FreeBSD
http://www.denis.lemire.name/images/posts/freebsd.png
Essential Ports
ftp/wget
- Retrieve files from the Net via HTTP and FTP
misc/gnuls
I miss the colorized output of ls seen on most Linux systems... Installing the gnuls port and adding the following to /etc/csh.cshrc will add this missing convenience to FreeBSD:
alias ls gnuls --color=auto -h
net-mgmt/net-snmp
- An extendable SNMP implementation
net/tcpick
tcpick is a textmode sniffer libpcap-based that can track, reassemble and reorder tcp streams. Tcpick is able to save the captured flows in different files or displays them in the terminal, and so it is useful to sniff files that are transmitted via ftp or http.
For example, to intercept and view a POP3 login via the rl1 interface, use the following command:
tcpick -i rl1 -p -bU -T1 "port 110"
ports-mgmt/portaudit
Checks ports against a list of security vulnerabilities. Also adds a daily periodic job to include vulnerabilities in currently installed ports in the daily security e-mail.
To disable checking ports again portaudit during installation set the environment variable as follows:
DISABLE_VULNERABILITIES=yes
ports-mgmt/portupgrade
Portupgrade is a tool to upgrade installed packages via ports or packages. You can upgrade installed packages without having to reinstall depending or dependent packages. It can automatically trace dependency chains up and down upgrading packages recursively.
This package also includes the following utilities:
- portinstall - Helps you install new ports in a handy way.
- portcvsweb - Instantly lets you browse change history via CVSweb.
- portversion - Replaces pkg_version(1) and helps you upgrade packages with portupgrade(1). (runs much faster)
- portsclean - Cleans ports workdir's, unreferenced distfiles, old and orphan shared libraries, and stale packages.
- portsdb - Creates binary database from the ports INDEX.
- ports_glob - Expands ports globs.
- pkg_deinstall - Wraps pkg_delete(1) and provides additional features.
- pkg_fetch - Fetches packages from a remote site.
- pkg_glob - Expands package globs.
- pkg_which - Checks which package a file came from quickly.
- pkgdb - Manages and searches the package database.
Example: Rebuild OpenSSL and all packages that depend on it:
portupgrade -rfx openssl openssl
security/sudo
- Allow others to run commands as root
sysutils/libchk
- Tool to check library linking
sysutils/screen
Screen is a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal between several processes (typically interactive shells).
Screen is extremely handy for running commands that may take an extended time to complete. One can start a command, close their terminal and later re-attach another terminal to their session without interrupting the command(s) that are completing.
It can be also used to attach multiple users to a single screen session to allow easy collaboration.
sysutils/smartmontools
Adds S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) disk monitoring tools. This suite of tools is extremely handy to allow the administrator to be aware of disk problems before they result in a catastrophe.
See the following links for more information:
- smartmontools Home Page
- Monitoring Hard Disks with SMART (Linux Journal)
Example commands:
- smartctl -l selftest /dev/ad0
- smartctl -t long /dev/ad0
- smartctl -Hc /dev/ad0
Technical Notes
Disk image via dd
dd bs=512 if=/dev/rXX# of=/some_dir/foo.dmg conv=noerror,sync
tar over netcat
- nc -v -v -w 40 -l -p 8888 > foo.tar
- tar cjvf * | nc remotehost 8888
Updating root DNS
dig @a.root-servers.net . ns > /etc/namedb/named.root
Qmail log Timestamps
Can be converted to human readable using the tai64nlocal command.
Name Services
Retrieving Database Entries
As of FreeBSD 7 the getent utility can be used to retrieve entries from the various administrative databases.
Name Service Caching Daemon
The nscd daemon added in FreeBSD 7 improves performance of nsswitch type lookups (users, groups, etc) but can cause some surprising results with new users not being found in the system. The cache can be cleared for all users by running:
%nscd -I cachename
Using IDE CD Burners
Place the following in /boot/loader.conf for IDE CDRW support:
atapicam_load="YES" hw.ata.atapi_dma=1
Using Memory Disks
FreeBSD >= 5.x have a memory disk utility that can be utilized to mount file system images.
To setup a memory disk
mdconfig -a -t vnode -o readonly -f /path/to/image.iso -u 1 mount -t cd9660 /dev/md1 /mnt/cdrom
To reverse the process:
mount -u /mnt/cdrom mdconfig -d -u 1
Berkeley Vi Customization
The clone of Vi included in the FreeBSD base system is Berkeley Vi (nvi). The following can be added to ~/.nexrc to enable auto-indentation and automatic line wrapping:
set autoindent set wraplen=78
Displaying Dates in 12 Hour Format
Add the following to .cshrc or /etc/csh.cshrc (system wide):
alias date date +\"%a %b %e %r %Z %Y\"
View Daylight Savings Dates
zdump -v /etc/localtime | grep 2008
List BIND Domains
grep ^zone < /etc/namedb/named.conf | sed -e 's/zone "\(.*\)".*/\1/g' | sort
Find Hosts in a Subnet
nmap -sP 172.31.0.128/26
Build Port with Debugging Symbols
make WITH_DEBUG=yes
Setup LDAP Authentication
Install required ports:
sudo portinstall nss_ldap sudo portinstall pam_ldap
Setup nss_ldap.conf
host 172.31.0.1 base dc=incoherency,dc=net uri ldap://172.31.0.1:389/ ssl start_tls binddn uid=nss,ou=dsa,dc=incoherency,dc=net bindpw ******** bind_policy soft nss_initgroups_ignoreusers root,ldap timelimit 5 nss_reconnect_tries 2 port 389 nss_base_passwd dc=incoherency,dc=net?subtree nss_base_group ou=groups,dc=incoherency,dc=net?one pam_password SSHA
Link ldap.conf to nss_ldap.conf
ln -s nss_ldap.conf ldap.conf
Add the following to /etc/pam.d/ for each relevant service
auth sufficient /usr/local/lib/pam_ldap.so no_warn try_first_pass
Edit /etc/nsswitch.conf:
passwd: files ldap group: files ldap
Fix for freebsd-update
%sudo freebsd-update upgrade -r 7.1-RC1 Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 1 mirrors found. Fetching metadata signature for 7.1-PRERELEASE from update1.FreeBSD.org... failed. No mirrors remaining, giving up. %
%setenv UNAME_r 7.1-BETA2 %freebsd-update upgrade -r 7.1-RC1 Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 1 mirrors found. Fetching metadata signature for 7.1-BETA2 from update1.FreeBSD.org... done. Fetching metadata index... done. Inspecting system... done.
...
Install a standard MBR
Useful if you inadvertently install the FreeBSD boot manager or if you need to borrow a standard MBR for use on an OS that doesn't have one yet *cough* Haiku
fdisk −B −b /boot/mbr ad0
make config-recursive install
Mount ISO Image
mdconfig -a -t vnode -f <ISO filename> -u 0 mount -t cd9660 /dev/md0 <mount destination>