A bounty on my problem
January 29th, 2008I can’t wait until VMware runs on FreeBSD properly, but Orlando Bassotto, it seems, can.
Filed under: FreeBSDPC-BSD is off the shelf!
January 22nd, 2008
Wow! My UN*X desktop operating system of choice, PC-BSD is now sold at MicroCenter! I feel so … mainstream (almost).
/etc/ntp.conf
March 8th, 2007I don’t exactly know why it was so hard to get right, but I’m glad it is finally done. For the last couple of days I’ve knocked against a frustrating problem getting my network time protocol (ntp) server and clients to work together. I had worked it all out once before and that config carried me for something like six years. Now that I’ve done it again I want to save these notes and hopefully save someone, maybe me, some time (no pun intended) in the future. What follows are my quick notes on what works and maybe a pointer or two and maybe a bit about what doesn’t work.
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FreeNAS 0.68
March 6th, 2007These are my notes on my NAS, your mileage may vary.
1 ea. Adaptec 2610SA 6 port SATA RAID card
6 ea. Samsung HD501LJ SATA-II drives
1 ea. Old PC (AMD 1200 + SOYO SY-K7VTA PRO motherboard, could probably use a NIC upgrade)
w/ CD-ROM drive
w/ Floppy drive
1 ea. image of the latest FreeNAS
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Serial Console
October 5th, 2006In FreeBSD, on an i386 machine the serial port is not the system console by default. If you have a machine that will run headless you’ll want to do this to make the serial port a viable console.
echo "-P" >/boot.config*
and
- set ttyd0 to cons25 ** and on in /etc/ttys
And from the boot manual page:
-D boot with the dual console configuration. In the single configuration, the console will be either the internal display or the serial port, depending on the state of the -h option below. In the dual console configuration, both the internal display and the serial port will become the console at the same time, regardless of the state of the -h option.
-h force the serial console. For instance, if you boot from the internal console, you can use the -h option to force the kernel to use the serial port as its console device.
-P probe the keyboard. If no keyboard is found, the -D and -h options are automatically set.
* The newest version of the handbook suggests using the /boot/loader.conf method, but there is no allowance for probing the keyboard.
* The “-D” method makes both the local console and the serial port system consoles. Because the console is primarily used to get out of an unforseen sticky situation, having both available is preferable. Unfortunately, the -D option does not show the multiuser startup output, so if a daemon hangs because of a hoarked configuration file, you won’t know it. Depending on which daemon is hanging, this can be very bad.
*** The handbook says vt100 but I find that cons25 works best with my console server.
Filed under: documentation, FreeBSDFreeBSD Mail Server
June 14th, 2006Here’s a two part article on building a mail server based on FreeBSD.
part one and part two
update: Look! Everyone is doing it!
part one - http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/secure_email_server_bsd_part_1
part two - http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/secure_email_servers_from_scratch_with_freebsd_6_part_2
How to: Make World
April 17th, 2006Ahh, brilliant. Someone with the handle Understudy wrote us an article How to: Make World.
It doesn’t really plow any new ground, but it does a couple of things really well. First, it is comprehensive. Most articles on this topic are written by folks so new to the process that they miss stuff or are half finished because they got familiar with “their process” and never completed the content or explanation. And by comprehensive I mean this doc walks you through mergemaster. Most docs of this sort say “read the mergemaster man page and figure it out and don’t call me crying if you screw up.” Secondly, the doc is available as a .pdf which seems key when you’ll be performing such low-level operations and you will need to be rebooting (and the system just might not come back up).
That said, I would offer that the suggested way to clean up the ports could be improved and a this could be nicely be paired up with an article on portsupdate. Maybe one day, kids.
Filed under: documentation, FreeBSDWhy, again, must you run Windows?
April 7th, 2006I bought a Mac. Droplet. It’s cute.
Two days later, Apple released Boot Camp, software which allows you to use your Mac hardware to boot “other operating systems”.
But of course, the primary example alternative operating is Windows. The reviewer of Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal. said:
Next, I installed 11 Windows programs that aren’t available for the Mac. These included Microsoft Access, Outlook and Publisher; ACT!; Adobe Photoshop Album; Microsoft Money; Family Tree Maker; Microsoft Flight Simulator; Microsoft Age of Empires; AVG anti-virus; and Spyware Doctor.
Now let’s think about this:
- Microsoft Access
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft Publisher
- Microsoft Money
- Microsoft Flight Simulator
- Microsoft Age of Empires
- ACT!
- Adobe Photoshop album (what is that?)
- Family Tree Maker
- AVG anti-virus
- Spyware Doctor
Of the eleven programs “that aren’t available for the Mac” no less than six are Microsoft’s own products. Fair enough, I wouldn’t try to put Ford parts in a BMW either. There’s Adobe Photoshop Album which, frankly, I’ve never heard of. Then again, I don’t see the need to pay for Photoshop on any platform as The GIMP is free and I am not a professional graphic designer. ACT! is a contact information and schedule manager, and I’m looking into* if that info can be exported to the Address Book and iCal programs that come with the Mac as part of osX. So that brings us to Family Tree Maker. This would be one of those programs that would be a show-stopper for people who have invested a lot of time and effort in something that doesn’t yet run on their preferred platform. Finally there are two “security” programs that don’t run on the Mac because, well, they don’t have to.
So if you haven’t yet found a Mac program to import your Family Tree Maker files, and you haven’t imported your Photoshop files into iPhoto, then you’ll probably find Boot Camp to be really useful. As for me, I’m going to see if I can get my mini to dual-boot into FreeBSD!
* Update: There are versions of ACT! for Mac, and exporting the data so that it can integrate with the osX operating system appears easy
CUPS = Can’t Usually Print Stuff
December 12th, 2005These are notes on getting CUPS running on my FreeBSD workstation such that I can print to printers on my LAN and create PDF documents.
FreeBSD lappy.corp.com 6.0-STABLE FreeBSD 6.0-STABLE #0: Mon Nov 21 13:05:09 EST 2005 earlax@lappy.corp.com:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC i386
Although I have read ESR’s rant on CUPS, I still find it easier than building my own printcap file. Unfortunately, I always forget something. So, to avoid that next time, here’s another collection of sparse notes without comment — an occasional feature of this site. Don’t do any of this if you don’t know why you’re doing it.
It should be said that some guy named Scott Robbins did us all a favor by scratching out these CUPS gotchas. They cover command-line manipulations as well as Red Hat, Gentoo, NetBSD and FreeBSD specific as well as general CUPS stuff.
I find that I need to install three ports to get CUPS working
- print/cups-base
- print/cups
- print/cups-pdf
The last is not required, but If I am going to send something to someone else, it needs to be in a format I know they can read.
So, after installing those three ports I need to add this to to /etc/rc.conf
cups_enable="YES"
and to /etc/make.conf
CUPS_OVERWRITE_BASE=yes
NO_LPR= yes
then I need to
mv /usr/bin/lp /usr/bin/lp.bak
mv /usr/bin/lpr /usr/bin/lpr.bak
ln -s /usr/local/bin/lp /usr/bin/lp
ln -s /usr/local/bin/lpr /usr/bin/lpr
and
cp /usr/local/etc/rc.d/cups.sh ./usr/local/etc/rc.d/cups.sh
so I can
box# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/cups.sh start
and connect to http://localhost:631 and provide the root username/password to be able to create printers.
To create the PDF printer I use:
- name: pdf
- location: /var/spool/cups-pdf/
- description: creates Portable Document Format files
- Device: Virtual Printer (PDF Printer)
- Make: Postscript
- Model: Generic postscript color printer (rev3) (en)
To create printers for one of the two network (HP JetDirect) printers in my office I use:
- Name: ds
- Location: past the bathroom
- Description: doublesided
- Device: AppSocket/HP JetDirect
- Device: socket://192.168.146.18:9100
- Make: HP
- Model: HP LaserJet Series CUPS v1.1 (en)
