/splash/.Can I use the Windows
keys on my keyboard in X?Yes. All you need to do is use &man.xmodmap.1; to define
what function you wish them to perform.Assuming all Windows keyboards are
standard then the keycodes for the 3 keys are115 - Windows key,
between the left-hand Ctrl and Alt keys116 - Windows key,
to the right of the AltGr key117 - Menu key, to the left of the right-hand Ctrl keyTo have the left Windows
key print a comma, try this.&prompt.root; xmodmap -e "keycode 115 = comma"You will probably have to re-start your window manager
to see the result.To have the Windows
key-mappings enabled automatically every time you start X either
put the xmodmap commands in your
~/.xinitrc file or, preferably, create a file
~/.xmodmaprc and include the
xmodmap options, one per line, then add the
linexmodmap $HOME/.xmodmaprcto your ~/.xinitrc.For example, you could map the 3 keys to be F13, F14, and
F15, respectively. This would make it easy to map them to
useful functions within applications or your window
manager, as demonstrated further down.To do this put the following in
~/.xmodmaprc.keycode 115 = F13
keycode 116 = F14
keycode 117 = F15If you use fvwm2, for example, you
could map the keys
so that F13 iconifies (or de-iconifies) the window the cursor
is in, F14 brings the window the cursor is in to the front or,
if it is already at the front, pushes it to the back, and F15
pops up the main Workplace (application) menu even if the
cursor is not on the desktop, which is useful if you do not have
any part of the desktop visible (and the logo on the key
matches its functionality).The following entries in
~/.fvwmrc implement the
aforementioned setup:Key F13 FTIWS A Iconify
Key F14 FTIWS A RaiseLower
Key F15 A A Menu Workplace NopHow can I get 3D hardware acceleration for
OpenGL?The availability of 3D acceleration depends on the
version of XFree86 you are using and the type of video chip
you have. If you have an NVIDIA chip, you can use the binary
drivers provided for FreeBSD 4.7 on the
Drivers section of their website.
For other
cards with XFree86-4, including the Matrox G200/G400, ATI
Rage 128/Radeon, and 3dfx Voodoo 3, 4, 5, and Banshee,
information on hardware acceleration is available on the
XFree86-4
Direct Rendering on FreeBSD page. Users of
XFree86 version 3.3 can use the Utah-GLX port found in
graphics/utah-glx to get limited accelerated
OpenGL on the Matrox Gx00, ATI Rage Pro, SiS 6326, i810,
Savage, and older NVIDIA chips.NetworkingWhere can I get information on
diskless booting?Diskless booting means that the FreeBSD
box is booted over a network, and reads the necessary files
from a server instead of its hard disk. For full details,
please read the
Handbook entry on diskless bootingCan a FreeBSD box be used as a dedicated network
router?Yes. Please see the Handbook entry on advanced
networking, specifically the section on routing
and gateways.Can I connect my Win95 box to the Internet via
FreeBSD?Typically, people who ask this question have two PC's
at home, one with FreeBSD and one with Win95; the idea is to
use the FreeBSD box to connect to the Internet and then be able
to access the Internet from the Windows95 box through the
FreeBSD box. This is really just a special case of the previous
question.... and the answer is yes! In FreeBSD
3.X, user-mode &man.ppp.8; contains a option. If
you run &man.ppp.8; with the option,
set gateway_enable to
YES in /etc/rc.conf,
and configure your Windows machine correctly, this should work
fine.For more information, please see the &man.ppp.8; manual page.If you are using kernel-mode PPP, or have an Ethernet
connection to the Internet, you will have to use
&man.natd.8;. Please look at the
natd section of this FAQ.Does FreeBSD support SLIP and PPP?Yes. See the manual pages for &man.slattach.8;,
&man.sliplogin.8;, &man.ppp.8;, and &man.pppd.8;. &man.ppp.8;
and &man.pppd.8; provide support for both incoming and outgoing
connections, while &man.sliplogin.8; deals exclusively with
incoming connections, and &man.slattach.8; deals exclusively
with outgoing connections.For more information on how to use these, please see the
Handbook chapter on
PPP and SLIP.If you only have access to the Internet through a
shell account, you may want to have a look
at the net/slirp package. It can provide you
with (limited) access to services such as ftp and http
direct from your local machine.Does FreeBSD support NAT or Masquerading?If you have a local subnet (one or more local machines),
but have been allocated only a single IP number from your
Internet provider (or even if you receive a dynamic IP number),
you may want to look at the &man.natd.8;
program. &man.natd.8; allows you to connect an
entire subnet to the Internet using only a single IP
number.The &man.ppp.8;
program has similar functionality built in via
the switch. The
alias library (&man.libalias.3;) is used in both cases.How do I connect two FreeBSD systems over a parallel line
using PLIP?Please see the PLIP
section of the Handbook.Why can I not create a /dev/ed0
device?Because they aren't necessary. In the Berkeley
networking framework, network interfaces are only directly
accessible by kernel code. Please see the
/etc/rc.network file and the manual
pages for the various network programs mentioned there for
more information. If this leaves you totally confused,
then you should pick up a book describing network
administration on another BSD-related operating system;
with few significant exceptions, administering networking
on FreeBSD is basically the same as on SunOS 4.0 or
Ultrix.How can I set up Ethernet aliases?If the alias is on the same subnet as an address
already configured on the interface, then add
netmask 0xffffffff to your
&man.ifconfig.8; command-line, as in the following:&prompt.root; ifconfig ed0 alias 192.0.2.2 netmask 0xffffffffOtherwise, just specify the network address and
netmask as usual:&prompt.root; ifconfig ed0 alias 172.16.141.5 netmask 0xffffff00How do I get my 3C503 to use the other network
port?If you want to use the other ports, you will have to specify
an additional parameter on the
&man.ifconfig.8; command line. The default port is
link0. To use the AUI port instead of the
BNC one, use link2. These flags should be
specified using the ifconfig_* variables in
/etc/rc.conf (see &man.rc.conf.5;).Why am I having trouble with NFS and FreeBSD?Certain PC network cards are better than others (to put
it mildly) and can sometimes cause problems with network
intensive applications like NFS.See
the Handbook entry on NFS for more information on
this topic.Why can I not NFS-mount from a Linux box?Some versions of the Linux NFS code only accept mount
requests from a privileged port; try&prompt.root; mount -o -P linuxbox:/blah /mntWhy can I not NFS-mount from a Sun box?Sun workstations running SunOS 4.X only accept mount
requests from a privileged port; try&prompt.root; mount -o -P sunbox:/blah /mntWhy does mountd keep telling me it
can't change attributes and that I have a
bad exports list on my FreeBSD NFS
server?The most frequent problem is not understanding the
correct format of /etc/exports.
Please review &man.exports.5; and the NFS entry in the
Handbook, especially the section on configuring
NFS.Why am I having problems talking PPP to NeXTStep
machines?Try disabling the TCP extensions in
/etc/rc.conf (see &man.rc.conf.5;) by changing the following variable to
NO:tcp_extensions=NOXylogic's Annex boxes are also broken in this regard and
you must use the above change to connect thru them.How do I enable IP multicast support?Multicast host operations are fully supported in FreeBSD
2.0 and later by default. If you want your box to run as a
multicast router, you will need to recompile your kernel with
the MROUTING option and run
&man.mrouted.8;. FreeBSD 2.2 and later will start
&man.mrouted.8; at boot time if the flag
mrouted_enable is set to
"YES" in
/etc/rc.conf.MBONE tools are available in their own ports category,
mbone. If you are looking for the conference tools
vic and vat,
look there!Which network cards are based on the DEC PCI
chipset?Here is a list compiled by Glen Foster
gfoster@driver.nsta.org,
with some more modern additions:
Network cards based on the DEC PCI chipsetVendorModelASUSPCI-L101-TBAcctonENI1203CogentEM960PCICompexENET32-PCID-LinkDE-530DaynaDP1203, DP2100DECDE435, DE450DanpexEN-9400P3JCISCondor JC1260LinksysEtherPCIMylexLNP101SMCEtherPower 10/100 (Model 9332)SMCEtherPower (Model 8432)TopWareTE-3500PZnyx (2.2.x)ZX312, ZX314, ZX342, ZX345, ZX346, ZX348Znyx (3.x)ZX345Q, ZX346Q, ZX348Q, ZX412Q, ZX414, ZX442, ZX444,
ZX474, ZX478, ZX212, ZX214 (10mbps/hd)
Why do I have to use the FQDN for hosts on my
site?You will probably find that the host is actually in a
different domain; for example, if you are in foo.example.org and
you wish to reach a host called mumble in the
example.org domain, you will
have to refer to it by the fully-qualified domain name, mumble.example.org, instead of just
mumble.Traditionally, this was allowed by BSD BIND resolvers.
However the current version of
bind (see &man.named.8;)
that ships with FreeBSD no longer provides default
abbreviations for non-fully qualified domain names other than
the domain you are in. So an unqualified host
mumble must either be found as mumble.foo.example.org, or it will be searched
for in the root domain.This is different from the previous behavior, where the
search continued across
mumble.example.org, and
mumble.edu. Have a look at
RFC 1535 for why this was considered bad practice, or even a
security hole.As a good workaround, you can place the linesearch foo.example.org example.orginstead of the previousdomain foo.example.orginto your
/etc/resolv.conf file (see &man.resolv.conf.5;). However, make sure that the
search order does not go beyond the boundary between
local and public administration, as RFC 1535 calls
it.Why do I get an error, Permission denied,
for all networking operations?If you have compiled your kernel with the
IPFIREWALL option, you need to be aware
that the default policy as of 2.1.7R (this actually changed
during 2.1-STABLE development) is to deny all packets that are
not explicitly allowed.If you had unintentionally misconfigured your system for
firewalling, you can restore network operability by typing
the following while logged in as root:&prompt.root; ipfw add 65534 allow all from any to anyYou can also set firewall_type="open"
in /etc/rc.conf.For further information on configuring a FreeBSD firewall,
see the
Handbook section.How much overhead does IPFW incur?Please see the Handbook's Firewalls
section, specifically the section on IPFW
Overhead & Optimization.Why is my ipfwfwd rule
to redirect a service to another machine not working?Possibly because you want to do network address translation
(NAT) and not just forward packets. A fwd rule
does exactly what it says; it forwards packets. It does not
actually change the data inside the packet. Say we have a rule
like:01000 fwd 10.0.0.1 from any to foo 21When a packet with a destination address of
foo arrives at the machine with this
rule, the packet is forwarded to
10.0.0.1, but it still has the
destination address of foo! The
destination address of the packet is not
changed to 10.0.0.1. Most machines
would probably drop a packet that they receive with a
destination address that is not their own. Therefore, using a
fwd rule does not often work the way the user
expects. This behavior is a feature and not a bug.See the FAQ about
redirecting services, the &man.natd.8; manual, or one of
the several port redirecting utilities in the ports collection for a correct way to do
this.How can I redirect service requests from one machine to
another?You can redirect FTP (and other service) request with
the socket package, available in the ports
tree in category sysutils. Simply replace the
service's command line to call socket instead, like so:ftp stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/local/bin/socket socket ftp.example.comftpwhere ftp.example.com and
ftp are the host and port to
redirect to, respectively.Where can I get a bandwidth management tool?There are three bandwidth management tools available for
FreeBSD. &man.dummynet.4; is integrated into FreeBSD (or more
specifically, &man.ipfw.4;); ALTQ
is available for free; Bandwidth Manager from Emerging Technologies is a
commercial product.Why do I get /dev/bpf0: device not
configured?You are running a program that requires the Berkeley
Packet Filter (&man.bpf.4;), but it's not in your kernel.
Add this to your kernel config file and build a new
kernel:pseudo-device bpf # Berkeley Packet FilterAfter rebooting, create the device node. This can be
accomplished by going to the /dev
directory and running:&prompt.root; sh MAKEDEV bpf0Please see the Handbook entry
on device nodes for more information on creating
devices.How do I mount a disk from a Windows machine that is on my
network, like smbmount in Linux?Use the SMBFS toolset. It
includes a set of kernel modifications and a set of
userland programs. The programs and information are
available as net/smbfs in the ports
collection, or in the base system as of 4.5-RELEASE and
later.What are these messages about icmp-response
bandwidth limit 300/200 pps in my log
files?This is the kernel telling you that some activity is
provoking it to send more ICMP or TCP reset (RST)
responses than it thinks it should. ICMP responses are
often generated as a result of attempted connections to
unused UDP ports. TCP resets are generated as a result of
attempted connections to unopened TCP ports. Among
others, these are the kinds of activities which may cause
these messages:Brute-force denial of service (DoS) attacks (as
opposed to single-packet attacks which exploit a
specific vulnerability).Port scans which attempt to connect to a large
number of ports (as opposed to only trying a few
well-known ports).The first number in the message tells you how many
packets the kernel would have sent if the limit was not in
place, and the second number tells you the limit. You can
control the limit using the
net.inet.icmp.icmplim sysctl variable
like this, where 300 is the limit in
packets per second:&prompt.root; sysctl -w net.inet.icmp.icmplim=300If you do not want to see messages about this in your
log files, but you still want the kernel to do response
limiting, you can use the
net.inet.icmp.icmplim_output sysctl
variable to disable the output like this:&prompt.root; sysctl -w net.inet.icmp.icmplim_output=0Finally, if you want to disable response limiting, you
can set the net.inet.icmp.icmplim
sysctl variable (see above for an example) to
0. Disabling response limiting is
discouraged for the reasons listed above.What are these arp: unknown hardware
address format error messages?This means that some device on your local Ethernet is
using a MAC address in a format that FreeBSD does not
recognize. This is probably caused by someone
experimenting with an Ethernet card somewhere else on the
network. You will see this most commonly on cable modem
networks. It is harmless, and should not affect the
performance of your FreeBSD machine.I've just installed CVSup but trying to execute it
produces errors. What is wrong?First, see if the error message you are
receiving is like the one shown below./usr/libexec/ld-elf.so.1: Shared object "libXaw.so.6" not foundErrors like these are caused by installing the
net/cvsup port on a
machine which does not have the
XFree86 suite. If you want to
use the GUI included with
CVSup you will need to install
XFree86 now. Alternatively if you
just wish to use CVSup from a
command line you should delete the package previously
installed. Then install the net/cvsup-without-gui port. This is
covered in more detail in the CVSup
section of the Handbook.SecurityBIND (named) is listening on port 53 and
some other high-numbered port. What is going on?FreeBSD 3.0 and later use a version of BIND
that uses a random high-numbered port for outgoing queries. If
you want to use port 53 for outgoing queries, either to get
past a firewall or to make yourself feel better, you can try
the following in
/etc/namedb/named.conf:options {
query-source address * port 53;
};You can replace the * with a single IP
address if you want to tighten things further.Congratulations, by the way. It is good practice to read
your &man.sockstat.1; output and notice odd
things!Sendmail is listening on port 587 as well as the
standard port 25! What is going on?Recent versions of Sendmail support a
mail submission feature that runs over port 587. This is
not yet widely supported, but is growing in
popularity.What is this UID 0 toor account? Have I
been compromised?Do not worry. toor is an
alternative superuser account (toor is root
spelt backwards). Previously it was created when the
&man.bash.1; shell was installed but now it is created by
default. It is intended to be used with a non-standard shell so
you do not have to change root's default
shell. This is important as shells which are not part of the
base distribution (for example a shell installed from ports or
packages) are likely be to be installed in
/usr/local/bin which, by default, resides
on a different filesystem. If root's shell
is located in /usr/local/bin and
/usr (or whatever filesystem contains
/usr/local/bin) is not mounted for some
reason, root will not be able to log in to
fix a problem (although if you reboot into single user mode
you will be prompted for the path to a shell).Some people use toor for
day-to-day root tasks with a non-standard
shell, leaving root, with a standard shell,
for single user mode or emergencies. By default you cannot log
in using toor as it does not have a
password, so log in as root and set a password for
toor if you want to use it.Why is suidperl not working
properly?For security reasons, suidperl is
installed without the suid bit by default. The system
administrator can enable suid behavior with the following
command.&prompt.root; chmod u+s /usr/bin/suidperlIf you want suidperl to be built
suid during upgrades from source, edit
/etc/make.conf and add
ENABLE_SUIDPERL=true before you run
make buildworld.PPPI cannot make &man.ppp.8; work. What am I doing wrong?You should first read the
&man.ppp.8;
manual page and the
PPP section of the handbook. Enable logging with
the commandset log Phase Chat Connect Carrier lcp ipcp ccp commandThis command may be typed at the
&man.ppp.8; command prompt or it may be
entered in the /etc/ppp/ppp.conf
configuration file (the start of the
default section is the best
place to put it). Make sure that
/etc/syslog.conf (see &man.syslog.conf.5;) contains the lines!ppp
*.* /var/log/ppp.logand that the file /var/log/ppp.log
exists. You can now find out a lot about what is going on
from the log file. Do not worry if it does not all make sense.
If you need to get help from someone, it may make sense to
them.If your version of &man.ppp.8; does not understand the
set log command, you should download the
latest version. It will build on FreeBSD version
2.1.5 and higher.Why does &man.ppp.8; hang when I run it?This is usually because your hostname will not resolve.
The best way to fix this is to make sure that
/etc/hosts is consulted by your
resolver first by editing /etc/host.conf
and putting the hosts line first. Then,
simply put an entry in /etc/hosts for
your local machine. If you have no local network, change your
localhost line:127.0.0.1 foo.example.com foo localhostOtherwise, simply add another entry for your host.
Consult the relevant manual pages for more details.You should be able to successfully
ping -c1 `hostname` when you are done.Why will &man.ppp.8; not dial in -auto
mode?First, check that you have got a default route. By running
netstat -rn (see &man.netstat.1;), you should see two entries like this:Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Netif Expire
default 10.0.0.2 UGSc 0 0 tun0
10.0.0.2 10.0.0.1 UH 0 0 tun0This is assuming that you have used the addresses from the
handbook, the manual page or from the ppp.conf.sample file.
If you do not have a default route, it may be because you are
running an old version of &man.ppp.8;
that does not understand the word HISADDR
in the ppp.conf file. If your version of
&man.ppp.8; is from before FreeBSD
2.2.5, change theadd 0 0 HISADDRline to one sayingadd 0 0 10.0.0.2Another reason for the default route line being missing
is that you have mistakenly set up a default router in your
/etc/rc.conf (see &man.rc.conf.5;) file (this file was called
/etc/sysconfig prior to release 2.2.2),
and you have omitted the line sayingdelete ALLfrom ppp.conf. If this is the case,
go back to the
Final system configuration section of the
handbook.What does No route to host mean?This error is usually due to a missingMYADDR:
delete ALL
add 0 0 HISADDRsection in your /etc/ppp/ppp.linkup
file. This is only necessary if you have a dynamic IP address
or do not know the address of your gateway. If you are using
interactive mode, you can type the following after entering
packet mode (packet mode is
indicated by the capitalized PPP in the
prompt):delete ALL
add 0 0 HISADDRRefer to the
PPP and Dynamic IP addresses section of the handbook
for further details.Why does my connection drop after about 3 minutes?The default PPP timeout is 3 minutes. This can be
adjusted with the lineset timeout NNNwhere NNN is the number of
seconds of inactivity before the connection is closed. If
NNN is zero, the connection is never
closed due to a timeout. It is possible to put this command in
the ppp.conf file, or to type it at the
prompt in interactive mode. It is also possible to adjust it on
the fly while the line is active by connecting to
ppp's server socket using
&man.telnet.1; or &man.pppctl.8;.
Refer to the
&man.ppp.8; man
page for further details.Why does my connection drop under heavy load?If you have Link Quality Reporting (LQR) configured,
it is possible that too many LQR packets are lost between
your machine and the peer. Ppp deduces that the line must
therefore be bad, and disconnects. Prior to FreeBSD version
2.2.5, LQR was enabled by default. It is now disabled by
default. LQR can be disabled with the linedisable lqrWhy does my connection drop after a random amount of
time?Sometimes, on a noisy phone line or even on a line with
call waiting enabled, your modem may hang up because it
thinks (incorrectly) that it lost carrier.There is a setting on most modems for determining how
tolerant it should be to temporary losses of carrier. On a
USR Sportster for example, this is measured by the S10
register in tenths of a second. To make your modem more
forgiving, you could add the following send-expect sequence
to your dial string:set dial "...... ATS10=10 OK ......"Refer to your modem manual for details.Why does my connection hang after a random amount of
time?Many people experience hung connections with no apparent
explanation. The first thing to establish is which side of
the link is hung.If you are using an external modem, you can simply try
using &man.ping.8; to see if the
TD light is flashing when you transmit data.
If it flashes (and the RD light does not),
the problem is with the remote end. If TD
does not flash, the problem is local. With an internal modem,
you will need to use the set server command in
your ppp.conf file. When the hang occurs,
connect to &man.ppp.8; using &man.pppctl.8;. If your network connection
suddenly revives (PPP was revived due to the activity on the
diagnostic socket) or if you cannot connect (assuming the
set socket command succeeded at startup
time), the problem is local. If you can connect and things are
still hung, enable local async logging with set log
local async and use &man.ping.8; from
another window or terminal to make use of the link. The async
logging will show you the data being transmitted and received
on the link. If data is going out and not coming back, the
problem is remote.Having established whether the problem is local or remote,
you now have two possibilities:If the problem is remote, read on entry .If the problem is local, read on entry .The remote end is not responding. What can I do?There is very little you can do about this. Most ISPs
will refuse to help if you are not running a Microsoft OS.
You can enable lqr in your
ppp.conf file, allowing &man.ppp.8; to detect
the remote failure and hang up, but this detection is
relatively slow and therefore not that useful. You may want to
avoid telling your ISP that you are running user-PPP...First, try disabling all local compression by adding the
following to your configuration:disable pred1 deflate deflate24 protocomp acfcomp shortseq vj
deny pred1 deflate deflate24 protocomp acfcomp shortseq vjThen reconnect to ensure that this makes no difference.
If things improve or if the problem is solved completely,
determine which setting makes the difference through trial
and error. This will provide good ammunition when you contact
your ISP (although it may make it apparent that you are not
running a Microsoft product).Before contacting your ISP, enable async logging locally
and wait until the connection hangs again. This may use up
quite a bit of disk space. The last data read from the port
may be of interest. It is usually ascii data, and may even
describe the problem
(Memory fault, core dumped?).If your ISP is helpful, they should be able to enable
logging on their end, then when the next link drop occurs,
they may be able to tell you why their side is having a
problem. Feel free to send the details to &a.brian;, or
even to ask your ISP to contact me directly.&man.ppp.8; has hung. What can I do?Your best bet here is to rebuild &man.ppp.8; by adding
CFLAGS+=-g and STRIP=
to the end of the Makefile, then doing a
make clean && make && make
install. When &man.ppp.8; hangs, find the &man.ppp.8; process id
with ps ajxww | fgrep ppp and run
gdb ppp PID.
From the gdb prompt, you can then use bt
to get a stack trace.Send the results to &a.brian;.Why does nothing happen after the Login OK!
message?Prior to FreeBSD version 2.2.5, once the link was
established, &man.ppp.8;
would wait for the peer to initiate the Line Control Protocol
(LCP). Many ISPs will not initiate negotiations and expect
the client to do so. To force
&man.ppp.8; to initiate the LCP, use the
following line:set openmode activeIt usually does no
harm if both sides initiate negotiation, so openmode is now
active by default. However, the next section explains when
it does do some harm.I keep seeing errors about magic being the same. What does
it mean?Occasionally, just after connecting, you may see messages
in the log that say magic is the same.
Sometimes, these messages are harmless, and sometimes one side
or the other exits. Most PPP implementations cannot survive
this problem, and even if the link seems to come up, you will see
repeated configure requests and configure acknowledgments in
the log file until &man.ppp.8; eventually gives up and closes the
connection.This normally happens on server machines with slow disks
that are spawning a getty on the port, and executing &man.ppp.8; from
a login script or program after login. I have also heard reports
of it happening consistently when using slirp. The reason is
that in the time taken between &man.getty.8; exiting and &man.ppp.8; starting,
the client-side &man.ppp.8; starts sending Line Control Protocol (LCP)
packets. Because ECHO is still switched on for the port on
the server, the client &man.ppp.8; sees these packets
reflect back.One part of the LCP negotiation is to establish a magic
number for each side of the link so that
reflections can be detected. The protocol says
that when the peer tries to negotiate the same magic number, a
NAK should be sent and a new magic number should be chosen.
During the period that the server port has ECHO turned on, the
client &man.ppp.8; sends LCP packets, sees the same magic in the
reflected packet and NAKs it. It also sees the NAK reflect
(which also means &man.ppp.8; must change its magic). This produces a
potentially enormous number of magic number changes, all of
which are happily piling into the server's tty buffer. As soon
as &man.ppp.8; starts on the server, it is flooded with magic number
changes and almost immediately decides it has tried enough to
negotiate LCP and gives up. Meanwhile, the client, who no
longer sees the reflections, becomes happy just in time to see
a hangup from the server.This can be avoided by allowing the peer to start
negotiating with the following line in your ppp.conf
file:set openmode passiveThis tells &man.ppp.8; to wait for the server to initiate LCP
negotiations. Some servers however may never initiate
negotiations. If this is the case, you can do something
like:set openmode active 3This tells &man.ppp.8; to be passive for 3 seconds, and then to
start sending LCP requests. If the peer starts sending
requests during this period, &man.ppp.8; will immediately respond
rather than waiting for the full 3 second period.LCP negotiations continue until the connection is
closed. What is wrong?There is currently an implementation mis-feature in
&man.ppp.8; where it does not associate
LCP, CCP & IPCP responses with their original requests. As
a result, if one PPP
implementation is more than 6 seconds slower than the other
side, the other side will send two additional LCP configuration
requests. This is fatal.Consider two implementations,
A and
B. A starts
sending LCP requests immediately after connecting and
B takes 7 seconds to start. When
B starts, A
has sent 3 LCP REQs. We are assuming the line has ECHO switched
off, otherwise we would see magic number problems as described in
the previous section. B sends a
REQ, then an ACK to the first of
A's REQs. This results in
A entering the OPENED
state and sending and ACK (the first) back to
B. In the meantime,
B sends back two more ACKs in response to
the two additional REQs sent by A
before B started up.
B then receives the first ACK from
A and enters the
OPENED state.
A receives the second ACK from
B and goes back to the
REQ-SENT state, sending another (forth) REQ
as per the RFC. It then receives the third ACK and enters the
OPENED state. In the meantime,
B receives the forth REQ from
A, resulting in it reverting to the
ACK-SENT state and sending
another (second) REQ and (forth) ACK as per the RFC.
A gets the REQ, goes into
REQ-SENT and sends another REQ. It
immediately receives the following ACK and enters
OPENED.This goes on until one side figures out that they are
getting nowhere and gives up.The best way to avoid this is to configure one side to be
passive - that is, make one side
wait for the other to start negotiating. This can be done
with theset openmode passivecommand. Care should be taken with this option. You
should also use theset stopped Ncommand to limit the amount of time that
&man.ppp.8; waits for the peer to begin
negotiations. Alternatively, theset openmode active Ncommand (where N is the
number of seconds to wait before starting negotiations) can be
used. Check the manual page for details.Why does &man.ppp.8; lock up shortly after connection?Prior to version 2.2.5 of FreeBSD, it was possible that
your link was disabled shortly after connection due to
&man.ppp.8; mis-handling Predictor1
compression negotiation. This would only happen if both sides
tried to negotiate different Compression Control Protocols
(CCP). This problem is now corrected, but if you are still
running an old version of &man.ppp.8;
the problem can be circumvented with the linedisable pred1Why does &man.ppp.8; lock up when I shell out to test it?When you execute the shell or
! command, &man.ppp.8; executes a
shell (or if you have passed any arguments,
&man.ppp.8; will execute those arguments). Ppp will
wait for the command to complete before continuing. If you
attempt to use the PPP link while running the command, the link
will appear to have frozen. This is because
&man.ppp.8; is waiting for the command to
complete.If you wish to execute commands like this, use the
!bg command instead. This will execute
the given command in the background, and &man.ppp.8; can continue to
service the link.Why does &man.ppp.8; over a null-modem cable never exit?There is no way for &man.ppp.8; to
automatically determine that a direct connection has been
dropped. This is due to the lines that are used in a
null-modem serial cable. When using this sort of connection,
LQR should always be enabled with the lineenable lqrLQR is accepted by default if negotiated by the peer.Why does &man.ppp.8; dial for no reason in -auto mode?If &man.ppp.8; is dialing
unexpectedly, you must determine the cause, and set up Dial
filters (dfilters) to prevent such dialing.To determine the cause, use the following line:set log +tcp/ipThis will log all traffic through the connection. The
next time the line comes up unexpectedly, you will see the
reason logged with a convenient timestamp next to it.You can now disable dialing under these circumstances.
Usually, this sort of problem arises due to DNS lookups. To
prevent DNS lookups from establishing a connection (this will
not prevent
&man.ppp.8; from passing the packets
through an established connection), use the following:set dfilter 1 deny udp src eq 53
set dfilter 2 deny udp dst eq 53
set dfilter 3 permit 0/0 0/0This is not always suitable, as it will effectively break
your demand-dial capabilities - most programs will need a DNS
lookup before doing any other network related things.In the DNS case, you should try to determine what is
actually trying to resolve a host name. A lot of the time,
&man.sendmail.8; is the culprit. You should make sure that
you tell sendmail not to do any DNS lookups in its
configuration file. See the section on
Mail Configuration for details
on how to create your own configuration file and what should
go into it. You may also want to add the following line to
your .mc file:define(`confDELIVERY_MODE', `d')dnlThis will make sendmail queue everything until the queue
is run (usually, sendmail is invoked with
, telling it to run the queue every
30 minutes) or until a sendmail -q is done
(perhaps from your ppp.linkup file).What do these CCP errors mean?I keep seeing the following errors in my log file:CCP: CcpSendConfigReq
CCP: Received Terminate Ack (1) state = Req-Sent (6)This is because &man.ppp.8; is trying to negotiate Predictor1
compression, and the peer does not want to negotiate any
compression at all. The messages are harmless, but if you
wish to remove them, you can disable Predictor1 compression
locally too:disable pred1Why does &man.ppp.8; lock up during file transfers with IO
errors?Under FreeBSD 2.2.2 and before, there was a bug in the
tun driver that prevents incoming packets of a size larger
than the tun interface's MTU size. Receipt of a packet
greater than the MTU size results in an IO error being logged
via syslogd.The PPP specification says that an MTU of 1500 should
always be accepted as a minimum,
despite any LCP negotiations, therefore it is possible that
should you decrease the MTU to less than 1500, your ISP will
transmit packets of 1500 regardless, and you will tickle this
non-feature - locking up your link.The problem can be circumvented by never setting an MTU of
less than 1500 under FreeBSD 2.2.2 or before.Why does &man.ppp.8; not log my connection speed?In order to log all lines of your modem
conversation, you must enable the
following:set log +connectThis will make &man.ppp.8; log
everything up until the last requested expect
string.If you wish to see your connect speed and are using PAP
or CHAP (and therefore do not have anything to
chat after the CONNECT in the dial script - no
set login script), you must make sure that
you instruct &man.ppp.8; to expect the whole CONNECT
line, something like this:set dial "ABORT BUSY ABORT NO\\sCARRIER TIMEOUT 4 \
\"\" ATZ OK-ATZ-OK ATDT\\T TIMEOUT 60 CONNECT \\c \\n"Here, we get our CONNECT, send nothing, then expect a
line-feed, forcing &man.ppp.8; to read
the whole CONNECT response.Why does &man.ppp.8; ignore the \ character
in my chat script?Ppp parses each line in your config files so that it can
interpret strings such as
set phone "123 456 789" correctly and
realize that the number is actually only
one argument. In order to specify a
" character, you must escape it
using a backslash (\).When the chat interpreter parses each argument, it
re-interprets the argument in order to find any special
escape sequences such as \P or
\T (see the manual page). As a result of this
double-parsing, you must remember to use the correct number of
escapes.If you wish to actually send a \
character to (say) your modem, you would need something
like:set dial "\"\" ATZ OK-ATZ-OK AT\\\\X OK"resulting in the following sequence:ATZ
OK
AT\X
OKorset phone 1234567
set dial "\"\" ATZ OK ATDT\\T"resulting in the following sequence:ATZ
OK
ATDT1234567Why does &man.ppp.8; get a seg-fault, but I see no
ppp.core file?Ppp (or any other program for that matter) should never
dump core. Because &man.ppp.8; runs with an effective user id of 0,
the operating system will not write &man.ppp.8;'s core image to disk
before terminating it. If, however &man.ppp.8;
is actually terminating due to a
segmentation violation or some other signal that normally
causes core to be dumped, and
you are sure you are using the latest version (see the start of
this section), then you should do the following:&prompt.user; tar xfz ppp-*.src.tar.gz
&prompt.user; cd ppp*/ppp
&prompt.user; echo STRIP= >>Makefile
&prompt.user; echo CFLAGS+=-g >>Makefile
&prompt.user; make clean all
&prompt.user; su
&prompt.root; make install
&prompt.root; chmod 555 /usr/sbin/pppYou will now have a debuggable version of &man.ppp.8; installed.
You will have to be root to run &man.ppp.8; as all of its privileges
have been revoked. When you start &man.ppp.8;, take a careful note
of what your current directory was at the time.Now, if and when &man.ppp.8; receives the segmentation violation,
it will dump a core file called ppp.core. You should then do
the following:&prompt.user; su
&prompt.root; gdb /usr/sbin/ppp ppp.core(gdb)bt
.....
(gdb)f 0
....
(gdb)i args
....
(gdb)l
.....All of this information should be given alongside your
question, making it possible to diagnose the problem.If you are familiar with gdb, you may wish to find out some
other bits and pieces such as what actually caused the dump and
the addresses & values of the relevant variables.Why does the process that forces a dial in auto mode never
connect?This was a known problem with
&man.ppp.8; set up to negotiate a
dynamic local IP number with the peer in auto mode. It is
fixed in the latest version - search the manual page for
iface.The problem was that when that initial program calls
&man.connect.2;, the IP number of the tun interface is assigned
to the socket endpoint. The kernel creates the first outgoing
packet and writes it to the tun device.
&man.ppp.8; then reads the packet and
establishes a connection. If, as a result of
&man.ppp.8;'s dynamic IP assignment, the
interface address is changed, the original socket endpoint will
be invalid. Any subsequent packets sent to the peer will
usually be dropped. Even if they are not, any responses will
not route back to the originating machine as the IP number is
no longer owned by that machine.There are several theoretical ways to approach this
problem. It would be nicest if the peer would re-assign the
same IP number if possible :-)
The current version of &man.ppp.8; does
this, but most other implementations do not.The easiest method from our side would be to never change
the tun interface IP number, but instead to change all outgoing
packets so that the source IP number is changed from the
interface IP to the negotiated IP on the fly. This is
essentially what the iface-alias option in
the latest version of &man.ppp.8; is
doing (with the help of
&man.libalias.3; and &man.ppp.8;'s switch) -
it is maintaining all previous interface addresses and NATing
them to the last negotiated address.Another alternative (and probably the most reliable) would
be to implement a system call that changes all bound sockets
from one IP to another. &man.ppp.8; would
use this call to modify the sockets of all existing programs
when a new IP number is negotiated. The same system call could
be used by dhcp clients when they are forced to re-bind() their
sockets.Yet another possibility is to allow an interface to be
brought up without an IP number. Outgoing packets would be
given an IP number of 255.255.255.255 up until the first
SIOCAIFADDR ioctl is done. This would result in fully binding
the socket. It would be up to &man.ppp.8;
to change the source IP number, but only if it is set to
255.255.255.255, and only the IP number and IP checksum would
need to change. This, however is a bit of a hack as the kernel
would be sending bad packets to an improperly configured
interface, on the assumption that some other mechanism is
capable of fixing things retrospectively.Why do most games not work with the -nat switch?The reason games and the like do not work when libalias
is in use is that the machine on the outside will try to open a
connection or send (unsolicited) UDP packets to the machine on
the inside. The NAT software does not know that it should send
these packets to the interior machine.To make things work, make sure that the only thing
running is the software that you are having problems with, then
either run tcpdump on the tun interface of the gateway or
enable &man.ppp.8; tcp/ip logging (set log +tcp/ip)
on the gateway.When you start the offending software, you should see
packets passing through the gateway machine. When something
comes back from the outside, it will be dropped (that is the
problem). Note the port number of these packets then shut down
the offending software. Do this a few times to see if the port
numbers are consistent. If they are, then the following line in
the relevant section of /etc/ppp/ppp.conf will make the
software functional:nat port protointernalmachine:portportwhere proto is either
tcp or udp,
internalmachine is the machine that
you want the packets to be sent to and
port is the destination port number
of the packets.You will not be able to use the software on other machines
without changing the above command, and running the software
on two internal machines at the same time is out of the question
- after all, the outside world is seeing your entire internal
network as being just a single machine.If the port numbers are not consistent, there are three
more options:Submit support in
libalias. Examples of special cases can be found
in /usr/src/lib/libalias/alias_*.c
(alias_ftp.c is a good prototype). This
usually involves reading certain recognised outgoing packets,
identifying the instruction that tells the outside machine to
initiate a connection back to the internal machine on a
specific (random) port and setting up a route in
the alias table so that the subsequent packets know where to
go.This is the most difficult solution, but it is the best
and will make the software work with multiple machines.Use a proxy. The
application may support socks5 for example, or (as in the
cvsup case) may have a passive
option that avoids ever requesting that the peer open
connections back to the local machine.Redirect everything to
the internal machine using nat addr. This
is the sledge-hammer approach.Has anybody made a list of useful port numbers?Not yet, but this is intended to grow into such a list
(if any interest is shown). In each example,
internal should be replaced with
the IP number of the machine playing the game.Asheron's Callnat port udp
internal
:65000 65000Manually change the port number within the game to
65000. If you have got a number of machines that you wish
to play on assign a unique port number for each (i.e.
65001, 65002, etc) and add a nat port
line for each one.Half Lifenat port udp
internal:27005
27015PCAnywhere 8.0nat port udp
internal:5632
5632nat port tcp
internal:5631
5631Quakenat port udp
internal:6112
6112Alternatively, you may want to take a look at
www.battle.net for Quake proxy support.Quake 2nat port udp
internal:27901
27910nat port udp
internal:60021
60021nat port udp
internal:60040
60040Red Alertnat port udp
internal:8675
8675nat port udp
internal:5009
5009What are FCS errors?FCS stands for Frame
Check
Sequence. Each PPP packet
has a checksum attached to ensure that the data being
received is the data being sent. If the FCS of an incoming
packet is incorrect, the packet is dropped and the HDLC FCS
count is increased. The HDLC error values can be displayed
using the show hdlc command.If your link is bad (or if your serial driver is dropping
packets), you will see the occasional FCS error. This is not
usually worth worrying about although it does slow down the
compression protocols substantially. If you have an external
modem, make sure your cable is properly shielded from
interference - this may eradicate the problem.If your link freezes as soon as you have connected and you
see a large number of FCS errors, this may be because your link
is not 8 bit clean. Make sure your modem is not using software
flow control (XON/XOFF). If your datalink
must use software flow control, use the
command set accmap 0x000a0000 to tell
&man.ppp.8; to escape the ^Q and
^S characters.Another reason for seeing too many FCS errors may be that
the remote end has stopped talking PPP. You
may want to enable async logging at this
point to determine if the incoming data is actually a login or
shell prompt. If you have a shell prompt at the remote end,
it is possible to terminate &man.ppp.8; without dropping the line by
using the close lcp command (a following
term command will reconnect you to the shell
on the remote machine.If nothing in your log file indicates why the link might
have been terminated, you should ask the remote administrator
(your ISP?) why the session was terminated.Why do MacOS and Windows 98 connections freeze when
running PPPoE on the gateway?Thanks to Michael Wozniak
mwozniak@netcom.ca for figuring this out and
Dan Flemming danflemming@mac.com for the Mac
solution:This is due to what is called a Black Hole
router. MacOS and Windows 98 (and maybe other Microsoft OSs)
send TCP packets with a requested segment size too big to fit
into a PPPoE frame (MTU is 1500 by default for Ethernet)
and have the do not
fragment bit set (default of TCP) and the Telco router
is not sending ICMP must fragment back to the
www site you are trying to load. (Alternatively, the router is
sending the ICMP packet correctly, but the firewall at the www
site is dropping it.) When the www server is sending
you frames that do not fit into the PPPoE pipe the Telco router
drops them on the floor and your page does not load (some
pages/graphics do as they are smaller than a MSS.) This seems
to be the default of most Telco PPPoE configurations (if only
they knew how to program a router... sigh...)One fix is to use regedit on your 95/98 boxes to add the
following registry entry...HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\NetTrans\0000\MaxMTUIt should be a string with a value 1436, as
some ADSL routers are reported to be unable to deal with packets
larger than this. This registry key has been changed to
Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\ID for adapter\MTU
in Windows 2000 and becomes a DWORD.Refer to the Microsoft Knowledge Base documents Q158474
- Windows TCPIP Registry Entries and Q120642
- TCPIP & NBT Configuration Parameters for Windows
NT for more information on changing Windows MTU to
work with a NAT router.Another regedit possibility under Windows 2000 is to
set the
Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\ID for
adapter\EnablePMTUBHDetect DWORD
to 1 as mentioned in the Microsoft document 120642
mentioned above.Unfortunately, MacOS does not provide an interface for
changing TCP/IP settings. However, there is commercial software
available, such as OTAdvancedTuner (OT for OpenTransport, the
MacOS TCP/IP stack) by Sustainable Softworks,
that will allow users to customize TCP/IP settings. MacOS NAT
users should select ip_interface_MTU from
the drop-down menu, enter 1450 instead of
1500 in the box, click the box next to
Save as Auto Configure, and click
Make Active.The latest version of &man.ppp.8;
(2.3 or greater) has an enable tcpmssfixup
command that will automatically adjust the MSS to an appropriate
value. This facility is enabled by default. If you are stuck
with an older version of &man.ppp.8;, you
may want to look at the tcpmssd
port.None of this helps - I am desperate! What can I do?If all else fails, send as much information as you can,
including your config files, how you are starting
&man.ppp.8;, the relevant parts of your
log file and the output of the netstat -rn
command (before and after connecting) to the &a.questions; or
the
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc news group, and someone
should point you in the right direction.Serial CommunicationsThis section answers common questions about serial
communications with FreeBSD. PPP and SLIP are covered in the
Networking section.How do I tell if FreeBSD found my serial ports?As the FreeBSD kernel boots, it will probe for the serial
ports in your system for which the kernel was configured.
You can either watch your system closely for the messages it
prints or run the command&prompt.user; dmesg | grep sioafter your system is up and running.Here is some example output from the above command:sio0 at 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 on isa
sio0: type 16550A
sio1 at 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3 on isa
sio1: type 16550AThis shows two serial ports. The first is on irq 4, is
using port address 0x3f8, and has a
16550A-type UART chip. The second uses the same kind of chip
but is on irq 3 and is at port address 0x2f8.
Internal modem cards are treated just like serial ports---except
that they always have a modem attached to the
port.The GENERIC kernel includes support
for two serial ports using the same irq and port address
settings in the above example. If these settings are not
right for your system, or if you have added modem cards or have
more serial ports than your kernel is configured for, just
reconfigure your kernel. See section
about building a kernel for
more details.How do I tell if FreeBSD found my modem cards?Refer to the answer to the previous question.I just upgraded to 2.0.5 and my
tty0X
are missing! How do I solve this problem?Do not worry, they have been merged with the
ttydX devices. You will have to change
any old configuration files you have, though.How do I access the serial ports on FreeBSD?The third serial port,
sio2
(see &man.sio.4;, known as COM3 in DOS), is on /dev/cuaa2
for dial-out devices, and on /dev/ttyd2
for dial-in devices. What is the difference between these two
classes of devices?You use ttydX for dial-ins. When
opening /dev/ttydX in blocking mode, a
process will wait for the corresponding
cuaaX device to become inactive, and then
wait for the carrier detect line to go active. When you open
the cuaaX device, it makes sure the serial
port is not already in use by the ttydX
device. If the port is available, it steals it
from the ttydX device. Also, the
cuaaX device does not care about carrier
detect. With this scheme and an auto-answer modem, you can have
remote users log in and you can still dial out with the same
modem and the system will take care of all the
conflicts.How do I enable support for a multiport serial
card?Again, the section on kernel configuration provides
information about configuring your kernel. For a multiport
serial card, place an &man.sio.4; line
for each serial port on the card in the kernel configuration
file. But place the irq and vector specifiers on only one of
the entries. All of the ports on the card should share one irq.
For consistency, use the last serial port to specify the irq.
Also, specify the COM_MULTIPORT
option.The following example is for an AST 4-port serial card on
irq 7:options "COM_MULTIPORT"
device sio4 at isa? port 0x2a0 tty flags 0x781
device sio5 at isa? port 0x2a8 tty flags 0x781
device sio6 at isa? port 0x2b0 tty flags 0x781
device sio7 at isa? port 0x2b8 tty flags 0x781 irq 7 vector siointrThe flags indicate that the master port has minor number 7
(0x700), diagnostics enabled during probe
(0x080), and all the ports share an irq
(0x001).Can FreeBSD handle multiport serial cards sharing
irqs?Not yet. You will have to use a different irq for each
card.Can I set the default serial parameters for a
port?The ttydX (or
cuaaX) device is the regular device
you will want to open for your applications. When a process
opens the device, it will have a default set of terminal I/O
settings. You can see these settings with the command&prompt.root; stty -a -f /dev/ttyd1When you change the settings to this device, the settings
are in effect until the device is closed. When it is reopened,
it goes back to the default set. To make changes to the
default set, you can open and adjust the settings of the
initial state device. For example, to turn on
CLOCAL mode, 8 bits, and
XON/XOFF flow control by default for
ttyd5, do:&prompt.root; stty -f /dev/ttyid5 clocal cs8 ixon ixoffA good place to do this is in
/etc/rc.serial. Now, an application will
have these settings by default when it opens
ttyd5. It can still change these settings
to its liking, though.You can also prevent certain settings from being changed
by an application by making adjustments to the
lock state device. For example, to lock the
speed of ttyd5 to 57600 bps, do&prompt.root; stty -f /dev/ttyld5 57600Now, an application that opens ttyd5
and tries to change the speed of the port will be stuck with
57600 bps.Naturally, you should make the initial state and lock state
devices writable only by root. The
&man.MAKEDEV.8;
script does NOT do this when it creates the
device entries.How can I enable dialup logins on my modem?So you want to become an Internet service provider, eh?
First, you will need one or more modems that can auto-answer.
Your modem will need to assert carrier-detect when it detects a
carrier and not assert it all the time. It will need to hang up
the phone and reset itself when the data terminal ready
(DTR) line goes from on to off. It should
probably use RTS/CTS flow control or no
local flow control at all. Finally, it must use a constant
speed between the computer and itself, but (to be nice to your
callers) it should negotiate a speed between itself and the
remote modem.For many Hayes command-set--compatible modems, this
command will make these settings and store them in
nonvolatile memory:AT &C1 &D3 &K3 &Q6 S0=1 &WSee the section on sending AT
commands below for information on how to make these
settings without resorting to an MS-DOS terminal program.Next, make an entry in
/etc/ttys (see &man.ttys.5;) for the modem. This file lists all the ports
on which the operating system will await logins. Add a line
that looks something like this:ttyd1 "/usr/libexec/getty std.57600" dialup on insecureThis line indicates that the second serial port
(/dev/ttyd1) has a modem connected
running at 57600 bps and no parity
(std.57600, which comes from the file
/etc/gettytab, see &man.gettytab.5;).
The terminal type for this port is dialup.
The port is on and is
insecure---meaning root
logins on the port are not allowed. For dialin ports like this one,
use the ttydX
entry.It is common practice to use dialup as
the terminal type. Many users set up in their .profile or
.login files a prompt for the actual terminal type if the
starting type is dialup. The example shows the port as
insecure. To become root on this port, you
have to login as a regular user, then &man.su.1; to become
root. If you use secure
then root can login in directly.After making modifications to
/etc/ttys, you need to send a hangup or
HUP signal to the
&man.init.8; process:&prompt.root; kill -HUP 1This forces the &man.init.8; process to reread
/etc/ttys. The init process will then start getty
processes on all on ports. You can find
out if logins are available for your port by typing&prompt.user; ps -ax | grep '[t]tyd1'You should see something like:747 ?? I 0:00.04 /usr/libexec/getty std.57600 ttyd1How can I connect a dumb terminal to my FreeBSD
box?If you are using another computer as a terminal into your
FreeBSD system, get a null modem cable to go between the two
serial ports. If you are using an actual terminal, see its
accompanying instructions.Then, modify
/etc/ttys (see &man.ttys.5;), like above. For example, if you are
hooking up a WYSE-50 terminal to the fifth serial port,
use an entry like this:ttyd4 "/usr/libexec/getty std.38400" wyse50 on secureThis example shows that the port on
/dev/ttyd4 has a wyse50 terminal
connected at 38400 bps with no parity
(std.38400 from
/etc/gettytab, see &man.gettytab.5;) and root logins are
allowed (secure).Why can I not run tip or
cu?On your system, the programs &man.tip.1;
and &man.cu.1;
are probably executable only by
uucp
and group dialer. You can use the group
dialer to control who has access to your
modem or remote systems. Just add yourself to group
dialer.Alternatively, you can let everyone on your system
run &man.tip.1; and &man.cu.1; by
typing:&prompt.root; chmod 4511 /usr/bin/cu
&prompt.root; chmod 4511 /usr/bin/tipMy stock Hayes modem is not supported---what
can I do?Actually, the manual page for &man.tip.1; is
out of date. There is a generic Hayes dialer already built in.
Just use at=hayes in your
/etc/remote (see &man.remote.5;) file.The Hayes driver is not smart enough to recognize some of
the advanced features of newer modems---messages like
BUSY, NO DIALTONE, or
CONNECT 115200 will just confuse it. You
should turn those messages off when you use &man.tip.1;
(using ATX0&W).Also, the dial timeout for &man.tip.1; is 60
seconds. Your modem should use something less, or else tip
will think there is a communication problem. Try
ATS7=45&W.Actually, as shipped &man.tip.1; does not yet
support it fully. The solution is to edit the file
tipconf.h in the directory
/usr/src/usr.bin/tip/tip. Obviously you
need the source distribution to do this.Edit the line #define HAYES 0
to #define HAYES 1. Then
make and make install.
Everything works nicely after that.How am I expected to enter these AT commands?Make what is called a direct entry in your
/etc/remote file (see &man.remote.5;). For example, if your modem is hooked
up to the first serial port, /dev/cuaa0,
then put in the following line:cuaa0:dv=/dev/cuaa0:br#19200:pa=noneUse the highest bps rate your modem supports in the br
capability. Then, type
tip cuaa0 (see &man.tip.1;)
and you will be connected to your modem.If there is no /dev/cuaa0 on your
system, do this:&prompt.root; cd /dev
&prompt.root; sh MAKEDEV cuaa0Or use cu as root with the following command:&prompt.root; cu -lline -sspeedwith line being the serial port (e.g.
/dev/cuaa0) and speed being the speed
(e.g.57600). When you are done entering
the AT commands hit ~. to exit.Why does the <@> sign for the pn
capability not work?The <@> sign in the phone number
capability tells tip to look in
/etc/phones for a phone number. But the
<@> sign is also a special character
in capability files like /etc/remote.
Escape it with a backslash:pn=\@How can I dial a phone number on the command
line?Put what is called a generic entry in your
/etc/remote file (see &man.remote.5;). For example:tip115200|Dial any phone number at 115200 bps:\
:dv=/dev/cuaa0:br#115200:at=hayes:pa=none:du:
tip57600|Dial any phone number at 57600 bps:\
:dv=/dev/cuaa0:br#57600:at=hayes:pa=none:du:Then you can do something like tip -115200
5551234. If you prefer &man.cu.1;
over
&man.tip.1;, use a generic cu entry:cu115200|Use cu to dial any number at 115200bps:\
:dv=/dev/cuaa1:br#57600:at=hayes:pa=none:du:and type cu 5551234 -s 115200.Do I have to type in the bps rate every time I do
that?Put in an entry for tip1200 or
cu1200, but go ahead and use whatever bps
rate is appropriate with the br capability.
&man.tip.1;
thinks a good default is 1200 bps which is why it looks for
a tip1200 entry. You do not have to use 1200
bps, though.How can I more easily access a number of hosts through a
terminal server?Rather than waiting until you are connected and typing
CONNECT host
each time, use tip's cm capability. For
example, these entries in
/etc/remote (see &man.remote.5;):pain|pain.deep13.com|Forrester's machine:\
:cm=CONNECT pain\n:tc=deep13:
muffin|muffin.deep13.com|Frank's machine:\
:cm=CONNECT muffin\n:tc=deep13:
deep13:Gizmonics Institute terminal server:\
:dv=/dev/cuaa2:br#38400:at=hayes:du:pa=none:pn=5551234:will let you type tip pain or
tip muffin to connect to the hosts
pain or muffin; and
tip deep13 to get to the terminal
server.Can tip try more than one line for each site?This is often a problem where a university has several
modem lines and several thousand students trying to use
them...Make an entry for your university in
/etc/remote (see &man.remote.5;) and use <\@> for
the pn capability:big-university:\
:pn=\@:tc=dialout
dialout:\
:dv=/dev/cuaa3:br#9600:at=courier:du:pa=none:Then, list the phone numbers for the university in
/etc/phones (see &man.phones.5;):big-university 5551111
big-university 5551112
big-university 5551113
big-university 5551114&man.tip.1;
will try each one in the listed order, then give
up. If you want to keep retrying, run &man.tip.1;
in a while loop.Why do I have to hit CTRLP twice to send CTRLP
once?CTRLP is the default force character,
used to tell &man.tip.1;
that the next character is literal data. You can set the
force character to any other character with the
~s escape, which means set a
variable.Type ~sforce=single-char
followed by a newline.
single-char is any single character.
If you leave out single-char,
then the force character is the nul character, which you can
get by typing CTRL2 or CTRLSPACE. A pretty good value for
single-char is SHIFTCTRL6, which
I have seen only used on some terminal servers.You can have the force character be whatever you want by
specifying the following in your
$HOME/.tiprc file:force=single-charWhy is everything I type suddenly in UPPER CASE?You must have pressed CTRLA, &man.tip.1;
raise character, specially
designed for people with broken Caps Lock keys. Use
~s as above and set the variable
raisechar to something reasonable. In fact,
you can set it to the same as the force character, if you
never expect to use either of these features.Here is a sample .tiprc file perfect for Emacs users who
need to type CTRL2 and CTRLA a lot:force=^^
raisechar=^^The ^^ is SHIFTCTRL6.How can I do file transfers with
tip?If you are talking to another Unix system, you can send
and receive files with ~p (put) and
~t (take). These commands run
&man.cat.1; and
&man.echo.1; on the remote system to accept and send files.
The syntax is:~p <local-file> [<remote-file>]
~t <remote-file> [<local-file>]There is no error checking, so you probably should use
another protocol, like zmodem.How can I run zmodem with
tip?First, install one of the zmodem programs from the
ports collection (such as one of the two from the comms
category, lrzsz or
rzsz.To receive files, start the sending program on the
remote end. Then, press enter and type
~C rz (or ~C lrz if you
installed lrzsz) to begin
receiving them locally.To send files, start the receiving program on the remote
end. Then, press enter and type
~C sz files
(or ~C lsz files)
to send them to the remote system.Why does FreeBSD not find my serial ports, even
when the settings are correct?Motherboards and cards with Acer UARTs do not probe
properly under the FreeBSD sio probe. Obtain a patch from
www.lemis.com to fix your problem.Miscellaneous QuestionsFreeBSD uses far more swap space than Linux. Why?FreeBSD only appears to use more swap than Linux. In
actual fact, it does not. The main difference between FreeBSD
and Linux in this regard is that FreeBSD will proactively move
entirely idle, unused pages of main memory into swap in order
to make more main memory available for active use. Linux tends
to only move pages to swap as a last resort. The perceived
heavier use of swap is balanced by the more efficient use of
main memory.Note that while FreeBSD is proactive in this regard, it
does not arbitrarily decide to swap pages when the system is
truly idle. Thus you will not find your system all paged
out when you get up in the morning after leaving it idle
overnight.Why does top show very little free memory even
when I have very few programs running?The simple answer is that free memory is wasted
memory. Any memory that your programs do not actively
allocate is used within the FreeBSD kernel as disk
cache. The values shown by &man.top.1; labeled as
Inact, Cache, and
Buf are all cached data at different
aging levels. This cached data means the system does
not have to access a slow disk again for data it has
accessed recently, thus increasing overall performance.
In general, a low value shown for Free
memory in &man.top.1; is good, provided it is not
very low.Why use (what are) a.out and ELF executable
formats?To understand why FreeBSD uses the
ELF format, you must first know a little
about the 3 currently dominant executable
formats for Unix:Prior to FreeBSD 3.X, FreeBSD used the a.out
format.&man.a.out.5;The oldest and classic Unix object
format. It uses a short and compact header with a magic
number at the beginning that is often used to
characterize the format (see
&man.a.out.5; for more details). It contains three
loaded segments: .text, .data, and .bss plus a symbol
table and a string table.COFFThe SVR3 object format. The header now comprises
a section table, so you can have more than just .text,
.data, and .bss sections.ELFThe successor to COFF, featuring
Multiple sections and 32-bit or 64-bit possible values.
One major drawback: ELF was also
designed with the assumption that there would be only
one ABI per system architecture. That assumption is
actually quite incorrect, and not even in the
commercial SYSV world (which has at least three ABIs:
SVR4, Solaris, SCO) does it hold true.FreeBSD tries to work around this problem somewhat
by providing a utility for branding
a known ELF executable with
information about the ABI it is compliant with. See the
manual page for &man.brandelf.1;
for more information.FreeBSD comes from the classic camp and has
traditionally used the &man.a.out.5;
format, a technology tried and proven through
many generations of BSD releases. Though it has also been
possible for some time to build and run native
ELF binaries (and kernels) on a FreeBSD
system, FreeBSD initially resisted the push to
switch to ELF as the default format. Why?
Well, when the Linux camp made their painful transition to
ELF, it was not so much to flee the
a.out executable format as it was their
inflexible jump-table based shared library mechanism, which
made the construction of shared libraries very difficult for
vendors and developers alike. Since the ELF
tools available offered a solution to the shared library
problem and were generally seen as the way
forward anyway, the migration cost was accepted as
necessary and the transition made.In FreeBSD's case, our shared library mechanism is based
more closely on Sun's SunOS-style
shared library mechanism and, as such, is very easy to use.
However, starting with 3.0, FreeBSD officially supports
ELF binaries as the default format. Even
though the a.out executable format has
served us well, the GNU people, who author the compiler tools
we use, have dropped support for the a.out
format. This has forced us to maintain a divergent version of
the compiler and linker, and has kept us from reaping the
benefits of the latest GNU development efforts. Also the
demands of ISO-C++, notably constructors and destructors, has
also led to native ELF support in future
FreeBSD releases.Yes, but why are there so many different formats?Back in the dim, dark past, there was simple hardware.
This simple hardware supported a simple, small system. a.out
was completely adequate for the job of representing binaries on
this simple system (a PDP-11). As people ported Unix from this
simple system, they retained the a.out format because it was
sufficient for the early ports of Unix to architectures like
the Motorola 68k, VAXen, etc.Then some bright hardware engineer decided that if he
could force software to do some sleazy tricks, then he would be
able to shave a few gates off the design and allow his CPU core
to run faster. While it was made to work with this new kind of
hardware (known these days as RISC), a.out
was ill-suited for this hardware, so many formats were
developed to get to a better performance from this hardware
than the limited, simple a.out format
could offer. Things like COFF,
ECOFF, and a few obscure others were
invented and their limitations explored before things seemed to
settle on ELF.In addition, program sizes were getting huge and disks
(and physical memory) were still relatively small so the
concept of a shared library was born. The VM system also became
more sophisticated. While each one of these advancements was
done using the a.out format, its
usefulness was stretched more and more with each new feature.
In addition, people wanted to dynamically load things at run
time, or to junk parts of their program after the init code had
run to save in core memory and swap space. Languages became
more sophisticated and people wanted code called before main
automatically. Lots of hacks were done to the
a.out format to allow all of these things
to happen, and they basically worked for a time. In time,
a.out was not up to handling all these
problems without an ever increasing overhead in code and
complexity. While ELF solved many of these
problems, it would be painful to switch from the system that
basically worked. So ELF had to wait until
it was more painful to remain with a.out
than it was to migrate to ELF.However, as time passed, the build tools that FreeBSD
derived their build tools from (the assembler and loader
especially) evolved in two parallel trees. The FreeBSD tree
added shared libraries and fixed some bugs. The GNU folks that
originally write these programs rewrote them and added simpler
support for building cross compilers, plugging in different
formats at will, etc. Since many people wanted to build cross
compilers targeting FreeBSD, they were out of luck since the
older sources that FreeBSD had for as and ld were not up to the
task. The new gnu tools chain (binutils) does support cross
compiling, ELF, shared libraries, C++
extensions, etc. In addition, many vendors are releasing
ELF binaries, and it is a good thing for
FreeBSD to run them. And if it is running
ELF binaries, why bother having
a.out any more? It is a tired old horse
that has proven useful for a long time, but it is time to turn
him out to pasture for his long, faithful years of
service.ELF is more expressive than a.out and
will allow more extensibility in the base system. The
ELF tools are better maintained, and offer
cross compilation support, which is important to many people.
ELF may be a little slower than a.out, but
trying to measure it can be difficult. There are also numerous
details that are different between the two in how they map
pages, handle init code, etc. None of these are very important,
but they are differences. In time support for
a.out will be moved out of the GENERIC
kernel, and eventually removed from the kernel once the need to
run legacy a.out programs is past.Why will chmod not change the permissions on symlinks?Symlinks do not have permissions, and by default,
&man.chmod.1; will not follow symlinks to change the
permissions on the target file. So if you have a file,
foo, and a symlink to that file,
bar, then this command will always
succeed.&prompt.user; chmod g-w barHowever, the permissions on foo will
not have changed.You have to use either or
together with the
option to make this work. See the
&man.chmod.1; and &man.symlink.7;
manual pages for more info.The option does a
RECURSIVE
&man.chmod.1;. Be careful about
specifying directories or symlinks to directories to
&man.chmod.1;. If you want to
change the permissions of a directory referenced by a
symlink, use &man.chmod.1;
without any options and follow the symlink
with a trailing slash (/). For
example, if foo is a symlink to
directory bar, and you want to change
the permissions of foo (actually
bar), you would do something
like:&prompt.user; chmod 555 foo/With the trailing slash, &man.chmod.1;
will follow the symlink,
foo, to change the permissions of the
directory, bar.Why are login names restricted to 8 characters or less
in FreeBSD 2.2.X and earlier?You would think it would be easy enough to change
UT_NAMESIZE and rebuild the whole world,
and everything would just work. Unfortunately there are often
scads of applications and utilities (including system tools)
that have hard-coded small numbers (not always
8 or 9, but oddball ones
like 15 and 20) in
structures and buffers. Not only will this get you log files
which are trashed (due to variable-length records getting
written when fixed records were expected), but it can break
Suns NIS clients and potentially cause other problems in
interacting with other Unix systems.In FreeBSD 3.0 and later, the maximum name length has
been increased to 16 characters and those various utilities
with hard-coded name sizes have been found and fixed. The fact
that this touched so many areas of the system is why, in fact,
the change was not made until 3.0.If you are absolutely confident in your ability to find
and fix these sorts of problems for yourself when and if they
pop up, you can increase the login name length in earlier
releases by editing /usr/include/utmp.h and changing
UT_NAMESIZE accordingly. You must also update MAXLOGNAME in
/usr/include/sys/param.h to match the UT_NAMESIZE change.
Finally, if you build from sources, do not forget that
/usr/include is updated each time! Change the appropriate files
in /usr/src/.. instead.Can I run DOS binaries under FreeBSD?Yes, starting with version 3.0 you can use BSDI's
doscmd DOS emulation which has
been integrated and enhanced. Send mail to the &a.emulation;
if you are interested in joining this ongoing effort!For pre-3.0 systems, there is a neat utility called
pcemu in the ports collection which emulates an 8088
and enough BIOS services to run DOS text mode applications.
It requires the X Window System (provided as XFree86).What do I need to do to translate a FreeBSD document into
my native language?See the
Translation FAQ in the FreeBSD Documentation Project
Primer.Why does my email to any address at FreeBSD.org bounce?The FreeBSD.org mail system implements some of the
stricter Postfix checks on incoming mail and rejects mail that is
either misconfigured or is potential spam. Your mail
might bounce for one of the following reasons:The email is being sent from a known spam
domain or IP block.The FreeBSD mail servers reject email from known
spam sources. If you have service through a company
or domain who generates or relays spam, please switch
to a service provider who does not.The body of the email only contains HTML.Mail should be sent in plain text only. Please
configure your mail user agent to send plain
text.The mailer at FreeBSD.org cannot resolve the IP
address of the connecting host back to a symbolic
name.Working reverse DNS is a standard requirement for
accepting mail from a host. Set up reverse DNS for
your mail server's IP address. Many home services
(DSL, cable, dialup, etc.) will not give you this
option. In this case, relay your email through your
service provider's mail server.The hostname given in the EHLO/HELO part of the SMTP
exchange cannot be resolved to an IP address.A fully qualified, resolvable host name is necessary
in this part of the SMTP dialogue before mail will be
accepted. If you do not have a host name that is registered
in the DNS, then you should use your service provider's mail
server to relay your mail.Your message had a message ID ending with the string
localhost.Some mail user agents generate bad message IDs which will
not be accepted. You will need to persuade your mail user
agent to generate a valid message ID or else configure your
mail transfer agent to rewrite them.Where can I find a free FreeBSD account?While FreeBSD does not provide open access to any of their
servers, others do provide open access Unix systems. The
charge varies and limited services may be available.Arbornet,
Inc, also known as M-Net, has been providing open
access to Unix systems since 1983. Starting on an Altos
running System III, the site switched to BSD/OS in 1991. In
June of 2000, the site switched again to FreeBSD. M-Net can be
accessed via telnet and SSH and provides basic access to the
entire FreeBSD software suite. However, network access is
limited to members and patrons who donate to the system, which
is run as a non-profit organization. M-Net also provides an
bulletin board system and interactive chat.Grex provides a
site very similar to M-Net including the same bulletin board
and interactive chat software. However, the machine is a Sun
4M and is running SunOSWhat is sup, and how do I use
it?
SUP stands for Software Update Protocol, and was
developed by CMU for keeping their development trees in sync.
We used it to keep remote sites in sync with our central
development sources.SUP is not bandwidth friendly, and has been retired.
The current recommended method to keep your sources up to
date is
CVSupWhat is the cute little red guy's name?He does not have one, and is just called the BSD
daemon. If you insist upon using a name, call him
beastie. Note that beastie
is pronounced BSD.You can learn more about the BSD daemon on his home
page.Can I use the BSD daemon image?Perhaps. The BSD daemon is copyrighted by Marshall
Kirk McKusick. You will want to check his Statement
on the Use of the BSD Daemon Figure for detailed
usage terms.In summary, you are free to use the image in a tasteful
manner, for personal use, so long as appropriate credit is
given. If you want to use him commercially, you must
contact Kirk McKusick. More details are available on the
BSD
Daemon's home page.Do you have any BSD daemon images I could use?You will find eps and Xfig drawings under
/usr/share/examples/BSD_daemon/.What does MFC mean?MFC is an acronym for Merged From -CURRENT.
It is used in the CVS logs to denote when a change was
migrated from the CURRENT to the STABLE branches.What does BSD mean?It stands for something in a secret language that only
members can know. It does not translate literally but its ok
to tell you that BSD's translation is something between,
Formula-1 Racing Team, Penguins are
tasty snacks, and We have a better sense of
humor than Linux. :-)Seriously, BSD is an acronym for Berkeley
Software Distribution, which is the name the
Berkeley CSRG (Computer Systems Research
Group) chose for their Unix distribution way back when.What does POLA mean?Principle of Least Astonishment. It means that as
FreeBSD evolves, changes visible to the user should be
kept as unsurprising as possible. For example,
arbitrarily rearranging system startup variables in
/etc/defaults/rc.conf violates POLA.
Developers consider POLA when contemplating user-visible
system changes.What is a repo-copy?A repo-copy (which is a short form of repository
copy) refers to the direct copying of files within
the CVS repository.Without a repo-copy, if a file needed to be copied or
moved to another place in the repository, the committer would
run cvs add to put the file in its new
location, and then cvs rm on the old file
if the old copy was being removed.The disadvantage of this method is that the history
(i.e. the entries in the CVS logs) of the file would not be
copied to the new location. As the FreeBSD Project considers
this history very useful, a repository copy is often used
instead. This is a process where one of the repository meisters
will copy the files directly within the repository, rather than
using the &man.cvs.1; program.Why should I care what color the bikeshed is?The really, really short answer is that you should not.
The somewhat longer answer is that just because you are
capable of building a bikeshed does not mean you should stop
others from building one just because you do not like the
color they plan to paint it. This is a metaphor indicating
that you need not argue about every little feature just
because you know enough to do so. Some people have
commented that the amount of noise generated by a change is
inversely proportional to the complexity of the
change.The longer and more complete answer is that after a very
long argument about whether &man.sleep.1; should take
fractional second arguments, &a.phk; posted a long
message entitled A bike
shed (any colour will do) on greener grass....
The appropriate portions of that message are quoted
below.
&a.phk; on freebsd-hackers, October
2, 1999What is it about this bike shed? Some
of you have asked me.It is a long story, or rather it is an old story, but
it is quite short actually. C. Northcote Parkinson wrote
a book in the early 1960s, called Parkinson's
Law, which contains a lot of insight into the
dynamics of management.[snip a bit of commentary on the book]In the specific example involving the bike shed, the
other vital component is an atomic power-plant, I guess
that illustrates the age of the book.Parkinson shows how you can go into the board of
directors and get approval for building a multi-million or
even billion dollar atomic power plant, but if you want to
build a bike shed you will be tangled up in endless
discussions.Parkinson explains that this is because an atomic
plant is so vast, so expensive and so complicated that
people cannot grasp it, and rather than try, they fall
back on the assumption that somebody else checked all the
details before it got this far. Richard P. Feynmann
gives a couple of interesting, and very much to the point,
examples relating to Los Alamos in his books.A bike shed on the other hand. Anyone can build one
of those over a weekend, and still have time to watch the
game on TV. So no matter how well prepared, no matter how
reasonable you are with your proposal, somebody will seize
the chance to show that he is doing his job, that he is
paying attention, that he is
here.In Denmark we call it setting your
fingerprint. It is about personal pride and
prestige, it is about being able to point somewhere and
say There! I did that.
It is a strong trait in politicians, but present in most
people given the chance. Just think about footsteps in
wet cement.
The FreeBSD FunniesHow cool is FreeBSD?Q. Has anyone done any temperature testing while
running FreeBSD? I know Linux runs cooler than DOS, but have
never seen a mention of FreeBSD. It seems to run really
hot.A. No, but we have done numerous taste tests on
blindfolded volunteers who have also had 250 micrograms of
LSD-25 administered beforehand. 35% of the volunteers said that
FreeBSD tasted sort of orange, whereas Linux tasted like purple
haze. Neither group mentioned any significant variances in
temperature. We eventually had to throw the
results of this survey out entirely anyway when we found that
too many volunteers were wandering out of the room during the
tests, thus skewing the results. We think most of the volunteers
are at Apple now, working on their new scratch and
sniff GUI. It is a funny old business we are in!Seriously, both FreeBSD and Linux use the
HLT (halt) instruction when the system is
idle thus lowering its energy consumption and therefore the
heat it generates. Also if you have APM (advanced power
management) configured, then FreeBSD can also put the CPU into
a low power mode.Who is scratching in my memory banks??Q. Is there anything odd that FreeBSD
does when compiling the kernel which would cause the memory to
make a scratchy sound? When compiling (and for a brief moment
after recognizing the floppy drive upon startup, as well), a
strange scratchy sound emanates from what appears to be the
memory banks.A. Yes! You will see frequent references to
daemons in the BSD documentation, and what most
people do not know is that this refers to genuine, non-corporeal
entities that now possess your computer. The scratchy sound
coming from your memory is actually high-pitched whispering
exchanged among the daemons as they best decide how to deal
with various system administration tasks.If the noise gets to you, a good
fdisk /mbr from DOS will get rid of them,
but do not be surprised if they react adversely and try to stop
you. In fact, if at any point during the exercise you hear the
satanic voice of Bill Gates coming from the built-in speaker,
take off running and do not ever look back! Freed from the
counterbalancing influence of the BSD daemons, the twin demons
of DOS and Windows are often able to re-assert total control
over your machine to the eternal damnation of your soul.
Now that you know, given a choice you would probably prefer to get
used to the scratchy noises, no?How many FreeBSD hackers does it take to change a
lightbulb?One thousand, one hundred and sixty-nine:Twenty-three to complain to -CURRENT about the lights
being out;Four to claim that it is a configuration problem, and
that such matters really belong on -questions;Three to submit PRs about it, one of which is misfiled
under doc and consists only of it's dark;One to commit an untested lightbulb which breaks
buildworld, then back it out five minutes later;Eight to flame the PR originators for not including
patches in their PRs;Five to complain about buildworld being broken;Thirty-one to answer that it works for them, and they
must have cvsupped at a bad time;One to post a patch for a new lightbulb to -hackers;One to complain that he had patches for this three years
ago, but when he sent them to -CURRENT they were just ignored,
and he has had bad experiences with the PR system; besides,
the proposed new lightbulb is non-reflexive;Thirty-seven to scream that lightbulbs do not belong in
the base system, that committers have no right to do things
like this without consulting the Community, and WHAT IS
-CORE DOING ABOUT IT!?Two hundred to complain about the color of the bicycle
shed;Three to point out that the patch breaks &man.style.9;;Seventeen to complain that the proposed new lightbulb is
under GPL;Five hundred and eighty-six to engage in a flame war
about the comparative advantages of the GPL, the BSD
license, the MIT license, the NPL, and the personal hygiene
of unnamed FSF founders;Seven to move various portions of the thread to -chat
and -advocacy;One to commit the suggested lightbulb, even though it
shines dimmer than the old one;Two to back it out with a furious flame of a commit
message, arguing that FreeBSD is better off in the dark than
with a dim lightbulb;Forty-six to argue vociferously about the backing out
of the dim lightbulb and demanding a statement from
-core;Eleven to request a smaller lightbulb so it will fit
their Tamagotchi if we ever decide to port FreeBSD to that
platform;Seventy-three to complain about the SNR on -hackers and
-chat and unsubscribe in protest;Thirteen to post unsubscribe, How do I unsubscribe?,
or Please remove me from the list, followed by the usual
footer;One to commit a working lightbulb while everybody is too
busy flaming everybody else to notice;Thirty-one to point out that the new lightbulb would shine
0.364% brighter if compiled with TenDRA (although it will have
to be reshaped into a cube), and that FreeBSD should therefore
switch to TenDRA instead of GCC;One to complain that the new lightbulb lacks
fairings;Nine (including the PR originators) to ask
what is MFC?;Fifty-seven to complain about the lights being out two
weeks after the bulb has been changed.&a.nik; adds:I was laughing quite hard at
this.And then I thought,
Hang on, shouldn't there be '1 to document it.' in that list somewhere?And then I was enlightened :-)Where does data written to /dev/null
go?It goes into a special data sink in the CPU where it
is converted to heat which is vented through the heatsink
/ fan assembly. This is why CPU cooling is increasingly
important; as people get used to faster processors, they
become careless with their data and more and more of it
ends up in /dev/null, overheating
their CPUs. If you delete /dev/null
(which effectively disables the CPU data sink) your CPU
may run cooler but your system will quickly become
constipated with all that excess data and start to behave
erratically. If you have a fast network connection you
can cool down your CPU by reading data out of
/dev/random and sending it off
somewhere; however you run the risk of overheating your
network connection and / or angering
your ISP, as most of the data will end up getting
converted to heat by their equipment, but they generally
have good cooling, so if you do not overdo it you should be
OK.Paul Robinson adds:There are other methods. As every good sysadmin knows,
it is part of standard practise to send data to the screen
of interesting variety to keep all the pixies that make up
your picture happy. Screen pixies (commonly mis-typed or
re-named as 'pixels') are categorised by the type of hat
they wear (red, green or blue) and will hide or appear
(thereby showing the colour of their hat) whenever they
receive a little piece of food. Video cards turn data into
pixie-food, and then send them to the pixies - the more
expensive the card, the better the food, so the better
behaved the pixies are. They also need constant stimulation
- this is why screen savers exist.To take your suggestions further, you could just throw
the random data to console, thereby letting the pixies
consume it. This causes no heat to be produced at all,
keeps the pixies happy and gets rid of your data quite
quickly, even if it does make things look a bit messy on
your screen.Incidentally, as an ex-admin of a large ISP who
experienced many problems attempting to maintain a stable
temperature in a server room, I would strongly discourage
people sending the data they do not want out to the
network. The fairies who do the packet switching and
routing get annoyed by it as well.Advanced TopicsHow can I learn more about FreeBSD's internals?At this time, there is no book on FreeBSD-specific OS
internals. Much general &unix; knowledge is directly
applicable to FreeBSD, however. Additionally, there are
BSD-specific books that are still relevant.For a list, please check the Handbook's Operating
System Internals Bibliography.How can I contribute to FreeBSD?Please see the article on Contributing
to FreeBSD for specific advice on how to do this.
Assistance is more than welcome!What are SNAPs and RELEASEs?There are currently three active/semi-active branches
in the FreeBSD
CVS Repository (the RELENG_2 branch is probably
only changed twice a year, which is why there are only three
active branches of development):RELENG_2_2 AKA
2.2-STABLERELENG_3 AKA
3.X-STABLERELENG_4 AKA
4-STABLEHEAD AKA
-CURRENT AKA
5.0-CURRENTHEAD is not an actual branch tag,
like the other two; it is simply a symbolic constant for
the current, non-branched development
stream which we simply refer to as
-CURRENT.Right now, -CURRENT is the 5.0 development
stream and the 4-STABLE branch,
RELENG_4, forked off from
-CURRENT in Mar 2000.The 2.2-STABLE branch,
RELENG_2_2, departed -CURRENT in November
1996, and has pretty much been retired.How do I make my own custom release?Please see the
Release Engineering article.Why does make world clobber my existing
installed binaries?Yes, this is the general idea; as its name might suggest,
make world rebuilds every system binary from
scratch, so you can be certain of having a clean and consistent
environment at the end (which is why it takes so long).If the environment variable DESTDIR
is defined while running make world or
make install, the newly-created binaries
will be deposited in a directory tree identical to the
installed one, rooted at ${DESTDIR}.
Some random combination of shared libraries modifications and
program rebuilds can cause this to fail in make
world however.Why does my system say (bus speed
defaulted) when it boots?The Adaptec 1542 SCSI host adapters allow the user to
configure their bus access speed in software. Previous versions
of the 1542 driver tried to determine the fastest usable speed
and set the adapter to that. We found that this breaks some
users' systems, so you now have to define the
TUNE_1542 kernel configuration option in order
to have this take place. Using it on those systems where it
works may make your disks run faster, but on those systems
where it does not, your data could be corrupted.Can I follow -CURRENT with limited Internet access?Yes, you can do this without
downloading the whole source tree by using the CTM facility.How did you split the distribution into 240k files?Newer BSD based systems have a
option to split that allows them to split files on arbitrary
byte boundaries.Here is an example from
/usr/src/Makefile.bin-tarball:
(cd ${DISTDIR}; \
tar cf - . \
gzip --no-name -9 -c | \
split -b 240640 - \
${RELEASEDIR}/tarballs/bindist/bin_tgz.)I have written a kernel extension, who do I send it
to?Please take a look at the article on Contributing
to FreeBSD to learn how to submit code.And thanks for the thought!How are Plug N Play ISA cards detected and
initialized?By: Frank Durda IV
uhclem@nemesis.lonestar.orgIn a nutshell, there a few I/O ports that all of the
PnP boards respond to when the host asks if anyone is out
there. So when the PnP probe routine starts, it asks if there
are any PnP boards present, and all the PnP boards respond with
their model # to a I/O read of the same port, so the probe
routine gets a wired-OR yes to that question. At
least one bit will be on in that reply. Then the probe code is
able to cause boards with board model IDs (assigned by
Microsoft/Intel) lower than X to go off-line. It
then looks to see if any boards are still responding to the
query. If the answer was 0, then there are
no boards with IDs above X. Now probe asks if there are any
boards below X. If so, probe knows there are
boards with a model numbers below X. Probe then asks for boards
greater than X-(limit/4) to go off-line. If repeats the query.
By repeating this semi-binary search of IDs-in-range enough
times, the probing code will eventually identify all PnP boards
present in a given machine with a number of iterations that is
much lower than what 2^64 would take.The IDs are two 32-bit fields (hence 2ˆ64) + 8 bit
checksum. The first 32 bits are a vendor identifier. They never
come out and say it, but it appears to be assumed that
different types of boards from the same vendor could have
different 32-bit vendor ids. The idea of needing 32 bits just
for unique manufacturers is a bit excessive.The lower 32 bits are a serial #, Ethernet address,
something that makes this one board unique. The vendor must
never produce a second board that has the same lower 32 bits
unless the upper 32 bits are also different. So you can have
multiple boards of the same type in the machine and the full 64
bits will still be unique.The 32 bit groups can never be all zero. This allows the
wired-OR to show non-zero bits during the initial binary
search.Once the system has identified all the board IDs present,
it will reactivate each board, one at a time (via the same I/O
ports), and find out what resources the given board needs, what
interrupt choices are available, etc. A scan is made over all
the boards to collect this information.This info is then combined with info from any ECU files
on the hard disk or wired into the MLB BIOS. The ECU and BIOS
PnP support for hardware on the MLB is usually synthetic, and
the peripherals do not really do genuine PnP. However by
examining the BIOS info plus the ECU info, the probe routines
can cause the devices that are PnP to avoid those devices the
probe code cannot relocate.Then the PnP devices are visited once more and given
their I/O, DMA, IRQ and Memory-map address assignments. The
devices will then appear at those locations and remain there
until the next reboot, although there is nothing that says you
cannot move them around whenever you want.There is a lot of oversimplification above, but you
should get the general idea.Microsoft took over some of the primary printer status
ports to do PnP, on the logic that no boards decoded those
addresses for the opposing I/O cycles. I found a genuine IBM
printer board that did decode writes of the status port during
the early PnP proposal review period, but MS said
tough. So they do a write to the printer status
port for setting addresses, plus that use that address +
0x800, and a third I/O port for reading that
can be located anywhere between 0x200 and
0x3ff.Can you assign a major number for a device driver I have
written?This depends on whether or not you plan on making the
driver publicly available. If you do, then please send us a
copy of the driver source code, plus the appropriate
modifications to files.i386, a
sample configuration file entry, and the appropriate
&man.MAKEDEV.8;
code to create any special files your device uses. If you do
not, or are unable to because of licensing restrictions, then
character major number 32 and block major number 8 have been
reserved specifically for this purpose; please use them. In any
case, we would appreciate hearing about your driver on
&a.hackers;.What about alternative layout policies for
directories?In answer to the question of alternative layout policies
for directories, the scheme that is currently in use is
unchanged from what I wrote in 1983. I wrote that policy for
the original fast filesystem, and never revisited it. It works
well at keeping cylinder groups from filling up. As several of
you have noted, it works poorly for find. Most filesystems are
created from archives that were created by a depth first search
(aka ftw). These directories end up being striped across the
cylinder groups thus creating a worst possible scenario for
future depth first searches. If one knew the total number of
directories to be created, the solution would be to create
(total / fs_ncg) per cylinder group before moving on.
Obviously, one would have to create some heuristic to guess at
this number. Even using a small fixed number like say 10 would
make an order of magnitude improvement. To differentiate
restores from normal operation (when the current algorithm is
probably more sensible), you could use the clustering of up to
10 if they were all done within a ten second window. Anyway, my
conclusion is that this is an area ripe for
experimentation.Kirk McKusick, September 1998How can I make the most of the data I see when my kernel
panics?[This section was extracted from a mail
written by &a.wpaul; on the freebsd-current
mailing list by &a.des;, who
fixed a few typos and added the bracketed comments]
From: Bill Paul <wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: the fs fun never stops
To: Ben Rosengart
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 15:22:50 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: current@FreeBSD.orgBen Rosengart posted the following
panic message]> Fatal trap 12: page fault while in kernel mode
> fault virtual address = 0x40
> fault code = supervisor read, page not present
> instruction pointer = 0x8:0xf014a7e5
^^^^^^^^^^
> stack pointer = 0x10:0xf4ed6f24
> frame pointer = 0x10:0xf4ed6f28
> code segment = base 0x0, limit 0xfffff, type 0x1b
> = DPL 0, pres 1, def32 1, gran 1
> processor eflags = interrupt enabled, resume, IOPL = 0
> current process = 80 (mount)
> interrupt mask =
> trap number = 12
> panic: page fault[When] you see a message like this, it is not enough to just
reproduce it and send it in. The instruction pointer value that
I highlighted up there is important; unfortunately, it is also
configuration dependent. In other words, the value varies
depending on the exact kernel image that you are using. If
you are using a GENERIC kernel image from one of the snapshots,
then it is possible for somebody else to track down the
offending function, but if you are running a custom kernel then
only you can tell us where the fault
occurred.What you should do is this:Write down the instruction pointer value. Note that
the 0x8: part at the beginning is not
significant in this case: it is the
0xf0xxxxxx part that we want.When the system reboots, do the following:
&prompt.user; nm -n /kernel.that.caused.the.panic | grep f0xxxxxx
where f0xxxxxx is the instruction
pointer value. The odds are you will not get an exact
match since the symbols in the kernel symbol table are
for the entry points of functions and the instruction
pointer address will be somewhere inside a function, not
at the start. If you do not get an exact match, omit the
last digit from the instruction pointer value and try
again, i.e.:
&prompt.user; nm -n /kernel.that.caused.the.panic | grep f0xxxxx
If that does not yield any results, chop off another
digit. Repeat until you get some sort of output. The
result will be a possible list of functions which caused
the panic. This is a less than exact mechanism for
tracking down the point of failure, but it is better than
nothing.I see people constantly show panic messages like this
but rarely do I see someone take the time to match up the
instruction pointer with a function in the kernel symbol
table.The best way to track down the cause of a panic is by
capturing a crash dump, then using
&man.gdb.1; to generate a stack trace on the
crash dump.In any case, the method I normally use is this:Set up a kernel config file, optionally adding
options DDB if you think you need
the kernel debugger for something. (I use this mainly
for setting breakpoints if I suspect an infinite loop
condition of some kind.)Use config -g
KERNELCONFIG to set
up the build directory.cd /sys/compile/
KERNELCONFIG; make
Wait for kernel to finish compiling.make installrebootThe &man.make.1; process will have built two kernels.
kernel and
kernel.debug. kernel
was installed as /kernel, while
kernel.debug can be used as the source of
debugging symbols for &man.gdb.1;.To make sure you capture a crash dump, you need edit
/etc/rc.conf and set
dumpdev to point to your swap
partition. This will cause the &man.rc.8; scripts
to use the &man.dumpon.8; command to enable crash
dumps. You can also run &man.dumpon.8; manually.
After a panic, the crash dump can be recovered using
&man.savecore.8;; if
dumpdev is set in
/etc/rc.conf, the &man.rc.8;
scripts will run &man.savecore.8; automatically
and put the crash dump in
/var/crash.FreeBSD crash dumps are usually the same size as the
physical RAM size of your machine. That is, if you have
64MB of RAM, you will get a 64MB crash dump. Therefore you
must make sure there is enough space in
/var/crash to hold the dump.
Alternatively, you run &man.savecore.8;
manually and have it recover the crash dump to another
directory where you have more room. It is possible to limit
the size of the crash dump by using options
MAXMEM=(foo) to set the amount of memory the
kernel will use to something a little more sensible. For
example, if you have 128MB of RAM, you can limit the
kernel's memory usage to 16MB so that your crash dump size
will be 16MB instead of 128MB.Once you have recovered the crash dump, you can get a
stack trace with &man.gdb.1; as follows:&prompt.user; gdb -k /sys/compile/KERNELCONFIG/kernel.debug /var/crash/vmcore.0(gdb)whereNote that there may be several screens worth of
information; ideally you should use
&man.script.1; to capture all of them. Using the
unstripped kernel image with all the debug symbols should show
the exact line of kernel source code where the panic occurred.
Usually you have to read the stack trace from the bottom up in
order to trace the exact sequence of events that lead to the
crash. You can also use &man.gdb.1; to print out
the contents of various variables or structures in order to
examine the system state at the time of the crash.Now, if you are really insane and have a second computer,
you can also configure &man.gdb.1; to do remote
debugging such that you can use &man.gdb.1; on
one system to debug the kernel on another system, including
setting breakpoints, single-stepping through the kernel code,
just like you can do with a normal user-mode program. I have not
played with this yet as I do not often have the chance to set up
two machines side by side for debugging purposes.[Bill adds: "I forgot to mention one thing: if
you have DDB enabled and the kernel drops into the debugger,
you can force a panic (and a crash dump) just by typing 'panic'
at the ddb prompt. It may stop in the debugger again during the
panic phase. If it does, type 'continue' and it will finish the
crash dump." -ed]Why has dlsym() stopped working for ELF executables?The ELF toolchain does not, by default, make the symbols
defined in an executable visible to the dynamic linker.
Consequently dlsym() searches on handles
obtained from calls to dlopen(NULL,
flags) will fail to find such symbols.If you want to search, using dlsym(),
for symbols present in the main executable of a process, you
need to link the executable using the
option to the
ELF
linker (&man.ld.1;).How can I increase or reduce the kernel address space?By default, the kernel address space is 256 MB on
FreeBSD 3.X and 1 GB on FreeBSD 4.X. If you run a
network-intensive server (e.g. a large FTP or HTTP server),
you might find that 256 MB is not enough.So how do you increase the address space? There are two
aspects to this. First, you need to tell the kernel to reserve
a larger portion of the address space for itself. Second, since
the kernel is loaded at the top of the address space, you need
to lower the load address so it does not bump its head against
the ceiling.The first goal is achieved by increasing the value of
NKPDE in
src/sys/i386/include/pmap.h. Here is what
it looks like for a 1 GB address space:#ifndef NKPDE
#ifdef SMP
#define NKPDE 254 /* addressable number of page tables/pde's */
#else
#define NKPDE 255 /* addressable number of page tables/pde's */
#endif /* SMP */
#endifTo find the correct value of NKPDE,
divide the desired address space size (in megabytes) by four,
then subtract one for UP and two for SMP.To achieve the second goal, you need to compute the
correct load address: simply subtract the address space size
(in bytes) from 0x100100000; the result is 0xc0100000 for a 1
GB address space. Set LOAD_ADDRESS in
src/sys/i386/conf/Makefile.i386 to that
value; then set the location counter in the beginning of the
section listing in
src/sys/i386/conf/kernel.script to the
same value, as follows:OUTPUT_FORMAT("elf32-i386", "elf32-i386", "elf32-i386")
OUTPUT_ARCH(i386)
ENTRY(btext)
SEARCH_DIR(/usr/lib); SEARCH_DIR(/usr/obj/elf/home/src/tmp/usr/i386-unknown-freebsdelf/lib);
SECTIONS
{
/* Read-only sections, merged into text segment: */
. = 0xc0100000 + SIZEOF_HEADERS;
.interp : { *(.interp) }Then reconfig and rebuild your kernel. You will probably
have problems with &man.ps.1;
&man.top.1; and the like; make
world should take care of it (or a manual rebuild of
libkvm,
&man.ps.1; and &man.top.1;
after copying the patched pmap.h to
/usr/include/vm/.NOTE: the size of the kernel address space must be a
multiple of four megabytes.[&a.dg; adds: I think the kernel address space
needs to be a power of two, but I am not certain about that. The
old(er) boot code used to monkey with the high order address bits
and I think expected at least 256MB
granularity.]Acknowledgments
FreeBSD Core TeamIf you see a problem with this FAQ, or wish to submit an
entry, please mail the &a.doc;. We appreciate your feedback,
and cannot make this a better FAQ without your help!
&a.jkh;Occasional fits of FAQ-reshuffling and updating.&a.dwhite;Services above and beyond the call of duty on
freebsd-questions&a.joerg;Services above and beyond the call of duty on
Usenet&a.wollman;Networking and formattingJim LoweMulticast information&a.pds;FreeBSD FAQ typing machine slaveyThe FreeBSD TeamKvetching, moaning, submitting dataAnd to any others we have forgotten, apologies and heartfelt
thanks!
&bibliography;
diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors/chapter.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors/chapter.sgml
index 7ada2df199..1974a58da9 100644
--- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors/chapter.sgml
+++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors/chapter.sgml
@@ -1,4713 +1,4745 @@
Obtaining FreeBSDCDROM and DVD PublishersRetail Boxed ProductsFreeBSD is available as a boxed product (FreeBSD CDs,
additional software, and printed documentation) from several
retailers:CompUSA
WWW: http://www.compusa.com/Frys Electronics
WWW: http://www.frys.com/Staples
WWW: http://www.staples.com/CD and DVD SetsFreeBSD CD and DVD sets are available from many online
retailers:Daemon News Mall560 South State Street, Suite A2Orem, UT84058USA
Phone: +1 800 407-5170
Fax: +1 1 801 765-0877
Email: sales@bsdmall.com
WWW: http://www.bsdmall.com/FreeBSD Mall, Inc.3623 Sanford StreetConcord, CA94520-1405USA
Phone: +1 925 674-0783
Fax: +1 925 674-0821
Email: info@freebsdmall.com
WWW: http://www.freebsdmall.com/FreeBSD Services Ltd11 Lapwing CloseBicesterOX26 6XRUnited Kingdom
WWW: http://www.freebsd-services.com/Hinner EDVSt. Augustinus-Str. 10D-81825MünchenGermany
Phone: (089) 428 419
WWW: http://www.hinner.de/linux/freebsd.htmlIngram Micro1600 E. St. Andrew PlaceSanta Ana, CA92705-4926USA
Phone: 1 (800) 456-8000
WWW: http://www.ingrammicro.com/The Linux EmporiumHilliard House, Lester WayWallingfordOX10 9TAUnited Kingdom
Phone: +44 1491 837010
Fax: +44 1491 837016
WWW: http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/bsd.htmlDistributorsIf you are a reseller and want to carry FreeBSD CDROM products,
please contact a distributor:Cylogistics2672 Bayshore Parkway, Suite 610Mountain View, CA94043USA
Phone: +1 650 694-4949
Fax: +1 650 694-4953
Email: sales@cylogistics.com
WWW: http://www.cylogistics.com/FreeBSD Services Ltd11 Lapwing CloseBicesterOX26 6XRUnited Kingdom
WWW: http://www.freebsd-services.com/Kudzu, LLC7375 Washington Ave. S.Edina, MN55439USA
Phone: +1 952 947-0822
Fax: +1 952 947-0876
Email: sales@kudzuenterprises.comNavarre Corp7400 49th Ave SouthNew Hope, MN55428USA
Phone: +1 763 535-8333
Fax: +1 763 535-0341
WWW: http://www.navarre.com/FTP SitesThe official sources for FreeBSD are available via anonymous FTP
from:
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/.
The FreeBSD mirror
sites database is more accurate than the mirror listing in the
Handbook, as it gets its information from the DNS rather than relying on
static lists of hosts.Additionally, FreeBSD is available via anonymous FTP from the
following mirror sites. If you choose to obtain FreeBSD via anonymous
FTP, please try to use a site near you.Argentina,
Australia,
Austria,
Brazil,
Bulgaria,
Canada,
China,
Czech Republic,
Denmark,
Estonia,
Finland,
France,
Germany,
Greece,
Hong Kong,
Hungary,
Iceland,
Ireland,
Italy,
Japan,
Korea,
Lithuania,
Netherlands,
New Zealand,
Norway,
Poland,
Portugal,
Romania,
Russia,
Saudi Arabia,
Singapore,
Slovak Republic,
Slovenia,
South Africa,
Spain,
Sweden,
Switzerland,
Taiwan,
Thailand,
UK,
Ukraine,
USA.ArgentinaIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@ar.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.ar.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/AustraliaIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@au.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.au.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.au.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.au.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp4.au.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp5.au.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp6.au.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/AustriaIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@at.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.at.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.at.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/BrazilIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@br.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.br.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.br.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.br.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp4.br.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp5.br.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp6.br.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp7.br.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/BulgariaIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@bg.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.bg.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/CanadaIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@ca.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.ca.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.ca.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ChinaIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
phj@cn.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.cn.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.cn.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.cn.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/Czech RepublicIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@cz.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.cz.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ Contact: calda@dzungle.ms.mff.cuni.czDenmarkIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@dk.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.dk.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.dk.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/EstoniaIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@ee.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.ee.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/FinlandIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@fi.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.fi.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.fi.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/FranceIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@fr.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.fr.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.fr.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.fr.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp5.fr.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp6.fr.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp8.fr.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/GermanyIn case of problems, please contact the mirror admins
de-bsd-hubs@de.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.de.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.de.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.de.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp4.de.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp5.de.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp6.de.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp7.de.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/GreeceIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@gr.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.gr.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.gr.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/Hong Kongftp://ftp.hk.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/HungaryIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
mohacsi@ik.bme.hu for this domain.ftp://ftp.hu.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/IcelandIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@is.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.is.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/IrelandIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@ie.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.ie.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.ie.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.ie.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ItalyIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@it.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.it.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.it.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/JapanIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@jp.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.jp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.jp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.jp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp4.jp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp5.jp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp6.jp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp7.jp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/KoreaIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@kr.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.kr.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.kr.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.kr.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp4.kr.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp5.kr.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp6.kr.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp7.kr.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/LithuaniaIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@lt.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.lt.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/NetherlandsIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@nl.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.nl.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.nl.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/New ZealandIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@nz.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.nz.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/NorwayIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@no.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.no.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.no.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/PolandIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@pl.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.pl.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.pl.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.pl.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/PortugalIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@pt.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp2.pt.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.pt.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/RomaniaIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@ro.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.ro.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/RussiaIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@ru.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.ru.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.ru.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.ru.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp4.ru.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/Saudi ArabiaIn case of problems, please contact
ftpadmin@isu.net.saftp://ftp.isu.net.sa/pub/mirrors/ftp.freebsd.org/SingaporeIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@sg.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.sg.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/South AfricaIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@za.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.za.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.za.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.za.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp4.za.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/Slovak RepublicIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@sk.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.sk.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.sk.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/SloveniaIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@si.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp2.si.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/SpainIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@es.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.es.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.es.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.es.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/SwedenIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@se.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.se.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.se.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.se.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp5.se.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/SwitzerlandIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@ch.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.ch.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/TaiwanIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@tw.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.tw.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.tw.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.tw.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp4.tw.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp5.tw.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp6.tw.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp7.tw.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp8.tw.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp9.tw.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/Thailandftp://ftp.nectec.or.th/pub/FreeBSD/ Contact: ftpadmin@ftp.nectec.or.th.Ukraineftp://ftp.ua.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ Contact: freebsd-mnt@lucky.net.ftp://ftp2.ua.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.ua.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp5.ua.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp6.ua.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp7.ua.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/UKIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@uk.FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp.uk.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.uk.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.uk.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp4.uk.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp5.uk.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp6.uk.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/USAIn case of problems, please contact the hostmaster
hostmaster@FreeBSD.org for this domain.ftp://ftp1.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp2.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp3.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp4.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp5.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp6.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp7.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp8.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp9.FreeBSD.org/pub/os/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp10.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp11.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp12.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp13.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ftp://ftp14.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/Anonymous CVSIntroductionAnonymous CVS (or, as it is otherwise known,
anoncvs) is a feature provided by the CVS
utilities bundled with FreeBSD for synchronizing with a remote
CVS repository. Among other things, it allows users of FreeBSD
to perform, with no special privileges, read-only CVS operations
against one of the FreeBSD project's official anoncvs servers.
To use it, one simply sets the CVSROOT
environment variable to point at the appropriate anoncvs server,
provides the well-known password anoncvs with the
cvs login command, and then uses the
&man.cvs.1; command to access it like any local
repository.The cvs login command, stores the passwords
that are used for authenticating to the CVS server in a file
called .cvspass in your
HOME directory. If this file does not exist,
you might get an error when trying to use cvs
login for the first time. Just make an empty
.cvspass file, and retry to login.While it can also be said that the CVSup and anoncvs
services both perform essentially the same function, there are
various trade-offs which can influence the user's choice of
synchronization methods. In a nutshell,
CVSup is much more efficient in its
usage of network resources and is by far the most technically
sophisticated of the two, but at a price. To use
CVSup, a special client must first be
installed and configured before any bits can be grabbed, and
then only in the fairly large chunks which
CVSup calls
collections.Anoncvs, by contrast, can be used
to examine anything from an individual file to a specific
program (like ls or grep)
by referencing the CVS module name. Of course,
anoncvs is also only good for
read-only operations on the CVS repository, so if it is your
intention to support local development in one repository shared
with the FreeBSD project bits then
CVSup is really your only
option.Using Anonymous CVSConfiguring &man.cvs.1; to use an Anonymous CVS repository
is a simple matter of setting the CVSROOT
environment variable to point to one of the FreeBSD project's
anoncvs servers. At the time of this
writing, the following servers are available:USA:
:pserver:anoncvs@anoncvs.FreeBSD.org:/home/ncvs
(Use cvs login and enter the password
anoncvs when prompted.)Germany:
:pserver:anoncvs@anoncvs.de.FreeBSD.org:/home/ncvs
(Use cvs login and enter the password
anoncvs when prompted.)Germany:
:pserver:anoncvs@anoncvs2.de.FreeBSD.org:/home/ncvs
(rsh, pserver, ssh, ssh/2022)
Japan:
:pserver:anoncvs@anoncvs.jp.FreeBSD.org:/home/ncvs
(Use cvs login and enter the password
anoncvs when prompted.)Since CVS allows one to check out virtually
any version of the FreeBSD sources that ever existed (or, in
some cases, will exist), you need to be
familiar with the revision () flag to
&man.cvs.1; and what some of the permissible values for it in
the FreeBSD Project repository are.There are two kinds of tags, revision tags and branch tags.
A revision tag refers to a specific revision. Its meaning stays
the same from day to day. A branch tag, on the other hand,
refers to the latest revision on a given line of development, at
any given time. Because a branch tag does not refer to a
specific revision, it may mean something different tomorrow than
it means today. contains revision tags that users
might be interested
in. Again, none of these are valid for the ports collection
since the ports collection does not have multiple
revisions.When you specify a branch tag, you normally receive the
latest versions of the files on that line of development. If
you wish to receive some past version, you can do so by
specifying a date with the flag.
See the &man.cvs.1; manual page for more details.ExamplesWhile it really is recommended that you read the manual page
for &man.cvs.1; thoroughly before doing anything, here are some
quick examples which essentially show how to use Anonymous
CVS:Checking Out Something from -CURRENT (&man.ls.1;) and
Deleting It Again:&prompt.user; setenv CVSROOT :pserver:anoncvs@anoncvs.FreeBSD.org:/home/ncvs
&prompt.user; cvs loginAt the prompt, enter the passwordanoncvs.
&prompt.user; cvs co ls
&prompt.user; cvs release -d ls
&prompt.user; cvs logoutChecking Out the Version of &man.ls.1; in the 3.X-STABLE
Branch:&prompt.user; setenv CVSROOT :pserver:anoncvs@anoncvs.FreeBSD.org:/home/ncvs
&prompt.user; cvs loginAt the prompt, enter the passwordanoncvs.
&prompt.user; cvs co -rRELENG_3 ls
&prompt.user; cvs release -d ls
&prompt.user; cvs logoutCreating a List of Changes (as unified diffs) to &man.ls.1;&prompt.user; setenv CVSROOT :pserver:anoncvs@anoncvs.FreeBSD.org:/home/ncvs
&prompt.user; cvs loginAt the prompt, enter the passwordanoncvs.
&prompt.user; cvs rdiff -u -rRELENG_3_0_0_RELEASE -rRELENG_3_4_0_RELEASE ls
&prompt.user; cvs logoutFinding Out What Other Module Names Can Be Used:&prompt.user; setenv CVSROOT :pserver:anoncvs@anoncvs.FreeBSD.org:/home/ncvs
&prompt.user; cvs loginAt the prompt, enter the passwordanoncvs.
&prompt.user; cvs co modules
&prompt.user; more modules/modules
&prompt.user; cvs release -d modules
&prompt.user; cvs logoutOther ResourcesThe following additional resources may be helpful in learning
CVS:CVS Tutorial from Cal Poly.CVS Home,
the CVS development and support community.CVSWeb is
the FreeBSD Project web interface for CVS.Using CTMCTM is a method for keeping a
remote directory tree in sync with a central one. It has been
developed for usage with FreeBSD's source trees, though other
people may find it useful for other purposes as time goes by.
Little, if any, documentation currently exists at this time on the
process of creating deltas, so talk to &a.phk; for more
information should you wish to use CTM
for other things.Why Should I Use CTM?CTM will give you a local copy of
the FreeBSD source trees. There are a number of
flavors of the tree available. Whether you wish
to track the entire CVS tree or just one of the branches,
CTM can provide you the information.
If you are an active developer on FreeBSD, but have lousy or
non-existent TCP/IP connectivity, or simply wish to have the
changes automatically sent to you,
CTM was made for you. You will need
to obtain up to three deltas per day for the most active
branches. However, you should consider having them sent by
automatic email. The sizes of the updates are always kept as
small as possible. This is typically less than 5K, with an
occasional (one in ten) being 10-50K and every now and then a
large 100K+ or more coming around.You will also need to make yourself aware of the various
caveats related to working directly from the development sources
rather than a pre-packaged release. This is particularly true
if you choose the current sources. It is
recommended that you read Staying
current with FreeBSD.What Do I Need to Use
CTM?You will need two things: The CTM
program, and the initial deltas to feed it (to get up to
current levels).The CTM program has been part of
FreeBSD ever since version 2.0 was released, and lives in
/usr/src/usr.sbin/ctm if you have a copy
of the source available.If you are running a pre-2.0 version of FreeBSD, you can
fetch the current CTM sources
directly from:ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/FreeBSD-current/src/usr.sbin/ctm/The deltas you feed
CTM can be had two ways, FTP or
email. If you have general FTP access to the Internet then the
following FTP sites support access to
CTM:ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/CTM/or see section mirrors.FTP the relevant directory and fetch the
README file, starting from there.If you wish to get your deltas via email:Send email to &a.majordomo; to subscribe to one of the
CTM distribution lists.
ctm-cvs-cur supports the entire CVS tree.
ctm-src-cur supports the head of the development
branch. ctm-src-2_2 supports the 2.2 release
branch, etc.. (If you do not know how to subscribe yourself
using majordomo, send a message first containing the word
help — it will send you back usage
instructions.)When you begin receiving your CTM
updates in the mail, you may use the
ctm_rmail program to unpack and apply them.
You can actually use the ctm_rmail program
directly from a entry in /etc/aliases if
you want to have the process run in a fully automated fashion.
Check the ctm_rmail manual page for more
details.No matter what method you use to get the
CTM deltas, you should subscribe to
the ctm-announce@FreeBSD.org mailing list. In
the future, this will be the only place where announcements
concerning the operations of the
CTM system will be posted. Send an
email to &a.majordomo; with a single line of
subscribe ctm-announce to get added to the
list.Using CTM for the First
TimeBefore you can start using CTM
deltas, you will need to get to a starting point for the deltas
produced subsequently to it.First you should determine what you already have. Everyone
can start from an empty directory. You must use
an initial Empty delta to start off your
CTM supported tree. At some point it
is intended that one of these started deltas be
distributed on the CD for your convenience, however, this does
not currently happen.Since the trees are many tens of megabytes, you should
prefer to start from something already at hand. If you have a
-RELEASE CD, you can copy or extract an initial source from it.
This will save a significant transfer of data.You can recognize these starter deltas by the
X appended to the number
(src-cur.3210XEmpty.gz for instance). The
designation following the X corresponds to
the origin of your initial seed.
Empty is an empty directory. As a rule a
base transition from Empty is produced
every 100 deltas. By the way, they are large! 70 to 80
Megabytes of gzip'd data is common for the
XEmpty deltas.Once you have picked a base delta to start from, you will also
need all deltas with higher numbers following it.Using CTM in Your Daily
LifeTo apply the deltas, simply say:&prompt.root; cd /where/ever/you/want/the/stuff
&prompt.root; ctm -v -v /where/you/store/your/deltas/src-xxx.*CTM understands deltas which have
been put through gzip, so you do not need to
gunzip them first, this saves disk space.Unless it feels very secure about the entire process,
CTM will not touch your tree. To
verify a delta you can also use the flag and
CTM will not actually touch your
tree; it will merely verify the integrity of the delta and see
if it would apply cleanly to your current tree.There are other options to CTM
as well, see the manual pages or look in the sources for more
information.That is really all there is to it. Every time you get a new
delta, just run it through CTM to
keep your sources up to date.Do not remove the deltas if they are hard to download again.
You just might want to keep them around in case something bad
happens. Even if you only have floppy disks, consider using
fdwrite to make a copy.Keeping Your Local ChangesAs a developer one would like to experiment with and change
files in the source tree. CTM
supports local modifications in a limited way: before checking
for the presence of a file foo, it first
looks for foo.ctm. If this file exists,
CTM will operate on it instead of
foo.This behavior gives us a simple way to maintain local
changes: simply copy the files you plan to modify to the
corresponding file names with a .ctm
suffix. Then you can freely hack the code, while CTM keeps the
.ctm file up-to-date.Other Interesting CTM OptionsFinding Out Exactly What Would Be Touched by an
UpdateYou can determine the list of changes that
CTM will make on your source
repository using the option to
CTM.This is useful if you would like to keep logs of the
changes, pre- or post- process the modified files in any
manner, or just are feeling a tad paranoid.Making Backups Before UpdatingSometimes you may want to backup all the files that would
be changed by a CTM update.Specifying the option
causes CTM to backup all files that
would be touched by a given CTM
delta to backup-file.Restricting the Files Touched by an UpdateSometimes you would be interested in restricting the scope
of a given CTM update, or may be
interested in extracting just a few files from a sequence of
deltas.You can control the list of files that
CTM would operate on by specifying
filtering regular expressions using the
and options.For example, to extract an up-to-date copy of
lib/libc/Makefile from your collection of
saved CTM deltas, run the commands:&prompt.root; cd /where/ever/you/want/to/extract/it/
&prompt.root; ctm -e '^lib/libc/Makefile' ~ctm/src-xxx.*For every file specified in a
CTM delta, the
and options are applied in the order given
on the command line. The file is processed by
CTM only if it is marked as
eligible after all the and
options are applied to it.Future Plans for CTMTons of them:Use some kind of authentication into the CTM system, so
as to allow detection of spoofed CTM updates.Clean up the options to CTM,
they became confusing and counter intuitive.Miscellaneous StuffThere is a sequence of deltas for the
ports collection too, but interest has not
been all that high yet.CTM MirrorsCTM/FreeBSD is available via anonymous
FTP from the following mirror sites. If you choose to obtain CTM via
anonymous FTP, please try to use a site near you.In case of problems, please contact &a.phk;.California, Bay Area, official sourceftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/development/CTM/South Africa, backup server for old deltasftp://ftp.za.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/CTM/Taiwan/R.O.C.ftp://ctm.tw.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/development/CTM/ftp://ctm2.tw.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/development/CTM/ftp://ctm3.tw.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/development/CTM/If you did not find a mirror near to you or the mirror is
incomplete, try to use a search engine such as
alltheweb.Using CVSupIntroductionCVSup is a software package for
distributing and updating source trees from a master CVS
repository on a remote server host. The FreeBSD sources are
maintained in a CVS repository on a central development machine
in California. With CVSup, FreeBSD
users can easily keep their own source trees up to date.CVSup uses the so-called
pull model of updating. Under the pull
model, each client asks the server for updates, if and when they
are wanted. The server waits passively for update requests from
its clients. Thus all updates are instigated by the client.
The server never sends unsolicited updates. Users must either
run the CVSup client manually to get
an update, or they must set up a cron job to
run it automatically on a regular basis.The term CVSup, capitalized just
so, refers to the entire software package. Its main components
are the client cvsup which runs on each
user's machine, and the server cvsupd which
runs at each of the FreeBSD mirror sites.As you read the FreeBSD documentation and mailing lists, you
may see references to sup.
Sup was the predecessor of
CVSup, and it served a similar
purpose. CVSup is used much in the
same way as sup and, in fact, uses configuration files which are
backward-compatible with sup's.
Sup is no longer used in the FreeBSD
project, because CVSup is both faster
and more flexible.InstallationThe easiest way to install CVSup
is to use the precompiled net/cvsup package
from the FreeBSD packages collection.
If you prefer to build CVSup from
source, you can use the net/cvsup
port instead. But be forewarned: the
net/cvsup port depends on the Modula-3
system, which takes a substantial amount of time and
disk space to download and build.If you are going to be using
CVSup on a machine which will not have
XFree86 installed, such as a server, be
sure to use the port which does not include the
CVSup GUI,
cvsup-without-gui.If you do not know anything about
CVSup at all and want a
single package which will install it, set up the configuration
file and start the transfer via a pointy-clicky type of
interface, then get the net/cvsupit
package. Just hand it to &man.pkg.add.1; and it will lead you
through the configuration process in a menu-oriented
fashion.CVSup ConfigurationCVSup's operation is controlled
by a configuration file called the supfile.
There are some sample supfiles in the
directory /usr/share/examples/cvsup/.The information in a supfile answers
the following questions for cvsup:Which files do you
want to receive?Which versions of them
do you want?Where do you want to
get them from?Where do you want to
put them on your own machine?Where do you want to
put your status files?In the following sections, we will construct a typical
supfile by answering each of these
questions in turn. First, we describe the overall structure of
a supfile.A supfile is a text file. Comments
begin with # and extend to the end of the
line. Lines that are blank and lines that contain only
comments are ignored.Each remaining line describes a set of files that the user
wishes to receive. The line begins with the name of a
collection, a logical grouping of files defined by
the server. The name of the collection tells the server which
files you want. After the collection name come zero or more
fields, separated by white space. These fields answer the
questions listed above. There are two types of fields: flag
fields and value fields. A flag field consists of a keyword
standing alone, e.g., delete or
compress. A value field also begins with a
keyword, but the keyword is followed without intervening white
space by = and a second word. For example,
release=cvs is a value field.A supfile typically specifies more than
one collection to receive. One way to structure a
supfile is to specify all of the relevant
fields explicitly for each collection. However, that tends to
make the supfile lines quite long, and it
is inconvenient because most fields are the same for all of the
collections in a supfile.
CVSup provides a defaulting mechanism
to avoid these problems. Lines beginning with the special
pseudo-collection name *default can be used
to set flags and values which will be used as defaults for the
subsequent collections in the supfile. A
default value can be overridden for an individual collection, by
specifying a different value with the collection itself.
Defaults can also be changed or augmented in mid-supfile by
additional *default lines.With this background, we will now proceed to construct a
supfile for receiving and updating the main
source tree of FreeBSD-CURRENT.Which files do you want
to receive?The files available via CVSup
are organized into named groups called
collections. The collections that are
available are described in the following section. In this
example, we
wish to receive the entire main source tree for the FreeBSD
system. There is a single large collection
src-all which will give us all of that.
As a first step toward constructing our
supfile, we
simply list the collections, one per line (in this case,
only one line):src-allWhich version(s) of them
do you want?With CVSup, you can receive
virtually any version of the sources that ever existed.
That is possible because the
cvsupd server works directly from
the CVS repository, which contains all of the versions. You
specify which one of them you want using the
tag= and value
fields.Be very careful to specify any tag=
fields correctly. Some tags are valid only for certain
collections of files. If you specify an incorrect or
misspelled tag, CVSup
will delete files which you probably
do not want deleted. In particular, use only
tag=. for the
ports-* collections.The tag= field names a symbolic tag
in the repository. There are two kinds of tags, revision
tags and branch tags. A revision tag refers to a specific
revision. Its meaning stays the same from day to day. A
branch tag, on the other hand, refers to the latest revision
on a given line of development, at any given time. Because
a branch tag does not refer to a specific revision, it may
mean something different tomorrow than it means
today. contains branch tags that
users might be interested in. When specifying a tag in
CVSup's configuration file, it
must be preceded with tag=
(RELENG_4 will become
tag=RELENG_4).
Keep in mind that only the tag=. is
relevant for the ports collection.Be very careful to type the tag name exactly as shown.
CVSup cannot distinguish
between valid and invalid tags. If you misspell the tag,
CVSup will behave as though you
had specified a valid tag which happens to refer to no
files at all. It will delete your existing sources in
that case.When you specify a branch tag, you normally receive the
latest versions of the files on that line of development.
If you wish to receive some past version, you can do so by
specifying a date with the value
field. The &man.cvsup.1; manual page explains how to do
that.For our example, we wish to receive FreeBSD-CURRENT. We
add this line at the beginning of our
supfile:*default tag=.There is an important special case that comes into play
if you specify neither a tag= field nor a
date= field. In that case, you receive
the actual RCS files directly from the server's CVS
repository, rather than receiving a particular version.
Developers generally prefer this mode of operation. By
maintaining a copy of the repository itself on their
systems, they gain the ability to browse the revision
histories and examine past versions of files. This gain is
achieved at a large cost in terms of disk space,
however.Where do you want to get
them from?We use the host= field to tell
cvsup where to obtain its updates. Any
of the CVSup mirror
sites will do, though you should try to select one
that is close to you in cyberspace. In this example we will
use a fictional FreeBSD distribution site,
cvsup666.FreeBSD.org:*default host=cvsup666.FreeBSD.orgYou will need to change the host to one that actually
exists before running CVSup.
On any particular run of
cvsup, you can override the host setting
on the command line, with .Where do you want to put
them on your own machine?The prefix= field tells
cvsup where to put the files it receives.
In this example, we will put the source files directly into
our main source tree, /usr/src. The
src directory is already implicit in
the collections we have chosen to receive, so this is the
correct specification:*default prefix=/usrWhere should
cvsup maintain its status files?The CVSup client maintains
certain status files in what
is called the base directory. These files
help CVSup to work more
efficiently, by keeping track of which updates you have
already received. We will use the standard base directory,
/usr/local/etc/cvsup:*default base=/usr/local/etc/cvsupThis setting is used by default if it is not specified
in the supfile, so we actually do not
need the above line.If your base directory does not already exist, now would
be a good time to create it. The cvsup
client will refuse to run if the base directory does not
exist.Miscellaneous supfile
settings:There is one more line of boiler plate that normally
needs to be present in the
supfile:*default release=cvs delete use-rel-suffix compressrelease=cvs indicates that the server
should get its information out of the main FreeBSD CVS
repository. This is virtually always the case, but there
are other possibilities which are beyond the scope of this
discussion.delete gives
CVSup permission to delete files.
You should always specify this, so that
CVSup can keep your source tree
fully up-to-date. CVSup is
careful to delete only those files for which it is
responsible. Any extra files you happen to have will be
left strictly alone.use-rel-suffix is ... arcane. If you
really want to know about it, see the &man.cvsup.1; manual
page. Otherwise, just specify it and do not worry about
it.compress enables the use of
gzip-style compression on the communication channel. If
your network link is T1 speed or faster, you probably should
not use compression. Otherwise, it helps
substantially.Putting it all together:Here is the entire supfile for our
example:*default tag=.
*default host=cvsup666.FreeBSD.org
*default prefix=/usr
*default base=/usr/local/etc/cvsup
*default release=cvs delete use-rel-suffix compress
src-allThe refuse FileAs mentioned above, CVSup uses
a pull method. Basically, this means that
you connect to the CVSup server, and
it says, Here is what you can download from
me..., and your client responds OK, I will take
this, this, this, and this. In the default
configuration, the CVSup client will
take every file associated with the collection and tag you
chose in the configuration file. However, this is not always
what you want, especially if you are synching the doc, ports, or
www trees — most people cannot read four or five
languages, and therefore they do not need to download the
language-specific files. If you are
CVSuping the ports collection, you
can get around this by specifying each collection individually
(e.g., ports-astrology,
ports-biology, etc instead of simply
saying ports-all). However, since the doc
and www trees do not have language-specific collections, you
must use one of CVSup's many nifty
features; the refuse file.The refuse file essentially tells
CVSup that it should not take every
single file from a collection; in other words, it tells the
client to refuse certain files from the
server. The refuse file can be found (or, if you do not yet
have one, should be placed) in
base/sup/refuse.
base is defined in your supfile; by
default, base is
/usr/local/etc/cvsup,
which means that by default the refuse file is in
/usr/local/etc/cvsup/sup/refuse.The refuse file has a very simple format; it simply
contains the names of files or directories that you do not wish
to download. For example, if you cannot speak any languages other
than English and some German, and you do not feel the need to use
the German applications (or applications for any other
languages, except for English), you can put the following in your
refuse file:ports/chinese
ports/french
ports/german
ports/hebrew
ports/japanese
ports/hungarian
ports/korean
ports/portuguese
ports/russian
ports/ukrainian
ports/vietnamese
doc/de_DE.ISO8859-1
doc/el_GR.ISO8859-7
doc/es_ES.ISO8859-1
doc/fr_FR.ISO8859-1
doc/it_IT.ISO8859-15
doc/ja_JP.eucJP
doc/nl_NL.ISO8859-1
doc/pt_BR.ISO8859-1
doc/ru_RU.KOI8-R
doc/sr_YU.ISO8859-2
doc/zh_TW.Big5and so forth for the other languages (you can find the
full list by browsing the FreeBSD
FTP server). Note that the name
of the repository is the first directory in the
refuse file.With this very useful feature, those users who are on
slow links or pay by the minute for their Internet connection
will be able to save valuable time as they will no longer need
to download files that they will never use. For more
information on refuse files and other neat
features of CVSup, please view its
manual page.Running CVSupYou are now ready to try an update. The command line for
doing this is quite simple:&prompt.root; cvsup supfilewhere supfile
is of course the name of the supfile you have just created.
Assuming you are running under X11, cvsup
will display a GUI window with some buttons to do the usual
things. Press the go button, and watch it
run.Since you are updating your actual
/usr/src tree in this example, you will
need to run the program as root so that
cvsup has the permissions it needs to update
your files. Having just created your configuration file, and
having never used this program before, that might
understandably make you nervous. There is an easy way to do a
trial run without touching your precious files. Just create an
empty directory somewhere convenient, and name it as an extra
argument on the command line:&prompt.root; mkdir /var/tmp/dest
&prompt.root; cvsup supfile /var/tmp/destThe directory you specify will be used as the destination
directory for all file updates.
CVSup will examine your usual files
in /usr/src, but it will not modify or
delete any of them. Any file updates will instead land in
/var/tmp/dest/usr/src.
CVSup will also leave its base
directory status files untouched when run this way. The new
versions of those files will be written into the specified
directory. As long as you have read access to
/usr/src, you do not even need to be
root to perform this kind of trial run.If you are not running X11 or if you just do not like GUIs,
you should add a couple of options to the command line when you
run cvsup:&prompt.root; cvsup -g -L 2 supfileThe tells
CVSup not to use its GUI. This is
automatic if you are not running X11, but otherwise you have to
specify it.The tells
CVSup to print out the
details of all the file updates it is doing. There are three
levels of verbosity, from to
. The default is 0, which means total
silence except for error messages.There are plenty of other options available. For a brief
list of them, type cvsup -H. For more
detailed descriptions, see the manual page.Once you are satisfied with the way updates are working, you
can arrange for regular runs of CVSup
using &man.cron.8;.
Obviously, you should not let CVSup
use its GUI when running it from &man.cron.8;.CVSup File CollectionsThe file collections available via
CVSup are organized hierarchically.
There are a few large collections, and they are divided into
smaller sub-collections. Receiving a large collection is
equivalent to receiving each of its sub-collections. The
hierarchical relationships among collections are reflected by
the use of indentation in the list below.The most commonly used collections are
src-all, and
ports-all. The other collections are used
only by small groups of people for specialized purposes, and
some mirror sites may not carry all of them.cvs-all release=cvsThe main FreeBSD CVS repository, including the
cryptography code.distrib release=cvsFiles related to the distribution and mirroring
of FreeBSD.doc-all release=cvsSources for the FreeBSD Handbook and other
documentation. This does not include files for
the FreeBSD web site.ports-all release=cvsThe FreeBSD Ports Collection.
+
+ If you do not want to update the whole of
+ ports-all (the whole ports tree),
+ but use one of the subcollections listed below,
+ make sure that you always update
+ the ports-base subcollection!
+ Whenever something changes in the ports build
+ infrastructure represented by
+ ports-base, it is virtually certain
+ that those changes will be used by real
+ ports real soon. Thus, if you only update the
+ real ports and they use some of the new
+ features, there is a very high chance that their build
+ will fail with some mysterious error message. The
+ very first thing to do in this
+ case is to make sure that your
+ ports-base subcollection is up to
+ date.
+
+
ports-archivers
release=cvsArchiving tools.ports-astro
release=cvsAstronomical ports.ports-audio
release=cvsSound support.ports-base
release=cvs
- Miscellaneous files at the top of
- /usr/ports.
+ The Ports Collection build infrastructure -
+ various files located in the
+ Mk/ and
+ Tools/ subdirectories of
+ /usr/ports.
+
+
+ Please see the important
+ warning above: you should
+ always update this
+ subcollection, whenever you update any part of
+ the FreeBSD Ports Collection!
+ ports-benchmarks
release=cvsBenchmarks.ports-biology
release=cvsBiology.ports-cad
release=cvsComputer aided design tools.ports-chinese
release=cvsChinese language support.ports-comms
release=cvsCommunication software.ports-converters
release=cvscharacter code converters.ports-databases
release=cvsDatabases.ports-deskutils
release=cvsThings that used to be on the desktop
before computers were invented.ports-devel
release=cvsDevelopment utilities.ports-editors
release=cvsEditors.ports-emulators
release=cvsEmulators for other operating
systems.ports-finance
release=cvsMonetary, financial and related applications.ports-ftp
release=cvsFTP client and server utilities.ports-games
release=cvsGames.ports-german
release=cvsGerman language support.ports-graphics
release=cvsGraphics utilities.ports-hungarian
release=cvsHungarian language support.ports-irc
release=cvsInternet Relay Chat utilities.ports-japanese
release=cvsJapanese language support.ports-java
release=cvsJava utilities.ports-korean
release=cvsKorean language support.ports-lang
release=cvsProgramming languages.ports-mail
release=cvsMail software.ports-math
release=cvsNumerical computation software.ports-mbone
release=cvsMBone applications.ports-misc
release=cvsMiscellaneous utilities.ports-multimedia
release=cvsMultimedia software.ports-net
release=cvsNetworking software.ports-news
release=cvsUSENET news software.ports-palm
release=cvsSoftware support for Palm
series.ports-portuguese
release=cvsPortuguese language support.ports-print
release=cvsPrinting software.ports-russian
release=cvsRussian language support.ports-security
release=cvsSecurity utilities.ports-shells
release=cvsCommand line shells.ports-sysutils
release=cvsSystem utilities.ports-textproc
release=cvstext processing utilities (does not
include desktop publishing).ports-vietnamese
release=cvsVietnamese language support.ports-www
release=cvsSoftware related to the World Wide
Web.ports-x11
release=cvsPorts to support the X window
system.ports-x11-clocks
release=cvsX11 clocks.ports-x11-fm
release=cvsX11 file managers.ports-x11-fonts
release=cvsX11 fonts and font utilities.ports-x11-toolkits
release=cvsX11 toolkits.ports-x11-serversX11 servers.ports-x11-wmX11 window managers.src-all release=cvsThe main FreeBSD sources, including the
cryptography code.src-base
release=cvsMiscellaneous files at the top of
/usr/src.src-bin
release=cvsUser utilities that may be needed in
single-user mode
(/usr/src/bin).src-contrib
release=cvsUtilities and libraries from outside the
FreeBSD project, used relatively unmodified
(/usr/src/contrib).src-crypto release=cvsCryptography utilities and libraries from
outside the FreeBSD project, used relatively
unmodified
(/usr/src/crypto).src-eBones release=cvsKerberos and DES
(/usr/src/eBones). Not
used in current releases of FreeBSD.src-etc
release=cvsSystem configuration files
(/usr/src/etc).src-games
release=cvsGames
(/usr/src/games).src-gnu
release=cvsUtilities covered by the GNU Public
License (/usr/src/gnu).src-include
release=cvsHeader files
(/usr/src/include).src-kerberos5
release=cvsKerberos5 security package
(/usr/src/kerberos5).src-kerberosIV
release=cvsKerberosIV security package
(/usr/src/kerberosIV).src-lib
release=cvsLibraries
(/usr/src/lib).src-libexec
release=cvsSystem programs normally executed by other
programs
(/usr/src/libexec).src-release
release=cvsFiles required to produce a FreeBSD
release
(/usr/src/release).src-sbin release=cvsSystem utilities for single-user mode
(/usr/src/sbin).src-secure
release=cvsCryptographic libraries and commands
(/usr/src/secure).src-share
release=cvsFiles that can be shared across multiple
systems
(/usr/src/share).src-sys
release=cvsThe kernel
(/usr/src/sys).src-sys-crypto
release=cvsKernel cryptography code
(/usr/src/sys/crypto).src-tools
release=cvsVarious tools for the maintenance of
FreeBSD
(/usr/src/tools).src-usrbin
release=cvsUser utilities
(/usr/src/usr.bin).src-usrsbin
release=cvsSystem utilities
(/usr/src/usr.sbin).www release=cvsThe sources for the FreeBSD WWW site.distrib release=selfThe CVSup server's own
configuration files. Used by CVSup
mirror sites.gnats release=currentThe GNATS bug-tracking database.mail-archive release=currentFreeBSD mailing list archive.www release=currentThe pre-processed FreeBSD WWW site files (not the
source files). Used by WWW mirror sites.For More InformationFor the CVSup FAQ and other
information about CVSup, see
The
CVSup Home Page.Most FreeBSD-related discussion of
CVSup takes place on the
&a.hackers;. New versions of the software are announced there,
as well as on the &a.announce;.Questions and bug reports should be addressed to the author
of the program at cvsup-bugs@polstra.com.CVSup SitesCVSup servers for FreeBSD are running
at the following sites:Argentinacvsup.ar.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
msagre@cactus.fi.uba.ar)Australiacvsup.au.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@ntt.net.au)cvsup2.au.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@isp.net.au)cvsup3.au.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@speednet.com.au)cvsup4.au.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@ideal.net.au)cvsup5.au.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@netlead.com.au)Austriacvsup.at.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
postmaster@wu-wien.ac.at)cvsup2.at.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
ftp-admin.zid@univie.ac.at)Brazilcvsup.br.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@cvsup.br.FreeBSD.org)cvsup2.br.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
tps@ti.sk)cvsup3.br.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
camposr@matrix.com.br)cvsup4.br.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@tcoip.com.br)cvsup5.br.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
hostmaster@br.FreeBSD.org)Bulgariacvsup.bg.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
hostmaster@bg.FreeBSD.org)Canadacvsup.ca.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@ca.FreeBSD.org)Chinacvsup.cn.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
phj@cn.FreeBSD.org)Czech Republiccvsup.cz.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cejkar@fit.vutbr.cz)Denmarkcvsup.dk.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
jesper@FreeBSD.org)Estoniacvsup.ee.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
taavi@uninet.ee)Finlandcvsup.fi.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
count@key.sms.fi)cvsup2.fi.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
count@key.sms.fi)Francecvsup.fr.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
hostmaster@fr.FreeBSD.org)cvsup2.fr.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
ftpmaint@uvsq.fr)cvsup3.fr.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
ftpmaint@enst.fr)cvsup4.fr.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
ftpmaster@t-online.fr)cvsup5.fr.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
freebsdcvsup@teaser.net)cvsup8.fr.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
ftpmaint@crc.u-strasbg.fr)Germanycvsup.de.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@cosmo-project.de)cvsup2.de.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@apfel.de)cvsup3.de.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
ag@leo.org)cvsup4.de.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@cosmo-project.de)cvsup5.de.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
&a.rse;)cvsup6.de.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
adminmail@heitec.net)cvsup7.de.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
karsten@rohrbach.de)Greececvsup.gr.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
ftpadm@duth.gr)cvsup2.gr.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
paschos@cs.uoi.gr)Hungarycvsup.hu.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
janos.mohacsi@bsd.hu)Icelandcvsup.is.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
hostmaster@is.FreeBSD.org)Irelandcvsup.ie.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
dwmalone@maths.tcd.ie),
Trinity College, Dublin.Japancvsup.jp.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsupadm@jp.FreeBSD.org)cvsup2.jp.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
&a.max;)cvsup3.jp.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
shige@cin.nihon-u.ac.jp)cvsup4.jp.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup-admin@ftp.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp)cvsup5.jp.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@imasy.or.jp)cvsup6.jp.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsupadm@jp.FreeBSD.org)Koreacvsup.kr.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cjh@kr.FreeBSD.org)cvsup2.kr.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
holywar@mail.holywar.net)cvsup3.kr.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
hostmaster@cvsup3.kr.FreeBSD.org)Latviacvsup.lv.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
system@soft.lv)Lithuaniacvsup.lt.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
domas.mituzas@delfi.lt)cvsup2.lt.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
vaidas.damosevicius@if.lt)New Zealandcvsup.nz.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@langille.org)Netherlandscvsup.nl.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
xaa@xaa.iae.nl)cvsup2.nl.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@nl.uu.net)cvsup3.nl.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@vuurwerk.nl)cvsup4.nl.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
hostmaster@cvsup4.nl.FreeBSD.org)Norwaycvsup.no.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
Per.Hove@math.ntnu.no)Polandcvsup.pl.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
Mariusz@kam.pl)cvsup2.pl.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
hostmaster@cvsup2.pl.FreeBSD.org)cvsup3.pl.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
hostmaster@cvsup3.pl.FreeBSD.org)Portugalcvsup.pt.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
jpedras@webvolution.net)Romaniacvsup.ro.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
razor@ldc.ro)cvsup2.ro.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
hostmaster@rofug.ro)cvsup3.ro.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
veedee@c7.campus.utcluj.ro)Russiacvsup.ru.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
ache@nagual.pp.ru)cvsup2.ru.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
dv@dv.ru)cvsup3.ru.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
fjoe@iclub.nsu.ru)cvsup4.ru.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
zhecka@klondike.ru)cvsup5.ru.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
maxim@macomnet.ru)cvsup6.ru.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
pvr@corbina.net)San Marinocvsup.sm.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
sysadmin@alexdupre.com)Singaporecvsup.sg.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
mirror-maintainer@mirror.averse.net)Slovak Republiccvsup.sk.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
scorp@scorp.sk)cvsup2.sk.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
scorp@scorp.sk)Sloveniacvsup.si.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
blaz@si.FreeBSD.org)cvsup2.si.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cuk@cuk.nu)South Africacvsup.za.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
&a.markm;)cvsup2.za.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
&a.markm;)Spaincvsup.es.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
&a.jesusr;)cvsup2.es.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
&a.jesusr;)cvsup3.es.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
jose@we.lc.ehu.es)Swedencvsup.se.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
pantzer@ludd.luth.se)cvsup2.se.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@dataphone.net)Taiwancvsup.tw.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
ijliao@FreeBSD.org)cvsup3.tw.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
foxfair@FreeBSD.org)cvsup4.tw.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
einstein@NHCTC.edu.tw)cvsup5.tw.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
einstein@NHCTC.edu.tw)cvsup6.tw.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
jason@tw.FreeBSD.org)cvsup7.tw.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@abpe.org)cvsup8.tw.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
heboy@FreeBSD.tku.edu.tw)cvsup9.tw.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cs871256@csie.ncu.edu.tw)cvsup10.tw.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
rafan@infor.org)cvsup11.tw.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
vanilla@FreeBSD.org)cvsup12.tw.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
GEO.bbs@birdnest.twbbs.org)cvsup13.tw.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cdsheen@tw.FreeBSD.org)Turkeycvsup.tr.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
roots@enderunix.org)Ukrainecvsup2.ua.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
freebsd-mnt@lucky.net)cvsup3.ua.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
ftpmaster@ukr.net), Kievcvsup4.ua.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
phantom@cris.net)cvsup5.ua.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
never@nevermind.kiev.ua)cvsup6.ua.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
freebsd-cvs@colocall.net)cvsup7.ua.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
never@nevermind.kiev.ua)United Kingdomcvsup.uk.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
ftp-admin@plig.net)cvsup2.uk.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
&a.brian;)cvsup3.uk.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
ben.hughes@uk.easynet.net)cvsup4.uk.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
ejb@leguin.org.uk)cvsup5.uk.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
mirror@teleglobe.net)USAcvsup1.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cwt@networks.cwu.edu), Washington
statecvsup2.FreeBSD.org (maintainers
djs@secure.net and &a.nectar;), Virginiacvsup3.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
&a.wollman;), Massachusettscvsup5.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
mjr@blackened.com), Arizonacvsup6.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@cvsup.adelphiacom.net), Illinoiscvsup7.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
&a.jdp;), Washington statecvsup8.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
hostmaster@bigmirror.com), Washington
statecvsup9.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
&a.jdp;), Minnesotacvsup10.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
&a.jdp;), Californiacvsup11.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@research.uu.net), Virginiacvsup12.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
&a.will;), Indianacvsup13.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
dima@valueclick.com), Californiacvsup14.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
freebsd-cvsup@mfnx.net), Californiacvsup15.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@math.uic.edu), Illinoiscvsup16.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
pth3k@virginia.edu), Virginiacvsup17.FreeBSD.org (maintainer
cvsup@mirrortree.com), Washington stateCVS TagsWhen obtaining or updating sources from
cvs and
CVSup a revision tag (reference to a
date in time) must be specified. The following tags are
available, each specifying different branches of FreeBSD at
different points of time:The ports tree does not have any tag associated with it,
it is always CURRENT.The most common tags are:HEADSymbolic name for the main line, or FreeBSD-CURRENT.
Also the default when no revision is specified.In CVSup, this tag is represented
by a . (not punctuation, but a literal
. character).In CVS, this is the default when no revision tag is
specified. It is usually not
a good idea to checkout or update to CURRENT sources
on a STABLE machine, unless that is your intent.RELENG_5_0The release branch for FreeBSD-5.0, used only
for security advisories and other seriously critical fixes.RELENG_4The line of development for FreeBSD-4.X, also known
as FreeBSD-STABLE.RELENG_4_7The release branch for FreeBSD-4.7, used only
for security advisories and other seriously critical fixes.RELENG_4_6The release branch for FreeBSD-4.6 and FreeBSD-4.6.2,
used only for security advisories and other seriously
critical fixes.RELENG_4_5The release branch for FreeBSD-4.5, used only
for security advisories and other seriously critical fixes.RELENG_4_4The release branch for FreeBSD-4.4, used only
for security advisories and other seriously critical fixes.RELENG_4_3The release branch for FreeBSD-4.3, used only
for security advisories and other seriously critical fixes.RELENG_3The line of development for FreeBSD-3.X, also known
as 3.X-STABLE.RELENG_2_2The line of development for FreeBSD-2.2.X, also known
as 2.2-STABLE. This branch is mostly obsolete.Other revision tags that are available include:RELENG_4_7_0_RELEASEFreeBSD 4.7RELENG_4_6_2_RELEASEFreeBSD 4.6.2RELENG_4_6_1_RELEASEFreeBSD 4.6.1RELENG_4_6_0_RELEASEFreeBSD 4.6RELENG_4_5_0_RELEASEFreeBSD 4.5.RELENG_4_4_0_RELEASEFreeBSD 4.4.RELENG_4_3_0_RELEASEFreeBSD 4.3.RELENG_4_2_0_RELEASEFreeBSD 4.2.RELENG_4_1_1_RELEASEFreeBSD 4.1.1.RELENG_4_1_0_RELEASEFreeBSD 4.1.RELENG_4_0_0_RELEASEFreeBSD 4.0.RELENG_3_5_0_RELEASEFreeBSD-3.5.RELENG_3_4_0_RELEASEFreeBSD-3.4.RELENG_3_3_0_RELEASEFreeBSD-3.3.RELENG_3_2_0_RELEASEFreeBSD-3.2.RELENG_3_1_0_RELEASEFreeBSD-3.1.RELENG_3_0_0_RELEASEFreeBSD-3.0.RELENG_2_2_8_RELEASEFreeBSD-2.2.8.RELENG_2_2_7_RELEASEFreeBSD-2.2.7.RELENG_2_2_6_RELEASEFreeBSD-2.2.6.RELENG_2_2_5_RELEASEFreeBSD-2.2.5.RELENG_2_2_2_RELEASEFreeBSD-2.2.2.RELENG_2_2_1_RELEASEFreeBSD-2.2.1.RELENG_2_2_0_RELEASEFreeBSD-2.2.0.AFS SitesAFS servers for FreeBSD are running at the following sites:SwedenThe path to the files are:
/afs/stacken.kth.se/ftp/pub/FreeBSD/stacken.kth.se # Stacken Computer Club, KTH, Sweden
130.237.234.43 #hot.stacken.kth.se
130.237.237.230 #fishburger.stacken.kth.se
130.237.234.3 #milko.stacken.kth.seMaintainer ftp@stacken.kth.sersync sitesThe following sites make FreeBSD available through the rsync
protocol. The rsync utility works in
much the same way as the rcp command,
but has more options and uses the rsync remote-update protocol
which transfers only the differences between two sets of files,
thus greatly speeding up the synchronization over the network.
This is most useful if you are a mirror site for the
FreeBSD FTP server, or the CVS repository. The
rsync suite is available for many
operating systems, on FreeBSD, see the
net/rsync
port or use the package.Czech Republicrsync://ftp.cz.FreeBSD.org/Available collections:ftp: A partial mirror of the FreeBSD FTP
server.FreeBSD: A full mirror of the FreeBSD FTP
server.Germanyrsync://grappa.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/Available collections:freebsd-cvs: The full FreeBSD CVS
repository.This machine also mirrors the CVS repositories of the
NetBSD and the OpenBSD projects, among others.Netherlandsrsync://ftp.nl.FreeBSD.org/Available collections:vol/3/freebsd-core: A full mirror of the
FreeBSD FTP server.United States of Americarsync://ftp-master.FreeBSD.org/This server may only be used by FreeBSD primary mirror
sites.Available collections:FreeBSD: The master archive of the FreeBSD
FTP server.acl: The FreeBSD master ACL
list.rsync://ftp13.FreeBSD.org/Available collections:FreeBSD: A full mirror of the FreeBSD FTP
server.