diff --git a/FAQ/network.sgml b/FAQ/network.sgml
index dd1ef82bad..867d181d29 100644
--- a/FAQ/network.sgml
+++ b/FAQ/network.sgml
@@ -1,1274 +1,1274 @@
-
+
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
Can a FreeBSD box be used as a dedicated network router?
Internet standards and good engineering practice prohibit us from
providing packet forwarding by default in FreeBSD. You can
however enable this feature by changing the following variable to
:
gateway_enable=YES # Set to YES if this host will be a gateway
This option will put the variable
In most cases, you will also need to run a routing process to
tell other systems on your network about your router; FreeBSD
comes with the standard BSD routing daemon
, or for more complex situations you may want to try
It is our duty to warn you that, even when FreeBSD is configured
in this way, it does not completely comply with the Internet
standard requirements for routers; however, it comes close enough
for ordinary usage.
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.
There's a useful document available which explains how to set
FreeBSD up as a
and
on your FreeBSD box.
See also the section on .
Why does recompiling the latest BIND from ISC fail?
There is a conflict between the ``compat/include/sys/cdefs.h.
Does FreeBSD support SLIP and PPP?
Yes. See the man pages for
, ,
and
.
deals exclusively with incoming connections and
deals exclusively with outgoing connections.
These programs are described in the following sections of the
- :
+ :
If you only have access to the Internet through a "shell
account", you may want to have a look at the
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
program. The program has similar functionality built in via
the
is used in both cases.
I can't make ppp work. What am I doing wrong ?
You should first read the and
the . Enable logging with the command
set log Phase Chat Connect Carrier lcp ipcp ccp command
This command may be typed at the /etc/ppp/ppp.conf
configuration file
(the start of the default section is the best place to put it).
Make sure that contains the lines
!ppp
*.* /var/log/ppp.log
and that the file /var/log/ppp.log exists. You can
now find out a lot about what's going on from the log file.
Don't worry if it doesn't all make sense. If you need to
get help from someone, it may make sense to them.
If your version of ppp doesn't understand the "set log"
command, you should download the
.
It will build on FreeBSD version 2.1.5 and higher.
Ppp just hangs when I run it
This is usually because your hostname won't resolve. The best
way to fix this is to make sure that /etc/hosts is
consoluted 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.bar.com foo localhost
Otherwise, simply add another entry for your host. Consult the
relevant man pages for more details.
You should be able to successfully ping -c1 `hostname`
when you're done.
Ppp won't dial in -auto mode
First, check that you've got a default route. By running
name="netstat -rn">, 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 tun0
This is assuming that you've used the addresses from the
handbook, the man page or from the ppp.conf.sample file.
If you haven't got a default route, it may be because you're
running an old version of that doesn't understand the
word
add 0 0 HISADDR
line to one saying
add 0 0 10.0.0.2
Another reason for the default route line being missing is that
you have mistakenly set up a default router in your
file (this file was called
/etc/sysconfig prior to release 2.2.2), and you have
omitted the line saying
delete ALL
from ppp.conf. If this is the case, go back to the
section of the handbook.
What does "No route to host" mean
This error is usually due to a missing
MYADDR:
delete ALL
add 0 0 HISADDR
section in your /etc/ppp/ppp.linkup file. This is
only necessary if you have a dynamic IP address or don't know the
address of your gateway. If you're using interactive mode, you can
type the following after entering
delete ALL
add 0 0 HISADDR
Refer to the section of the handbook
for further details.
My connection drops after about 3 minutes
The default ppp timeout is 3 minutes. This can be adjusted
with the line
set timeout NNN
where 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
or . Refer to the
man
page for further details.
My connection drops 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 line
disable lqr
My connection drops 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's 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.
My connection hangs after a random amount of time
Many people experience hung connections with no apparent
explaination. 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
Having established whether the problem is local or remote,
you now have to possibilities:
The remote end isn't responding
There's very little you can do about this. Most ISPs will
refuse to help if you're not running a Microsoft OS. You can
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 vj
Then 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 amunition when you contact
your ISP (although it may make it apparent that you're 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 , or even to ask your ISP to
contact me directly.
Ppp is hung
Your best bet here is to rebuild ppp by adding Send the results to .
Nothing happens after the Login OK! message
Prior to FreeBSD version 2.2.5, once the link was established,
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
set openmode active
I keep seeing errors about magic being the same
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'll see repeated configure
requests and configure acknowledgements in the log file until
ppp 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 ppp from a
login script or program after login. I've also heard reports
of it happening consistently when using slirp. The reason is
that in the time taken between getty exiting and ppp starting, the
client-side ppp starts sending Line Control Protocol (LCP)
packets. Because ECHO is still switched on for the port on
the server, the client ppp 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 ppp sends LCP packets,
sees the same magic in the reflected packet and NAKs it. It
also sees the NAK reflect (which also means ppp 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 ppp starts on the server,
it's flooded with magic number changes and almost immediately
decides it's 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 passive
This tells ppp 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 3
This tells ppp to be passive for 3 seconds, and then to start
sending LCP requests. If the peer starts sending requests during
this period, ppp will immediately respond rather than waiting for
the full 3 second period.
LCP negotiations continue 'till the connection is closed
There is currently an implementation mis-feature in This goes on 'till one side figures out that they're getting
nowhere and gives up.
The best way to avoid this is to configure one side to be
set openmode passive
command. Care should be taken with this option. You should also
use the
set stopped N
command to limit the amount of time that
set openmode active N
command (where Ppp locks up shortly after connecting
Prior to version 2.2.5 of FreeBSD, it was possible that your
link was disabled shortly after connection due to
disable pred1
Ppp locks up when I shell out to test it
When you execute the If you wish to execute commands like this, use the
Ppp over a null-modem cable never exits
There is no way for
enable lqr
LQR is accepted by default if negotiated by the peer.
Why does ppp dial for no reason in -auto mode
If To determine the cause, use the following line:
set log +tcp/ip
This 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
set dfilter 1 deny udp src eq 53
set dfilter 2 deny udp dst eq 53
set dfilter 3 permit 0/0 0/0
This 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,
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 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
define(`confDELIVERY_MODE', `d')dnl
This will make sendmail queue everything until the queue is
run (usually, sendmail is invoked with ``-bd -q30m'', 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 ppp 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 pred1
Ppp locks 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 MRU 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 doesn't ppp log my connection speed?
In order to log all lines of your modem ``conversation'',
you must enable the following:
set log +connect
This will make
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 don't have anything to "chat" after the CONNECT
in the dial script - no "set login" script), you must make sure that
you instruct ppp 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 Ppp ignores the `\' character in my chat script
Ppp parses each line in your config files so that it can
interpret strings such as 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 man 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'd need something like:
set dial "\"\" ATZ OK-ATZ-OK AT\\\\X OK"
resulting in the following sequence:
ATZ
OK
AT\X
OK
or
set phone 1234567
set dial "\"\" ATZ OK ATDT\\T"
resulting in the following sequence:
ATZ
OK
ATDT1234567
Ppp gets a seg-fault, but I see no
Ppp (or any other program for that matter) should never
dump core. Because ppp runs with an effective user id of 0,
the operating system will not write ppps core image to disk
before terminating it. If, however ppp
$ tar xfz ppp-*.src.tar.gz
$ cd ppp*/ppp
$ echo STRIP= >>Makefile
$ echo CFLAGS+=-g >>Makefile
$ make clean all
$ su
# make install
# chmod 555 /usr/sbin/ppp
You will now have a debuggable version of ppp installed. You
will have to be root to run ppp as all of its privileges have
been revoked. When you start ppp, take a careful note of what
your current directory was at the time.
Now, if and when ppp receives the segmentation violation, it
will dump a core file called ppp.core. You should then do the
following:
$ su
# 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're 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.
The process that forces a dial in auto mode never connects
This was a known problem with The problem was that when that initial program calls
, 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. 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 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
and ppp's Another alternative (and probably the most reliable) would be
to implement a system call that changes all bound sockets from one
IP to another. 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 Why don't most games work with the -alias switch
The reason games and the like don't 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 packet alias software doesn't 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're having problems with, then either
run tcpdump on the tun interface of the gateway or enable ppp
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'll be dropped (that's 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:
alias port proto internalmachine:port port
where ``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 won't 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 aren't consistent, there are three more
options:
1) 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.
2) 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.
3) Redirect everything to the internal machine using
``alias 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).
Quake
Quake is reported to use UDP port 6112, so a line saying
alias port udp hostmachine:6112 6112 where
hostmachine is the quake server IP should do the job.
Alternatively, you may want to take a look at
for Quake proxy support.
What are FCS errors ?
FCS stands for 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've 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 ppp to escape
the ^Q and ^S characters.
Another reason for seeing too many FCS errors may be that
the remote end has stopped talking 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.
None of this helps - I'm desperate !
If all else fails, send as much information as you can,
including your config files, how you're starting command (before and after connecting) to the
mailing list or the
news group, and someone
should point you in the right direction.
I can't create a /dev/ed0 device!
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 setup Ethernet aliases?
Add ``
command-line like the following:
ifconfig ed0 alias 204.141.95.2 netmask 0xffffffff
How do I get my 3C503 to use the other network port?
If you want to use the other ports, you'll have to specify an
additional parameter on the
command line. The
default port is ``.
I'm having problems with NFS to/from 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
for more information on this topic.
Why can't I NFS-mount from a Linux box?
Some versions of the Linux NFS code only accept mount requests
from a privileged port; try
mount -o -P linuxbox:/blah /mnt
Why can't I NFS-mount from a Sun box?
Sun workstations running SunOS 4.X only accept mount requests
from a privileged port; try
mount -o -P sunbox:/blah /mnt
I'm having problems talking PPP to NeXTStep machines.
Try disabling the TCP extensions in by
changing the following variable to NO:
tcp_extensions=NO
Xylogic'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 /etc/rc.conf.
MBONE tools are available in their own ports category, mbone. If
you are looking for the conference tools For more information, see the
.
Which network cards are based on the DEC PCI chipset?
Here is a list compiled by , with some more modern additions:
Vendor Model
----------------------------------------------
ASUS PCI-L101-TB
Accton ENI1203
Cogent EM960PCI
Compex ENET32-PCI
D-Link DE-530
Dayna DP1203, DP2100
DEC DE435
Danpex EN-9400P3
JCIS Condor JC1260
Linksys EtherPCI
Mylex LNP101
SMC EtherPower 10/100 (Model 9332)
SMC EtherPower (Model 8432)
TopWare TE-3500P
Zynx ZX342
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.bar.edu and you wish to reach
a host called ``mumble'' in the bar.edu domain, you will have to
refer to it by the fully-qualified domain name, ``mumble.bar.edu'',
instead of just ``mumble''.
Traditionally, this was allowed by BSD BIND resolvers. However
the current version of 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.bar.edu, or it will be searched for
in the root domain.
This is different from the previous behavior, where the
search continued across mumble.bar.edu, 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 line
search foo.bar.edu bar.edu
instead of the previous
domain foo.bar.edu
into your file. However, make sure that the search order
does not go beyond the ``boundary between local and public
administration'', as RFC 1535 calls it.
``Permission denied'' for all networking operations.
If you have compiled your kernel with the If you had unintentionally misconfigured your system for
firewalling, you can restore network operability by typing
the following while logged in as root:
ipfw add 65534 allow all from any to any
You can also set "firewall_type='open'" in /etc/rc.conf.
For further information on configuring a FreeBSD firewall,
see the .
How much overhead does IPFW incur?
The answer to this depends mostly on your rule set and processor
speed. For most applications dealing with ethernet and small
rule sets, the answer is, negligible. For those of you that need
actual measurements to satisfy your curiosity, read on.
The following measurements were made using 2.2.5-STABLE on
a 486-66. IPFW was modified to measure the time spent within
the Two rule sets, each with 1000 rules were tested. The first set
was designed to demonstrate a worst case scenario by repeating the
rule:
ipfw add deny tcp from any to any 55555
This demonstrates worst case by causing most of IPFW's packet
check routine to be executed before finally deciding that the
packet does not match the rule (by virtue of the port number).
Following the 999th iteration of this rule was an allow ip
from any to any.
The second set of rules were designed to abort the rule
check quickly:
ipfw add deny ip from 1.2.3.4 to 1.2.3.4
The nonmatching source IP address for the above rule causes
these rules to be skipped very quickly. As before, the 1000th
rule was an allow ip from any to any.
The per-packet processing overhead in the former case was
approximately 2.703ms/packet, or roughly 2.7 microseconds per
rule. Thus the theoretical packet processing limit with these
rules is around 370 packets per second. Assuming 10Mbps ethernet
and a ~1500 byte packet size, we would only be able to achieve a
55.5% bandwidth utilization.
For the latter case each packet was processed in
approximately 1.172ms, or roughly 1.2 microseconds per rule.
The theoretical packet processing limit here would be about
853 packets per second, which could consume 10Mbps ethernet
bandwidth.
The excessive number of rules tested and the nature of those
rules do not provide a real-world scenario -- they were used only
to generate the timing information presented here. Here are a
few things to keep in mind when building an efficient rule set:
Place an `established' rule early on to handle the
majority of TCP traffic. Don't put any allow tcp
statements before this rule.
Place heavily triggered rules earlier in the rule
set than those rarely used (without changing the
permissiveness of the firewall, of course). You can see
which rules are used most often by examining the packet counting
statistics with ipfw -a l.
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 commandline to call socket instead, like so:
ftp stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/local/bin/socket socket ftp.foo.com ftp
where 'ftp.foo.com' and 'ftp' are the host and port to redirect to,
respectively.
Where can I get a bandwidth management tool?
There are two bandwidth management tools available for FreeBSD.
is available for free; Bandwidth Manager from
is
a commercial product.
Why do I get ``/dev/bpf0: device not configured"?
The Berkeley Packet Filter driver
needs to be enabled before running programs that utilize it.
Add this to your kernel config file and build a new kernel:
pseudo-device bpfilter # Berkeley Packet Filter
Secondly, after rebooting you will have to create the device
node. This can be accomplished by a change to the /dev
directory, followed by the execution of:
# sh MAKEDEV bpf0
Please see the for more information
on creating devices.
Welcome to the FreeBSD 2.X FAQ!
What is the purpose of this 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 .
What is FreeBSD?
Briefly, FreeBSD 2.X is a UN*X-like operating system based on
U.C. Berkeley's 4.4BSD-lite release for the i386 platform. 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 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
For more detailed information on FreeBSD, please see the
-
+ What are the goals of FreeBSD?
The goals of the FreeBSD Project are 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're definitely not prepared to 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 Public License
(GPL) or GNU Library Public License (GLPL) 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 BSD copyright whenever possible.
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 and/or bug fix is free to submit
their code and have it added to the source tree (subject to
one or two obvious provisos).
For those of our readers whose first language is not English, it
may be 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 What is the latest version of FreeBSD?
Version is the latest Briefly explained, What is FreeBSD-current?
is the
development version of the operating system, which will in due
course become 4.0-RELEASE. As such, it is really only of interest
to developers working on the system and die-hard hobbyists.
See the
- in the for
+ in the 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 are sometimes treated with contempt.
Every now and again, a release is also made of this -current development
code, CDROM distributions of the occasional snapshot even now being
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 but who don't
have the time and/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 any new features in need of testing have the
greatest possible number of potential testers.
No claims are made that any snapshot can be considered
``production quality'' for any purpose. For stability
and tested mettle, you will have to stick to full releases.
Snapshot releases are directly available from and are generated,
on the average, once a day for both the 4.0-current and 3.0-stable
branches.
What is the FreeBSD-stable concept?
Back when FreeBSD 2.0.5 was released, we decided to branch FreeBSD
development into two parts. One branch was named , with the
intention that only well-tested bug fixes and small incremental
enhancements would be made to it (for Internet Service Providers
and other commercial enterprises for whom sudden shifts or
experimental features are quite undesirable). The other branch was
, which
essentially has been one unbroken line leading towards 4.0-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)
|
|
3.0.0-RELEASE (Oct 1998)
|
| [3.0-stable]
*BRANCH* 3.1 (Feb 1999) -> ... future 3.x releases ...
|
|
\|/
+
[4.0-current continues]
The -current branch is slowly progressing towards 4.0 and beyond,
the previous 2.2-stable branch having just retired with the release
of 2.2.8. 3.0-stable has now replaced it, the next release coming
up with 3.1 in early 1999. 4.0-current is now the "current branch",
with the first 4.0 releases appearing in Q1 2000.
When are FreeBSD releases made?
As a general principle, the FreeBSD core team only release a new
version of FreeBSD when they believe that there are sufficient new
features and/or bug fixes to justify one, and are satisfied that the
changes made have settled down sufficiently to avoid compromising the
stability of the release. Many users regard this caution as one of
the best things about FreeBSD, although it can be a little
frustrating when waiting for all the latest goodies to become
available...
Releases are made about every 4 months on average.
For people needing (or wanting) a little more excitement, there are
SNAPs released more frequently, particularly during the month or so
leading up to a release.
Is FreeBSD only available for PCs ?
FreeBSD 3.x currently runs on the as well as the
x86 architecture. Some interest has also been expressed in a
SPARC port, but details on this project are not yet clear.
If your machine has a different architecture and
you need something right now, we suggest you look at
or
.
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 of some 15 people. There is a much larger team of
over 100 who are authorized to make changes directly to the
FreeBSD source tree.
However, most non-trivial changes are discussed in advance in the
, 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 :
For the current 2.2-stable release, 2.2.8R, see the
directory.
For the current 3.0-stable release, 3.0-RELEASE, see the
directory.
releases are made once a day along the
RELENG_2_2 branch (post 2.2.8) as it slowly winds down in
maintenance mode. The RELENG_2_2 branch is currently being carefully
maintained by the legacy support folks and no changes other than
those strictly necessary for security or reliability enhancements
are now made.
releases are also made once a day along the
RELENG_3 branch (post 3.0-release) as it continues on its way
towards 3.1-RELEASE.
releases are made once a day for the
branch, these being of service
purely to bleeding-edge testers and developers.
FreeBSD is also available via CDROM, from the following place(s):
Walnut Creek CDROM
4041 Pike Lane, Suite F
Concord, CA 94520 USA
Orders: +1 800 786-9907
Questions: +1 925 674-0783
FAX: +1 925 674-0821
email:
WWW:
In Australia, you may find it at:
Advanced Multimedia Distributors
Factory 1/1 Ovata Drive
Tullamarine, Melbourne
Victoria
Australia
Voice: +61 3 9338 6777
CDROM Support BBS
17 Irvine St
Peppermint Grove WA 6011
Voice: +61 9 385-3793
Fax: +61 9 385-2360
And in the UK:
The Public Domain & Shareware Library
Winscombe House, Beacon Rd
Crowborough
Sussex. TN6 1UL
Voice: +44 1892 663-298
Fax: +44 1892 667-473
Where do I find info on the FreeBSD mailing lists?
You can find full information in the What FreeBSD news groups are available?
You can find full information in the
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 don't go there for tech support
or to try and get folks there to help you avoid the pain of
reading man 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 #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. Same provisions as
for EFNET apply - either don't ask questions or learn to
ask amazingly politely if you want help. It's a chat channel,
not a help channel.
Finally, you can also join #FreeBSD on BSDNET,
a smaller BSD only chat network, at irc.FreeBSD.org.
This network attempts to do more tech support and not be
as anarchistic as EFNET, UNDERNET or DALNET, but it's also
nowhere near as popular as a result. Why not volunteer to
answer FreeBSD questions on BSDNET today?
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're easily offended or can't deal with lots
of young people (and more than a few older ones) doing the verbal
equivalent of jello wrestling, don't even bother with it.
Books on FreeBSD
There is a FreeBSD Documentation Project which you may contact (or
even better, join) on the doc mailing list:
.
This list is for discussion of the FreeBSD documentation. For
actual questions about FreeBSD, there is the questions
mailing list:
.
A FreeBSD ``handbook'' is available, and can be found as:
- .
+ .
Note that this is a work in progress, and so parts may be incomplete.
The definitive printed guide on FreeBSD is ``The Complete FreeBSD'',
written by Greg Lehey and published by Walnut Creek CDROM Books. Now
in its second edition, the book contains 1,750 pages of install &
system administration guidance, program setup help, and manual pages.
The book (and current FreeBSD release) can be ordered from
,
, or at your
favorite bookstore. The ISBN is 1-57176-227-2.
However, as FreeBSD 2.2.X is based upon Berkeley 4.4BSD-Lite2, most
of the 4.4BSD manuals are applicable to FreeBSD 2.2.X. O'Reilly
and Associates publishes these manuals:
4.4BSD System Manager's Manual
By Computer Systems Research Group, UC Berkeley
1st Edition June 1994, 804 pages : 1-56592-080-5 4.4BSD User's Reference Manual
By Computer Systems Research Group, UC Berkeley
1st Edition June 1994, 905 pages : 1-56592-075-9 4.4BSD User's Supplementary Documents
By Computer Systems Research Group, UC Berkeley
1st Edition July 1994, 712 pages : 1-56592-076-7 4.4BSD Programmer's Reference Manual
By Computer Systems Research Group, UC Berkeley
1st Edition June 1994, 886 pages : 1-56592-078-3 4.4BSD Programmer's Supplementary Documents
By Computer Systems Research Group, UC Berkeley
1st Edition July 1994, 596 pages : 1-56592-079-1
A description of these can be found via WWW as:
. Due to poor sales, however, these
manuals may be hard to get a hold of.
For a more in-depth look at the 4.4BSD kernel organization,
you can't go wrong with:
McKusick, Marshall Kirk, Keith Bostic, Michael J Karels,
and John Quarterman.
The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating
System. Reading, Mass. : Addison-Wesley, 1996. 0-201-54979-4
A good book on system administration is:
Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Scott Seebass & Trent R. Hein,
``Unix System Administration Handbook'', Prentice-Hall, 1995: 0-13-151051-7
This book covers the basics, as well as TCP/IP, DNS, NFS,
SLIP/PPP, sendmail, INN/NNTP, printing, etc.. It's expensive
(approx. US$45-$55), but worth it. It also
includes a CDROM with the sources for various tools; most of
these, however, are also on the FreeBSD 2.2.6R CDROM (and the
FreeBSD CDROM often has newer versions).
How do I access your Problem Report database?
The Problem Report database of all open user change requests
may be queried (or submitted to) by using our web-based PR
and interfaces. The send-pr(1) command
can also be used to submit problem reports and change requests via
electronic mail.
Where can I get ASCII/PostScript versions of the FAQ?
The up-to-date FAQ is available from the FreeBSD Web Server or any
mirror as PostScript and plain text (7 bit ASCII and 8-bit Latin1).
As PostScript (about 370KB):
As ASCII text (about 220KB):
As ISO 8859-1 text (about 220KB):
Where can I get ASCII/PostScript versions of the Handbook?
The up-to-date Handbook is available from the FreeBSD Web Server or any
mirror as PostScript and plain text (7 bit ASCII and 8-bit Latin1).
As PostScript (about 1.7MB):
As ASCII text (about 1080KB):
As ISO 8859-1 text (about 1080KB):
The ASCII handbook isn't plain text!
True, the ASCII and Latin1 versions of the FAQ and Handbook aren't
strictly plaintext; they contain underlines and overprints that
assume the output is going directly to a dot matrix printer. If you
need to reformat them to be human-readable, run the file through col:
$ col -b < inputfile > outputfile
I'd like to become a FreeBSD Web mirror!
Certainly! There are multiple ways to mirror the Web pages.
Using CVSUP: You can retrieve the formatted files using CVSUP
from cvsup.freebsd.org. Add this line to your cvsup file:
www release=current hostname=/home base=/usr/local/etc/cvsup
prefix=/usr/local/www/data/www.freebsd.org delete old use-rel-suffix
Using rsync: See for information.
Using ftp mirror: You can download the FTP server's copy of
the web site using your favorite ftp mirror tool. Simply start at
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/FreeBSD-current/www.
I'd like to translate the documentation into Friesian.
Well, we can't pay, but we might arrange a free CD or T-shirt and a
Contributor's Handbook entry if you submit a translation of the
documentation.
Other sources of information.
The following newsgroups contain pertinent discussion for FreeBSD
users:
(moderated)
Web resources:
The .
The FreeBSD handbook also has a fairly complete
section which is worth reading if you're looking for actual
books to buy.